[Buddha-l] "Western Self, Asian Other"

[Dan Lusthaus]

> The traditional commentaries (according to Lopez) always took it is a 
> feminine bahuvrīhi in the vocative.

That's a huge caveat. Apparenlty some Tib. comm. did that, but not all. (Cf. 
Studholme, p. 117, and endnote #104). He provides plenty of evidence that in 
India that was not how it was understood.

>> If it must
>> be a compound, what recommends it be read as a bahuvrihi instead of a
>> tatpurusa?
>
> Could be a dvandva, I suppose. But that is not how commentators construed 
> it. Whatever the case may be, it is clear that the mantra cannot possibly 
> be translated "the jewel in the lotus." It may be utterly meaningless [it 
> is a mantra, after all], but if that is the case, then it cannot mean "the 
> jewel in the lotus."

Studholme considers and rejects that possibility as well. He writes:

"The possible readings of such a compound are, once again, numerous. It has 
been parsed as a nominative neuter dvandva, or “co-ordinative,” compound, 
meaning “jewel and lotus,” where the formula is understood to be an 
expression of a corresponding arrangement of buddhas, in which Oµ, Mani, 
Padme, and Huµ are each linked to individual buddhas. There are, it seems 
to me, three major drawbacks to this interpretation. In order to connect the 
formula to an orthodox fivefold scheme of buddhas, it becomes necessary to 
lengthen the formula by the arbitrary addition of the extra syllable Hrih 
(the associated bija, or “seed syllable,” which is traditionally used as a 
symbol of the potentiality of Avalokitesvara or that from which the 
bodhisattva may manifest). It is also odd that some of these buddhas should 
be represented by a single syllable and some of them by a noun. Finally, it 
depicts the formula not as a particularly “well fashioned” device, but 
rather, as something clumsily and convolutedly contrived." (p. 110)

Note that the objection is not grammatical, but doctrinal coherency. Simply 
put, what type of compound it is cannot be solved by grammar alone (grammar 
only points to possible consequential semantic and doctrinal entailments, 
and one then has to decide which to embrace -- this is not an objective 
procedure, as hiding behind grammar would implly, but largely subjective and 
contextual.

Here is the conclusion to his chapter on the "Meaning" of the mantra (pp. 
117-118)

---
In conclusion, it would be churlish to insist that such presentations of 
manipadme as the “jewel in the lotus,” or as a vocative to “the one with 
the jewel and the lotus” are nonsensical, even though, strictly speaking, 
they are semantically incorrect. Like the various correspondence schemes, 
the “meaning” of Om Manipadme Hum is merely an explication of the function 
of the formula. In so far as these other “meanings” are appropriate to a 
proper appreciation of this function and assist in “the turning of the 
twelvefold wheel of Dharma,” they make sense. Nevertheless, the discovery 
of what would seem to be the original “meaning” of the formula does beg 
the question of why it has been interpreted so differently throughout the 
ages. Already, for instance, in a ninth-century Tibetan grammatical 
treatise, Om Manipadme Hum is treated as an example of the Sanskrit 
vocative.

Two reasons present themselves. The first is that the conception of the 
formula as a name of Avalokitesvara and the personification of the formula 
in female form would both tend to relate Om Manipadme Hum to the idea of 
calling upon a person, making the vocative interpretation an immediately 
attractive option from a very early stage. The second is that the Tibetans, 
the custodians of the formula for the last millennium, would be unlikely to 
be aware of the connection of Om Manipadme Hum with the idiom of the 
Mahåyåna sutras, due to the fact that these works would generally be read in 
Tibetan translation. Padme becomes pad ma’i nang du in Tibetan, which 
provokes no immediate association with Om Manipadme Hum. Notwithstanding all 
these difficulties, the original “meaning” of Om Manipadme Hum does seem 
to have been kept alive in Tibetan minds despite, though not because of, any 
analysis of the “meaning” of the formula. Instead, recitation of the six 
syllables has remained linked, in the collective consciousness, to the idea 
of rebirth in Sukhåvatƒ due to an appreciation of the close relationship 
between Avalokiteßvara and Amitåbha. The indignation with which the French 
explorer and early Tibetologist Alexandra David-Neel berates the Tibetan 
people on this point is, in retrospect, ironic. She writes:

Passing to the following words of the formula, mani padme means “the jewel 
in the lotus.” Here we seem to find a meaning that is immediately 
intelligible, and yet the usual Tibetan interpretation takes no account 
whatsoever of this literal meaning, the majority of devotees being 
completely ignorant of it. The latter believes that the mechanical 
repetition of Aum mani padme hum! secures for them a happy birth in Nub dewa 
chen: the Occidental paradise of bliss.
----

Obladi oblada,
Dan