An introduction to classical Tibetan

Course on Classical Tibetan, 1st ed. 1990, this revised edition 1993. Entirely in Latin script. The book scanned has many handwritten marginalia or notes by a Chinese speaker, including renderings of words and phrases in Tibetan script (originally only in Latin script in the book) and translations of single terms into Chinese (in cursive Traditional characters). From the Preface: "The aim of this book is to provide a rapid introduction to the main elements of Classical Tibetan so that students may begin to tackle for themselves reading matter from the vast resources of written material available in this language, which remain both untranslated and unstudied. The contents of this course have their origins in a set of notes I made a number of years ago for a small group of Buddhist friends who wanted to understand Buddhism better by reading original texts for themselves. These notes were expanded and refined into a correspondence course to meet the demand from a wider audience. Finally, with encouragement from Dr. Michael Aris, the course was developed at short notice into its present form to provide a modern introduction to Classical Tibetan in English." - Stephen Hodge. CONTENTS Preface ...... vi Introduction ...... vii PART ONE - GRAMMAR - Tibetan script ...... 1 - Sample of Tibetan Book ...... 4 - Lesson I. The Thirty Letters of the Alphabet. The Vowel Signs. Superfixed and Subfixed Letters. Prefixed and Suffixed Letters. Punctuation. Sample Reading. ...... 5 - Lesson II. General Introduction to Linguistic Structure of Tibetan. Word order. Nominal particles. Special Functions of Nominal Particles. ...... 11 - Lesson III. Demonstrative pronouns. Final Particles - Statements, Questions & Commands. ...... 17 - Lesson IV. Introduction to Case Particles. Genitive Particle - kyi etc. Plural Particles. ...... 21 - Lesson V. Instrumental Particle - kyis etc. Emphatic Particle - ni. ...... 27 - Lesson VI. Direct & Indirect Objects of Verbs. The Oblique Particle - la. Vocative. ...... 33 - Lesson VII. The Verb. The Use of Verbal Stems. Negation. ...... 39 - Lesson VIII. Locative Particle - na. The Conjunctive Particle dang. Possessives - can, bcas-pa, ldan-pa. The Concessive particle - kyang. ...... 47 - Lesson IX. The Ablative & Prolative Particles - las & nas. Uses of las. Uses of nas. Comparison. The Semi-final Particle - te etc. ...... 55 - Lesson X. Particle of General Subordination - tu etc. Uses of tu. Modal Adverbs and Sanskrit Verbal Prefixes. Use of tu etc. for the Infinitive. ...... 63 - Lesson XI. Use of Particles with Verbs and Verbal Nouns. The Coordinating particle -cing etc. ...... 72 - Lesson XII. Personal Pronouns. Interrogative Pronouns. Relative Pronouns. Indefinite Particle and Indefinite Pronouns. Honorific and Respectful Forms. ...... 81 - Lesson XIII. Verbal Auxiliaries - yin, yod, 'gyur, byed, mod, bzhin, zin etc. ...... 92 - Lesson XIV. Numbers. Diminutive Particles. Intensive Particles. Word Formation. Notes on Tibetan Verse. ...... 102 - Lesson XV. The Structure of Tibetan Verbs. Morphological Prefixes & Suffixes. Verbs Tables. ...... 114 PART TWO - READINGS - Reading I. Sukhāvatī-vyūha Sūtra. bDe-ba-can-gyi bkod-pa'i mdo. ...... 129 - Reading II. Sad-dharma-puṇdarika Sūtra. Dam-pa'i chos pad-ma dkar-po'i mdo. ...... 131 - Reading III. Mahā-parinirvāṇa Sūtra. Yongs-su-mya-ngan-las-'das-pa chen-po'i mdo. ...... 134 - Reading IV. Kāśyapa-parivarta. 'Od-srung-gi le'u. ...... 136 - Reading V. Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa. Dri-ma-med-par-grags-pas bstan-pa. ...... 138 - Reading VI. Uttara-tantra. rGyud bla-ma. ...... 140 - Reading VII. Madhyānta-vibhāga. dBu-ma dang mtha' rnam-par-'byed-pa. ...... 143 - Reading VIII. Tarka-bhāṣya and Nyāya-bindu. rTog-ge skad and Rigs-pa'i thigs-pa. ...... 146 - Reading IX. Mahā-vairocana Tantra. rNam-par-snang-mdzad chen-po'i rgyud. ...... 148 - Reading X. Vajrapāṇi-sādhana. Phyag-na-rdo-rje gtum-po'i bsgrub-thabs. ...... 150 Key to Exercises & Sample Translations. ...... 152 Tibetan - English Glossary. ...... 168