Foreword

 (Note: This Foreword was written for the Tibetan calligrapher Mr Jamyang Dorjee’s book on Tibetan calligraphy.)

The main feature that distinguishes humans from animals is the faculty of speech, the language, the medium for expressing thoughts to each other; the ancients defined humans as ‘able to speak and understand meanings’. In the world, there are many varieties of very dissimilar languages with races of people living in separate regions, and in different countries, and unless one specifically studies them one would not know innately as with one’s parental native language.

The spoken language is an mistaken mark of the unique identity of each of the dissimilar races of people. A country and a race of people may have a uniform language, yet it is seen that there are so many manners of expression in daily usage, of individual regions, differing in accent, vocabulary, and in delivery. It is assumed that there are over five thousand dissimilar languages on this earth at present, and it appears that there are so many languages which do not have a script. With dependence on facilitation by language the education of a race of people is able to be enhanced and improved from generation to generation, and knowledge heritage from very ancient times becomes enduring without decline, besides becoming able to go along with progress and adaptation with changes of time. If there had not been the system of written script in this world none of the traditional education, past histories, deep culture and so forth would be there, humans too would have certainly stayed not different from animals, relying merely on genetic habits.

There are various differing views as regards the origin of language in this world, and its progress or decline, and they are basically due to two differing world views. The traditional, or the Eastern world view sees the world of optimum endowments—‘completely endowed aeon’—regressing to the present Age of Conflicts, that will culminate in human lifespan of ‘ten years’. The modern, or the Western view sees progression from pre-historic humans gradually to that of Stone Age, to Iron Age, Scientific and Technology Age and so on, where the present is viewed as reaching towards the peak of progress. Through such twin views there are very dissimilar manners of describing history, including chronological account of the written language, that of script. Nonetheless, there has not been much difference in the historical situation of the recent five to six thousand years, for that is inclusive to historical time, and they—the aspects of that timespan—have to be established through visible evidences of archaeological artefacts, written works and so forth. It is difficult to say comprehensively and decisively—and I do not see much need—on the numerous histories and legends in the continents of the East and the West concerning the evolution of language, script, literature and so on.

During Buddha’s time there were 64 widely known languages prevalent in the Jambu Continent, that is, here in India, the Land of the Exalted, thus says Buddha in Latitavistara Sūtra. In other scriptures, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, there are mentions of 364 languages, and so forth. Most of the languages listed in Latitavistara Sūtra are not identifiable in histories, yet there are some, such as, Kharoṣṭī, that are extant. Judging by them, it appears that since very early times there had been more languages and varieties of scripts than that of the present.

Yi-ge (akṣar, alphabetical syllable) is a vocal sound that is the basis for forming name and word, so where there is an expression of language there has to be alphabets (letters) as well. And, depending on the nature of a language, number of terms and words, and vocal sounds, there would be the difference in the number of alphabetical letters, of vowels and consonants, etc. It is observed in common that there is no certainty with where there is a alphabetical syllable there necessarily has to be a script. For the function of the spoken language to remain enduring, it was observed that a pictorial ‘script’, representing vocal sounds of syllables, objects of eye-consciousness or body-consciousness, would be indispensable. The ancient and the modern views are in concord on emergence of the tradition of pictorial depictions for symbolising vocal sounds for expressing; it appears the dissimilarity is on explaining of the doers and the chronology. According to the traditional view, scripts are by and large classified into three kinds: 1) “Citra-lipi”, “pictorial script”, is not for symbolising alphabetical vocal sounds, rather for symbolising the name or the meaning of a given thing, depicted as the respective individual image—like the Chinese letters. 2) “Saṁketa-lipi”, “symbolising sign letter”, which although is not drawn in images, yet employing pictorial signs, represents name or specific expression—like the modern Short Hand. 3) “Dhvani-lipi”, “vocal sound script”, is as the Tibetan script and the English script—most scripts would be inclusive to it. Generally, it is difficult for images to represent vocal sounds, yet just as singers use changes in vocal sounds, high and low pitch, and hand gestures, as means for representing expressions, similarly the raising and lowering of melodies, and so forth, are symbolised by the forms of the vowel scripts.

Tibetan script

Since the advent of human species in Tibet there would have existed as well a Tibetan language and a Tibetan script. Compared to other languages, the Tibetan script appeared much later. Among the scripts of this world the Tibetan script can be regarded as the youngest in age. There are two dissimilar explanations as regards the origin of the Tibetan script: the assertion that there was a Tibetan script prior to the script composed by Thonmi, which we use now; and the other assertion that there was no Tibetan script preceding that. The former view asserts “stak-gzigs spuṅ-yig” (Takzig Heaped Script) as the first Tibetan script, and was contemporary with Bon, and had many forms (fonts, styles): lha-bab yi-ge (Celestially Descended Script), gzi-yig (Z’i Script), smar-chen (smar major), smar-chuṅ (smar minor), etc. And it is asserted that, Thonmi innovated the present script by examining smar script. Yet, this is akin to legends, for there has not been historical evidence found so far. Qualm: If there was no Tibetan script prior to Thonmi, how could one explain the mention in the Great Commentary The Stainless Light—written in 2^nd Century B.C.—of Kalācakra Mūlatantra scribed in Tibetan script? Well, that needs to be elucidated as a prophecy, that in future it would be written in Tibetan script, for notwithstanding whether or not there was a Tibetan script prior to Thonmi, it is a fact—evidenced both by scriptural citations and reasoning—that none of Buddha’s teachings, Sūtra and Tantra, had flourished in Tibet before Thonmi’s time. The second assertion appears concordant to facts, for Thonmi was sent to India, studied Sanskrit language under Devavidyāsiṁha and many teachers of Nalanda in India’s ‘middle region’, and in particular, it appears Thonmi did specific research on scripts, by studying under Teacher Lipikāra (Teacher Scripts Master).

In Tibetan texts there are apparently varying wordings as regards Thonmi’s base model script: “modelled on Kaśmīrī script”, “modelled on Brāhmi script”, “modelled on Devnāgarī”, “modelled on Gupta script” and so on. In meaning, there is no contradiction, for the script that was in use in ‘the middle’ India was called “Nāgarī” or “Devnāgarī” and since it flourished during Gupta dynasty it was called “Gupta script” as well—the two are mere synonyms. Many Buddhist texts were written in Kharoṣṭī script, thus that script spread widely, and it was known to have originated from Taxila, or Kaśmīrī country, thereby it might had been called “Kaśmīrī script”. It was possible that positive parts from that script too were adopted for producing the Tibetan script. That some adepts had said U-can (dbu can, u-chan) was modelled on Lantsa, and U-med (dbu med) on Vartu, is quite doubtful, because unless it was the Lañca of among 64 scripts mentioned in Latitavistara Sūtra, it would be little difficult to explain that the Tibetan script was made from Rañjana script of the Newari scripts widely known at present; and, Vartu is extant merely as its writing continuity existent in Tibet, but has already become difficult to be identified in India and Nepal. Likewise, there are those who assert U-med had emerged from writing fast the U-can, nonetheless just as there was the system of writing both with upper-bar and without the upper-bar, one would not see fallacy in asserting Thonmi had introduced both scripts from the beginning, besides it appears that even the terms “u-can” and “u-med” (“with upper-bar” and “without upper-bar”) were modelled on that of India. Thus, since Thonmi made the Tibetan script, till to the present no great change has happened to the script: A Praise to Songtsen Gampo (sroṅ btsan sgam po), by Thonmi, as the offering of the initial writing in the script, inscribed on a rock close to Nang Temple (snaṅ lha khaṅ); the latter obelisk of Potala, erected in circa mid-eighth century; the inscription on the obelisk at the front of Tsuklagkhang in Lhasa, erected at the beginning of the ninth century; the ancient manuscripts found at Dunhuang; and so on—that the scripts on them are not unintelligible to this day is worthy of joy and pride; that is solely due to the kindness of the past adept and accomplished beings of Tibet. In particular, the advent of woodblock printing of the scriptures greatly helped for the script to remain enduring without changes.

Also, in the beginning of the ninth century, based on the great translator Kawapeltsek’s (ska wa dpal brtsegs) handwriting, Khyungpo Yutri (khyuṅ po gyu khris) established the line measurements for U-can script. Kyungpo’s disciple Rongpo wrote The Jewel Amulet Illuminating Script Measurements. Later, during the seventeenth century Desi Sangye Gyatso (sde srid saṅs rgyas rgya mtso) wrote a commentary to The Jewel Amulet—in actuality, the U-can script was thus made to become unchanging, by setting line-measurements, just as the line-measurements with drawing of deities’ physical images. The outstanding handwritings of eight adepts of the eight successive dynasties—from Songtsen up to Triral (khri ral)—were, sequentially, called, “Balnag drad-dra” (sbal nag bgrad ḥdra, “Like Black Frogs Spread Out”), “Sophak shibdra” (so phag bśibs ḥdra, “Like Bricks Huddled”), “Japho joldra” (bya pho ḥjol ḥdra, “Like Cocks Resembling Nightingales”), “Nae-ngon chingkar-thok tampa-drawa” (nas sṅon phyiṅ dkar thog bkrams pa ḥdra wa, “Like Blue Barleys Spread On Woollen Cloth”), “Mutik targyue” (mu tig bstar brgyus, “Pearls Strung Together”), “Burnag drad-dra” (sbur nag bgrad ḥdra, “Like Bettles Spread Out”), “Nyamo chui nang ne khyur dra” (ña mo chuḥi naṅ nas ḥkhyur ḥgra, “Like Fish Jumping Out of Water”), and “Senge namchong” (seṅ ge gnam mchoṅs, “Lions Jumping Towards Sky”)—though these are in oral narratives, no texts have been found. During the latter flourish of the Teachings, modelled on the scripts on obelisks, Dro Nyatri (sgro gñḥa khri) reformed the script, and that was attributed to have been called, “Interim New [Script]”. Likewise, it is said there were new scripts—the three new scripts of Kyok Lotsawa (skyogs lo cā wa), Goe Lotsawa (gos ~) and Chak Lotsawa (chag ~); ‘Marvellous New Script’ (ṅo mtsar yig gsar), ‘Lodan New Script’ (blo ldan ~), ‘Yangdan New Script’, ‘Dordan New Script’ (rdor gdan ~), Rinpung New Script (rin spuṅs ~), etc.—but it is difficult to find their manuscripts.

U-med has two traditions: Li system and Dan (ldan) system. The handwriting continuity of the former is now extinct, the handwriting continuity of Dan system is the one which we use now, and it is renowned as the handwriting continuity of Lotsawa Danmang Tsemang (ldan maṅ rtse maṅ) of circa mid-eighth century. Since, unlike U-can, the U-med did not have line measurements, thus at the beginning of fifteenth century Rabten Kunsang (rab brtan kun bzaṅ), the government official at Gyaltse (rgyal rte, ‘Gyangtse’), collected many handwritings and modelled on the best handwriting composed line measurements for U-med. As earlier with U-can, Desi Sagye Gyatso wrote a commentary on that. These days the continuity of texts on those line measurements is rare, and few are those who know of them. Now, since printing is done mechanically, without the need for writing by hand, the skills of handwriting have declined, yet the script is able to endure without decline. It appears there is still a find of a genuine woodblock-print (xylograph) made at Kubum Monastery (sku ḥbum), in the nineteenth century, of a model calligraphy text containing a compilation of the line measurements of U-can and U-med, mentioned above, along with calligraphies. Although there are many varieties of the U-med script, yet the main ones are Tsukring (tsuks riṅ), Tsukthung (tsuks thuṅ) and Tsukmakhyuk (tsuk ma khyug); and, Drutsa (ḥgru tsa), which is inclusive to U-med, varies into Gozhabma (sgo zhabs ma), Zhabring (zhabs riṅ), Zhabthung (zhabs thuṅ), etc., and they have further differences as Zhungdri (gzhuṅ bris, Official Writing), Ladri (bla bris, Ecclesial Writing), Nyedri (sñe bris, Nye[thang] Writing) and Khamdri (khams bris, Kham Writing). It is said that there is the difference of Nyedri and Khamdri with U-can.

As such, the art of Tibetan scripts, the calligraphy skill, is extensive and deep, and of many varieties. When the Tibetan script was being innovated not only it was not limited to Tibetan syllables, rather the Indian Sanskrit script, which features sixteen vowels and thirty-four consonants, was put into the Tibetan script, thereby Sanskrit language—say, dhāraṇīs and mantras, and so on—could be written without difficulty and without mistakes in the Tibetan script. Also, the special features of the Tibetan script are what are known as the thirteen factors of the Tibetan script: the diacritic symbols for the four vowels, interim dot (bar tseg), lead/head to letters (yig mgo), single stroke (chig śad), double strokes (ñis śad), quadruple strokes (bzhi śad), heaped stroke (spuṅs śad), serpentine stroke (sbrul śad), peg stroke (phur śad), treasure dots/ ~ colon (gter tseg).

The written Tibetan, which has those scripts, embodies thirty consonants and four vowels, and except for six consonants, they were taken from Sanskrit vowels and consonants. Since the nature of the Tibetan language does not have the specifics of long and short, and heavy and light, sounds, it required only four vowels; and since the five thick, the five reversed, and kṣa were not needed in Tibetan, they were eschewed; tsa, tsha, za, zha, z’a and ḥa (ཙ་ཚ་ཛ་ཞ་ཟ་འ་), which are not in Sanskrit, were newly added in accordance with their need in Tibetan—as regards that, it was not done randomly at will, rather rationally: ca, cha and ja (ཅ་ཆ་ཇ་), the three, were marked with a side symbol of change in sound, thus tsa, tsha, za (ཙ་ཚ་ཛ་); the śa vocal sound (ཤ་) made thickened, became zha (ཞ་); a sound that is in-between ja and za (ཇ་and ཛ་) is uttered as “z’a” (ཟ་), reversed ja is the script form for that; a (ཨ) sliced half as ḥa (འ་). These were the innovations made, thereby the written Tibetan language, comprising of those vowels and consonants, was made to be of matching counterpart to Sanskrit, in all features—terminology, literary consonances (chand, sdeb sbyor), literary embellishments, etc.—which is a marvellous occurrence. Due to that, the Victorious One’s (Buddha’s) teachings—discourse Sūtra and protective Mantra)—and commentarial texts elucidating them, and texts on common general subjects and so on were translated into Tibetan, that Tibet carried the most numbers of translation works, of the most accurate and of the highest standard; due to that, not only there remains in Tibetan language a vast and deep repository of the general subjects of knowledge—language, logic, crafts and medicine—there are in entirety and without mistakes Buddha’s teachings comprising of the three vehicles and the four classes of Tantra. These, it appears, are solely due to the excellent richness of the language and the script factors.

A thing of bewilderment is that, from the ancient adepts of the Tibetan language to the adepts of the present, all uniformly assert that ca, cha and ja (ཅ་ཆ་ཇ་) were newly added, and that in all old and new manuscripts, when it comes to writing Sanskrit words in Tibetan script, the tradition of writing tsa, tsha and za (ཙ་ཚ་ཛ་) has been in usage, which, if one now looks at Sanskrit letters, are surely contradictory to the factual, besides even in the Tibetan alphabet, from both the way the sections are set and in the way of writing the syllables, that they were new additions is factual before our sight. As such, it is worth examining by the intelligent ones as from whence the mistakes have initially emerged, and what are the reasons for those mistakes—continued in wrong usage—to endure without controversy. As regards the manner of finding those syllables, the narrative that they were found with reliance on the expressions “z’a hor”, “ḥoṅ”, “zhaṅ zhuṅ”, “ja ño”, “ci cha” (ཟ་ཧོར། འོང་། ཞང་ཞུང་། ཇ་ཉོ། ཅི་ཆ།) appears as a story-telling for deceiving the childish; in an ancient manuscript written in the eleventh century there is the mention that the six syllables were found from the parts of the names of six countries, yet in that manuscript too the three—ca, cha and ja—had been considered, granted, as new additions.

Another distinct feature of the Tibetan alphabet is the presence, from among the thirty consonants, of divisions into prefixes, suffixes and base syllables, and the facilitation of stacked and subjoined letters. These are found to be very rare in other languages. Without the need for a system of ‘with life’ (a inherent) and ‘without life’ (without an a), that unless accompanied by a suffix a single syllable is incapable of containing any meaning, had made clear the demarcations between name, word and syllable. Several times there took place stages of reviews and new decrees with the Tibetan language, yet with the Tibetan script, apart from improvements, elaborations, setting forth (establishing), or changes that took place in accordance with times, it appears there had not been projects of reviews and new decrees.

Not only, thus, innovations were brought on the script, there took place production of papers, making of printing papers for texts through solutions preparation and fashioning into paper of the materials, and so on; making of ink—compounding and fashioning; the specifics of the measurements of the bamboo pen, the ways of carving the bamboo-pen tip for U-can and U-med respectively; all these, done scientifically, were made widespread. Training in the skills of calligraphy would begin from training on a wooden writing board, practising tsugs ring (long tsugs style) and tsugs thuṅ (short tsugs style) for a required duration; thereafter, elevating to writing on paper, one had to practise tsuks ma khyug (a style that is neither tsuks proper nor fully fast) and khyug chen (major fast) for a required duration. Owing to setting forth such a tradition, the excellently rich art of Tibetan calligraphy has remained enduring.

The syllables that reside in the natural language,

Their number, order, concordance and so on,

Were brought to light in the Snowy Land for the first time:

O Thonmi, who could repay Your kindness?

From the time of the advent of the Tibetan script, up to the latter part of mid-twentieth century, the works of putting into written script were done mainly for Tibetans’ priceless Kagyur (bkaḥ ḥgyur) and Tengyur (bstan ḥgyur), texts authored by Tibetans, by way of handwritten into texts and woodblock carving, and for writing and composing texts by adepts; written works on the society and everyday life were few. Many hundreds of volumes, of Buddha’s teachings, were handwritten on papers and inks of gold, silver, precious stones, etc., with various ornamental embellishments—such traditions prevailed in Tibet that not only it has the most noble art of calligraphy and the most number of writings in the world, it has the largest number of works—canonical and classical commentaries—translated from other languages, and indigenous literature, unmatched by any other country, and of the highest quality. Yet, that Tibetans do not have that much awareness of this is a shortcoming of not knowing by oneself one’s wealth. It has been mere 1300 years since the advent of a script and grammar in Tibet, and within that period the population of Tibet had not exceeded six millions, thus within such a short period a small population of people had accomplished such inconceivably great works is difficult to explain and comprehend to the general common sight.

In south-east Asian countries—say, China and Japan—and even in the West there prevail a custom of employing the art of calligraphy to scribe in style few letters, to form an expression of auspiciousness, and the like, which did not flourish in Tibet, yet in the present age of Globalization, it is worth to look up to such art.

As such, Mr Jamyang Dorje, a master calligrapher, of vast knowledge and intellect, has perfected in the art of calligraphy, by climbing the ladder in stages: from a young age, as was the tradition, to start diligently practising handwriting, on a wooden board, and so forth; and subsequently continued with the upkeep and performing outstanding social services, at the same time for over six months in 2010, with much effort, scribed in calligraphy on paper a collection of many prayers Requesting His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Kindly Live Long, which was certified as the longest scroll in the world, thereby contributing to uplift the honour of Tibet and Tibetan ingenuity and art. Thereafter, adopting as means the numerous script styles of the traditional Tibetan script, Mr Jamyang Dorje has put in the very fine khyug script calligraphy, as line drawings, dhāraṇīs, mantras, supplication prayers, hymns, etc., along with drawings, with right measurements, of many Buddhas—Buddha Śākyamuni and others—bodhisattvas, pledge deities and so on, and likewise, has produced many attractive designs concordant to modern art. This stands historically meaningful in introducing a great wave of innovative change to both Tibetan calligraphy and art of drawing. This approach of depicting deities’ images through calligraphy, able to symbolise vividly the instructions in Tantras of placing mantra wheels on respective channel-wheels, the instructions on ways of maintaining visualisations of showering ambrosia and purification as if dhāraṇīs–mantras are ropes of light-rays, and the inseparably one-taste of Body-Speech-Mind at the level of Non-trainee Conjoining (Buddhahood), has become also a noble means of highlighting the great attributes of the Mantra path, thus an object of rejoicing and admiration. This presentation in a book form of an excellently rich innovative art would make the author acquire great waves of multitude of merits, and certainly would be greatly beneficial to many readers.

Since a long time ago the author has repeatedly requested to write such a Foreword but due to many adverse conditions it was delayed for a long time, for which I regret and admit accordingly.

With prayers for virtuous tidings at present and in the long run to the author and all readers.

Samdhong Losang Tenzin, bearing a Śākya monk’s form;

with pure prayers; 26 November 2014;

Jaya Jagat!