A Thunder of Heartfelt Praise for Tibetan Script and Language
“Inanimate, yet the elixir for the eyes of the Learned,
Soundless, yet music to the ears of the Discerning,
Neither a sun nor a moon, yet the light of Dharma and Statecraft,
Who else, but the thirty consonants and four vowels of Tibet!
Prior to the introduction of the Tibetan alphabet in the Land of Snows,
Both Indians and Chinese used to call Tibet the ‘Land of Darkness’,
And ridiculed the people as ‘Beast on two legs with human speech’,
Facts attested by ‘The Mirror of History’; not fiction or exaggeration!
Then the Dharmraja Srong Tsen Gampo, whose divine name alone,
Could alleviate the suffering of both the Samsara and Nirvana,
Like the glorious sun dispelling the prevailing darkness and gloom,
Attracting the world’s attention to the divine and pristine land of Tibet.
Conquering the thirteen great valleys ordained to be His divine realm,
Songtsen established matrimonial alliance with the Chinese Emperor
And promoted friendship between their Tibetan and Chinese subjects,
Drawing praise for both Emperors as the Sun and the Moon in heaven.
Then the radiant light of Thumi Sambhota’s intellect and wisdom,
Illuminated the nine layers of darkness enveloping Tibet
By devising the Tibetan alphabets and system of grammar,
That is indispensable for victory in the mundane and spiritual fields.
Relying on the dependable ship of Thumi’s newly devised script,
Tibetan and Indian Panditas sallied to the Indian ocean of knowledge.
Time and again, to import vast treasures of the Five Major Sciences,
And enrich the Land of Snows; a feat that is beyond measurement.
And for over 13 centuries, a constellation of scholars emerged,
Innumerable as the stars, as though the sky had covered the Earth.
Awe-inspiring are the countless monasteries built to propagate the Dharma,
Their feat, comparable to the grandeur of the Sumeru, the King of Mountains.”
The Tibetan poet and scholar Jigme Thegchog, who lived in the region formerly known as Amdo (now part of Qinghai province, China), died in December 2001. Obituary.