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Five Pure Lights

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The Five Pure Lights ( Wylie : 'od lnga ) is an essential teaching in the Dzogchen tradition of Bon and Tibetan Buddhism . For the deluded, matter seems to appear. This is due to non-recognition of the five lights. Matter includes the mahābhūta or classical elements, namely: space, air, water, fire, earth. Knowledge ( rigpa ) is the absence of delusion regarding the display of the five lights. This level of realization is called rainbow body .

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35-472: In the basis ( Tibetan : གཞི , Wylie : gzhi ) there were neutral awarenesses (shes pa lung ma bstan) that did not recognize themselves. (Dzogchen texts actually do not distinguish whether this neutral awareness is one or multiple.) This non-recognition was the innate ignorance. Due to traces of action and affliction from a previous universe, the basis became stirred and the Five Pure Lights shone out. When

70-449: A neutral awareness recognized the lights as its own display, then that was Samantabhadra (immediate liberation without the performance of virtue). Other neutral awarenesses did not recognize the lights as their own display, and thus imputed "other" onto the lights. This imputation of "self" and "other" was the imputing ignorance. This ignorance started sentient beings and samsara (even without non-virtue having been committed). Yet everything

105-494: A result, in all modern Tibetan dialects and in particular in the Standard Tibetan of Lhasa , there is a great divergence between current spelling, which still reflects the 9th-century spoken Tibetan, and current pronunciation. This divergence is the basis of an argument in favour of spelling reform , to write Tibetan as it is pronounced ; for example, writing Kagyu instead of Bka'-rgyud . The nomadic Amdo Tibetan and

140-559: Is a segmental writing system, or abugida , derived from Brahmic scripts and Gupta script , and used to write certain Tibetic languages , including Tibetan , Dzongkha , Sikkimese , Ladakhi , Jirel and Balti . It was originally developed c.  620 by Tibetan minister Thonmi Sambhota for King Songtsen Gampo . The Tibetan script has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages in close cultural contact with Tibet, such as Thakali , Nepali and Old Turkic . The printed form

175-576: Is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday writing is called umê script . This writing system is used across the Himalayas and Tibet . The script is closely linked to a broad ethnic Tibetan identity, spanning across areas in India , Nepal , Bhutan and Tibet. The Tibetan script is of Brahmic origin from the Gupta script and is ancestral to scripts such as Lepcha , Marchen and

210-634: Is designed as a simple means for inputting Dzongkha text on computers. This keyboard layout was standardized by the Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC) and the Department of Information Technology (DIT) of the Royal Government of Bhutan in 2000. It was updated in 2009 to accommodate additional characters added to the Unicode & ISO 10646 standards since the initial version. Since

245-449: Is his clan name, while Sambhota means 'scholar' (sam) from Tibet (bhota). Among his many accomplishments, he is also the author six important treatises on Tibetan grammar, two which are included in the Tengyur and are entitled (Wylie) lung ston pa la rtsa ba sum cu pa , and rtags kyi 'jug pa . Possibly re-edited by others at later dates, the two treatises attributed to him might postdate

280-446: Is illusory, since the basis never displays as anything other than the five lights. For the deluded, matter seems to appear. This is due to non-recognition of the five lights. Matter includes the mahābhūta or classical elements, namely: space, air, water, fire, earth. The illusion of matter includes even the formless realms and the minds of sentient beings. For example, the beings of the formless realms are made of subtle matter. And

315-633: Is in the middle of the consonant and vowel, it is added as a subscript. On the other hand, when the ར /ra/ comes before the consonant and vowel, it is added as a superscript. ར /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants, thus རྐ rka. However, an exception to this is the cluster རྙ /ɲa/. Similarly, the consonants ར /ra/, and ཡ /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants, thus ཀྲ /ʈ ~ ʈʂa/; ཀྱ /ca/. Besides being written as subscripts and superscripts, some consonants can also be placed in prescript, postscript, or post-postscript positions. For instance,

350-565: Is said to have retired for four years to master the new script and grammar. He then made translations of Buddhist texts, including the twenty-one Avalokitesvara texts. Other translators quickly added to the corpus of Buddhist translations. The Six Codices of the Tibetan constitution were drawn up, and state documents included treaties with Tang China, and court records. Newly written domestic records included genealogies, histories, and poetry which were preserved in writing. The Chronicle of Ba ,

385-528: Is simply read as it usually is and has no effect on the pronunciation of the consonant to which it is subjoined, for example ཀ་ཝ་ཟུར་ཀྭ (IPA: /ka.wa.suː.ka/). The vowels used in the alphabet are ཨ /a/, ཨི /i/, ཨུ /u/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant, the other vowels are indicated by marks; thus ཀ /ka/, ཀི /ki/, ཀུ /ku/, ཀེ /ke/, ཀོ /ko/. The vowels ཨི /i/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/ are placed above consonants as diacritics, while

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420-560: Is solely for the consonants ད /tʰa/ and ས /sa/. The head ( མགོ in Tibetan, Wylie: mgo ) letter, or superscript, position above a radical is reserved for the consonants ར /ra/, ལ /la/, and ས /sa/. The subscript position under a radical can only be occupied by the consonants ཡ /ja/, ར /ra/, ལ /la/, and ཝ /wa/. In this position they are described as བཏགས (Wylie: btags , IPA: /taʔ/), in Tibetan meaning "hung on/affixed/appended", for example བ་ཡ་བཏགས་བྱ (IPA: /pʰa.ja.taʔ.t͡ʃʰa/), except for ཝ , which

455-611: Is the Tibetan minister who according to legends created the first Tibetan script , base on the Gupta alphabet after being sent by King Songsten Gampo to study in India. He was sent to India with 16 other Tibetan students to study Buddhism , Sanskrit , and the Art of Writing . He is also credited with escorting two princesses into Tibet from their countries of Nepal and China respectively, before they married and became Songsten Gampo's queens. Thonmi

490-880: The Latin script . Multiple Romanization and transliteration systems have been created in recent years, but do not fully represent the true phonetic sound. While the Wylie transliteration system is widely used to Romanize Standard Tibetan , others include the Library of Congress system and the IPA-based transliteration (Jacques 2012). Below is a table with Tibetan letters and different Romanization and transliteration system for each letter, listed below systems are: Wylie transliteration (W), Tibetan pinyin (TP), Dzongkha phonetic (DP), ALA-LC Romanization (A) and THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription (THL). The first version of Microsoft Windows to support

525-515: The Pabonka Hermitage . This occurred c.  620 , towards the beginning of the king's reign. There were 21 Sutra texts held by the King which were afterward translated. In the first half of the 7th century, the Tibetan script was used for the codification of these sacred Buddhist texts, for written civil laws, and for a Tibetan Constitution. A contemporary academic suggests that the script

560-594: The Zhang Zhung Nyan Gyud and within this auspice two texts in particular go into detail on them as The Six Lamps ( Tibetan : སྒྲོན་མ་དྲུག་ , Wylie : sgron ma drug ) and The Mirror of the Luminous Mind ( Tibetan : འོད་གསལ་སེམས་ཀྱི་མེ་ལོང་ , Wylie : ' od gsal sems kyi me long ). The Five Pure Lights are also evident in the terma traditions of the Bardo Thodol (Gyurme, et al. 2005) where they are

595-401: The " mandala of spiralling rainbow lights" Gyurme et al. (2005: p. 339) is associated with Prahevajra . Dudjom, et al. (1991: p. 337) ground the signification of the "mandala of spiralling lights" ( Tibetan : འཇོའ་འོད་འཁིལ་བའི་དཀྱིལ་བཧོར , Wylie : ' ja' 'od 'khil ba'i dkyil khor ) as seminal to the visionary realization of tögal . Tibetan script The Tibetan script

630-885: The "coloured lights" of the bardo for example, associated with the different "families" (Sanskrit: gotra ) of deities. There are other evocations of the rainbow lights as well in the Bardo Thodol literature such as Namkha Chokyi Gyatso (1806-1821?), the 3rd Dzogchen Ponlop's "Supplement to the Teaching revealing the Natural Expression of Virtue and Negativity in the Intermediate State of Rebirth", entitled Gong of Divine Melody ( Tibetan : སཏྲིད་པའི་བར་དོའི་ངོ་སྤྲོད་དགེ་སྡིག་རང་གཟུགས་སྟོན་པའི་ལྷན་ཐབས་དབྱངས་སྙན་ལྷའི་བཎཌཱི , Wylie : strid pa'i bar do'i ngo sprod dge sdig rang gzugs ston pa'i lhan thabs dbyangs snyan lha'i gaND-I ), wherein

665-565: The 13th century. Scholar R. A. Stein states, Thonmi Sambhota became the fourth of seven wise ministers of King Songtsen Gampo . He is said to be the only one of the original 16 students to return to Tibet. According to legends, the Tibetan script he devised in retreat, after his return to Tibet, was prepared at Kukarmaru Palace in Lhasa , and based on the Brahmi and Gupta scripts which have been in use in India since c.350. King Songtsen Gampo

700-510: The Indian subcontinent state that the classical orthography should not be altered even when used for lay purposes. This became an obstacle for many modern Tibetic languages wishing to modernize or to introduce a written tradition. Amdo Tibetan was one of a few examples where Buddhist practitioners initiated a spelling reform. A spelling reform of the Ladakhi language was controversial in part because it

735-720: The Tibetan keyboard layout is MS Windows Vista . The layout has been available in Linux since September 2007. In Ubuntu 12.04, one can install Tibetan language support through Dash / Language Support / Install/Remove Languages, the input method can be turned on from Dash / Keyboard Layout, adding Tibetan keyboard layout. The layout applies the similar layout as in Microsoft Windows. Mac OS -X introduced Tibetan Unicode support with OS-X version 10.5 and later, now with three different keyboard layouts available: Tibetan-Wylie, Tibetan QWERTY and Tibetan-Otani. The Dzongkha keyboard layout scheme

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770-410: The Tibetan script is that the consonants can be written either as radicals or they can be written in other forms, such as subscript and superscript forming consonant clusters . To understand how this works, one can look at the radical ཀ /ka/ and see what happens when it becomes ཀྲ /kra/ or རྐ /rka/ (pronounced /ka/). In both cases, the symbol for ཀ /ka/ is used, but when the ར /ra/

805-401: The Tibetan script it is /a/. The letter ཨ is also the base for dependent vowel marks. Although some Tibetan dialects are tonal , the language had no tone at the time of the script's invention, and there are no dedicated symbols for tone. However, since tones developed from segmental features, they can usually be correctly predicted by the archaic spelling of Tibetan words. One aspect of

840-500: The arrangement of keys essentially follows the usual order of the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet, the layout can be quickly learned by anyone familiar with this alphabet. Subjoined (combining) consonants are entered using the Shift key. The Dzongkha (dz) keyboard layout is included in Microsoft Windows, Android, and most distributions of Linux as part of XFree86 . Tibetan was originally one of

875-407: The basic Tibetan alphabet to represent different sounds. In addition to the use of supplementary graphemes, the rules for constructing consonant clusters are amended, allowing any character to occupy the superscript or subscript position, negating the need for the prescript and postscript positions. Romanization and transliteration of the Tibetan script is the representation of the Tibetan script in

910-415: The c. 620 date of development of the original Tibetan script. Three orthographic standardisations were developed. The most important, an official orthography aimed to facilitate the translation of Buddhist scriptures emerged during the early 9th century. Standard orthography has not been altered since then, while the spoken language has changed by, for example, losing complex consonant clusters . As

945-418: The consonants ག /kʰa/, ད /tʰa/, བ /pʰa/, མ /ma/ and འ /a/ can be used in the prescript position to the left of other radicals, while the position after a radical (the postscript position), can be held by the ten consonants ག /kʰa/, ན /na/, བ /pʰa/, ད /tʰa/, མ /ma/, འ /a/, ར /ra/, ང /ŋa/, ས /sa/, and ལ /la/. The third position, the post-postscript position

980-713: The keeping by the Ba clan members of royal records of important events during the Tibetan Empire era, also began c.650. The first Tibetan dictionary followed in the 8th century, and was called the Drajor Bampo Nyipa ( Madhyavyutpatti ) that had 600 to 700 words, used by the panditas that were translating the Buddha Shakyamuni's recorded teachings into Tibetan for the Kangyur , and the commentaries by great masters into Tibetan for

1015-686: The mind of a human is merely matter, specifically vayu (wind, air). The Five Pure Lights are essentially the Five Wisdoms (Sanskrit: pañca-jñāna ). Tenzin Wangyal holds that the Five Pure Lights become the Five Poisons if we remain deluded, or the Five Wisdoms and the Five Buddha Families if we recognize their purity. In the Bonpo Dzogchen tradition, the Five Pure Lights are discussed in

1050-402: The multilingual ʼPhags-pa script , and is also closely related to Meitei . According to Tibetan historiography, the Tibetan script was developed during the reign of King Songtsen Gampo by his minister Thonmi Sambhota , who was sent to India with 16 other students to study Buddhism along with Sanskrit and written languages. They developed the Tibetan script from the Gupta script while at

1085-846: The scripts in the first version of the Unicode Standard in 1991, in the Unicode block U+1000–U+104F. However, in 1993, in version 1.1, it was removed (the code points it took up would later be used for the Burmese script in version 3.0). The Tibetan script was re-added in July, 1996 with the release of version 2.0. The Unicode block for Tibetan is U+0F00–U+0FFF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks and special symbols used in religious texts: Thonmi Sambhota Samding Dorje Phagmo Thonmi Sambhota (Thönmi Sambhoṭa, (Tib. ཐོན་མི་སམ་བྷོ་ཊ། , Wyl. thon mi sam+b+ho Ta ; c.619-7th C.)

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1120-507: The vowel ཨུ /u/ is placed underneath consonants. Old Tibetan included a reversed form of the mark for /i/, the gigu 'verso', of uncertain meaning. There is no distinction between long and short vowels in written Tibetan, except in loanwords , especially transcribed from the Sanskrit . The Tibetan alphabet, when used to write other languages such as Balti , Chinese and Sanskrit , often has additional and/or modified graphemes taken from

1155-572: The western dialects of the Ladakhi language , as well as the Balti language , come very close to the Old Tibetan spellings. Despite that, the grammar of these dialectical varieties has considerably changed. To write the modern varieties according to the orthography and grammar of Classical Tibetan would be similar to writing Italian according to Latin orthography, or to writing Hindi according to Sanskrit orthogrophy. However, modern Buddhist practitioners in

1190-467: Was first initiated by Christian missionaries. In the Tibetan script, the syllables are written from left to right. Syllables are separated by a tsek (་); since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, this mark often functions almost as a space. Spaces are not used to divide words. The Tibetan alphabet has thirty basic letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants. As in other Indic scripts , each consonant letter assumes an inherent vowel ; in

1225-428: Was instead developed in the second half of the 11th century. New research and writings also suggest that there were one or more Tibetan scripts in use prior to the introduction of the script by Songtsen Gampo and Thonmi Sambhota . The incomplete Dunhuang manuscripts are their key evidence for their hypothesis, while the few discovered and recorded Old Tibetan Annals manuscripts date from 650 and therefore post-date

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