On some sources of Sagang Sechen’s Teachings (1662)

Abstract

AbstractNine of the seventy-nine alliterative quatrains of Sagang Sechen’s great gnomic poem are revisited, their possible literary sources suggested, their interpretation revised. Seven of them go back, entirely or partially, to Sa-skya Paṇḍita’s Subhāṣitaratnanidhi, one to the Janapoṣanabindhu, one of Nāgārjuna’s nītiśāstras, and one uses a comparison known from the Secret History. Parallels are quoted from Sonom Gara’s and the Oirat Zaya Paṇḍita’s prose translations of the Subhāṣitaratnanidhi. Also discussed are the rare word küčigei and the possible identity of Sonom Gara and Suonanqilo.