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Six Syllables That Resist Translation

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Six Syllables That Resist Translation

The most-recited formula in the Buddhist world is also among the most confidently mistranslated.

The jewel in the lotus is wrong, and the reason is grammatical rather than interpretive. If manipadme were a compound meaning jewel-in-lotus it would need a locative sense the form does not carry as written; read as it stands, it is a vocative, an address to someone called Jewel-Lotus, and the ending is feminine. A feminine vocative points to a female addressee, which in the Vajrayana context suggests a consort figure rather than Avalokiteshvara himself. This has been set out in detail by Sanskritists, notably in Donald Lopez's study of the formula, and the point is not disputed by people who read the language.

What the surrounding syllables do is not translation-shaped at all. Om is inherited from Vedic usage; hum is a seed syllable with no lexical meaning. A formula in which four of six syllables have no dictionary sense is not primarily a sentence.

The tradition's own readings are theological rather than lexical and are offered as such. Tibetan commentary assigns each syllable a realm of rebirth it closes, an affliction it purifies, and a perfection it corresponds to, with the schemes varying between commentators. The fourteenth Dalai Lama's frequently reprinted explanation follows this pattern.

The interesting thing is that a formula recited billions of times has no agreed literal meaning, and that this troubles almost nobody inside the tradition.

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