20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

On the symbolism of the Tibetan book 7092. The Wrapping Cloth or “Garment” (gos) of the Book (Card no.44)The drawing shows a three-coloured cloth without a specific form. Itobviously represents the robe worn by Buddhist monks. Here it serves forwrapping the book.The drawing and the ritual text are exactly the same as the drawingand the ritual text used for offering the garment to the Body of the Buddha(cards no. 2 and 18).The ritual text reads:/ sna tshogs dbang po´i gzhu ltar rab bkra zhing // gang la reg na bde ba´i rgyur gyur ba´i // gos bzang rin chen bdag blo sbyang (text: byams) phyir dbul // bzod pa dam pa´i gos kyi(s) brgyan par shog // oṃ badzra vastra ye āḥ hūṃ svāhā /In order to purify my mind, I offer the precious good garment,Which is brightly shining like the multi(-coloured) Bow of Indra andWhich is the cause of bliss for all that it touches.May I be decorated by the garment of sacred perseverance!oṃ vajra vastra ye āḥ hūṃ svāhā /The garment (gos; Skr. vastra in the mantra) is described as being“good” (“good garment”, gos-bzang). This means that it bears the qualitythat is directly opposed to the bad which causes suffering. Therefore, it isideal for purifying the mind (blo-sbyang). If the mind is not pure, it is notpossible to concentrate on the religious goal, the liberation from suffering.The garment is brightly shining like the Bow of Indra (dbang-po´i gzhu).The Bow of Indra is a metaphor for the rainbow, which is of differentbright colours and therefore “multi(-coloured)” (sna-tshogs). 8 The rainbowhas a highly symbolic meaning. It surrounds, for example, Mount Meru,which is the axis mundi, the axis of the world. 9 The Buddha, explicitly8See the entry ´ja´-ma (rainbow-[like]“) in Bod-rgya tshig-mdzod chen-mo /Zang-han da cidian, General editor: Zhang Yi-sun 1985, Beijing, 891: tshon-skudsna-tshogs btang-ba´i zhva-mo dang.. lham. gos “hat, shoe and cloth/dress/garmentwith dyed threads“. Cf. also Das, Sarat Chandra 1902, A Tibetan-English Dictionarywith Sanskrit Synonyms. Revised and Edited by Graham Sandberg and A. WilliamHeyde, Calcutta, 454: “laces or needle-work representing the colours of the rainbow”;Goldstein, Melvyn C., et al. 2001, The New Tibetan-English Dictionary, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 395: “apparel that has rainbow-like color”.9Cf. the first lines of a Prayer to Buddha Amitāyus (Tshe-dpag-med), composed