Property:Glossary-Etymology
From Buddha-Nature
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g
Following ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra'' III.4cd and its Bhāṣya, the hermeneutical etymology of gotra is often explained as meaning guṇottāraṇa, with the syllable go in gotra standing for guṇa ("qualities") and the syllable tra representing uttāraṇa ("delivering," "setting free"). Thus, the got is the disposition from which qualities arise and increase or which sets them free... Gotra can also mean "what protects qualities" (guṇatraya)." - Karl Brunnhölzl, [[When the Clouds Part]], pp. 95-96.
According to John W. Pettit, the term comes from the combination of ''go'' (cow) and ''tra'' (protection), which was a reference to livestock enclosures. In ancient India this was representative of family or clan wealth and thus the term came to represent hereditary pedigree.
-Public talk at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, "Basics of Buddha-Nature: Mipham’s Roaring Lions Public." March 27, 2019. +
p
The Sanskrit for "ultimate truth," ''paramārthasatya'', is etymologized three ways within identifying ''parama'' as "highest" or "ultimate," ''artha'' as "object," and ''satya'' as "truth." In the first way, ''parama'' (highest, ultimate) refers to a consciousness of meditative equipoise directly realizing emptiness; ''artha'' (object) refers to the object of that consciousness, emptiness; and ''satya'' (truth) also refers to emptiness in that in direct perception emptiness appears the way it exists; that is, there is no discrepancy between the mode of appearance and the mode of being. In this interpretation, a ''paramārthasatya'' is a "truth-that-is-an-object-of-the-highest-consciousness."<br><br>In the second way, both ''parama'' (highest, ultimate) and ''artha'' (object) refer to a consciousness of meditative equipoise directly realizing emptiness in that, in the broadest meaning of "object," both objects and subjects are objects, and a consciousness of meditative equipoise directly realizing emptiness is the highest consciousness and thus highest object; ''satya'' (truth), as before, refers to emptiness. In this second interpretation, a ''paramārthasatya'' is an emptiness that exists the way it appears to a highest consciousness, a "truth-of-a-highest-object."<br><br>In the third etymology, all three parts refer to emptiness in that an emptiness is the highest (the ultimate) and is also an object and a truth, a "truth-that-is-the-highest-object." See Donald S. Lopez Jr., ''A Study of Svātantrika'', (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1986), 314–315. Chandrakīrti, the chief Consequentialist, favors the third etymology in his ''Clear Words''; See Jang-ḡya's ''Presentation of Tenets'', 467.18. (Jeffrey Hopkins, ''Reflections on Reality: The Three Natures and Non-Natures in the Mind-Only School'' [Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006], 267, note c.) +
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“As for the meaning of the Sanskrit compound tathāgatagarbha, its first part (tathā) can be taken as either the adverb “thus” or the noun “thusness/suchness” (as a term for ultimate reality; many texts, among them the Uttaratantra, gloss tathāgatagarbha as “suchness”). The second part can be read either as gata (“gone”), or āgata (“come, arrived”; the Tibetan gshegs pa can mean both). However, in the term tathāgata, both meanings more or less come down to the same. Thus, the main difference lies in whether one understands a tathāgata as (a) a “thus-gone/thus-come one” or (b) “one gone/ come to thusness,” with the former emphasizing the aspect of the path and the latter the result. The final part of the compound—garbha—literally and originally means “embryo,” “germ,” “womb,” “the interior or middle of anything,” “any interior chamber or sanctuary of a temple,” “calyx” (as of a lotus), “having in the interior,” “containing,” or “being filled with.” At some point, the term also assumed the meanings of “core,” “heart,” “pith,” and “essence” (which is also the meaning of its usual Tibetan translation snying po).” - Karl Brunnhölzl, ''[[When the Clouds Part]]''
'''ZIMMERMAN on Tathāgatagarbha'''
An interpretation of the meaning of the term tathāgatagarbha must, as a
matter of course, start from the context in the TGS in which it originates. 52 The context is that of the withered lotuses with beautiful tathligatas sitting in the center of their calyxes (padmagarbha). In the same way that full-fledged tathāgatas sit in the flowers, so also, according to the siitra, are buddhas contained in living beings. 53 If living beings are said to contain a tathāgata, they should function as receptacles, and the compound tathāgatagarbha must accordingly be understood either as a bahuvrīhi in the sense of "containing a tathāgata" or as a tatpuruṣa meaning "store of a tathāgata." However, in order to reach an adequate interpretation of the compound, I need to preface some remarks on the term garbha, and then give an overview of the range of possible interpretations of the whole compound, in part offered by the texts which succeeded the TGS. 54
Concerning the term garbha, the ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch des
Altindoarischen'' 55 provides us only with the two meanings "Mutterleib;
Leibesfrucht, Embryo, Neugeborenes." It seems, however, that, starting from this biological background, garbha took on other, less specific senses, such as "the inside, middle, interior of anything, calyx (as of a lotus), ... any interior chamber, adytum or sanctuary of a temple &c." (MW), or, as Hara has shown for epic literature, "germ, seed, infant, child" and, by analogy with the vocable putra as the last member of a compound, even simply "member (of a family lineage)."56
Also familiar is the function of -garbha at the end of a bahuvrīhi compound,
indicating that the prior member(s) of the compound is/are contained in the subject the compound refers to.57 Especially in the last case it is difficult to judge how far a biological, embryonic shade of meaning was still felt, that is, to what degree -garbha had become a purely grammatical unit used at the time our siitra came into existence to express a relation of inclusion void of any strong lexical connotations. However, the original embryo-related meaning of garbha did not completely fade out in later centuries; indeed garbha even became associated with the semantic field of "offspring." This suggests that the grammatical application of -garbha never became totally free of the underlying idea of an embryo still in need of development in a nurturing, womb-like container, if the context in question was susceptible of such a nuance. (Source: Michael Zimmerman, ''[[A Buddha Within]]'', 2002, pages 40–41).
