[Lexicog] blessing

[Simon Wickham-Smith]

hi - I think that "blessing" is a later version of "blissing",  
although I have no citations to show this.  The link between the  
Romance idea of wounding (cf Fr la la blessure) and blessing also  
seems significant.

I think that the verbal (dicere) part of benediction is the reason  
why the bookheavy Christians seek to emphasise this translation.  It  
was no surprise to me, as a semilapsed Cahtholic Buddhist, that  
Benedikt, who was previously head of what used to be the Holy  
Inquistition, and who is a fine scholar too, chose such a name.

In Tibetan we have a big postHippy problem in translating the  
spiritual language into English.  The word which is translated by  
blessing, sbyin rlabs (pron "chin lap") means literally "waves  
[rlabs] of gifts [sbyin]".  the word for empowerment (ie the  
transmission of these spiritual gifts, in the form of a religious  
practise, by a lama to a student) is called a dbang (pron "wang" -  
sinologists take note!), translated variously as "empowerment, power  
- both religious and secular &c".

The modern Tibetan adjective sbyin rlabs can (pron "chin lap chen)  
has the meaning "generous, charitable", which is clear from the  
Tibetan etymology but shows up some of the difficulties translating  
(in all respects) the ideas of one culture into another.

Returning briefly to the western classics, the differences between  
eulogy and benediction are also interesting.  Eulogies are generally  
secular, I think, while benediction is almost exclusively religious -  
significant cultural differentiation perhaps between the (pre)modern  
ideas of the Greeks and the Romans.

Si
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