Headword |
ཨེ་པ། e pa |
Translation |
a ’Bru-tsha calligraphist |
Description |
dGe-’dun-chos-’phel states that the e pas in dBus and gTsang still write ’a with a tsa lag/rtags (dGe chos gsung ’bum, vol. 1, p. 268). The question is what or who an e pa is. The meaning of e pa is given as “a person trained for copying government document who works in the e khang” (q.v.). See Goldstein 2001 (s.v. e pa). Dan Martin also points out to Goldstein 1989: 151, according to which “it is supposed to be the name of the secretarial position of the calligraphers who inscribed serial numbers on Tibetan currency notes.” Martin has already pointed this out in his Tibetan Vocabulary (begun in Bloomington, Indiana, on April 10, 1987; the version I have is from September 7, 2009). There, e pa and e phrug pa are said to be synonymous. Martin writes: “An e pa had the task of inscribing the serial nos. by hand on each Tibetan banknote.” Although there is not an independent entry devoted to e pa in the Tshig mdzod chen mo, it can be found under e pa yon bdag and e drung, both of which even provide an etymology of e pa. So an e drung or e pa drung yig is a clerk or a secretary in the Tibetan civil administrative system in the past, whose job was to write documents and letters in a special style of writing called ’Bru-tsha (Tshig mdzod chen mo, s.vv. e drung & e pa yon bdag). See also Goldstein 2001 (s.v. e drung), which states “a clerk in e khang.” There is a place called E in lHo-kha area (Chu-gsum-rdzong), and the place is said to be named as such because its shape resembled that of the letter e. One suspects, however, that it could not have been meant, if at all, like a Tibetan e but rather triangular e (e gru gsum, i.e., something like ∆). Obviously people from this region were known for their calligraphic skills and particularly for writing in ’Bru-tsha style of Tibetan script. So it seems that the term e pa came to be used to designate a professional calligrapher who specialised in the ’Bru-tsha style of writing associated with E region in lHo-kha. According to Gu-ge Tshe-ring-rgyal-po (Zhol shul, p. 377) those calligraphists stemmed from E-lha-rgya-ri in lHo-kha and hence were called e pas. They lived in house or complex in Zhol in lHa-sa called rTsis-khra-khang. The existence of a welfare society in Lhasa called “E-pa-skyid-sdug” (Tibetan Vocabulary, s.v.) suggests that they were socially quite organized. Their office or institution was called e khang (Tshig mdzod chen mo, s.v.). Cf. also Goldstein 2001 (s.vv. e phrug, e bris/ris). See also Zhwa-sgab-pa, Srid don rgyal rabs (vol. 1, p. 33): de bzhin bka’ shog dang | she bam | bca’ yig rtsa tshig sogs kyi ’bru tsha bris mi e pa dang |. This provides a much better definition of e pa. Some more discussions on e pa can be found in the Ri mo’i rnam gzhag (p. 115.6–12). A detailed description of e pa can be found in Pad-ma-bkra-shis’s gNa’ dpe’i rnam bshad (pp. 277.16–279.14), where actually e bris is described.
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Sources for Term |
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