ལེགས་པར་བཤད་པ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་གཏེར། Precious Treasury of Elegant Sayings by Sakya Paṇḍita     Image of Sakya Monastery. Sakya literally means "gray earth" (sa skya), taking its reference from the clay found in the area around the monastery. The Sakya lineage is hereditary -- passed from uncle to nephew in the Khon family.

Verse 25 from the Sa skya'i legs bshad

བློ་དང་ལྡན་ན་ཉམ་ཆུང་ཡང་།  །

སྟོབས་ལྡན་དགྲ་བོས་ཅི་བྱར་ཡོད།  །

རི་དྭགས་རྒྱལ་པོ་སྟོབས་ལྡན་ཡང་།  །

རི་བོང་བློ་དང་ལྡན་པས་བསད།  །

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Sakya Paṇḍita (1182-1251) is widely acclaimed as one of the erudite masters of Tibetan literature and history. His proverbs, contained in the Precious Treasury of Elegant Sayings, are didactic in nature. His first chapter covers "an examination of the wise" (mkhas pa brtag pa): Verses 1-30. In the proverb or "eloquent saying" (legs bshad) above (Verse 25), the stanza is broken into two parts: the first two lines provide the meaning (don) and the second two provide a metaphor or "example" (dpe) to illustrate it. The example given in this verse comes from a folk tale about a lion and rabbit, originally derived from the Pañcatantra, a collection of Indian fables.

Below is a Tibetan variation of the tale, titled "The Clever Rabbit," in dbu med script from a second grade Tibetan textbook:

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Reference:

Sa skya paṇḍita Kun dga' rgyal mtshan. Legs par bshad pa rin po che'i gter. In Sa skya bka' 'bum (The Collected Works of the Founding Masters of the Sa-skya). Vol. 10 (Tha): 207 – 252. Dehra Dun: Sakya Center, 1992-1993.

"Ri bong blo ldan." In 'Dzin grwa gnyis pa'i bod yig slob deb rig pa'i nyin byed. Dharamsala: Sherig Parkhang, 1999.

View more bibliographic information on the TBRC.

View images of Sakya Paṇḍita and read his biography on the Treasury of  Lives.