' even the (weak) drops, although they are water'. This might be better rendered as : ' though they are but (weak) drops of water '. p. 314 : jimis modun-u oqi-ata abtayu tegilnede ulebesii unan bui ' One should take fruit from the top of the tree, (but) if one exceeds that, one falls '. I would prefer : ' fruit is taken from the top of the tree. If some is left over after that, it will fall'. That it is the fruit which is in danger of falling, not the picker, appears more clearly in the Chahar Gebshi's translation, Mukden, p. 86 : illigerlebesu modun-u jimis-i bolbasuraqui iay-tur abubasu johimui /a : onggerebesu yajar-tur unaju iljaraqu terigiiten bolqu metil ' To take a parallel : it is like the fact that it is right to pick the fruit at the time when it is ripe. If this goes by, it falls to the ground and rots '. p. 391 : ger-tiir mayu-yin beiges bolbasu ele ed-tece bayulju jasaydaqu buyu ' if there are omens of evil in the house, detracting from one's belongings, it must be corrected'. As a piece of English, this is obscure. The phrase ' detracting from one's belongings ' is not immediately intelligible in itself, and, further, it is ambiguously sited in the sentence. Does it refer backwards or forwards ? These two lines are parallel in tenor to the two which precede them, and which run : ' If persons of bad character attach themselves to one, one should give them a little and reject them '. The meaning of the second pair must then be that if evil omens occur in the house, it is best to sacrifice part of one's possessions in order to get the evil exorcised. The Chahar Gebshi, Mukden, p. 107, again gives a clue : adalidqabasu ger-tur mayu iru-a temdeg bolbasu : adal mal-ada yaryaju qariyulya jasal hilgeku metil ' To illustrate : it is like spending some of your cattle and getting an exorcism performed if evil signs occur in the house '. The sound common sense of many of the Sa skya Pandita's aphorisms, which in a more
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