Words
June Campbell writes in her book Traveller in space that Chandra Das in his Tibetan English Dictionary describes twenty synonyms for woman. The words used most often are kyemen (Tibetan: skye.dman) meaning inferior birth and pumo (Tibetan: bu.mo.) meaning female human being. There are others like tsamdenma (Tibetan: mtshams.ldan.ma.), chingchema (Tibetan: bching.byed.ma.), dodenma (Tibetan: bdod.ldan.ma.), gaweshi (Tibetan: dgah.wabi.gshi.) and tobmema (Tibetan: stobs.med.ma.).
Throughout the Mahāyāna world, Avalokiteśvara, who takes on both male and female form e.g., Guan Yin, and Tara, a female Vajrayana yidam, are bodhisattvas who embody karuṇā, and Prajnaparamita is a female buddha who embodies wisdom.
Read more about this topic: Women In Buddhism
Famous quotes containing the word words:
“But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When words fail us or, quite the opposite, when they rush from our mouths faster than we would like, we can console ourselves that if no single moment is going to define our relationship with a child, neither can a single lapse of good judgment or patience destroy it.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
“It is alive, venomous
it smiles grimly
its words cut—”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)