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:
“Your words and performances are no kin together.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Beatrice. Let me go with that I came, which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.
Benedick. Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.
Beatrice. Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Those words freedom and opportunity do not mean a license to climb upwards by pushing other people down. Any paternalistic system that tries to provide for security for everyone from above only calls for an impossible task and a regimentation utterly uncongenial to the spirit of our people.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)