Our trilingual glossary combining entries from all of our publications into one useful resource, giving translations and definitions of thousands of terms, people, places, and texts from the Buddhist canon.
སྤྲུལ་པ། | Glossary of Terms
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སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- nirmāṇa
- pratāraṇā
- Term
- emanation
- སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- pratāraṇā RS
See “shape shifter.”
- emanation
- སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- nirmāṇa
See UT22084-049-001-1099.
- emanation
- སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- nirmāṇa
This refers to the miraculous power of the buddhas, and bodhisattvas at a certain stage of spiritual development, to project emanations of themselves in order to develop and teach sentient beings.
- emanated incarnation
- སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- nirmāṇa
This refers to the miraculous power of the Buddha and bodhisattvas of a certain stage to emanate apparently living beings in order to develop and teach living beings. This power reaches its culmination in the nirmāṇakayā, the “incarnation body,” which is one of the three bodies of buddhahood and includes all physical forms of all buddhas, including Śākyamuni, whose sole function as incarnations is the development and liberation of living beings.
- incarnation
- སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- nirmāṇa
See “emanated incarnation.”
- phantom
- སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- nirmāṇa
- shape shifter
- སྤྲུལ་པ།
- sprul pa
- pratāraṇā RS
One of the classes of beings barred from joining the renunciate order. The word sprul pa denotes a wide range of phenomena—emanations, apparitions, conjurings, shape-shifting creatures, etc.—all united by their tendency to morph through their own agency or another’s. We have therefore translated sprul pa according to context as “emanation” or “shape shifter.”