Latin Expressions for Buddhist Philology

• Ipsissima verba

Those who are interested, for whatever reasons or motives, in understanding the ipsissima verba (“the very words”) of any given past Buddhist author or the conceived ipsissima verba of the Buddha, has no choice but to rely on Buddhist philology. One does Buddhist philosophy because one wants to do so. But one does Buddhist philology because one has to do so. An important issue for the Buddhist philologists is the retrievability of the ipsissima verba of the Buddha and the methodology and feasibility of such an endeavor.

• Scriptura continua

The phenomenon of scriptio continua (“continuous script”), also known as scriptura continua or scripta continua, that is, a style of writing without spaces or other marks between the words or sentences, is not common in Tibetan scriptology. One possible reason for this may have been the fact that Tibetan language is a monosyllabic language. To be noted is that in Tibetan, there is no such thing as “word-separator/divider” but rather “syllable-separator/divider.” Of course phrases, sentences, sections, chapters, and works (in the case of a multi-text volume) in Tibetan usually are separated by certain signs or marks. Occasionally in some Tibetan stone inscriptions, however, one does seem to observe the phenomenon of scriptura continua (to a certain degree).