Gatha
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone! 🙏🙏🙏
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
Gātha is a Sanskrit term for "song" or "verse", especially referring to any poetic metre which is used in legends, and is not part of the Vedas but peculiar to either Epic Sanskrit or to Prakrit. The word is originally derived from the Sanskrit/Prakrit root gai, which means, to speak, sing, recite or extol, cognate to the Avestan term gatha.
The stanzas of the Prakrit dialects of Ardhamagadhi, Sauraseni and Pāli are known as gathas as opposed to shlokas and Sutras of Sanskrit and Dohas of Apabhramsha. Most of the Jain and Buddhist texts written in Prakrit are composed of gathas (or verses/stanzas).
Thus, gatha can mean any Prakrit and Pali verses in general, or specifically the arya meter of Sanskrit, versified portions of Pali canon (Tipitaka) of Theravada Buddhism are also called specifically as gathas.
In contemporary Buddhist practice derived from Zen and Therevadan traditions, particularly as popularized by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, a gatha is a verse said in rhythm with the breath as part of mindfulness practice, either in daily life, or as part of meditation or meditative study. See nalso: ཚིགས་སུ་བཅད་པའི་སྡེ་