Sambota Script

To analyse briefly the history of script, we find that people have developed and devised thousands of types of scripts from hundreds of kinds of scripts in their own living places over the time period of thousands of years. Widely, two kinds of scripts cover all of the above-mentioned scripts. Scripts resembling physical structures like Chinese and Egyptian scripts and Indian script, which uses consonant and vowel sounds assimilating alliteration and assonance.

When we talk about the history of our script, we find that there was no script in Tibet up to the sixth century. Keeping this matter in mind, emperor Shrong Chong Gompo of Tibet sent ‘Acharya’ Thumi Sombota to study script in India in 633 A.D. After seven years of study, he returned to Tibet and devised ‘Civic Script’ to suit the Tibetan language’s style. We call this script Sambota Script.

Acharya Sambhota transcribed classical books and principles (….) to the Tibetan religious language. Hence, it has become an asset of gems to all the followers of the ‘Mahayana’ sect. World-renowned translators and language experts have opined the Tibetan Script is more trustworthy than Indian and Chinese texts (Sutra?). Sambota Script is in use in many countries and some nations are having their interest in using this script.

The matter of dismay is that we, the Sherpas, use this script for our petty interest, use this script from birth to death, but we are doing nothing to promote this script. It has been valueless to us like gems in the hand of a monkey.

It would be commendable if all Sherpa organizations and scholars together start to speak in their own script. It would be good to promote the language and culture of our own rather than imitation of others. Speaking in Sherpa has at least two advantages. We can understand the preaching of Buddha in a simple manner and secondly, our language becomes clear in this script. It is not that difficult we can learn it fluently in one month. Sambhota script is used in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, India, China, Taiwan and the United States of America. The grammar of almost all these languages is similar.