འདལ་བ་གཞ notes.1.136
The Chapter on Going Forth; The Chapter on the Restoration Rite; The Chapter on Lifting Restrictions; The Chapter on the Rains; The Chapter on Medicines notes.1.136
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notes.1.136
136. Many sources interpret rnam par ’thor ba to mean “scavenged.” However, this appears to be a misreading of the Tibetan verb zos, which is used to gloss rnam par ’thor ba. While zos is an alternative spelling of the past tense of the verb za ba, “to eat,” in this context, it is bacteria that “eat away” at the corpse and not scavenging animals like hyenas. Kalyāṇamitra describes this stage of decomposition as “the wasting away that occurs at intervals in the flesh” (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 262.b.3). Since zos pa here means “eaten or wasting away,” as in the related verb chud zos, “to go to waste,” rnam par ’thor ba refers not to the scavenged remains of a corpse but to its “breaking apart” or “disintegration.”