AtDDtA1: Seal

[Dave Monroe]

From: "Ya Sam" <takoitov@[omitted]>
To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
Subject: AtD seal translated
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 19:36:44 +0200

I contacted the Tibetan Cultural Centre with the request to translate
the mysterious legend on the AtD seal. They were kind enough to
forward my request to the Tibetan tranlsator Tenzin Namgyal to whose
generosity we owe the solution of one more AtD related mystery.

It is the Tibetan language, alright, and it means ...... Tibetan
Government Chamber of Commerce.

Read their response below:

Dear Ya Sam,
      I showed the seal you sent to our Tibetan translator, Tenzin
Namgyal.  He says the word to word translation is: Tibetan Government
Commerce Chamber in other words: Tibetan Government Chamber of
commerce.  Why Pynchon has chosen to place this on the cover of his
book is anyones guess. Reading the book reviews gave no insight into
the reason. Perhaps after one has read it?

Best wishes,

Sandy Belth
Tibetan Cultural Center

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112066

Also of interest: the coin bears a striking resemblance to the
doubloon in Moby-Dick that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to
the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description
runs thus:

    It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy
example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters,
REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country
planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and
named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the
unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw
the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on
another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a
segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their
usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point
at Libra. (Ch.99, "The Doubloon")

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, the Whale, Ch. 99, "The Doubloon" (1851)

http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ebatke/moby/moby_099.html

http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=Mel2Mob.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=99&division=div1