Over the years I've heard numerous warnings and dire threats from Theosophists about dugpas. So, just for the heck of it I went on a search for some.

But there's a catch...it had to be outside of Theosophical literature.

There's no better place to start such a search than on that great arbiter of all knowledge.

The very first result takes us to the website of David Lynch. There are some, I guess, who considered Twin Peaks and The Elephant Man to be evil. But that doesn't seem to be what we're looking for.

Next it was off to some Tibetan online dictionaries. After all, HPB got her knowledge from the Tibetans and surely all Tibetans know about dugpas. So, lets take a look at what several Tibetan online dictionaries had to say about it.

First, the dictionary at The Tibetan and Himalayan Library. That seems like a good place to start.

So we put in our search term:

And we were aghast to find that none were to be found!

This site has multiple types of phonetic search, so another attempt was made...

With the same result.

Bummer!

Undeterred, it was time to head off to another Tibetan to English Dictionary, this site claiming to be the very first on the web.

Faithfully, we enter our term:

And the same result:

At this point, my faith is really starting to get shaken. One more try, and if I don't find a real dugpa, well...well, you know.

So, one last look. This time we're looking at the Niratha Online Tibetan English Dictionary.

We can't show you the results because their site says we can't, but you can go and get the answer on your own, and we all know what it is:

"We are sorry that we could not find your entry in the dictionary. You may want to check your entry again."

Which was done...with the same results. But wait!!!

A visit back to the dictionary yielded a hint: "Enter the Tibetan term in a Wylie format (i.e. karma would be kar ma). Upon doing so, we got results. Things are looking up once again.

Or are they?

Let's see:

dug pa

{zas kyis dug pa} poisoned by food [ry]

dug pa - old coat or garment patched up and mended, dress, garment [JV]

dug pa - 1) tattered clothing; 2) [arch] bad [IW]

So, there you go, we must constantly be on guard against old, tattered clothing.