Etymology

tulpa

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Today it means: A magical creature that attains corporeal reality, having been originally merely imaginary. Full definition →

Tibetan སྤྲུལ་པ ← Sanskrit निर्मित
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The story

  1. Sanskrit · derived fromनिर्मित“build”
  2. Tibetan · borrowed fromསྤྲུལ་པ“emanation, magical creation”
  3. English todaytulpa

Borrowed from Tibetan སྤྲུལ་པ (sprul pa, “emanation, magical creation”), equivalent to a calque of Sanskrit निर्मित (nirmita, “build”) or निर्माण (nirmāṇa, “build”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.