Sanskrit gets a new spokesperson in Professor Dean Brown, an eminent Theoretical Physicist, cosmologist, philosopher and Sanskrit scholar, whose translation of the Upanishads was published by the Philosophical Research Society. The following is a very interesting interview where Professor Dean Brown brings about an interesting co-relation of Sanskrit & Physics
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ush_thinking-allowed-sanskrit-tradition
[Duration: 23:28 |Taken: 04 June 2006 | Location: Israel]
Prof. Dean Brown points out that most European languages can be traced back to a root language that is also related to Sanskrit – the sacred language of the ancient Vedic religions of India. Many English words actually have Sanskrit origins. Similarly, many Vedic religious concepts can also be found in Western culture. He discusses the fundamental idea of the Upanishads – that the essence of each individual, the atman, is identical to the whole universe, the principle of brahman. In this sense, the polytheistic traditions of India can be said to be monistic at their very core.
While it might be considered a forgotten language in India, globally Sanskrit has found many takers. The American Sanskrit Institute was founded 18 years ago with a vision to spread “the ease and joy of learning Sanskrit through an immersion experience, the enjoyment of making the sounds, fluently reading the original Devanagari script, and directly reading, chanting and understanding sacred literature.”The Indological department, University of Bonn Germany conducts various courses and study programs.
While the world is waking up to Sanskrit – the divine language, where are we in terms of preserving the world’s oldest known tongue?
Cross posted here
February 10, 2007 at 1:21 am
Sanskrit is an Indo-European language, just like Latin, Greek, and English are Indo-European languages. This means that they are all descended from a common language: Proto-Indo-European.
Sanskrit is not the mother of European languages, as you claim. Sanskrit and Latin are sister languages, descended from the same mother – Proto-Indo-European.
February 11, 2007 at 6:54 am
Proto-Indo-European language is a fictional name. Nobody knows if such a language ever existed. For all we know, everything might have originated from sanskrit.
April 28, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Do you know that languages change and get transformed over a period of time? There is much scholarship on the Indo-European languages and there is a family tree and their relationships between each other. In that case, why not the other way? Why stops me from saying that Latin is the mother of Sanskrit? Proto-Indo-European is name given to a language which might have been the mother of Indo-European family. The language was not called Proto-Indo-European. Your statement that is a fictional name is meaningless.
February 12, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Many people have studied Indo-European languages and reconstructed Proto-Indo-European. Its existence accounts for all the difference among the Indo-European languages. This is a generally accepted theory. If you don’t believe it, fine – but be aware that you need more proof than just “it might not have existed.”
http://www.bartleby.com/61/8.html
Also, you are misrepresenting Dean Brown’s views: he did not say that Sanskrit is the mother of Indo-European languages.
February 13, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Well, in that case you simply need to listen to the interview once again.
Cheers
February 13, 2007 at 11:09 pm
OK, I see how you could get that impression from what Dean Brown says:
“English, Russian, Icelandic, Greek, are all dialects of a mother tongue that’s spoken widely in India and many parts of the world.”
“Most of the words in English, say, go back either through the Teutonic, northern European, Icelandic route (root?), to the uh Sanskrit, Vedic, and then through the Mediterranean route, the Romance route.”
These quotes don’t make any sense. He makes it sound like the “mother tongue” is spoken widely in India, which is wrong.
The second quote makes it sound like English words came from Icelandic, which came from Sanskrit, which in turn came from Latin. This is wrong.
He says that “om” is the root of “human” and “humble” – there is no evidence of this as far as I know.
His connection of “sutra” and “suture” is correct – both are descended from Proto-Indo-European “syu-”.
He says Sanskrit “ritam” (?) is the origin of English “right”. This is wrong. “right” is from Proto-Indo-European “reg-”, and is cognate with “rajah” and “raita”.
He says “practical” and “act” are from Sanskrit – this is wrong. “practical” is from Greek “prassein” and “act” is from Proto-Indo-European “ag-”.
He connects “theory”, Latin “deus”, and Sanskrit “deva” – this is wrong. “theory” is from Greek “thea”. “deus” and “deva” are both from Proto-Indo-European “dyeu-”.
Again, the view that Sanskrit is the ancestor of Indo-European languages is not a view that historical linguists take seriously. Personally I trust the historical linguists, the experts, rather than the word of a non-linguist.
February 15, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Sure one can dismiss Prof Dean Brown’s work and knowledge as that of the word of a non-linguist. But it would hold good in a discussion only when you have something as substantial as having translated The Upanishads behind you.
>>John: These quotes don’t make any sense. He makes it sound like the “mother tongue” is spoken widely in India, which is wrong
They sure make sense. Sanskrit was widely spoken in India during the vedic age and every language spoken in India today has its roots in Sanskrit.
The Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) is the “hypothetical” common ancestor of the Indo-European languages. Whereas, the sound of each of the 36 consonants and the 16 vowels of Sanskrit are fixed and precise since the very beginning. It was never changed, altered, improved or modified. So all the words of the Sanskrit language always had the same pronunciation as they have today. There was never any sound shift or change in the pronunciation of any word in the history of the Sanskrit language. The reason is its absolute perfection by its own nature and formation, because it was the first language of the world.
More over here – http://www.encyclopediaofauthentichinduism.org/articles/23_the_speculation_of.htm
February 15, 2007 at 8:53 pm
“Sanskrit was widely spoken in India during the vedic age and every language spoken in India today has its roots in Sanskrit.”
No, India is also home to Dravidian languages and Sino-Tibetan languages that are not related to Sanskrit.
That article is completely inaccurate – change is an observed fact of all languges. Of course Sanskrit changed. Sanskrit changed into the modern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi-Urdu, Gujarati, Panjabi, etc.
There are 150 years of scholarship on reconstructing the Indo-European language. I recommend that you familiarize yourself with it. Start with Lehmann’s “Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics”.
February 16, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Vedic Sanskrit literature developed first in an oral form, and was first set down in written form only after centuries of oral transmission.
Unlike what you claim sanskrit has not changed but the mordern Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindu, Urdu, Punjabi have descended from Sanskrit. Classical sanskrit is still a spoken language in Mattur (village in Karnataka).
Yes, i agree Dravidian languages and Sino-tibetan languages are not related to sanskrit but nowhere in the article was it claimed to be related too.
Will surely look up Lehmann’s “Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics”.
February 17, 2007 at 1:47 am
“Vedic Sanskrit literature developed first in an oral form, and was first set down in written form only after centuries of oral transmission.”
I’m not sure what this has to do with Sanskrit being an unchanging language?
Just as the various dialects of Latin developed into French, Italian, Spanish, etc, so did Sanskrit develop into Hindi, Gujarati, Panjabi, etc. Saying that Hindi is descended from Sanskrit is the same as saying that Sanskrit developed into Hindi.
The reason that Sanskrit today is the same as the Sanskrit of 500 BCE is because like Latin, it is a fossilized language – it has no (or very few) native speakers. It has native speakers in Mattur because it has recently been revived, just as Hebrew was revived and is now spoken natively. I would expect that the Sanskrit spoken natively in Mattur will begin to change.
February 23, 2007 at 7:28 am
John,
are you still living in dark ages? Please wake up!
March 1, 2007 at 4:24 am
John,
I can understand your statements based on the influence of various theories you have read. the PIE (Proto-Indo-European) was a fictious language to put forth a theory with an assumption that Latin,Sanskrit and Greek belong to the same group, As you might know there was never a time that this language was spoken and your mention of PIE being origin of some english words is as correct as the truth of Aryan invasion on India..
It is not easy to understand the history of languages with our knowledge of actual history of World, most of the Eastern(East to Europe in a British centric Map) History till now was seen primarily from British Colored Lens, and huge number of theories generated by these “Historians” and “Linguists” should be understood in a broader perspective from both political and religious angles ..
You might immediately say that I being an Indian will support all Brown’s comments, NO
We need to understand, By disporoving Max Mullers theories historians have established that Sanskrit was spoken even before 3000 BC on the banks of Saraswati River, which may surely bring forwards new ‘truths’ dispelling the old ‘theories’
Lets keep our minds open
“Nahi Nahi Rakshati dukrijnkarane… “
March 2, 2007 at 6:36 pm
“historians have established that Sanskrit was spoken even before 3000 BC”
And how exactly would that have been established? Brahmi-related Indic phonetic scripts do not date earlier than the first millennium BCE. The Indus Valley script is the only other script of significance dating earlier than that, and it has not been deciphered fully. Furthermore, it is most likely logographic, so we’d have no idea how it sounded anyway.
Let’s keep our minds open, but let’s also face reality … all evidence so far shows that Sanskrit’s fabled position as “the mother of all Indo-European languages” is nothing more than a remnant of European romanticism/appropriation of Indian history and culture, when it served their purposes. Don’t forget that the promulgators of this theory also once believed that all blond blue-eyed people originated in India. Sanskrit is a descendant of PIE and a sister/cousin to other IE languages, not an IE root language.
March 4, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Proto-Indo-European is not a fictitious language, it is a reconstructed language. Its hypothesized existence explains the regular phonological differences between IE languages.
If Dean Brown has an argument about why a Sanskrit word is the ancestor of an English word, I’d like to hear it – but “they have the same sound” is not an argument. The good thing about the Proto-Indo-European theory is that the rules of sound change that we’ve discovered are falsifiable – if we find evidence that doesn’t fit in with our rules, then something is wrong with the theory. But Dean Brown’s arguments are not falsifiable and are therefore useless.
March 8, 2007 at 12:49 am
“But Dean Brown’s arguments are not falsifiable and are therefore useless”
Wow… Nice conclusion… if something is not falsifiable then it is useless ???
So are you saying – “existence of air is not falsifiable” and therefore useless ?
March 8, 2007 at 4:54 am
Dean Browns claims are not testable or falsifiable. All he is saying is “word X is descended from word Y because both words have a similar sound and meaning.” How do I test it? How would I disprove it? He has no rules that explain the phonological differences between the two languages.
Indo-European historical linguistics, on the other hand, uses the comparative method:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_method
“It aims to prove that two or more historically attested languages are descended from a single proto-language by comparing lists of cognate terms. From these cognate lists, regular sound correspondences between the languages are established, and a sequence of regular sound changes can then be postulated which allows the proto-language to be reconstructed from its daughter languages. Relation is deemed certain only if a partial reconstruction of the common ancestor is feasible, and if regular sound correspondences can be established with chance similarities ruled out.”
March 10, 2007 at 11:01 am
I loved reading the responses… There is no point of arguing, as you can see John is very defensive of theories just emerged as late as 18th century…. He follows the dying breed of intellectuals who once distorted Indian History…. Anyway, keep up the good work guys… Always know: Satyamev Jayte ~~ Truth shalt triumph.
March 20, 2007 at 5:19 pm
“theories just emerged as late as 18th century”
Actually, the idea that Sanskrit is the “mother of IndoEuropean languages” is itself an idea that dates back to about that time … back when some European Indomaniacs thought their white bonde “Aryan” ancestors came from India. Now that this racial theory has been debunked, the linguistic component needs to be trashed as well, not turned on its head and rehashed for Indian/Hindu supremacist purposes.
March 22, 2007 at 11:28 am
Please refer to the below given URL which also aubstantiate it:
http://www.indusscript.com/
Rather this study goes beyond and says that IE , Dravidian and Munda languages have the same ancestor in Indus Script.
March 24, 2007 at 1:24 am
Most scripts of south and southeast Asia, including Devanaagarii, Gujarati, Panjabi, etc, and all the scripts used to write Dravidian languages, and also including Thai, Lao, Khmer and others, are ultimately derived from the Brahmi script. It is possible that Brahmi is descended from the Indus Valley script, but this is not conclusive. Some people think that Brahmi has its roots in Semitic scripts.
In any case, this has nothing to do with how the languages themselves are related. Hindi, Tamil, and Thai are not related to each other, even though the scripts that are used to write them are.
March 24, 2007 at 3:55 pm
All three languages Hindi, Tamil, and Thai are related with Sanskrit. My mother tongue is Tamil, and I know very well how much this language has Sanskrit influence.
The origin of the theory about Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) and Indo-European language is fictional and is it not based on factual or authentic study. An unauthentic study, even if it is constructed for 150 year or 1000 years to come is still will be flawed. Because it is based on wrong theory to serve vested interest and not based on facts.
Anyone who understands Sanskrit will know the fact that Sanskrit is the mother of European Languages. Only an ignorant person will say otherwise. It is not only the mother of European Languages; it is also the mother of many South East Asian languages.
What Prof Dean Brown discovered is nothing new but a natural assertion by anyone who understands Sanskrit.
April 28, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Tamil did not descend from Sanskrit. What is the basis of stating that Proto-Indo-European is fictional? Did you observe the past and history directly? Do you know what was spoken in the past exactly? Anyone who understands Sanskrit will know that it is mother of all European languages? I ask you what prohibits me from saying that Latin and Greek are the roots of Sanskrit based on linguistic similarities alone? Surely, there must be a basis to state anything and let it not be Hindu supremacy.
March 26, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Tamil is a Dravidian language
http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_lang_family.asp?code=TCV
and Sanskrit is an Indo-European language
http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_lang_family.asp?code=SKT
March 29, 2007 at 12:41 am
[...] http://mutiny.wordpress.com/2007/02/09/sanskrit-mother-of-european-languages-says-prof-dean-brown/ [...]
April 5, 2007 at 10:08 pm
The astronomical dates mentioned in mahabharatha (which is written in sanskrit) dates back to 3500 BC and earlier guys.. Gurutva in Sanskrit is gravitation in English.. want more proof?
Do not forget the fact that zero and place value system (which infact led to the creation of true scientific mathematics as opposed to the unscientific roman-numerals) has its roots in vedic mathematics which is a part of Atharva Veda which in turn has its mentions in Mahabharatha and hence pre dates mahabharatha is again completely written in sanskrit. Vedic mathematics is taught in the western world today in the disguised name of mental mathematics!!
Any proof about PIE?? Any text written in it?? Any authors?? People of which civilization spoke PIE? Star trek??
April 28, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Star trek? Ask that yourself. John had already mentioned the root of ‘gravity’. Your ‘proof’ does not stand up. And what is unscientific about Roman numerals? They are a representation of numbers.
Any proof for PIE? Yes, just do a research on your own mother tongue and you will understand that languages do change and transform themselves over time. Any texts in PIE? There are many ancient manuscripts which linguists are not able to decipher and let alone know how did they sound? Your question is as illogical. The Indian claim to zero comes from Brahmagupta’s book Brahmasputha Siddhanta which was written in 628 AD. There are zeros in Babylonian tablets unearthed at Kish, dated 700 BC. There are tablets from other ancient cultures too. Can you explain what is the basis of your claim for zero from mental mathematics? You talk about the West. I cannot help but observe, you wore an item invented in the west, your goggles.
April 6, 2007 at 4:53 am
I don’t see how astronomical dates or mathematics in the Mahabharata have anything to do with the age or unchangeability of Sanskrit.
“Gurutva in Sanskrit is gravitation in English”
Because both words are from Indo-European “gwer-1″.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE183.html
“Any proof about PIE?”
Yes, 150 years of actual research by actual linguists on the subject. Start with this
http://www.bartleby.com/61/8.html
April 6, 2007 at 10:23 pm
The astronomical dates indicate that sanskrit is much older than 3500 BC, as simple as that! Because the mentioned works which contain the astronomical dates are written in sanskrit.
Why are there no texts written in the so called PIE?? What script did it use??
The research article published in forbes magazine in 1987 july clearly is a proof of the unchangeability of sanskrit which makes sanskrit the only eligible language spoken by humans fit to be a software programming language!!
There is a saying in sanskrit ‘Satyam eva Jayate’ which means ‘Truth alone is victorious’, Let it be so…
April 7, 2007 at 3:22 am
The Bharata dates to the 6th century BC. Because it is written in Sanskrit, and might mention astronomical dates in 3500 BC, is not proof that Sanskrit was the language spoken in 3500 BC. Perhaps the stories were passed down, either orally or written, and assembled into the Bharata in 6 BC. Just like the Old Testament, written in Hebrew, describes events that apparently took place long before anyone spoke Hebrew.
The fact that PIE was not written down is not proof of anything. The Common Germanic language was not written down, but we know it exists.
Do some reading on the subject.
April 9, 2007 at 11:04 am
John,
I think you need to study Sanskrit, and you will realise it is unlike any other language known. To say it belongs in the same category as Latin and Greek, because of the similarity in sounds and verbs is showing ignorance of the phonology and morphology of Sanskrit, which is perfect.
Sanskrit is a highly scientific language, with an inbuilt scheme for pronounciation and grammar and word formation. It is the closest to what Saussere envisaged as a language that produces objective meaning, and is much less ambigious.
Even the word Sanskrit itself has an objective meaning. It is formed of the roots Sams and kritam, and means perfectly formed or done. Now you tell me what root words are Latin and Greek formed of? What is their meaning?
Panani writes down approx 4000 rules, which are like a set of algebaric rules, which generate Sanskrit sentences. It is compared to the power of a Turing Machine.
Thus, Sanskrit is actually a scientific, almost computer language based on sound. This is why it has not changed or shifted a single sound even today. If you change a single sound, the meaning changes.
Somebody mentioned Gurutva earlier. That’s the short form of the actual Sanskrit word for gravity: Gurutvakarshan, which is used to describe the sun. You can anaylse the word by using Pannini rules like putting it through a computer algorithm that parses the word. It is formed of Gurutva and akarsh. The word Guru, is further divisible into Gu and Ru. Gu means darkness(Go means light and true) and Ru means removal. Guru is therefore he who removes darkness(i.e., ignorance) Guru as a combined term also means heaviness. Akarsh means to attract or pull. Therefore the full meaning is: The attraction or pull by the one that removes darkness, by the virtue of heaviness.
The Vedic texts describe the Sun as upholding the solar system by its attractive force. Now, perhaps you may begin to appreciate that Sanskrit is like a coded language; based on root verbs, a precise set of algaberic rules, meaning is created. This meaning is multilayered and context based, and is represented in few words as possible.
Take for example Go, which means light, but is also taken to mean cow. This is because the cow is seen as a symbol of light, due to its sattvic nature. The word gopathi means both sun and cow-herder depending on context.
The 19th century European scholars could not understand this multilayering of coding of information. So they wrongly translated Sanskrit texts, especially the Vedas, mistranslating light for cow or swiftly-moving for horse.
For example the Vedic texts describe the Sun’s chariot as being driven by 7 horses, tied by crooked snakes. The word for horse is Ashwa. It is derived from the root verb Ash, which means swifting-moving. So anything that is swifting-moving is denoted by ash+x. It is used in the Vedas to describe arrows, thoughts, rays of light and horses.
In this context it means rays of light and the word for “snake” here means curved. What is being said: The sun has 7 rays of light, which travel in curved motion.
They have also claimed horse, cow and human sacrifice in the Vedas, mistranslating terms such as Ashwameda, gomedha and naramedha. When in their context they mean something completely different.
The 19th century European scholars and linguists you are abiding by thus clearly show they do not understand the language and are in no position to study it, let alone translate Sanskrit into English, or make sweeping statements on Sanskrits origin.
Going back to Sanskrit belonging to the same category as other classical languages. Does Latin and Greek have similar morphological and phonetic syntax? I don’t think they do.
The Alphabet is Latin for Alpha and Beta, the first two letters of the Latin Alpabet. This means that the language is based on written letters. Sanskrit, however, is based on sound. The script does not matter.
Each Sanskrit verb is formed of these sounds(36 constants and 15 vowels) and there are 2000+ root verbs.
In other words this is a highly scientific language and very precisely formed. If you are going to claim that Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have emerged from PIE. Then why is Latin and Greek so different from Sanskrit? Why doesn’t it have the same structure and precision?
Much has been written about Sanskrit by scientists and Linguist experts. Rick Briggs, a NASA scientist, published a paper on how Sanskrit was the only natural language that could be used to program artificial intelligence. As it was very much like machine code.
The phonology and morphology of Sanskrit Grammar was admitted by European Linguistics to be superior to its modern counterpart. It was not until the development of Bakus Normal Form(Modern computer code) that a language similar to Sanskrit was developed.
Do Latin and Greek have similarities with Bakus Normal forum? Nope they don’t. Therefore how could you say that Sanskrit belongs in the same category?
We can employ Occams razor here. The most simple explanation is that Sanskrit is the mother of all Indo-European languages. There is no need to invent any PIES, when Sanskrit explains it well enough.
The problem with accepting Sanskrit as the mother of IE languages, is not a linguistic issue, but a racial one. It would suggest that the Indians must have spread their culture across the world or colonised Europe. This was too difficult to digest by ethnocentric historians and linguists of the 19th century. Thus why they invented PIE and AIT.
By the way. You said that PIE is a forgotten language. Yet you also comfortably assert what the PIE verbs are e.g, you write: “deus” and “deva” are both from Proto-Indo-European “dyeu-”.
That looks very dubious to me. What you seem to be doing is combining the different variants of the sound of a verb and finding a middle ground.
Thats rubbish. So if the original word, ends up being pronounced differently in several languages. You will look at all of these, find a middle ground, and then claim they all must have stemmed from this proto source, including the original word.
This again reveals ignorance of how Sanskrit is formed: sound. If you change a single sound, the meaning changes. Div and Dvi, are subtly different, but mean different things. You can’t go around arbtarily changing the sound of words.
Sanskrit is self-contained. It has not been influenced by any other language, however it has influenced other languages.
April 9, 2007 at 12:39 pm
For all Sanskrit enthusiasts here is a site that would interest you –
http://www.mssmulund.org/
April 10, 2007 at 4:06 am
Raj,
I know Hindi, and I know some Sanskrit grammar. However, what I know the most about is linguistics, and I know that there is no such thing as a perfect language, or a language that produces objective meaning. To suggest that Sanskrit is perfect in a way that other languages aren’t is to completely misunderstand how languages work.
Read some introductory texts on linguistics and historical linguistics.
April 10, 2007 at 4:19 am
Raj wrote:
“By the way. You said that PIE is a forgotten language. Yet you also comfortably assert what the PIE verbs are e.g, you write: “deus” and “deva” are both from Proto-Indo-European “dyeu-”. That looks very dubious to me.”
OK. If you think that “deus” and “deva” are both from Sanskrit, then show me the rules that explain the sound change in that word and all other words that you think are derived from Sanskrit. For instance, how do we get “gravity” from “gurutva”?
Indo-European linguistics has formulated regular rules of sound change that explain all the difference between IE cognates. If you want to convince me of your theory, you’ll have to do the same.
April 11, 2007 at 9:57 pm
John Wrote:
OK. If you think that “deus” and “deva” are both from Sanskrit, then show me the rules that explain the sound change in that word and all other words that you think are derived from Sanskrit. For instance, how do we get “gravity” from “gurutva”?
The English word Gravity is derived from the Latin word Gravis(or gravi), it means heavy and also means teacher(as something having gravitas) However, you cannot break apart gravis, into smaller parts to explain the meaning such as (gra and vis) because Latin does not have this feature.
The prefix and suffix tradition is actually derived(as well as genders: masculine, feminine, neuter) from Sanskrit, and is partly inherited by Greek and Latin, but not completely. This is because these features are not independent and have been extracted from a another system of grammar(Sanskrit)
So we must find that system of grammar that Greek and Latin borrows from. This brings us to studying Sanskrit Grammar. We learn that each word in Sanskrit, is formed of other words, and each word is built from a root verb(of which 2000+ exist) Therefore each verb(pada) is dependent on the other to form meaning(artha) they do not exist in isolation as in other languages.
The Latin Gravis exists in isolation. It cannot be broken down any further. Therefore this word was either created or borrowed from another language to signify heavy. We find in Sanskrit that the equivalent guru, can be broken down further, into gu and ru.
Therefore the verb guru, is dependent on the particle verbs gu and ru. If you change these constituent sounds the meaning changes. Perhaps you can now appreciate how every word-sound in Sanskrit is dependent on others to produce meaning. So arbitrarily changing the sounds is going to change the meaning. As I said before.
The constituent sounds of gravis or gravi are “Gra” and Vi” and therefore they do not produce the same meaning.
We can therefore conclude that the word has been borrowed from another language — Sanskrit. This can be assumed because Sanskrit explains the etymology of the word, and we understand the word is generated by Sanskrit’s precise and mathematical Grammatical rules.
Now how do we explain how the borrowing has taken place and why the sounds have changed?
Linguists should understand this, that if a language is allowed to develop independently, it begins to change: sounds change, meanings change, words are lost, added, extended or reduced.
You can see this in the differences in English spoken between New Zealand, Britain, Autralia and USA. They all were originally speaking British English, today they have their own variants and idosynchrocacies. The changes are more pronounced when a language develops in a foreign country e.g., English in a french country or German country is spoken much more differently than English in English countries.
These changes are not structured, so looking for rules on how these changes occur is begging the question. We find even today that words change quite dramatically based on trends: such as “want to” becomes “wanna” or “vanna”.
Now do you realise how dubious it is to compare the variant of each word, and then find a middle ground? Let’s look at an example:
want to, wanna, vanna, venna. You could say that because these words are similar, they must have evolved from the same source. Looking for a middle grounds, perhaps we can say the source root is vwa, vew or vwe. The original word might have been vwanna. This is nothing more than guessing. We know for a fact that want is the original source. However, this kind of analysis will invalidate that fact. Thus the analysis is flawed; it is producing wrong results.
April 11, 2007 at 10:30 pm
How the borrowing has taken place:
Obviously, the similarity of the IE family of languages, suggests contact. This is explained as the migrations of Aryans throughout Indo-Europe, taking with them their language and culture.
This migration does not necessarily have to be the migrations of people. It could simply be diffusion of Aryan culture throughout Indo-Europe(and arguably South East Asia) We know for a fact that India and Europe were in contact in one another from as early as the Harappa phase. This is evidenced by the existence of Indus-valley seals, and goods found in Mesopotamia etc
It is also evidenced by the highly developed, artistan and scientific Harappa civilisation, that these people must have explored and ventured beyond India. Further corroborated by the knowledge that they were seafaring people.
The extent to which the Harapans were developed cannot be found anywhere in the known world. We know that other races existed, but they were still in primitive stages.
This establishes cultural superiority. Therefore, by travelling westwards, they took with them this superior culture, and civilised the indigenous people of Indo-Europe. They may have even colonised parts of Europe.
Is there evidence of this? The fact that IE languages are based on a common source(Aryan); the fact that Harappan symbols and icons occurr in IE cultures e.g., Swastikas.
The dynamics is exactly the same as to how Britain was able to spread its culture throughout the world. Through travelling around the world and subjugating the indigenous peoples of the world and colonising their lands. However, the Aryan spread of culture, seems to be more peaceful, and there does not seem to any suggestion of military conquests; more about acceptance of Aryan culture.
With recent evidence, we have been able to prove that the Harappans and the Aryans are the same people. Thus everything fits together.
This explains how Sanskrit was diffused throughout Indo-Europe. Thus it should not be surprising that the closest cousin of Sanskrit is Avestan, as Persia neighoured the Harappans. Thus the change in language was minimal. It should also not be surprising that Latin and Greek are distant cousins of Sanskrit, as the geographical distance between them was greater, thus the change in language was greater.
As a general rule of thumb: The greater the distance from the original source language, the greater the change in language.
April 11, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Two things.
Your analysis of “guru” as “gu” + “ru” is not one that most scholars would accept. It is a folk etymology.
If you want to prove that English “gravity” and Latin “gravis” are both derived from Sanskrit “gurutva”, then you have to show me the rules that explain how the sound changes happened – rules along the lines of Grimm’s law, Verner’s law, etc. You have not done that.
April 12, 2007 at 12:14 am
And no, Avestan is not the most closely related language to Sanskrit. Avestan was an Iranian language and is closely related to Pashto
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90019
and Sanskrit is Indo-Aryan
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=90032
The most closely related languages to Sanskrit are Hindi, Gujarati, Sinhala, Panjabi, etc.
April 12, 2007 at 1:45 am
Let me also add this: you say sound change is not regular, but in fact it is very regular. We have formulated rigorous rules that explain how the sounds of Proto-Indo-European changed into the different IE languages of today. These rules are regular. For instance, PIE word initial /*dh/ becomes Germanic /d/, Latin /f/, and Sanskrit /d/. So PIE *dhu̯ē̆r- became English “door”, Latin “foras”, and Sanskrit “dvār”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_sound_laws
If you have an alternate theory about the origins of IE languages, you have to provide the same level of detail in explaining how the IE languages are derived from your root language.
April 12, 2007 at 7:32 am
John,
No offence, but the burden of proof lies with me you not me. You are claiming to know what the words would have been in some unknown language, by comparing the IE languages. The logic you are using is circular.
1. It is assumed that because these languages are so similar they must have a common source
2. This common source must be PIE
3. We can create formal rules to recreate PIE words by comparing others.
These laws are not even consistent. From Wiki:
[quote]A second difficulty has emerged much more recently (Sihler 2006): the actual passages from the Rigveda cited in Edgerton’s two large articles in 1934 and 1943 as examples of the effects of his theory in action seriously misrepresent the facts in all but a handful of cases. No more than three Rigvedic passages cited in the 1934 article, and none at all in 1943, actually support the claims of Edgerton’s Law regarding word-initial sequences. This lies well within the operation of pure chance. And it has been shown also that the apparent success of Lindeman’s more modest claims are not without troubling problems too, such as the limitation of the reliable examples to vocalic semovowels (the glides *y and *w) even though such alternations in the other four semivowels should have left robust outcomes; and that the syllabified alternants (e.g. *diyēws) are very much rarer than they should be: they account for only fifteen to twenty percent of the total, when they should account for at least eighty percent. Further, only the diyēws alternants have a “distribution”: the dyēws shapes show no sensitivity to phonetic environment at all.[/quote]
This is an exemplary example of circular logic. Hence it is a fallacy. You cannot claim to know with 100% certainty what the words would have been in a lost language.
To even propose this lost language, without any proof whatsoever, is seriously begging the question and is unnecessarily multiplying quantities.
Why do we need to invent imaginary languages to explain the common origin of IE languages, when Sanskrit best explains it.
The etymology I discussed aboved is expounded on in the Upanishads. However, it is a moot point, whether Guru is derived Gu and ru or not, as we know that Sanskrit is based on root-words(dhatu) and this is a feature unique to Sanskrit. Thus every word is dependent on another. If you change the sound of one word, you change not only its meaning, you change the sound of many words based on it, and thus the meaning.
Lets look at the root word daa, meaning to give and numerous words can be formed from it, by simply adding subtle sounds(this is not an exhaustive list)
daaH = giving
dattaM = given
dattaan.h = things given
dadati = give, donate
dadaami = I give
dadaasi = you give , confer upon
dadau = gave (from daa : to give)
dadhaatu = let them give( us welfare)
dadhaami = create
daatavya = shouold be given
daatavyaM = worth giving
daataa = (masc.Nom.S) the giver
daataaraM = the giver
daataaram.h = one who gives
daadhaara = holds
daana = the act of giving
daanaM = charity
daane = in charity
daanena = by charity
daaneshhu = in giving charities
daanaiH = by charity
daasyaami = I shall give charity
Each sound signifies something. Let’s look at some of those subtle sounds added to daa. To illustrate my argument I will use ami, and look at other words which use ami:
ichchhaami = do I wish
kathayishhyaami = I shall speak
gR^iNaami = I hold
namaami = I bow
pachaami = I digest
pashyaami = I see
karomi = I do
Some more:
kath.h = to tell
kathaM = tell
kathanta = howness
kathaya = describe
kathayataH = speaking
kathayati = to narrate, to tell
kathayantaH = talking
kathayishhyanti = will speak
kathayishhyaami = I shall speak
kathaa = story
kathaamR^ita = Gospel
kathaamR^itaM = Gospel
kathita = told
And more:
kaama = lust
kaamaM = desire
kaamaH = desire
kaamakaama = desirer of desires (kaamaan kaamayati iti aN)
kaamakaamaaH = desiring sense enjoyments
kaamakaamii = one who desires to fulfill desires
kaamakaarataH = acting whimsically in lust
kaamakaareNa = for enjoying the result of work
kaamadaam.h = (the hymn which) gives (grants) all desires
kaamadhuk.h = kaamadhenu : the cow who can milk out anything you wish
kaamabhogeshhu = to sense gratification
kaamamadhiite = desire, reads
kaamaye = (Vr.Pr.IP.S.AP)desire; wish for
kaamaruupaM = in the form of lust
kaamaruupeNa = in the form of lust
kaamavikaaraH = sensual/sexual attraction
kaamahaitukaM = it is due to lust only
kaamaaH = desires
kaamaat.h = from desire
kaamaatmaanaH = desirous of sense gratification
kaamaan.h = desiring
kaamita = something one has wished for
kaamepsunaa = by one with desires for fruitive results
kaamebhyaH = material sense gratification
kaameshvara = lord of desires
kaamaiH = by desires
kaamopabhoga = sense gratification
kaamyaanaaM = with desire
I think this should be enough to illustrate my point. Can you see how many words can be formed by adding together root words, and how each word is dependent on the other. You change a single sound, you change dozens, hundeeds, if not thousands of words.
In Sanskrit, new words are formed by adding to older words. So instead of creating Volcano, in Sanskrit you add agni(fire) and parvath(mountain) to make agniparvathi(volcano)
Similarily, instead of using several words to say something, such as “the soliders of the Pandavas” you could simply say paaNDavaaniikaM.
These features are absent in the other I.E languages, only some have been preserved, such suffix and prefix.
The etymology of a Sanskrit word is not something arbitrarily done. You can’t split every word how you like it. It has to be done according to precise rules set by Panini.
April 12, 2007 at 8:15 am
Where did this quote about Edgerton’s Law come from?
I don’t see how your list of words is relevant to your argument that Sanskrit is the root of IE languages. Many languages form new words by adding affixes. Some do so to a much greater extent than Sanskrit, for instance Inuktitut
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_language_phonology_and_phonetics
But what does this have to do with Sanskrit being the source of IE languages? To demonstrate that, you need to formulate the rules of sound change that explain all the changes. This has not been done.
In order to demonstrate the PIE theory, you need to provide formulate the rules of sound change that explain all the changes. This has been done, using the comparative method.
The existence of Proto-Indo-European has been inferred by comparative linguistics. All these languages are so similar that is theorized that they have a common source. The existence of a hypothesized proto-language explains all the phonological differences between the languages. All of these rules have been written and rewritten over the past 150 years.
You say the burden of proof is on me. OK, read Lehmann’s “Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics.” Read Pokorny’s Indo – European Etymological Dictionary.
http://www.geocities.com/iliria1/
The PIE theory is the most widely accepted theory. If you think you disagree with it, try to understand it first. Then if you still disagree, the burden of proof is on you to formulate your own theory that can stand the test of the comparative method.
April 13, 2007 at 6:26 am
Raj Wrote:
as we know that Sanskrit is based on root-words(dhatu) and this is a feature unique to Sanskrit. Thus every word is dependent on another. If you change the sound of one word, you change not only its meaning, you change the sound of many words based on it, and thus the meaning.
This was the point I was illustrating above. I am aware that the suffix and prefix feature is present in other languages. But not to the extent it is present in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit it is based on scientific rules. Sanskrit is particularly known for it’s almost perfect morphology and phonology. It is not the same in other languages.
Again, to really appreciate this, you would need to study Sanskrit.
I am skeptical of Indo-European language rules. But I will read the on the material you provided anyway.
April 13, 2007 at 7:40 am
The Japanese for “volcano” is kazan: ka (fire) + san (mountain). Sanskrit is not unique in how it forms compound words.
If you change the sound of a word in any language, you change the meaning of the word and all the words based on it. That is what language is: arbitrary relationship between sound and meaning.
Sanskrit was not perfect; it did change, like all languages change. My reference work is “The World’s Major Languages” by Bernard Comrie. The Rigvedic nominative-accusative dual masculine of a-stems ends in -ā or -au in the early parts of the Rigveda, but -au eventually becomes the norm. For the nominative-accusative of a-stems, -ā predominates in the Rigveda, then later in the Atharvaveda, -āni is the norm. Early Vedic had pronomial forms not found in Classical Sanskrit. And so on. Pāṇini noted changes like this.
Sanskrit had a rich inflection: four kinds of compound words, 8 noun cases, and a rich verb system. I’ve been reading about it, and I appreciate how complicated and rich it is.
However, there is nothing special about it that makes it different from Latin, Greek, or other highly inflected languages. Don’t take my word for it, ask any linguist.
You cannot say “Sanskrit is scientific and perfect” and expect to be taken seriously by linguists. The only way you will convince me, and indeed the scientific community, of your theory is to use the comparative method and show exactly how the IE languages are descended from Sanskrit.
April 13, 2007 at 8:54 am
Here’s some interesting data I’ve just found. Here are some pairs of words, first the Sanskrit, then the Doric Greek.
asti
esti
“is”
pati-
posis
“master”
ajati
agei
“leads”
dadhāti
tithēsi
“puts”
dadāti
didōsi
“gives”
mātṝ
mātēr
“mother”
How to explain the fact that Greek has e, o and a, when Sanskrit just has a? The PIE theory says that both languages derived from a language that had the vowels e, o and a, and these vowels were preserved in Greek, but fell together into one vowel “a” in Sanskrit.
OTOH If you believe that Greek is derived from Sanskrit, you have to explain how the one vowel “a” became three vowels in Greek. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to prove this. But you’ll have a lot of work ahead of you.
April 14, 2007 at 7:55 am
John, I am not the type that would argue from ignorance. I am reading on PIE and the Comparative method to gain a better understanding of it.
I know that many languages have simialr features to Sanskrit. However, from my research, none of our natural languages are as refined as Sanskrit(which incidentally means perfectly refined)
You say that Sanskrit is not anymore special than Greek or Latin or any other highly inflected languages and assert that any linguist would be able to tell us this. The irony of your statement is the inventor of PIE differs with you:
“Sanskrit is more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin and more exquisitively refined than either”(Sir William Jones, 1834)
What do you have to say about this?
In fact when the theory of PIE was initially proposed, it was believed that Sanskrit was the closest to the hypothetical PIE than any other IE language. In fact it was so close, they may as well have been the same.
You do not seem convinced that Sanskrit is a scientific language and therefore is nothing like any of the other IE languages. That is fine if you don’t have knowledge on it. So it is my duty to provide you with some knowledge on this.
It is actually scientists that have arrived at the conclusion that Sanskrit is a scientific language. The NASA space research center published a paper in 1985 on using Sanskrit as machine code for knowledge representation to program AI. You may view this paper here:
http://www.gosai.com/science/sanskrit-nasa.html
The paper concludes that Sanskrit is an unambigious language, like machine code. It likens its creators to computer scientists. It also illuminates how the word-order in Sanskrit does not change the meaning of a sentence. The word order is merely a stylistic concern.
(Please Note: The article is only hosted on this web site, but has no affilitation with it)
NASA is not the only scientific organization to have accorded Sanskrit this status. The structure of grammar is likened to Bakus Normal Form and is said to have the computational power of a Turing Machine(a theoretical computer)
Reading about it or hearing about it is probably not enough. Why don’t you learn it yourself. The following site provides online lessons on Sanskrit:
http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/sanskrit/why_sans.php
You can find more here and whole lot of other stuff: http://sanskritdocuments.org/
I think you will find yourself that this language is very much a coded language. In as few words as possible so much information can be encoded into a single sentence. We have already seen above how so much can be conveyed in a single word.
Greek, Latin or any other known language in the world do not have these features. That is why they are not Samskritam(refined)
If Sanskrit, Latin and Greek are from the same source, why is Sanskrit much more refined than both of them? Why does it contain so many features that are absent in both of them?
Again, I will continue to read on PIE, as I need to understand it. But common sense is telling me there is no way Sanskrit is in the same category as Greek and Latin, or is as old as them.
Also don’t get too focussed on linguistic evidence. Linguistics is not an exact science; it is theoretical. You cannot say with 100% certainity what the sounds or words of a lost and hypotheitical language would have been. I cannot take that seriously.
I think you should look at other types of evidence. Such as: archaelogical, astronomical and textual. They all seem to confirm the antiquity of Sanskrit to be anterior to Greek and Latin by more than a millenia. They put Sanskrit in a pre-Harappa period.
There is overwhelming evidence that ancient cultures have borrowed from India. Seidenberg was convinced that the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians got their mathematics from the Vedic Sulbasutras.
We know today that the Harappa were seafaring people and had trade with the Sumerians and Egyptians(and many other parts of the world) it is not far fetched that their culture(languages, religion, sciences) was diffused throughout the world, what we now know as Aryan.
You may also find it interesting that the Egyptians claimed to have descended from, what some scholars believe is unmistably India.
April 14, 2007 at 8:05 am
Just a small correction to the above post:
The quote from Sir William Jones is not 1834. I simply put that there to change it later, and then forgot by the time I posted(lol) The correct date is 1786.
April 14, 2007 at 8:52 pm
John, please try and turn your debate switch to OFF and really read what Raj has to say. He absolutely conveyed thoughts I always had but couldn’t articulate. Call me an ABCD (that actually derives from the urban desi ghetto language which will be published soon). No. But, honestly, c’mon John. Theories schmeries….not everything is a question/answer to life. You are aware of REALITY? What are you questioning? PIE? Well, Pluto also use to be a planet until last year! Invalid arguement. Facts are always changing because it’s about preserving the white race. It IS black and white. RACIAL NONESENSE! We had a damn constiution that declared africans (as they were rightfully at that declaration) 2/3 of a human and it’s PROVEN they were (a FACT) property. Well, now they’re not. FACT! Want me to link that for you just in case you may not know that? Point is, think outside the BOX! Books were burned, old carvings were destroyed, noses were cut off! Why?Aryan doesn’t even factor in (sorry Raj….only thing I do disagree with you about – http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/aryan-invasion-history.html)Not one damn person knows the REAL TRUTH. No one! No religion, no theory based on white people and no game of ‘telephone’ (google it if ya never played it as a kid) means anything. Yet, to a great degree it has worked. Why? Through bloodshed, rape, theft and false ‘inventors’ and ‘discoveries’! Yeah, right. How does one ‘discovery’ things that are already there?? Seriously, what happened to COMMON SENSE? How can you debate about shit when you can be and ARE wrong/inncorrect? You use all these values/rules/laws taught for ages in colleges and in society that we just accept. WHY? DO YOU QUESTION COMMON SENSE? Common sense would tell you Africans were human but ‘different’….yet, until this damn CENTURY they were treated like shit and still are. C’mon Johnny, tell me about ancient culture and what you’ve been taught to make it the END ALL BE ALL. Listen, I’ve had it with the whole: latin/greek bullshit and that everything came from basically WHITE/CAUCASIONS. ARYAN crap is a huge debate today! THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX Johnboy. Linguist? Right….how mad do you think us third world cultures are for being raped of our culture and purity and now our language! You lost, my dear JOHN which has been clearly shown by reading all this. John is derived from Hewbew, right? Or is it now justified to call it a biblical name? I mean, John the baptist and all, no?How is it that Euro – anything is significant when the FACT shows that DARK PEOPLE came before all that? Africa anyone? Someone must have been talkin’ back then. Oh, maybe they were insignificant until EURO-anything came through and ‘DISCOVERED’, wrote and published that truth, right? Dumbass. I bet you have links and facts from a solid 2000 years ago to prove me wrong. Cause, ya know Johnny….there’s “LIFE BEFORE JESUS AND THERE’S ABSOLUTE SCIENTIFIC FACTS AFTER JESUS. Then there’s basic common sense. Duh! Small minded, insecure white preserving, IGNORANT a$$hole! Raj, I respect and truly appreciate your responses, tact, knowledge and patience. Sorry I don’t have the same. Maybe John has an answer to why that is. Even though we’re both South Indian. Oh, wait, wait…maybe it’s cause I speak Telugu and you are Tamil. See, thank you!!
April 14, 2007 at 9:30 pm
[quote]“Sanskrit is more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin and more exquisitively refined than either”(Sir William Jones, 1834)
What do you have to say about this?[/quote]
Linguistics of the 1700s and 1800s was quite different than the linguistics of today. Many people believed that Latin was a perfect language as well.
But nowadays we know better. Notions about a language being “perfect” or “refined” are misinformed opinions. Don’t take my word for it, ask any *modern* linguist.
[quote]Also don’t get too focussed on linguistic evidence. Linguistics is not an exact science; it is theoretical. You cannot say with 100% certainity what the sounds or words of a lost and hypotheitical language would have been. I cannot take that seriously.[/quote]
There is some truth to this. The comparative method is not perfect. However, the comparative method is the best method we have. Frankly, if you don’t formulate your theory using the comparative method, no one is going to take you seriously.
[quote]The paper concludes that Sanskrit is an unambigious language, like machine code. It likens its creators to computer scientists. It also illuminates how the word-order in Sanskrit does not change the meaning of a sentence. The word order is merely a stylistic concern.[/quote]
I could say the same thing about Latin. Also, I don’t see the author of this paper saying that Sanskrit is perfect or refined. AIUI he is just using Sanskrit as a model because it has a well-defined formal grammar.
And anyway, I still don’t see what this has to do with Sanskrit being the root of IE languages, because in order to demonstrate that you need to use the COMPARATIVE METHOD.
April 14, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Thanks, Raj, for the link to the online Sanskrit lessons. धन्यवाद।
April 15, 2007 at 4:00 am
John,
We have a tendency to root ourselves in our area of study. When I studied Psychology at college I was often quite amused how reductionist the various approaches were. If it was the psychodynamic approach, it was all about your early years of your life; if it was the learning approach — it was all about what you learnt etc etc
I have seen this rooting yourself in your area to consistent in almost all of the disciplines. The historians are adamant that the history they have learnt is correct; the scientists are adamant that their theories are correct.
As a philosopher myself, I can distance myself from a theory, no matter how compelling, and analyse it to its particles. If the theory can withstand this intense scrutiny, I hold it to be self-evident. In a way my thinking is very Sanskrit like(structured, scientific)
I am getting the impression you can’t do that(nor am I surprised) As you continue to reiterate the only evidence you will accept is from the Comparative Method.
You have certain assumptions built into you, which you no doubt have learned whilst studying linguistics. Have you even questioned these assumptions, until perhaps now?
I do not doubt you that Comparative Linguistics is the best method you may have. But that does not mean it is the best evidence. To make factual statements, such as so and so Sanskrit, Greek and Latin word, comes x PIE word, you need proof(not evidence, but proof) to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be falsifiable.
You accept yourself that it is not 100% certain.
The problem with theories that are not falsifiable or scientific, is that the are often based on circular reasoning. You usually begin with an unproven assumption, then try and prove that unproven assumption with your assumption.
Postulating a hypothetical and lost language. Then devising rules to make up this language exemplifies this type of circular reasoning fallacy.
This type of reasoning is invalid. It cannot be accepted by scientific standards. So to repay you back your statement that nobody is going to us seriously if we do not use the CM. Nobody is going to take the CM seriously as proof of anything.
What we can accept by scientific standards is the paper by NASA on the scientific structure of Sanskrit. The author proves his thesis statement using scientific reasoning and comparing Sanskrit to semantic nets. It is not based on any assumptions.
You said that you could say the same about Latin. Well, I await your paper on it. It has to be of the same scientific standard as the NASA one.
Again, Sanskrit is not just accorded this “perfect” status by NASA, but by several scholars, especially those who have studied it. Hence, why I’m directing you to lessons online to study it at least on a basic level to appreciate the nature of the language.
You cannot separate the grammar of Sanskrit from the language of Sanskrit. The grammar and phonology is in-built into the language. It is like a computer that generates Sanskrit sentences according to precise rules.
Again, the irony is, even your inventor of PIE – which you swear by – admits that Sanskrit is more refined than Latin and Greek.
It is his theory, upon which further theories on PIE and CM has been created. So if you don’t agree with the foundation, how can you support the rest?
Anyway I want to take on a bit more on your contention that Sanskrit, Latin and Greek have evolved from the same source. Earlier you asked me that Sanskrit only has an a, not an e or an o.
Ancient Greek has 10 vowels and 17 consonants. There are 5 short vowels and 5 longer vowels(basically extension of the original vowel sounds) which it lost on the way to Modern Greek(note this point, because we are going to revisit it)
Ancient Latin has 10 vowels and 16 consonants.
Now moving onto Sanskrit. It has 15 vowels and 33 consonants. There are 5 short vowels(2 of which have no equivalent in Roman) 8 long vowels(2 of which, which have no short form) and 2 support vowels(no equivalent in Latin or Greek)
Most of the Sanskrit consonants do not occur in Latin or Greek. They are divided into five groups based on how they are produced.
Sanskrit as a true phonetic language is spoken just as it is read and written.
Where did all these sounds, especially the consonants disappear to, if they all have emerged from PIE?
The explanation is the same as why Modern Greek lost its longer vowels. They lost these sounds from Sanskrit over the years.
You keep ignoring all other types of evidence I’m bringing up. Why is that? Perhaps you don’t understand that now that we know the Harappa and Vedics were the same. It makes Sanskrit as old as 3000-4000 BCE. Which make it the oldest language of the IE family. This eliminates the need for a PIE.
April 15, 2007 at 6:57 am
No scientific theory is 100% certain. But the comparative method is the method that works the best. It’s the method accepted by the mainstream linguistic community. You’re not going to convince me it’s wrong in a blog discussion. More importantly, if you want the linguistic community to accept your theory, you have to use the comparative method.
We determine how languages are related to each other by comparing lists of cognate terms. We establish regular sound correspondences, and hypothesize a series of regular sound changes. Sometimes there is an attested language that we determine to be the ancestor. In the case of IE languages, we could not find one, so we hypothesized a proto-language.
For PIE, we hypothesized three laryngeal consonsants that explained the vowel changes in the daughter languages. These laryngeals were later found to exist in Hittite.
You want to know where the sounds have disappeared to. Read about PIE sound changes. I’ve already given the link but here it is again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_sound_laws
I’m ignoring your other evidence because it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t explain how the sounds of Sanskrit changed into the sounds of the daughter languages. And if you can’t explain that, you won’t convince anyone who matters.
But I’ll entertain your suggestion… if Sanskrit dates to 4000 BCE, then it would not have been Sanskrit, it would have been Proto-Indo-European. But you seem to believe that Sanskrit remained unchanged from 4000 BCE to 500 BCE, when it was first written down. This is absurd. Phonological and semantic change are facts of all languages.
April 15, 2007 at 7:37 am
[quote]if you want the linguistic community to accept your theory, you have to use the comparative method.[/quote]
You make it almost sound like a religion. I am not going to run circles with you. I don’t believe in your religion. The CM is pseudoscience to me.
Yes no scientific theory is 100% proven, but it makes predictions, that produce replicable results, under the same conditions We know for example that if two similar objects of different size are dropped off a building, they will both fall at the same speed according to the rate of gravity. If this did not happen, it would falsify the theory.
Linguistics is like many of the Arts and Social sciences, such as Sociology, Psychology(parts of it). It is based on speculative theories. It is not a true science. Therefore it does not produce facts.
Also, who said I am trying to convince linguists? I am not grounding myself in any single area. I am looking at all kinds of evidence. No evidence is irrelavant.
You keep asking me for rules on how the sounds change. That’s irrelevant. It is based on an shaky assumption that there is an exact science behind the sounds of a languages changing over time. If there are such laws, if I were to point out a single instance where the law is not being obeyed, it would falisfy that law.
April 15, 2007 at 7:47 am
A language does not change in a vacuum. There are too many variables to ennumerate that would affect a language over a period of time. Take for example Modern Greek and Latin losing their longer vowels out of disuse.
Another example I mentioned earlier is when a language is taken out of its natural environment and evolved in a foreign environment e.g., English in Japan is spoken much more differently than English in England.
Can you imagine future linguists studying the various variants of English in the future and concluding they all stemmed from a Proto source? We might be having this debate again in a future life
April 15, 2007 at 10:37 am
Raj! WILL YOU MARRY ME? haha. You’re knowledge and vibe are absolutely appreciated. Thank you. John, honesty, if this was a ‘right/wrong’ debate……sorry, you’re WRONG. Linguistics and your basis of argument has been validated over and over by Raj. Yet, you keep coming back to “lingustic theories” and also I truly believe enjoy the debate. It’s you and Raj and you are starting to post redundance. You can’t prove what he is logically and FACTUALLY stating. You aren’t going to get anywhere. Linguists are only assuming with no SOLID, ABSOLUTE PROOF. Re-read that negative, long rant in the comments again. They aren’t that off. Sorry. So Raj, are you single? heh…
April 15, 2007 at 10:46 am
Abusive comments will not be tolerated. Attack the ideas not the person.
Swetha Iyer
April 15, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Personal attacks, flame posts or name calling will not be tolerated. If you are offended by theories, ideologies or opinions that differ from your own – I urge you not to be part of this forum anymore.
April 20, 2007 at 8:23 pm
All I want is for someone to provide a theory that explains how the IE languages are descended from Sanskrit. Why does Sanskrit have 1 vowel where Doric Greek has 3? Exactly how did the sounds of all the IE languages develop out of Sanskrit?
Why can no one explain this?
April 21, 2007 at 9:13 am
John, I don’t really understand linguistics enough to make any argument. As far as I am concerned it is not a proper science.
However, there is someone who has thoroughly debunked PIE from a linguistic perspective:
http://voiceofdharma.com/books/ait/ch31.htm
You should also read the other sections of his book, which goes about systematically debunking every part of AIT. I am sure any rationalist after reading his book, will come to the same conclusion that India is the home of the Aryans and Sanskrit the mother of all IE languages.
April 23, 2007 at 8:34 pm
This page seems to be saying that instead of trying to understand the mainstream linguistic theory, and formulate an alternative theory, some people just try to discredit linguistics altogether. I’d agree with that.
April 24, 2007 at 12:48 am
Yes, the author is actually taking the linguistics seriously, and working within the framework of linguistics to argue against PIE. He concludes that although the linguistics point to India as the origin of “PIE” it is not conclusive evidence.
However, I am not really interested in linguistics. It makes too many unfounded assumptions e.g., Vedic Sanskrit is an earlier form of Sanskrit. How do we know that? Vedic Sanskrit could have been contemporous with Classical Sanskrit. Indeed, even Panini, has a special section for Vedic Sanskrit in his treatise.
Vedic Sanskrit is a special language created to devise Mantras for the Vedas. It is not unlike Classical Sanskrit, only it is much more difficult and has its own special grammar. The meaning of these Mantras is open to interpretation, and the meaning is so fluidic, you can literally support any case with it.
The early Indologists tried to use their interpretations to support AIT(Aryans as a nomadic, polytheistic, primitive people) by interpreting the Devas as chiefs of the Aryan tribes. Then the Arya Samaj, tried to interpret it as discussing technology, from aeroplanes, steam engines to telephones. Recently, we’ve had people interpret them as discussing particle physics to data encryption.
Interestingly, this confusion is not new, but even in ancient Indian times, there was debate on how to interpret Vedic Sanskrit. Krishna tells us in the Bhagvad Gita for instance, that there is a hidden meaning behind the Vedas.
That said, the Vedas are not nonsensical. They do create meaning, words are identifiable, sentences are properly constructed, and there is plenty of explantory texts on them. To understand them however, you need to study them very intensely. It could literally take a life-time to decypher them.
April 25, 2007 at 10:25 pm
This author does not “argue against PIE”. In fact, it seems to me that he accepts it. He’s arguing against the theory that the Aryans invaded India, which is a very different issue.
Also see
http://www.safarmer.com/frontline/
April 26, 2007 at 7:22 pm
John,
The author is arguing against AIT, of which PIE is the main theory and evidence provided for it. They are not different issues. Maybe you should read it again. The author argues that the origin of PIE, if it even existed, was likely in India. He also argues that PIE and Sanskrit are virtually identicial.
He then concludes that the linguistic evidence is insufficient to make a a case either way. He accepts PIE, only to deconstruct it, and then invalidate it.
If you read the rest of his book, it is clear he is arguing that Aryans and Sanskrit were based in India, and later the Aryans migrated around the world and took with them their language and culture and estabished civilisations. This may have included the original Greeks and Egyptians.
Basically it’s AIT in reverse. Thus Sanskrit as the mother of all IE languages holds true.
May 21, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I don’t understand why South Indians are arguing about this. Or Thai’s. Tamil, Kannada or Thai have nothing to do with Hindi, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali or Sanskrit. I think there is a relation between Europe and North India. I don’t think it is necessarily the way most Europeans put it. A lot of evidence makes it appear as if Europeans are descendants of North Indians.
May 30, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Hey guys…
just passing and glad to see the indians taking pride in their culture & history….
people like john are Hitler fans who are so deluded that they honestly hold onto the belief that a NON-EXISTING language to be the mother of SANSKRIT because…
The AIT has fallen flat on its face and silly little boys like him want to believe that the Europeans are the Gods and masters of the Bud-bud-ding-dings of Aryavartha….
a little clue…
in the chapter in the Bible known as the Tower of Babylon – it mentions a global universal language…
this language was NOT Hebrew or ANY of the middle Eastern languages….
why is there a stonehenge in Sri Lanka in the ancietn city of Yakkha? Exact same structure just different dimension sizes…
Gene Matlock along with Stephen Knapp have & are still writing books proving that SANSKRIT and the VEDIC culture was global..
Hence the Swastikas being found globally along with Hindu deities…
a realm with 330 billion deities with their own unique thread of iconology leading to the gates of a kingdom of wisdom to be revealed….
please John you cannot TAKE the branches of tree, stick them in the ground NEXT to the tree you pulled them off….
and then audaciously claim they are the roots of the very TREE you ripped them off from…
in the same way you would be laughed if you suggested the English marched to Rome and gave the Romans Latin…
the only DIFFERENCE is that the PIE theory is taking no branches from a tree and claiming whatever HITLER minions manifest AS the PIE languages is the roots of SANSKRIT….
Sieg Heil….
Kal-k
The 3rd Side of a Coin..
The Beginning & The End…
ps – the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0 only arrived in the west in modern history in the 8th century??? How could the A.I.T have happened?
you my dear squire are like a man turning upto a cricket match in rugby uniform…
June 26, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Proto-European never existed and never will. Santskrit is oldest and most pure Indo-Aryan language. There is no reason for English to be relatated to it. Unfortunately, English, and the whole other group of western languages are. Racist colonists invented the idea that the Aryans came from the North West to India. No proof exists, and the Vedas call the holiest place in the world to be be Kurukshetra. Even if Proto-Indo-European existed it would have been in India not anywhere else. As why would the Vedas be India and the origin somewhere else. These mythical blondes blue eyed people would have then had the oldest proof of PIE. Instead brown India does, what a terrible problem for the West land of the setting sun. So PIE was made up. Lets just say Santskrit is Proto-Indo-European, it is close enough to the original Indian language it may have come from.
July 21, 2007 at 7:53 am
My website has some articles on languages and science. It might interest you. Please send your email-ID. Thanks — MNG
July 26, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Sanskrit – Mother of European Languages says Prof Dean Brown
Sanskrit gets a new spokesperson in Professor Dean Brown, an eminent Theoretical Physicist, cosmologist, philosopher and Sanskrit scholar, whose translation of the Upanishads was published by the Philosophical Research Society. The following is a very …
July 28, 2007 at 12:33 am
Hey All You Sanskrit enthusiast here is a something that I think is nesccesary to share over in this discussion that ” Sanskrit is not formed Or developed by any body it is something that is found from within & from the nature & later incorprated.” This is the core reason why it is the Mother Language of all & this also means that its belongs to the nature we live in first & then anybody/community later on…
but it’s also true that its stemmed from India which has a history over lakhs of years & had many Saints & Sages whome in search of finding “Truth” went inside into themselves and nature and in the way found these sounds coming out from nature & which later has the Sankrit language.
(do forgive some mistakes as my enlgish is not perfect)
kunal
July 31, 2007 at 2:37 am
Sanskrit is one of the oldest language in the world. (history tells it)
It is possible that latin derived some grammer / words from sanskrit (since sanskrit is the
oldest), But we cannot 100% say that latin is 100% derivative of sanskrit…but we can 20%
say that 20% is derived.
Now the problem is about this 20%..who will prove that this 20% sanskrit has taken from latin
or latin has taken from sanskrit. For this we have to see history and historical records (Eg:
epics, old books, old monuments, religion etc) shows that sanskrit seems to be older.
Also oldest university in the world was in india..(u must be knowing about taxsilla and
nalanda)……where sanskrit was widely spoken… and thousands of people around the world
took training from there….. may be from here the foreigners took the grammer and better
things from sanskrit …. its possible!!..
Also sanskrit is very much influential language….there are currently around 18 official
(thousands of dialects) languages in india….hindi, bengali, gujarati, etc.. in fact
language such as telegu (dravidian descendant) has sanskrit influence… This shows that
sanskrit was influential…. (during that period) … ( now in the 21st century i think
english is the most influential language in the world … thx to british rule in the past )
Also sanskrit is very very very very scientific language…its tooo tooo too much structured
language…why why why why because its just perfect!!.. The sound/words/word
breakups/sentence breakups/ (grammer) everything is so much structured.. Its highly
optimized…and refined with the passage of time… Everyone should agree that computer
languages are structured….and sanskrit is structured too (very well optimized and
refined).. there are very few languages as structured as sanskrit ..In other languges the
sequence goes wrong..there is no proper sequence(Structure).. the head goes somewhere and
tale goes somewhere else. …… so we have to muggg up without any structure (in programming
its like learning cobol and learing C++.. C++ is highly structured as compared to cobol… so
other languages are like cobol)…. thats why coder prefer C++ (and languages similar to c++)
over others cobol like languages..also C++ is easy to manage/understand/readable and
maintain.. ) …………. that’s why its said sanskrit is more preferred…if u write a very
very very complex program, if u write that complex program in sanskrit then it would be
better)
….image a computer program being written as a novel!!!!…instead of looping around
everywhere…
Also sanskrit has refined a lot with the passage of time…but!!.. every good thing has a bad
end.. pre sanskrit->sanskrit->prakrit got in -> pali language along with all indian language
(current languages in india) developed (descendants of sanskrit) … Why the language lost i
don’t know….but still in india for each and every rituals (birth, marriage, death) sanskrit
is used…… and also in schools sanskrit is tought (very very basic)…… also there are
text in sanskrit in 1000’s of topics including medicine (aryuveda), science, maths (the digit
0), cultures, novels, music, sex(kamasutra), songs, dance forms, painting, idol creation ..
etc.. so it has the contribution of the most learned people on earth. and all these things
are written in sanskrit… hence intelligent people have participated in developing such as
language (with the passage of time) so its has to be one of the most
structured!!………………
if u have to choose the best language then its the oldest popular extinct langugage which is
sanskrit.
August 2, 2007 at 8:05 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Adamic_language/archive1
As Catherine Emmerich wrote:
“Upon Heber who, as we have said, took no part in the work, God cast His eyes; and amid the general disorder and corruption, He set him and his posterity apart as a holy nation. God gave him also a new and holy language possessed by no other nation, that thereby his race should be cut off from communication with all others. This language was the pure Hebrew, or Chaldaic.”
Hebrew cannot be Adamic Language, and because to that, Catherine Emmerich explains below true nature of Adamic language:
“The first tongue, the mother tongue, spoken by Adam, Sem, and Noe, was different, and it is now extant only in isolated dialects. Its first pure offshoots are the Zend, the sacred tongue of India, and the language of the Bactrians. In those languages, words may be found exactly similar to the Low German of my native place. The book that I see in modern Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, is written in that language.”
Because Sanskrit is one of sister Indo-European languages that are daughters of Adamic language, Adamic language can be only Proto-Indo-European.
August 9, 2007 at 9:03 am
I completely agree what John says. His arguments are truly valid and not biased.
August 9, 2007 at 9:49 am
As John says, there is no such thing as a perfect language, or a language that produces objective meaning. I would think Telugu is as much perfect/older language as Sanskrit, if not more sweeter.
August 14, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Let us also consider the ancient Dravidian languages which many scholars argue to be older than Sanskrit. Take Tamil for example: a perfectly self-contained language that is highly poetic with an intricate grammatical structure. Tamil is unique in its multi-facetednes; it enables the writer and or speaker to use metaphorical language to the utmost, with phrases and imagery that have produced some of the richest poetry in the world. By the same token, Tamil is a very logical language, in that it has contributed to a culture that is second to none in mathematics (and I emphasize mathematics) and science. Thus Tamils have no hang ups about wanting to be linked with any European ancestry. That whole indo-european, hypothetical headache is irrelevant to their consciousness.
August 24, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Indian culture has to be substantially old. And even languages such as Tamil, while differing in form from Sanskit, must have been greatly influenced by it in view of their proximity of development. See https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html the many year long project that National Geographic has been pursuing to use genetics to study human origins and migration. In the south there are the M20 “Dravidian” Haplogroup. My personal tests revealed the M52 Haplogroup. Being from a South Indian brahmin background, and followers of the Rig Veda, I see this greatly strengthen the arguement that Sanskrit was developed in the Indus valley region (where the Genographic project believes the M52 Haplogroup originated 25,000 years ago)! Just as a note, the Dravidian gene M20 is closer linked to the European male lineage than the M52. But both originated in India about 25-30,0000 years ago! The other genetic link that may be interesting to the topic at hand may be Haplogroup M17, which is found in about 35% of some north Indian populations. The site above postualtes the theory that they may have been responsible for the IE languages. However, their rarer percentages in the route in between India and Europe (in Iran and the ME) does not prove that they brought the common language down to India given that Farsi etc. are also of the IE language family and do not have much of the M17 lineage in them. The more likely explanation is that the knowledge went the other way around (since they would have maintained some tie back to where they came from). The other issue is that languages (especially grammer)typically develops much more stong in agrarian or urbanized populations over migratory nomadic people. Archeological evidence has no proof that these early Europeans were anything but nomadic 10,000 years ago.
August 26, 2007 at 10:20 am
BTW, an FYI for non Indian people (or people who do not have much insight into Hinduism), the Rig Veda is the earliest of the Vedas. The Rig Veda has no mention of the Ganges, which subsequent Vedas do. Instead the Rig Veda is all about the river Saraswati. One theory is that due to cataclysmic events at the origin of the river Saraswathi (that flowed in the same region as the Indus), the river dried up or changed course. That resulted in the demise of the old civilizations in the area of the Indus region. Later Vedas mention the Saraswathi is an underground river that originates near the source of the Indus but joins the Ganges at Prayag. This could be explained as (a) people from the old Saraswathi-Indus civilization moved east to re-establish themselves in the Ganges area (b) part of the old Saraswathi changed path and joined the Ganges (one of the theories is that the Yamuna might have been that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarasvati).
The basic argument here is that historical / religious text provide information about the earlier period of the Hindu civilization. The information provided there greatly supports recent archeological evidence and now even genetic evidence, that effectively debunks a lot of the earlier grossly speculative claims (especially of an aryan invasion).
Another, interesting commonality between middle eastern, European and Indian history is the deluge. Western history talks about Noah, ME talks about Nuh and Indian about Manu. It is possible that there was a common root to all three, where the person may have been someone called Manuh (that changes in emphasis of the name resulted in three different people). It would be interesting if future science could eventually link the Saraswathi river change to this historical deluge (huge rains at the river sources could have predated massive floods and subsequent geographical changes that caused the river to change course). Obviously the linking of the deluge to the Saraswathi changing course is pure speculation on my part
. But it is a possibility that could provide one logical link to a common past.
September 8, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Grand-Pianos.org
Good piano performance. Thanks heaps for this!… if anyone else has anything it would be much appreciated. Great website HOT Klavier Links! Enjoy!
September 19, 2007 at 10:32 am
I have read view points of John and Raj and strange as it may sound, I find meaningful thoughts in both the approaches. There is nothing wrong in using comparative approach (method) to understand relationship (if any) between different languages and if you can find a conclusive evidence that there is a relationship thats great. We all are human beings and our objective should be to find truth. Its true as a matter of common sense that different groups of human beings have had to travel from one part of the world to another due to natural,political, economical or romantical reasons. Some have traveled little and others have traveled a lot. As such there is bound to have some interaction even if everyone was speaking different languages. Over the course of few centuries even if only 10 words picked up (per year), it leads to multiple permutations and combinations. As such lets not kill the reasoning or thoughts just because you dont like it. And comparative method may be one of the approaches but cant be the only one. With the same token, it is true that Sanskrit is more refined. I understand Greek (modern) and Sanskrit (as taught today) and I do find some siginifant similarity and some striking differences. This makes me feel that work Sanskrit is more refined. But lets keep the discussion open. Calling arguments as burst of racism does not help.
September 25, 2007 at 12:15 pm
good
October 7, 2007 at 9:57 am
RE: “Sanksrit is more refined” Our tastes:preferences, dislikes etc..are the outcome of our social and cultural conditioning. The Greeks will say the same thing, namely that “Greek is more refined”. Human beings have an intense desire to expand the “self” through a particular culture, religion, race, history, etc…Because without it, we feel insignificant and powerless. All life is interdependent;an essentialist outlook on life only degrades the human experience.
No wonder Buddhism struck fear among facists in India.
October 29, 2007 at 3:24 pm
by the wasy, for those who simply blabber they sould know that few words (eg. for father) words in latin already existed in sanskrit long back
October 31, 2007 at 11:30 am
Im doing a hell lot of research on the origin of Sanskrit!
My opinion fully matches with Professor Dean Brown.Not because im a indian but because the history the archaelogical evidences and the circumstances all sum up to say that Sanskrit was the language of the earth(like English now) which was known as Bharat!
Bharat is just not India but the whole earth as one continent. If u all see the structure of the land mass in the ice age and just after the ice age..u will find that the earth was having only one huge mass of land. That was called bharat.
Bharat(India now) was the only civilised nation with people from all over the world flocking to learn language and Art(Vedic and War).
Sanskrit is older than 23000BC and speaks of 14 Adams and Eves. Sanskrit is far more harder language to speak than Hebrew or Latin. So Bharat had special Ashrams built to allow people learn the language as well as Arya(Noble)Dharma(Thinking).
Hinduism is not a religion but an art of living in peace and harmony with all cultures and respecting the divinity of GOD and seeing HIM in everyone…thus respecting everyone.
The word Matra-Mother in English
the word Naugata – Navigate now in English
The Bharat traders used to travel selling spices all over the world even before Bible, Koran was written. The letter Bha and Pa are missing in Arabic.
Hence spices are baharat in arabic.
The word eve emerges from the Sanskrit word
Hayavrutive and Adam comes from Adham(or first).
the word divine in English comes from Divya..the word Diva in Sanskrit and Latin mean same.
the word Maayaa is spoken as Mahaya in Arabic…just like they say Cinemaat for Cinema.
The Greek God idol is same as Lord Shiva.
The americans call the Ram Sethu
as the Adams bridge..and we followit blindly.
Where as Archaelogy proves that the bridge was built 10000 years ago and its the same time Ramayana was written by Valmiki. There are lots of evidences.
what else does it need to proove that we all belong to the same culture and the same GOD.
Revoking the vedas again will truly change the world into a peaceful place.
And im glad Sri Sathya Sai Baba is doing it!
SaiRam – Love All Hurt Never
November 12, 2007 at 9:31 am
Payday Loans No Fax
Knowing that secretarys who know about Orlando usually advocate personal loan
February 3, 2008 at 1:50 am
Hello Mr.Raj,
Could u plz give us ur contact details,b’coz
we r very impressed with ur knowledge,tact,patience n overall response.We r interested in contacting u coz our aim is to work on Vedas, n to begin with we r working on Ayurveda now,trying to establish scientifically the concepts of Ancient Ayurveda.We have done a preliminary work on action of various diets as prescribed in Ayurveda on the resting membrane potentials of cells.it establishes the credibility of concept of vata,pitta,kapha to the scientific world.in the future we want to work on Indology n prove the supremacy of Bharat’s Vedic Knowledge which is translated into Bharat’s culture thru the ages.
For this reason,we can work together.plz get back to us.
Dr.RaviShankar
sairavishankar@yahoo.com
February 19, 2008 at 11:52 am
dear men,
we are all discussing how ancient our languages are! and which is the perfect and refined one! it seems we are fighting to prove that somebody is more ancient and supreme than others. till now we dont know where else life exists apart from earth. this kind of discussion may enlighten our brains but i wonder where else it will lead..!
February 26, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Proto-Indo-Germanic (Proto-Indo-European) is Adamic, learn it here: http://www.koeblergerhard.de/idgwbhin.html (Grammar in Vorwort)
Because Anne Catherine Emmerich wrote and I cited and commented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Adamic_language/archive0
“Upon Heber who, as we have said, took no part in the work, God cast His eyes; and amid the general disorder and corruption, He set him and his posterity apart as a holy nation. God gave him also a new and holy language possessed by no other nation, that thereby his race should be cut off from communication with all others. This language was the pure Hebrew, or Chaldaic.”
Hebrew never ever was Adamic Language, and because to that, Anne Catherine Emmerich explains below the true identity of the Adamic language:
“The first tongue, the mother tongue, spoken by Adam, Sem, and Noe, was different, and it is now extant only in isolated dialects. Its first pure offshoots are the Zend, the sacred tongue of India, and the language of the Bactrians. In those languages, words may be found exactly similar to the Low German of my native place. The book that I see in modern Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, is written in that language.”
As you see, Sanskrit is only one of sister Indo-Germanic languages that are first ever daughters of Adamic language. Thus Adamic language can be only Proto-Indo-Germanic.
February 27, 2008 at 10:06 pm
In 3000 years from now, the language called English will replace the word Sanskrit in the above discussions. But no, there are countries, their languages, way of life, etc., on hard records, longer living memories and hence English won’t. Only to some extent. Prevalence is my point.
February 28, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Division of humanity to nations, countries, etc… has no future, and is only temporarily established by God to serve only to block devil-steered type of human unity, since Babel to end of time, until elimination of all inspirations from hell. As a result, all false beliefs are now justly tainted by false languages. In eternity, only Proto-Indo-Germanic (Proto-Indo-European) will be used, as was on beginning, 6000 year ago, when God created our world and our parents – Adam and Eve in Paradise near Jerusalem, directly from holes in ground. God provided us information by Catholic Visionary Anne Catherine Emmerich (Catholic movie Passion was inspired by her private revelations), that Proto-Indo-Germanic is Adamic, to give us chance to return to our true mother tongue under condition of creating only God-steered human unity, and under condition of total abandonment of any inspirations from hell. To do it, Catholic faith must be adopted by each human that wants to return to Proto-Indo-Germanic language, to show God, that this human deserve lifting punishment of confusion of tongues, which can be done properly only with true Catholic faith and thanks to God for His Mercy of chance to abandon confusion of tongues by using this http://www.koeblergerhard.de/idgwbhin.html Indogermanisches Worterbuch. For additional proof, I put here private revelation of Maria Valtorta:
Now He [Jesus Christ] rose from the dead. He made everything. He was praised already before his incarnation. Three times He is praised now when he annihilated Himself in the body for so many years giving Himself, leading the obedience to such an excellence could die on the Cross for filling the will of God up. He will ascend to the Heaven by so much praised in His praised body and will enter the eternal Glory beginning reigning which Israel didn’t understanded. He is calling – to this Kingdom like never before, insistently, with love and the – authority all tribes of world. All nations will come to the Saviour, the same as it they could see and they predicted just of Israel and Prophets. And there will already be no Jews nor Romans, no Scytes nor Africans, no Iberians nor Celts, no Egyptians nor Phrygians. Living behind the Euphrates will unite around with the ones from above the eternal River. People of the North, at the side of Numidians, will come to its Kingdom. Races and dialects will disappear. There will already be no differences [resulting around] of clothes, the skin colour or hair. There will be one boundless, shining and clean people, one speech and one love. So there will be a Kingdom of God. Kingdom of Heaven. Eternal Monarch: Offered as the victim and rose from the dead. Eternally [existing] subjects: the ones which adopted His faith. Be willing to believe in order to be them.
Proud humans used their confusion as a pretexts for various Godless fascist and nazist doctrines, that along with their confused tongues has no future, being in Eyes of God totally null and void. Thus I invite you all to abandon sin and become again Proto-Indo-Germanic Catholics believing in God again. Otherwise you will be still under punishment of confusion of tongues, fighting for non-eternal false nationalities in vain.
March 29, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Adamic language is currently described here: http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Adamic_language
April 22, 2008 at 5:06 am
Just recently I come to know about the Sanskirt Language. The way I came about hearing about it was the word MATA came to mind. Never heard the word before. I told a Dr. what the word was that came to my mind and she said it meant mother. I am curious about the word MATA because it has led me to want to learn more of the Sanskirt Language. I have made a type of some words which came to me and a gentlemen from Jersuleum took it back with him. When he returned he said that it was a combination of 3 languages. These the reason I want to learn more about the Sanskirt Language. I live in Central, Fl area. If you should know of anyone I might speak further about this experience I have had I would appreciate your reply.
April 24, 2008 at 7:42 pm
hi guys very intersting arguments..please read these 2 book:
1)The Hidden Connections
2)Proof of vedic culture’s global existence.
Sanskrit can be argued to be 12000 yrs old.rigveda was an effort to keep all the science safe in codes. well, sanskrit actually evolved to all those languages. all the other languages have taken something from sanskrit..
cheers
avi
April 26, 2008 at 12:08 am
Sanskrit’s priority and dates more than 6000 years back from Y2K such as 12000 years back from Y2K are both false. PIE is Adamic and World exists ONLY six thousand years since Creation in Eden near Jerusalem:
“He told them that the world had now existed 4028 years. When I heard Jesus say this, He was himself thirty-one years old” See here: http://www.all-jesus.com/scriptures/bible1-4.htm
Thus world in moment of Birth of Jesus Christ had 3997 years.
May 8, 2008 at 7:58 am
very interesting comments/discussions, especially from Raj dated April 9, 2007 at 11:04 am was the best and very enlightening, even which John didn’t have any reply
it seems to me that Sanskrit did influence Latin to a great extent and then from there other languages took off, if Sanskrit is not the root of influence then why we don’t have any loan words in Sanskrit from Latin? Even William Jones mapped his way into European languages via Sanskrit and only when he came to India and got more enlightened with Sanskrit, it was then he thought of the Indo-European connection. The language of Sanskrit is more refined than any, near perfect otherwise NASA wouldn’t have spent their time researching on it as a machine language.
Keep up the good work guys
May 12, 2008 at 11:57 pm
If anybody wanted proof of why the idea of Adamic language and PIE is still propagated then read what IDG and Inquisitor say above. They are totally blinded by their faith and will even believe rediculous theories of the world’s age as 6000 years. The world has seen enough destruction of native cultures and history has been manipulated enough by the xian missionaries. Time that we stand up to the Truth and debunk AIT, PIE and Adamic stories.
May 22, 2008 at 1:25 am
hi everybody… i becam very much interested to know the relation between european languages and sanskrit , when i started to learn french.. many words in french resembled hindi,which born from sanskrit. here r some words, dant[tooth] in la dant in french. the word regarding the directons , aage[front] and aagesh[right]…
is anybody there knowing some more words or able to explain this resemblance??????
May 23, 2008 at 12:15 am
If you still will blaspheme against Most Holy Trinity, Catholic Church and Adamic Proto-Indo-European, and you still will refuse to repent, then wait for Holy Inquisition: FEAR AND SURPRISE awaits you. More here: http://www.giftstor.org/tomkiel05fst.html
May 27, 2008 at 11:03 am
Hi all,
The proponents of the PIE bias seem to overlook the fact that all of the evidence they seek comfort in are tainted interpretations colored by the interpretive lens of the west.
May 27, 2008 at 11:25 am
very-very-very-very good website. thanks
May 27, 2008 at 11:41 am
This is a very good discussion even though I think John might be trapped by an “escalation of commitment”.
In any event, it seems to me that the important thing at this point to celebrate the Vedas and to nourish our existence with the treasures contained therein.
May 28, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Tomas de Torquemada mentioned famous “Anti Atari song”, which is targeted against all tainted Chinese products – especially against Chinese Atari symbolized by Chinese _/|\_ ideogram. American Commodore symbolized by American C= logo was made in USA and never was tainted.
May 28, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I’m interested in the argument that Sanskrit is a perfect language. I think this may be an artifact of it being dead, so we only have the work of scholars to know how it should be. If they are linguists they have the opportunity to construct the set of rules to make them consistent. Since we have no living speakers we can forget the exceptions. Latin is also put upon a similar pedestal, but we have little idea how common people spoke Latin back in the day.
It’s interesting to think what rigors it would subject non-perfect people with woolly ideas to speak a perfect language.
Also if such a language was useful it would come to dominate, and the people who spoke it would multiply and never diminish. If perfected the language would be adaptable but backwards compatible. This might also not be useful as concepts are adapted, thrown away, and reintroduced. How would it effect learning from other cultures – all the concepts would need to be translated.
Of course the way we speak is a conflict between what we want to express and the language we must express ourselves in.
June 2, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Wow! The earlier part of this thread is a textbook example of why rational, educated people should not waste their time discussing things with the masses.
John presents reasoned arguments based on modern linguistics, and he gets responded to with unjustified statements as if they were objective facts (without rationale or explanation), bald assertions that Sanskrit is perfect and scholarship is irrelevant in the face of what is traditional “knowledge”, quotations by 18th-century linguists (as if knowledge or linguistics has stood still since then), and gets likened to Hitler, thereby Godwinning the entire thread.
Bravo guys. My sympathies and respect for John.
[P.s., before you say I know nothing, I studied Sanskrit in university for more than a year, and have studied linguistics enough to recognize that John is well-versed in linguistics. Sanskrit is a wonderful, beautiful language, but to think that it is perfect and that everything we know about language does not apply to Sanskrit because it is the perfect language of the Gods is religious delusion!]
June 3, 2008 at 12:52 am
These unholy false pagan gods are in reality very unholy and evil fallen angels that eternally abandoned and still eternally abandons in eternal realtime God’s Love in Its Most Holy Entirety. These fallen angels are like these beasts appearing in these very unholy games such as Doom and Quake series. These fallen angels are cheating and lying that Sanskrit is pre-Babel, while Sanskrit (Indian) along with Bactrian and Persian (Zend) are only first ever confused descendants of first ever human language – Proto-Indo-European. Proof here: http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Adamic_language
June 3, 2008 at 1:27 pm
If something here is tainted, it will be all tainted Chinese products mentioned in “Anti Atari Song”, but never Adamic Proto-Indo-European that is pure and undefiled, because PIE is original human tongue from before Babel.
June 13, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Shweta,
Thanks for the article. I enjoyed the discussions too, especially the one between Raj & John. Very Educative.
Sanskrit also carries with it the Sanskriti (cultural refinement) with which much of Asian (and later, post Renaissance European) culture has been seeded. The only exception is that the Europeans (”Westerners” essentially) do a very poor job acknowledging the debt.
Much of ‘Post-Modern” thought (Morphology in Linguistics, Structuralism, etc…) has been due to European scholars mining Sanskrit (& Sanskriti) concepts. For more-
http://rajivmalhotra.sulekha.com/blog/post/2005/07/geopolitics-and-sanskrit-phobia.htm
Geopolitics and Sanskrit Phobia
Rajiv Malhotra
Published on Tuesday, July 5, 2005
| Views 29482 | Comments (1222)
I. Sanskrit and the Multicultural Sanskriti (Indic Civilization)
II. Pan-Asian Sanskriti
III. Decline of Sanskrit
IV. Sanskrit Influence on Modern Europe
V. Colonial De-Sanskritisation of India
VI. Post Independence Indian assault on Sanskrit
VII. Sanskriti and the Clash of Civilizations
VIII. Leveling the Civilizational Playing Field
Article END references
August 22, 2008 at 2:01 pm
i am with john and raj
August 22, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I am with anu,unni and anjali
August 25, 2008 at 12:02 am
if bharat had benefited the world or the viceversa why do we worry about how? i think tamil and english are two of the most intuitive languages. tamil may be the mother of sanskrit (more advanced, developed and past-intellectual) and also english. the only people that english comes intuitively to is the tamilians and very interchangeable.
August 27, 2008 at 9:34 pm
i spent half an hour reading this whole page ,frankly i am not a nerd or a person so intellectual that he is blinded.
i appreciate raj and john for rasing a debate,
it certainly has been informative, what i dont like is when such kind of a debate turns into a subject of national pride for any of the sides,
for all i have known my god is the space and time i live in, if something is perfect it will remain theoretical ,
perfectness leaves no chance for error,hence leaves no scope for learning something.
this means either sanskrit has been around for eons unknown that it achived the perfectness or that it is something that is not of human origin.
talking about what john has to put forward to he seems to be blindly going by the sources he has read and not trying to be someone ready to take on and research the new stuff he is getting his brains on.
then again thats what i personaly think.
the greatest thing in the end is something that benefits all of the humanity not personal egos.
September 5, 2008 at 11:15 am
Dear All,
From what I read, John and the theory he uses seems to be open to falsification.
He admits to its flaws, but as he said, that is the best we have. He has in fact invited all to either prove the Mother-Sanskrit theory and/or to disprove the PIE theory using the comparative method; Or to disprove the Comparative Method Theory and/or suggest a better replacement.
Proof of any scientific theory rests with its falsification. It is true till the next person comes, evaluates it and proves it wrong in a controlled state (Studying a conclusion of an enquiry by keeping all but one variable constant, and changing that variable)
Unfortunately,with linguistics and especially in absence of any written records, it becomes difficult to precisely apply the controlled state, in such cases we have to rely on maximum probability.
Nowhere is John stating that Latin would have been closer to the IE language than Sanskrit; for all you know Sanskrit maybe 80 % similar to the IE language.
All John is saying is that under the examination of current scientific inquiry ( Comparative Method ), it is highly unlikely that Sanskrit, as we know of it to have existed in its pure form, is the mother of All/European languages.
Dear Indians,
Although I am proud to see the patriotism and cult(ure) following of Sanskrit. Let us not be closed to scientific inquiry; let us not for a moment forget that India was a great country when we were leading scientific inquiry. And scientific inquiry shouldn’t lend itself to democracy or popular belief; Galileo was jailed because of such a thing.
We do not want to be viewed as people who live in the past and shout down any scientific methods because they do not agree with our sense of history. If something doesn’t agree with us, we either put our ingenious Indian Mind to it and disprove it scientifically, not by votes or public outcry.
If you talk of written Sanskrit being a refined or a very precise optimised language, it surely wasn’t born that way, call the child whatever at birth(PIE, RAJU or TOM).
Till we can either accept the current line of scientific thinking or prove it wrong; Let us be proud in the fact that we were the ones to refine an archaic language like the PIE which would have existed before us.
I agree (even John will), that there have been a lot of misrepresentations and destruction of our culture by successive invading powers, Europeans and other wise.
But, kindly notice the fact that inspite of these, scientific inquiry has still persisted and called the bluff of many a misrepresentation.For eg. no one and especially John will never dare to suggest that Latin is the mother of Sanskrit because they are similar, and I am sure John or any liked minded scientific enquirer would be willing to shout down, nay patiently explain, to anyone who says that Latin is the mother of Sanskrit / All languages.
So, my dear Indian brothers and sisters please proceed to rip me apart for being a voice of concern. I have put my own name with surname and not a alias and here’s my email address as well chirag_1 <> hotmail <> com
Satyamev Jayate (Truth and Only the Truth shall Triumph)
September 12, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I was impressed by this topic.But i want to share my opinions about this topic.People think that sanskrit has lot of influence on north indian languages and not on dravidian languages,I have a different opinion.If we take shiva he is worshipped from Rameshwaram to amarnath.
Shiva being vedic (rudra) is still worshipped the rudram(from vedas) are still recited in these temples throghout the country.
And now to cholas.Karikala chola had his court language as sanskrit ie (the karikala shaasanam)Raja raja chola a great shiva diety buids brhadeeshwar temple,63 nayanmars ,the periya puranam is all about this shivas devootees.There are still veda pada shallas in tamil nadu where you can learn how to pronounce vedas.Though people forgot their meanings,there are people in south india who know to recite vedas.
Intrestingly what i want to make a point is that,if sanskrit had no influence on the so called ‘dravidians’ why where their dieties vedic.
September 22, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Sivar is ancient and first king of both Kilrathi and Kzinti, and he is not any god at all.
October 24, 2008 at 4:50 pm
i would say that is that it is a quite nice and trustable content and iwill also say it will change many peoples view on languages prospect.i am hoping that this site will able to find many mile stones for indo-european languages.
October 25, 2008 at 9:30 am
hey jhon what;s up?
iwant to clear the things straight,do you really think that sanskrit is the mother of all pie languages?.well iwill say that if you go to find the answer you will find that the clues supporting the statement is quiet weak than the statement against it.so it is clear that ’sanskrit’is not an mother but a most well reconstructed language among all the i.e.languages,more importantly its grammatical reasoning is more perfect than any other.iwill also say that the sanskrit we know today is not the real ‘adamly original’language that it was when the nordic(aryan)people first arrived in northern india,and for that i have an opinion;
we all know that the dravidian people had excellant iq so they created the sindhu-harappan civiligation which was the first ever city based civiligatin of the human history.in city of patna(bihar,india)a very ancient clay pot was discovered which has the letters of ‘early sanskrit’.the letters are quite similar to the greek and latin letters and and of coures with sanskrit,but interestingly the letters have no upperstokes,a very un common thing for sanskrit,so what does it indicates?,the answer is that proper sanskrit before becoming the sanskrit we know had no such grammatical power.the power was created after the arrival of aryans, dravidians really helped the language to become as perfect as it is now,because for them(also for the austric mundas)the aryans were same to god,so the gods languge must be well preserved,it is preseved just like a computer code.
now ihave some words which are quite similar to others(i.e.l)’
1;take a word for good fortune,it is luck
in hindu dharm there is a goddes of good fortune and money known as luckshmi.
take aword for big plants it is tree
in sanskrit it is taruh.
the latin word mulah is money
in sanskrit word mulya is the worth price of something.
i hope you will rad this and give a reasonable reply.
November 2, 2008 at 9:09 am
Its pathetic that we still believe in Aryan invasion theory.
first we need to understand that most historians are only guessing and imposing their perspectives on us.
I read a book
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=DM58BhuR2KwC&dq=gods+sages+kings&pg=PP1&ots=CBX0LspKBp&source=bn&sig=MfNoVPjleO3Dyj5P3GJeqo9oS1Y&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPP1,M1
which gave me new perspective about our culture.
why do we always depend on western people to decode our history?
November 3, 2008 at 10:20 am
a nother authentic theory is that the migration.
see if you think and try to understand the relation betwwen all the aryan languages,you will find that it is not about raceit is not aboutbreaking the codeit is about to get to a position where you can bravely say “yes it is the truth” .
but the problem is that in our minds we are still proning the racial issue.
it is not about “invasion” it is about to know the”satya”(truth).
what venkat has said it is still a racial thought,if you think it deeply you will surely able to find it.
now forgett it and see what i think about atopic;
migration.
the migration is the thing that created the languagestic changes among the”aryan tribes”
the tribes which created all the aryan civilizations we know now.
the peoles group which first came to the northern parts of india perhaps migrated much lesser than any other tribes.
which indicates that their ancestral place was much closer to india or northern india.
if you dont belive the comments imade you can check the great russian archaeologist prof.victor sarianidis proven thoughts on net to know more.mr.sarianidi is currently working in karakumbh,where”he has founded somthing that very few archeologists have succeeded to find–
a lost civilization”.
November 4, 2008 at 9:40 am
’sanskrit speaking peoples ancestral land was quiet close to north india.thats why the migration didnt created much difference to the possible mothertounge and sanskrit remained the most noble language of them all.’
November 5, 2008 at 8:24 pm
look iam not racial in any sense.
my point is that, all the persons we mention are european indologists,possibly they don’t have a clue about sanskrit during 1700’s-1800’s because all of them belonged to a different culture.According to them polytheism was sin… and so on and so forth.As you see i mentioned a book in my previous post by david frawley.
i guess you din’t go through the first chapter.
any way give a try.
you say whatever an european say is “sathya” and what ever indians say is ‘asathya’
how come you come to such a conclusion.
even europeans are humans,they too can make flaws.
like newton said light was particle,then came electromagnet theory..then quantum…so on.
i think many indians really blindly believe european scholors of colonial times and do not research or atleast try to think on their own as a result most indians always feel fellow indians are pathetic and they prise europeans.
such is the attitude we have.
to make you clear visit following sites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4Q2xx7BTc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2vhCPBjqcA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMlisMg4VPo&feature=related
research and findings are not always 100 pecent true.what is true today may be untrue tommorow.
first people thought world was flat,they they found it was a sphere so on.
so what i am saying is that we should hav an open mind and so should not underestimate ourselves because the europeans says so
November 5, 2008 at 8:46 pm
My belief is that people have bad impressions about our ancient system.They think caste system was bad.so every thing related to ancient India was tribal and primitive .
but i dont think so.The fundamental flaw in our thinking is that caste doesn’t separate people,its peoples mind that separates.
people says caste divides so it should be banned.
we have lots of problem all over the country.People fight for languages.Tamil speaking guy hates hindi wala.Maratis hate biharis so language divides us so as result according most people we should all stop speaking different languages so that there will be no fight.
lets take america.it has no castes,do you think there is no problem there.
there is a great divide between classes in usa.Rich and middle class fight,so people fight because of money.Does removing or banning money any solution.
similarly power divides people,and so do political parties should we ban them all and talk bad about all of them.
look money,power,language everything has a purpose.and so does caste.The problem does’nt lie in them to blame them,the problem lies in peoples minds.
November 7, 2008 at 5:00 pm
DIVITION OF CASTES STARTED BY THE WORK SEVERAL PEOPLE DID IN THE FIRST HUMAN SOCIETY.BUT THE ‘MANAGATAH’DIVITION STARTED BECAUSE OF IMPERIALISTIC ETHICS AND ALSO WITH THE CORRUPTION OF VEDIC SOCIETY IS WELL.
November 10, 2008 at 2:03 am
Sivar Eshrad was performed properly and repatedly on many Kilrathi planets, including Kilrah homeworld itself but nowhere in Bharat placed on our planet Earth called by Kilrathi as Nak’tara. When and where you saw Sivar Eshrad or something alike in Rameshwaram, Amarnath, Bhradeeshwar, Periya? Nowhere. Thus without Sivar Eshrad any support for Kilrathi ancestor Lord Sivar in India is pointless. Additionally, Bharati can have in future serious political and security problems with our Terran Confederation since year 2416 in future. Supporting of Kilrathi ancestor – Lord Sivar by some Terrans, for example Bharati when Terran Confederation will be at war with Kilrathi will be treated and judged severely as grave treason of state punishable very seriously by sending traitors into worst battles against Kilrathi.
November 11, 2008 at 8:04 pm
R u by any chance non indian?
in india shiva means auspicious one(sanskrit).
see here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva
what ever things you say about kilrathi is fictional
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilrathi
shiva is a vedic god,whise fearful form is called rudra,whose peaceful form is called shiva.search for rudram on google.Rudram is a part of krishna yajurveda.yajurveda is one of the four vedas.
November 11, 2008 at 8:26 pm
to discuss more about shiva
listen to rudram
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pBUiOlrTMU
To Download rudram’s meaning
http://melbourne.saievents.info/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=8&d=1166669938
November 11, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Not only this he is worshipped in most of the upanishads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishad
for more details see
http://www.celextel.org/108upanishads/
for those guys who dont know why some people smear ashes on their foreheads in india see Kalagni Rudra Upanishad
http://www.celextel.org/108upanishads/kalagnirudra.html
so don’t say bharat has no connection to shiva.
November 11, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Adi shankara was an ardent believer of lord shiva
he composed so many shlokas on lord shiva
shiva pnchakshari being one of them
see here:
http://www.astrojyoti.com/shivapanchaksharistotram.htm
November 11, 2008 at 8:42 pm
venkat Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
November 11, 2008 at 8:04 pm
R u by any chance non indian?
in india shiva means auspicious one(sanskrit).
see here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva
what ever things you say about kilrathi is fictional
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilrathi
shiva is a vedic god,whise fearful form is called rudra,whose peaceful form is called shiva.search for rudram on google.Rudram is a part of krishna yajurveda.yajurveda is one of the four vedas.
November 11, 2008 at 8:51 pm
in india shiva means auspicious one(sanskrit).
see here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva
what ever things you say about kilrathi is fictional
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilrathi
November 11, 2008 at 9:55 pm
i would like all of you to see this page
http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/indology.htm
its difficult understand our culture when there is so much politics involved to distort our history
November 11, 2008 at 10:03 pm
see this too
http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/1.html
November 12, 2008 at 9:49 am
IF SHIVA IS AN PROTO INDO EUROPEAN GOD THEN WHY WE FOUND THE EXISTENCE OF ‘PASHUPATIH’(ANCIENT GOD OF SINDHU-HARAPPAN CULTURE)?
November 14, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Its not so simple you see each an every god has more than thousands of name.
shiva,pashupati,rudra,umapati,brahadeehwara.
shiv in fact according to shivapurana has 1008 names.
just as vishnu in vishnu sahasra(thousand in sanskrit) nama(names).
pashupati can again be split into pashu +pati
November 14, 2008 at 4:06 pm
pashu(animals including even humans) in sanskrit.
pati(lord)
so pashupati means lord of all animals(including humans).
if you want a deeper meaning,then ill briefly explain,like animals we run behind worldly desires in that process forgetting who god is,he holds our lives with a chord,just like how a cowboy herds his cattle.and satisfaction only come at his feet.(This what hindus think of lord shiva)
November 14, 2008 at 4:08 pm
if you still have doubts about pashupaati==shiva then see this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupatinath_Temple
November 14, 2008 at 4:10 pm
And for thousand and eight names of shiva see
http://blogs.ebay.in/devshoppe/entry/1008-Names-of-Lord-Shiva/_W0QQidZ273784015
November 14, 2008 at 4:19 pm
listen what he sings
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=enWkY8gF7hk&feature=related
bolo natha umapathey,shamo,shankara,pashupathey
each word is a name of lord shiva.
November 14, 2008 at 4:44 pm
In tamilnadu alone there are more than 108 major shiva temples of ancient times.And in each place his name differs
for example Raja raja chola built a big temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihadisvara_Temple
here shiva’s name is Brihadisvara(lord of universe)
November 14, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I found this intresting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katasraj_temple
Pakistan asking world heritage status for shiva temple
November 14, 2008 at 5:40 pm
http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/1.html
as this book says europeans cannot understand our culture.we are seeing our through an european vison(which is very crude)
To know about ancient India visit
http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/index.html
November 14, 2008 at 7:18 pm
http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/1.html
as this book says europeans cannot understand our culture.we are seeing our culture through an european vison(which is very crude).Read the above book and see.Atleast give it a try.
To know about ancient India visit
November 14, 2008 at 7:18 pm
To know about ancient India visit
http://www.geocities.com/dipalsarvesh/index.html
November 15, 2008 at 9:12 am
just look at this you tube video about how bronze statues of shiva are made sing shilpa shastra
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Q52u4rs3_sI
November 15, 2008 at 9:13 am
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=kKYi7A3cgSU&feature=related
November 15, 2008 at 10:05 am
GODS THE IDEA OF 1000 NAMES OF GODS IS NOTHING BUT BOGUS, THUS SUCH KINDS OF IDEA ONLY IMFLECTS THE IMPERIALISTIC THINKINGS OF RELIGION.
BUILDING 1000 NAMES BY ADDING STORIES IS A PART OF THAT. SO EVERY RACE OF INDIA GOES UNDER HINDU ‘DHARAM’. THE STRENGTH OF HINDU DHARM THEN INCREASES(AS CORRUPTION WITH OTHER RACES).
AS FOR ME THERE ARE SOME REAL ARYAN GODS;
1.AGNI 2.MARUT 3.DOUH 4.ADITI 5.VUG 6.BAUH 7.SOAM 8.PUSHUNH 9.ADITYAH GUN10.SURYAH11.ARJAMAH12.SARASVATI13.USAH14.BRIHASPATI15.YUM16.ASVI DOYH17.BRUMHANSPATI18. BISHNUH19.SAVITAH20.RUDRAH(YOUR SHIVAH)21.RATRIH22.BARUNAH23.PRITHVIH(EARTH)24.TVASTAH25.PARJANHYA .
rest are just worhless.
November 15, 2008 at 10:13 am
A NOTHER EXAMPLE IS ADDING BUDDAH AS THE TENTH ‘AVATARH’ OF BISHNU. THE REASON OF THAT TO BRING BUDDHA DHARM UNDER HINDU DHARM, BUT THE FUNNY THING IS THAT BUDDHA DHARM IS A PROTESTANT TO CORRUPTED HINDUDHARM.
November 15, 2008 at 10:40 am
Hindu dharm is not corrupted its just your way of thinking that has been corrupted.
if you still cling to the western idea of thinking,you can never appreciate Hindu dharm.
Its not a monotheistic idea of god can only be jesus or allah.God can take any name any form,I think its more liberal and more philosophical
November 15, 2008 at 1:01 pm
i think it was a true in mahatma gandhi that made him say eeshwar allah tere nam sab ko sanmati de bagwan.
so according to your logic he is too corrupt.
November 17, 2008 at 9:49 am
i didnt say that hindu dharm corrupted. i said different races with connecting aryans on the last days of vedic culture gifted us the hindu dharm we know now
November 17, 2008 at 10:01 am
listen mahatma gandhi said those words to give india the unity what required then badly for the nation.i said the word to indicate the evolution of the aryans and their ‘DHARM’ in this country.
November 18, 2008 at 12:23 am
Sivar is ancient and first king of both Kilrathi and Kzinti, and he is not any god at all, because he is only member of one of many species, which never were older than our Universe.
Sivar Eshrad was performed properly and repatedly on many Kilrathi planets, including Kilrah homeworld itself but nowhere in Bharat placed on our planet Earth called by Kilrathi as Nak’tara. When and where you saw Sivar Eshrad or something alike in Rameshwaram, Amarnath, Bhradeeshwar, Periya? Nowhere. Thus without Sivar Eshrad any support for Kilrathi ancestor Lord Sivar in India is pointless. Additionally, Bharati can have in future serious political and security problems with our Terran Confederation since year 2416 in future. Supporting of Kilrathi ancestor – Lord Sivar by some Terrans, for example Bharati when Terran Confederation will be at war with Kilrathi will be treated and judged severely as grave treason of state punishable very seriously by sending traitors into worst battles against Kilrathi.
Here are shown the lord Sivar and his things related to himself, how they are bravely and fiercely supported on Kilrah, compared with his very weak support on Terran country Bharat. Note that lord Sivar on Earth is much more softened in comparison to his real appearance properly preserved on Kilrah and Nargrast:
Lord Sivar, destroyer of worlds depicted very mightily and powerfully as he REALLY looks by his brave Kilrathi followers: http : / / www . wcnews . com / newshots / full / wcart6a . jpg
Lord Sivar, destroyer of worlds depicted very softly and filigranous as he really never ever looked by his mild Terran followers: http : / / www . balagokulam . org / images / la-siva . jpg
Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka, the hard fang of Sivar, destroyer of worlds: http : / / www . wcnews . com / articles / mythicarchiving / mythicarchiving40t.jpg
Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the soft tooth of Sivar, destroyer of worlds: http : / / 1.1.1.1 / bmi / www . crystalinks . com / buddhablue2.jpg
Massive fortress of Sivar in Kilrah Imperial Space, planet H’rekkah: http : / / wedge009 . net / wc / wcp / introduction . jpg
Filigran palace of Sivar outside Kilrah Imperial Space, planet Nak’tara (Earth): http : / / www . srikumar . com / tdtemplecochin / udyaneswara . jpg
November 18, 2008 at 9:37 am
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND RELIGION IS SIGNIFICANT. I THINK WHAT MR.TOLWYN HAS SAID IS SPOT ON AND TRULY ACCEPTABLE. SEE WE ALL WAYS HAVE TO REMEMBER ‘GOD IS A CREATION OF HUMANS TO LIFT THEIR SOULS UP’.
November 18, 2008 at 2:29 pm
The Kilrathi are a fictional race of warlike, feline extraterrestrials in the popular computer game series Wing Commander by Origin Systems.
They loosely resemble the Kzin from Larry Niven’s Known Space universe. The Kilrathi are native to the planet Kilrah with their society depicted as an empire.
see they are fiction.Tolwyn Geoffrey i am taking about shiva from vedas.yes i accept your kilrathi sivar is not related to sanskrit
But shiva comes from vedas.rig,yajur..vedas.
November 18, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Well nirjar dude you still don’t get it.
you should read what vivekananda says about our dharma
At the World’s Parliament of Religions, Chicago
11th September, 1893
Sisters and Brothers of America,
It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.
He says hindu dharma is “mother of all religions”.
Instead of seeing sanskrit and our tradition from westerners point of view see how vivekananda views it.
November 18, 2008 at 2:40 pm
well i too believed in ‘GOD IS A CREATION OF HUMANS TO LIFT THEIR SOULS UP’ till two years ago,but things changed,i realized there are lot of things i did’nt know about my culture.
http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_1/vol_1_frame.htm
after reading vivekanandas works my perception about dharma changed.
November 18, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Read this article too
http://www.americansanskrit.com/read/a_sacred.php
This article says why is sanskrit is so special after all.
see these links too
http://www.americansanskrit.com/read/a_techage.php
http://www.americansanskrit.com/read/a_sutras.php
November 18, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Read this article too
http://www.americansanskrit.com/read/a_sacred.php
This article says why is sanskrit is so special after all.
November 18, 2008 at 2:49 pm
see these links too.
http://www.americansanskrit.com/read/a_techage.php
http://www.americansanskrit.com/read/a_sutras.php
November 18, 2008 at 3:07 pm
see what what vivekananda feels about vedanta philosophy
http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_2/vol_2_frame.htm
November 18, 2008 at 4:05 pm
visit
Dr. Frank Morales, Ph.D.
(Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya)’s web site
http://www.dharmacentral.com/aboutfm.htm
and see his videos on you tube
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=fOYWBnW2YFo&feature=related
November 18, 2008 at 4:05 pm
visit
Dr. Frank Morales, Ph.D.
(Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya)’s web site
http://www.dharmacentral.com/aboutfm.htm
November 18, 2008 at 4:06 pm
And see wahat he says about sanatna dharma on you tube.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=fOYWBnW2YFo&feature=related
November 18, 2008 at 4:10 pm
see his explanation about god(conception of hindu)
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=tOer2hQI2LU&feature=related
November 18, 2008 at 4:17 pm
who is Dr. Frank Morales, Ph.D.
and what is sanatana dharma
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rc9jMgH-OE&NR=1
November 18, 2008 at 4:27 pm
all his videos are good
what is shradha?
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=AQKe_xdjZA0&feature=related
November 18, 2008 at 4:35 pm
see this too
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=AQKe_xdjZA0&feature=related
November 19, 2008 at 1:47 am
Kilrathi Sivar (cognate to Terran Shiva) both first on Kilrah and second on Earth is called “destroyer of worlds”, thus interrelation is obvious. Examples:
http : / / www . wcnews . com / articles / mythicarchiving / index . shtml
“Prince Thrakhath nar Kiranka, the fang of Sivar, destroyer of worlds.”
http : / / www . rjgeib . com / thoughts / shiva / shiva.html
“…now I am become Shiva, the destroyer of worlds…”
As you see, supporting Sivar called here Shiva can lead to future severe governmental problems of Bharati people with Terran Confederation security services and being sentenced for treason of Earth by Terran Confederation law, for example for lifelong service in punishment regiment sent to most deadly battles against Kilrathi. Additionally, true Kilrathi/Kzinti ancestor Sivar will treat his earthly depictions as unorthodoxly weak and soft, comparing to orthodox power/hard depictions of Sivar by Kilrathi.
November 19, 2008 at 9:49 am
dont tell me about vivekananda. he had an I.Q. OF AMAZING 200+. WHICH YOU DONT.
November 19, 2008 at 5:10 pm
JUST GIVE ME ANSWER OF VERY SIMPLE QUESTIONS.
1.ABOUT SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SACRED DRINK SOMA.
2.POSITON OF THE DRINK IN TODAY’S UNCORRUPTED
‘HINDU DHARM’.
3. IN WHICH PART OF INDIA DOES IT GROWS ?
4.EATING BEEF MEAT AS A SACRED AND HEALTHY FOOD IN VEDIC CULTURE.
5.WHY AS ‘HINDU’WE CANT EAT IT ?
6.WHY BEEF MEAT WAS A TREAT FOR INDRAH?(AS WRITTEN IN VEDAS SLHOKS)
AND AT LAST
7.SCIENTIFICLY PROVEN ORIGIN OF SANSKRIT.
(IT IS FOR YOU VENKAT AND FUNTOO).
November 20, 2008 at 4:05 pm
in case i think you have no answers or have to rely on net.
November 20, 2008 at 4:52 pm
As Tolwyn Geoffrey wrote above, because false pagan god Sivar named on Earth as false pagan god Shiva belongs originally to false race of false Kilrathi cats, whole hinduism is a false CAT FAITH, but never true human Catholic faith.
November 22, 2008 at 5:50 pm
FOR ME SANSKRIT IS THE MOST WELL HERITATED LANGUAGE AMONG ALL THE LANGUAGES IN THIS WORLD AND ENGLISH IS THE MOST UNITY POWERED LANGUAGE AS NOW AND ALSO FOR THE FUTURE.
November 22, 2008 at 7:50 pm
In Hinduism
See also: Chandra
In Hindu art, the god Soma was depicted as a bull or bird, and sometimes as an embryo, but rarely as an adult human. In Hinduism, the god Soma evolved into a lunar deity. The moon is the cup from which the gods drink Soma, and so Soma became identified with the moon god Chandra. A waxing moon meant Soma was recreating himself, ready to be drunk again. Alternatively, Soma’s twenty-seven wives were the star goddesses, the Nakshatras – daughters of the cosmic progenitor Daksha – who told their father that he paid too much attention to just one of them, Rohini. Daksha subsequently cursed Soma to wither and die, but the wives intervened and the death became periodic and temporary, and is symbolized by the waxing and waning of the moon. Monday is called Somvar in Sanskrit and Sanskritic languages, such as Hindi and Gujarati, and alludes to the importance of this god in Hindu spirituality.
The Sushruta Samhita localizes the best Soma in the upper Indus and Kashmir region.[2]
source wikipedia
November 22, 2008 at 7:54 pm
yes vivekananda was very intelligent and iam not,my point is he says he loves he thinks “hinduism is mother of all religions”
so if a 200+ iq guy thinks like that,there must be some truth in it.
November 22, 2008 at 8:00 pm
short story what vivekananda said
WHY WE DISAGREE
15th September, 1893
I will tell you a little story. You have heard the eloquent speaker who has just finished say, “Let us cease from abusing each other,” and he was very sorry that there should be always so much variance.
But I think I should tell you a story which would illustrate the cause of this variance. A frog lived in a well. It had lived there for a long time. It was born there and brought up there, and yet was a little, small frog. Of course the evolutionists were not there then to tell us whether the frog lost its eyes or not, but, for our story’s sake, we must take it for granted that it had its eyes, and that it every day cleansed the water of all the worms and bacilli that lived in it with an energy that would do credit to our modern bacteriologists. In this way it went on and became a little sleek and fat. Well, one day another frog that lived in the sea came and fell into the well.
“Where are you from?”
“I am from the sea.”
“The sea! How big is that? Is it as big as my well?” and he took a leap from one side of the well to the other.
“My friend,” said the frog of the sea, “how do you compare the sea with your little well?”
Then the frog took another leap and asked, “Is your sea so big?”
“What nonsense you speak, to compare the sea with your well!”
“Well, then,” said the frog of the well, “nothing can be bigger than my well; there can be nothing bigger than this; this fellow is a liar, so turn him out.”
That has been the difficulty all the while.
November 22, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Sri Aurobindo (Bengali: শ্রী অরবিন্দ Sri Ôrobindo) (August 15, 1872–December 5, 1950) was an Indian nationalist, scholar, poet, mystic, evolutionary philosopher, Yogi and spiritual Guru
see how he interprets vedas
Interpretation of the Vedas
One of the most significant contributions of Sri Aurobindo to Hinduism was his setting forth an esoteric meaning of the Vedas. The Vedas were considered by some to be composed by a barbaric culture worshiping violent Gods. Sri Aurobindo felt that this was due to a [biased view of Western scholars][3] who had preconceived views on Hindu culture.[citation needed]
Sri Aurobindo believed there was a hidden spiritual meaning in the Vedas. He viewed the Rig Veda as a spiritual text written in a symbolic language in which the outer meaning was concerned with ritualistic sacrifices to the gods, and the inner meaning, which was revealed only to initiates, was concerned with an inner spiritual knowledge and practice, the aim of which was to unite in consciousness with the Divine.
In this conception, Indra is the God of Mind lording over the Indriyas, that is, the senses (sight, touch, hearing, taste etc). Vayu represents air, but in its esoteric sense means Prana, or the life force. So when the Rig Veda says “Call Indra and Vayu to drink Soma Rasa” the inner meaning is to use mind through the senses and life force to receive divine bliss (Soma means wine of Gods, but in several texts also means divine bliss, as in Right-handed Tantra). Agni, the God of the sacrificial fire in the outer sense, is the flame of the spiritual will to overcome the obstacles to unite with the Divine. So the sacrifice of the Vedas could mean sacrificing ones ego to the internal Agni, the spiritual fire.
Sri Aurobindo’s theory of the inner spiritual significance of the Vedas originally appeared serially in the journal Arya between 1914 and 1920, but was later published in book form as “The Secret of the Veda.” Another book, “Hymns to the Mystic Fire,” is Sri Aurobindo’s translation of the spiritual sense of many of the verses of the Rig Veda.
November 22, 2008 at 8:50 pm
before atempting to answer your list of questions.
I want to ask you some
1.Did you translate vedas by yourself?.
2.if you didn’t then who did?.
3.vedic hymns is said have been told by rishis who where in heighest spiritual state,may be possibly like that of buddha,do you think you whould able to understand what ever they say ?(possibly you are in that state too)
November 22, 2008 at 8:53 pm
as you dont read my full posts
this is what sri aurobindo says
In this conception, Indra is the God of Mind lording over the Indriyas, that is, the senses (sight, touch, hearing, taste etc). Vayu represents air, but in its esoteric sense means Prana, or the life force. So when the Rig Veda says “Call Indra and Vayu to drink Soma Rasa” the inner meaning is to use mind through the senses and life force to receive divine bliss (Soma means wine of Gods, but in several texts also means divine bliss.
November 22, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I suggest you study rig vedas from good books
http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&id=mXUnfsqhi1AC&dq=The+Secret+of+the+Veda&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=4nfNokAwyv&sig=WFkDtZADIh-U4cUmEPA5tAC2uiY&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPP1,M1
November 24, 2008 at 4:47 pm
you have no scientific personal approach.
November 25, 2008 at 3:05 pm
i suggest you study rig veda from good books
http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&id=mXUnfsqhi1AC&dq=The+Secret+of+the+Veda&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=4nfNokAwyv&sig=WFkDtZADIh-U4cUmEPA5tAC2uiY&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPP1,M1
November 25, 2008 at 3:10 pm
whatever you say it becomes scientific,whatever i say is not scientific.
well dude tell me whats your scientific approach
November 25, 2008 at 3:11 pm
http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&id=mXUnfsqhi1AC&dq=The+Secret+of+the+Veda&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=4nfNokAwyv&sig=WFkDtZADIh-U4cUmEPA5tAC2uiY&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=2&ct=result#PPP1,M1
rig veda book
November 25, 2008 at 9:17 pm
antu
I am with anu, and too unni and anjali
Di you know, that anu and antu are married, as sitchin says?
November 25, 2008 at 10:46 pm
You heretics that are calling yourselves anu and antu, you are thinking that you are false sumerian (and other) gods that never existed at all. Repent and convert to Catholic Church, and cease to take role of false sumerian (and other) pagan gods, along with all your false pagan religion(s). You are risking great punishment from One True God in Three Persons: http : / / www . giftstor . org / tomkiel05fst . html if you do not cease and desist your deadly heresies.
November 26, 2008 at 9:38 am
my approch is to belive by proofs.and dont call me dude my age is 11.
November 26, 2008 at 8:36 pm
so you are not dude you are a kid.And kids never understand any thing they only believe their textbooks and think that whatever it says is true.Actually texts are also written by persons(humans)who have their own prejudices.
November 26, 2008 at 8:41 pm
actually kids need to know that whatever they call “science” is not entirely based on proofs.science also makes assumptions in lot of areas.In communication scientists assume noise to be of gaussian type.
There are also so many models,like first model,second model and so on,each model improves accuracy but each is not 100% accurate.
November 26, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Any way what is proved today to be true can be proved to be false tommorow.Because each scientist has his own view.Newton thought light as a particle,later maxwell said light was an electromagnetic wave,then some one says its quantum particle(photons,phonons)
see science itself is a variable(not a constant)today there will be a technology,tommorow there will be a superior technology…In short science has no END.
November 26, 2008 at 8:55 pm
And finally many german and french scientists themselves praise hinduism and vedas
see here
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-indiacomments1.htm
and there is no rule that scientists should not be philosophers.In fact most scientists are themselves great philosophers
November 26, 2008 at 8:56 pm
And finally many german and french scientists themselves praise hinduism and vedas
see here
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-indiacomments1.htm
November 26, 2008 at 8:57 pm
what scientists believe about vedas and hinduism
see here
http://hinduism.about.com/library/weekly/extra/bl-indiacomments1.htm
November 26, 2008 at 9:03 pm
scientific verification of vedas
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4Q2xx7BTc
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=G2vhCPBjqcA&feature=related
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=FMlisMg4VPo&feature=related
November 26, 2008 at 9:03 pm
to see scientific verification of vedas see
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=rY4Q2xx7BTc
November 26, 2008 at 9:04 pm
see in you tube for scientific verification of vedas
November 29, 2008 at 5:56 pm
every one have to under stand in todays world that age is not a factor but fact for full of suprises.
November 29, 2008 at 6:05 pm
for to have real veda gyan (tranrlated from the original)read RAMESH CHANDRA DUTT’S ‘RIGVED SANHITAH’
AS WE ALL KNOW ‘THE STONGEST REASONING IS IN FACT THE TRUTH’.
OH YES a nother thing, every one cant bother the truth can?.
November 29, 2008 at 6:29 pm
VENKAT I KNOW YOU HAVE GREAT RESPECT FOR OUR ANCIENT CULTURE, which every indian should have.
our proto vedic culture was indeed the greatest by the form of language,heritage,sikhshya in everything, but it is not so that in today. in today we are just following west which i think is a waste specially in thinking. but you are different ithink you like the swami VIVEKANANDA PATH whch i also follow from my heart.
but the problem is your biswas is the vedic and hindu culture is ours, but it came from outside.
YES the seed of our culture is not indian but for sure indian subcontinental, thats why it is not fully indian thats why it is not european its INDO-EUROPEAN my friend its INDO-EURPPEAN.
BUT DOESNT MATTERS FROM WHERE IT CAME THE fact is where it is now which is enough.
we just require to synthesis it and the lost glory of the culture will come like SUN RAYS to shook the world,(which luckly has started 200+ years ago by an non indian in race but indian in true heart SIR WILLIAM JONES).
November 30, 2008 at 3:39 pm
yes i too agree age is not important.The problem i feel is most Indians are not aware of their own culture.A Muslim knows what his religious book is,a Sikh knows,a Christian knows about his religious books and scriptures,but a Hindu doesn’t.For the past sixty years we are following a path which was paved by the British.And the major losers are Hindus. so we are compelled to imitate(emulate) west.
November 30, 2008 at 3:54 pm
SIR WILLIAM JONES,max muller and so many people you say may never have experienced hindu culture which according to me is purely vedic.I really have a major doubt with their theory.They start from old vedic traditions,then they go to mouryas,guptas then the Buddhist rulers ashoka,then they skip to moguls.But they never highlight guptas indeed followed shaivism(worship lord shiva).Abhinav gupta a great philosopher has done so many works about shiva yoga.Leave that ,they could never explain why Buddhism deteriorated in India.They couldnt understand vedic culture did a come back in India after Aadhi shankara who re-established vedic culture all over India.
He established six vedic culture sub classes(shan-mathas)shavism(for shiva),vaishnavam(for vishnu),shaktam(for shakti),surya,ganapati,kumara(kartikeya) and so on.Even today we worship shakti in bengal,ganapati in maharashtra,chat puja for surya in bihar,shiva and vishnu all over India
November 30, 2008 at 3:59 pm
its not about the ‘ADHYATTIC’IT IS A thing to be proven by pure reasonings.
November 30, 2008 at 4:00 pm
And finally i don’t care whether this vedic traditions originated in present India, Pakistan or central Asia,I will follow it because this is what my forefathers followed for 3000 years according to western scholars.But times immemorial according to Vedas.
November 30, 2008 at 4:12 pm
see more about Adi shankra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara
adi shankara even though he was born in kerala,his entire work is entirely in Sanskrit.See his maneesha panchakam to atleast have an idea about how our ancestors thought.
November 30, 2008 at 4:13 pm
see also abhinava gupta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abhinava_Gupta
November 30, 2008 at 4:15 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara
November 30, 2008 at 4:19 pm
search in wikipedia for adi shankara and abhinava gupta.Read their works from the net by searching in Google.There are so may proofs available,but we(Indians) sit and wait for some foreigners to come and do research and reiterate what we already know.
December 1, 2008 at 2:26 am
Samskrta’vak nar Sivar:
Ek’rah skabak erg Thrak’Kilrah maks Rag’nith. Kir’kha n’ikh rakh k’har, Sharhi nar Hhallas. H’as aiy’hra n’hakh ri’kahri krikajj, nai korekh sha’yi. Trav’hra’nigath. Ja’lra rash’nakh h’rai? Va ka garga ka naru ha garga. Huma ta Humas. Kilrah Tugaga Jak-Ta Haganaska duka Vikyah. Kamekh ni’lakh, ki’ha rakra Nak’thar’ra. Krajksh nai variksh h’hassrai? K’rakh drish’kai rai h’ra! Kilrath’ra rakh, walhi drathrik. Hrashra ni’lakh rakhta. Fralkra himekh Nak’tara, maks`thar dai 234576, 376867.
December 1, 2008 at 10:03 am
THINGS WE ARE DICUUSSING MAINLY DOES NOT BELONGS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE LANGUAGE BUT BELONGS TO WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THE ESTABILISHMENT.
LOT S OF STORIES AND HEROES WAS CREATED TO STRENGHTHEN THE POWER OF THE SPREADING DHARM, TAKE A EXAMPLE OF’MAHABHARATA’ PROBABLY INDEED THE GREATEST EPIC OF ALL TIME. BUT MAHABHARATA IS NOT THAT VAST AS IT IS TOLD.
IT IS QUITE POSSIBLE THAT TRIBES FOUGHT WARS TOGETHER TO GET SUPREMACY BUT IN TRUTH WE HAVE TO REMEMBER THE STORIES AND ITS CHARECTERS ARE THE THEMES OF OUR LIFE RESPONSIBILTIES AND KARM FUHL IN GREAT MANNER.
December 1, 2008 at 1:21 pm
stories could be told,but i am not telling these guys are great because of folklore.If you could read their works,you will understand truly how great their philosophy was.
http://sanskritdocuments.org/all_pdf/manishhaa5.pdf
to me there is no greater philosophy than advaita(non dualism)
December 1, 2008 at 1:22 pm
stories could be told,but i am not telling these guys are great because of folklore.If you could read their works,you will understand truly how great their philosophy was.
To me there is no greater philosophy than advaita(non dualism)
December 1, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Any way it seems according to you jessus,mohammud…etc are just creations of people to strengthen their own religion.
But according to me these guys must have really existed,for the simple fact our ancestors would never lie like the present day politicians.
December 1, 2008 at 1:45 pm
And about mahabharat,
I think its the ego of every younger(or newer)generation that makes it think that it is far more superior to older generation that spoils our way of perception about our history.Today I am able to program in computer my grandfather didn’t even know how to use computers when he was at my age.So most of us perceive that our generation is far more superior to our grand parents.I wouldn’t dare to say that all the older generation people were fools.If I could use computers and blackberrys it doesn’t make me einstien (who dindt use computers).Nor can I say Neils Bhor was unintelligent.
This iconoclasm and strong ego stops us from perceiving our history properly.Western Scholars always try to fit every thing according to evolutionary theory,and so we even before studying whats said in ancient epics come to conclusion that our ancestors were primitive people,Kauravas and pandavas were tribal people,they could never have seen ocean,they must have thought a river to be ocean etc and so forth.I think this ego limits our thinking ability.
This ego is with every generation and don’t be surprised in future when your sons generation thinks your generation to be primitive.
December 1, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Linguistic sample of “Samskrta’vak nar Sivar” = “Sanskrit of Shiva” cited above by Sivar proofs clearly both stylistically and linguistically, that “Samskrta’vak” = “Sanskrit” and that “Sivar” = “Shiva”. It is obvious, that Bharati paganism, especially Sivar’ra = Shaiva is intelligence agenda of Kilrah Empire, that has nothing to do with us.
December 1, 2008 at 5:17 pm
well mr.tolwyn i agree with you.and v i think only guy have EGO is you.
December 1, 2008 at 5:20 pm
and v another thing do yog whIch i do regularly, mind it IT really helps to get rid of anger and your ‘EGO’.
December 1, 2008 at 5:24 pm
IF YOU DONT KNOW yog then see ASTHAA’ CHANNEL for SWAMI RAMDEV,WHO ITHINK IS NOTHINK BUT AN—–genius.
SORRY FOR THE WORDS AND’dont take it on mind, take it in hands’.
December 1, 2008 at 5:28 pm
AND AT ‘ LAST I WILL SAY FOR EVERY ONE’old is gold’ ISN’T IT?
December 1, 2008 at 9:41 pm
In EXTREME and only case, because “old is gold”, Proto-Indo-European and Adamic belief in One God = Most Holy Trinity is most valuable. See here:
http : / / indo – european . eu / wiki / index . php / Adamic _ language
http : / / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Image : Holy _ Trinity _ scheme . svg
http : / / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Image : Holy _ Trinity _ interpenetration . png
Anything newer than abovementioned topics, that goes against them is less valuable, being only silver.
December 2, 2008 at 1:41 am
I don’t need your medieval superstitions such as HARRY POTTER, YOGA, WITCHRAFT, WARLOCKING, SORCERY, WIZARDRY, TANTRA, MIGHT&MAGIC, OCCULT, TARAKA, DUNGEONS&DRAGONS, FREEMASONRY, FORTUNE TELLING, SATANISM, OUIJA, SPELL CASTING, etc… for anything, I am MODERN TERRAN CONFEDERATION SCIENTIST and I know that these superstitions are against modern high-tech scientific world.
December 2, 2008 at 1:52 am
I don’t need your esoteric Kilrathi primitive superstitions for example such as:
“There shall come a time when one who has the heart of a Kilrathi, but is not Kilrathi born, shall rain cleansing fire down upon us. And Kn’thrak, a time of great darkness, shall embrace us.
Death itself shall pour forth, obscuring the stars in a veil of darkness. Theirs is the claw that tears flesh from bone.
Theirs is the poisoned fang.
Their numbers shall rend the universe barren and crush the breath from our clans. We shall be bathed in our own blood and rotted flesh shall be our fare. With a deafening thunder shall the dark age begin. – The Tome of Sivar”
and similar. I am modern Terran and I defy such esoteric superstitions.
December 2, 2008 at 7:48 am
WE are not talking about kilrathi at all.All kilrathi stories are imagined one used in computer games.Dont mix it with the Indian culture.
December 2, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Both Indian and Kilrathi things are imagined and fictitious, because they are mirroring each other, and because they are used in games and sects designed by freemasons and their new world order to remove Catholic Christian Truth. Only Catholic Church along with its Proto-Indo-European/Adamic language and its belief in One God = Most Holy Trinity is really true at all. See here:
http : / / indo – european . eu / wiki / index . php / Adamic _ language
http : / / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Image : Holy _ Trinity _ scheme . svg
http : / / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Image : Holy _ Trinity _ interpenetration . png
Anything other than abovemelinked true topics, that goes against them is fictitious, being only promoted by freemasonry and their new world order to destroy Catholic Christian Truth.
December 2, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Happy to know nirjar likes yoga atleast.
December 2, 2008 at 4:37 pm
so konard you say that only christianity is truth and all other religions are false?
Following is an excerpt from Swami Vivekananda ‘s views on Polytheism.
“ Descend we now from the aspirations of philosophy to the religion of the ignorant. At the very outset, I may tell you that there is no polytheism in India. In every temple, if one stands by and listens, one will find the worshippers applying all the attributes of God, including omnipresence, to the images. It is not polytheism, nor would the name henotheism explain the situation. “The rose called by any other name would smell as sweet.” Names are not explanations.
As we find that somehow or other, by the laws of our mental constitution, we have to associate our ideas of infinity with the images of the blue sky, or of the sea, so we naturally connect our idea of holiness with the image of a church, a mosque, or a cross. The Hindus have associated the idea of holiness, purity, truth, omnipresence, and such other ideas with different images and forms. The whole religion of the Hindu is centered in realisation. Man is to become divine by realising the divine. Idols or temples or books are only the supports, the helps, of his spiritual childhood: but on and on he must progress
He must not stop anywhere. “External worship, material worship,” say the scriptures, “is the lowest stage; struggling to rise high, mental prayer is the next stage, but the highest stage is when the Lord has been realised.” One thing I must tell you, Idolatry in India does not mean anything horrible. It is not the mother of harlots. On the other hand, it is the attempt of undeveloped minds to grasp high spiritual truths.
The whole world of religions is only a travelling, a coming up, of different men and women, through various conditions and circumstances, to the same goal. Every religion is only evolving a God out of the material man, and the same God is the inspirer of all of them. Why, then, are there so many contradictions? They are only apparent. The contradictions come from the same truth adapting itself to the varying circumstances of different natures. It is the same light coming through glasses of different colours. And these little variations are necessary for purposes of adaptation. But in the heart of everything the same truth reigns “
December 2, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Most Holy Trinity states clearly that Catholicism and only Catholicism is really true. Rest of religions are false and from hell, and as such are future components of “one world religion” planned by masonic new world order and his antichrist maitreya. http : / / www . giftstor . org /tomkiel05fst . html Refusal of conversion to Catholicism is equal to spending eternity in hell, because such refusal is ontologically equal to eternally prolonged denial of Most Holy Trinity, too ontologically equal to hate, because Most Holy Trinity is LOVE.
December 3, 2008 at 9:54 am
VENKAT I THINK MARBURG HAS NO IDEA ABOUT WHAT A RELIGION IS.
MARBURG YOU HAVE TO UNDER STAND THE FACT THAT WHATS YOUR ‘HOLY’CATHLICISM IS JUST A CHILD UNDER OUR HINDU VEDIC CULTURE.
December 3, 2008 at 10:24 am
and marburg a nother thing jesus christ actually lived in kashmir(INDIA)to stay alive in his last days and its also proven.
AND AT LAST I WILL SAY THAT MOST OF THE IDEA OF YOUR ‘HOLY’ CAT(H)OLICISM IS A SMALLER PART OF WHAT IS SUGGESTED IN VED UPANISHADS 1000 to 10000 years back of JESUSES birth.
December 3, 2008 at 10:32 am
TO KNOW THE POWER OF HINDU DHARM marburg YOU HAVE TO READ SWAMI VIVEKANANDA, HAVE TO READ UPANISHADS .THEN AFTER YOU WILLBE A ‘liter etured’man but i think it willbe little tougher for you.
December 3, 2008 at 10:34 am
our vedic hindu dharm is the greatest in the earth.
December 3, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Hindus never say their religion is the only true religion,they respect every religion and every god.They don’t insult other religions and are hence are more liberal and civilized than those who claim their religion is the only true religion.This is the reason Hindus are truly secular to the core than others who baptize people to covert,who do crusades and jihads to conquer other nations on the basis of religion.Hinduism has no process like baptization to convert people from other religion.
“akashat pathi thin thoyam yada gathchati sagaram sarva deva namaskaraha keshavam prati gatchati”
December 3, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Don’t blaspheme against Holy Mother Catholic Church! You are calling God’s Punishment by your unholy blasphemies! Catholicism has within Its Holy Range original Proto-Indo-European human language from before Babel:
http : / / indo – european . eu / wiki / index . php / Adamic _ language
while you have within your range only secondary confused dialects descended from PIE.
Catholicism, which includes its previous stages such as Judaism, Abrahamism, Noahism and Adamism is really oldest ever religion of the world that dates back to Adam and Eve. Today’s jewish faith is equivalent of protestant/orthodox sects, and broke from Catholicism when Catholicism was in previous Judaic stage.
December 3, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Jesus Christ is One God in Three Persons:
http : / / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Image : Holy _ Trinity _ scheme . svg
http : / / en . wikipedia . org / wiki / Image : Holy _ Trinity _ interpenetration . png
Jesus is Omniscient and Omnipotent and He has nothing to do with your dirty money$, dharm$=firm$, businesse$, etc… which thinks only how to make dirty $$$$.
December 3, 2008 at 2:08 pm
As Tomas de Torquemada said above, Catholicism along with its previous stages is oldest ever world religion. Jesus – One God in Three Persons suffered on Cross and resurrected Himself for our Salvation made by directly opposing original sin. Cross Virtue and original sin are directly opposite as follows:
Suffering on Tree of Cross by Jesus Christ while making only Virtues such as Forgiveness, Learning Good, etc…
is directly opposite to
eating |fruit of knowledge of bad and good| by Adam and Eve from |tree of knowledge of bad and good| for purpose of learning how to sin and sinning
December 3, 2008 at 4:52 pm
we have to know also that sanskrit is also the mother of all folk stories from robinhood to cindrella etc.
READ THIS:Human language is based on grammatical rules. Cultural evolution allows these rules to change over time. Rules compete with each other: as new rules rise to prominence, old ones die away. Language theorists and linguistic experts generally agree that Greek, Latin, Persian, Arabic Hebrew, Chinese and Tamil are “complete language systems”. Therefore conferring of the title of a “classical language” follows the fulfillment of certain requirements from the language in question:
…Its origins must be established as having occurred over a long time ago. Of course the older, the better.
…It should possess an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own and not as an offshoot of another tradition.
…It must have a large and extremely rich body of ancient literature.
Although calling Sanskrit the mother of all languages or the originator of folk stores is questionable, the rich body of literature is certainly worthy of exploring by everyone. Then too as time progresses and we find more archaeological evidence and have further study, certain myths or misconceptions about Sanskrit are dispelled, so we will discuss a few points and provide sufficient citations for your own exploration and determination.
Archeologists at Harvard, Oxford and other top universities in the US and Europe are now widely agreed that there was no invasion of India from the outside that displaced the peoples of the Sarawati and Indus river valleys. This civilization arose within northern India and there is also evidence that the Vedic civilization arose in India many millennia before the speculative mythologies of the past suggest.
Sir William Jones now famous statement in February 2, 1786 is below:
…the Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a strong affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philosopher could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.
The Rig Veda mentions the Indus river quite often and it mentions the Saraswati no less than 60 times. Its reference to the Saraswati as a “mighty river flowing from the mountains to the sea: shows that the Rig Vedic tradition must have been in existence long before 3,000 BC. Satellite photography and geological field studies show that the river described in the Rig Veda which had long disappeared from the maps of modern India did in fact exist as an ancient river running from the Himalayas to the western gulf of the Indian ocean, roughly paralleling the course of the Indus, but lying to the east of the Indus.
Sarasvati has been regarded as a river goddess in the ancient tradition and recently is the Goddess of inspiration and beauty in Creation too. She is also the consort of Brahma, the Hindu god of creation. To move through her yantra is to discover the essence of creativity in speech, music and the visual arts, and thus to experience the enlivening of these qualities within the Self.
Penny Lea Mackie has graciously given us permission to use her creation.
We certainly encourage our readers to visit Sacred Images which is a unique collection of original fine art and poster reproductions. As you will find within the web site, not only are the images rooted in healing traditions, but Sarasvati has held a particularly prominent place in Penny Lea’s heart since she first read of Sarasvati’s position as deity in 1972. Penny Lea has done three Sarasvati yantra. Her website is undergoing radical re-construction starting mid-January, after which she will have a much-expanded offering of images not as posters, but as signed/numbered archival prints, and printing on canvas, silk.
There are other compelling reasons found in recent archeology, satellite photo’s and under sea exploration which suggest that the Sanskrit language is much older than what was previously suggested by the speculative mythologies of the past.
Texts handed down by oral tradition may predate their fixation in written form by several centuries, or, in extreme cases, even millennia. Classical Antiquity is usually considered to begin with Homer, in the 8th century BC. Many older literary texts are known, but often difficult to date. This includes the texts in the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch being traditionally dated to the 15th century BC, while modern scholars put it to the 10th century BC at the very earliest. An early example is the so called Egyptian Book of the Dead which was eventually written down in the Papyrus of Ani around 250 BC but probably dates from about the 18th century BC.
Literature in Sanskrit, India’s oldest language, and the mother language of several modern languages in India. Given its extensive use in religious literature, primarily of Hinduism, and the fact that most modern Indian languages have been directly derived from or strongly influenced by Sanskrit, it is not surprising that the position of Sanskrit in Indian culture is not unlike that of Latin in European culture. Sanskrit has a long tradition of literature.
THE GRAT POET:
Kalidasa and Sanskrit literature
By common assent, Kalidasa is one of the world’s supreme poets. Apart from Sunkuntala, however, which was known to Goethe and Apollinaire, Kalidasa’s work is not well represented in European books or the Internet. Scholars even dispute Kalidasa’s dates, though he clearly wrote for a highly-civilized princely court, either of the 5th century AD Guptas or the 1st century BC Paramara dynasty. Only a few works are undisputably by Kalidasa – plays: Malavikaagnimitra, Vikramorvashiiya and Abhigyaanashaakuntala; epic poems: Khumaarasambhava and Raguvamsha; lyric poems: Meghdoot and possibly Ritusamhaara.
The Vedas are the ancient scriptures of the Hindu teachings, which manifest the Divine Word in the human speech. The Vedas contain the language of the Gods, which are the primary texts of Hinduism. There are four Vedas, each consisting of four parts. The Vedas contain hymns, incantations, and rituals from ancient India. The four Vedas are: Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. It is however, only in the recent times that their spiritual teachings have been rediscovered.
The Rig Veda, the oldest of the four Vedas, was composed about 1500 B.C. in the Punjab (Sapta Sindhu) region and codified about 600 B.C. The Rig Veda includes a collection of the oldest form of all Vedic Sanskrit hymns (1,028 hymns), dedicated to Rigvedic deities. It is also the oldest book in Sanskrit or any Indo-European language. It was preserved in India over centuries by oral tradition alone and was probably put in writing after the early Middle Ages. While originally several different versions of the Rig Veda were said to exist, only one remains. Its form has been structured in several different ways to guarantee its authenticity and proper preservation through time.
Now dear reader explore the ancient Sanskrit citations below. Let your body, mind, soul and heart not be bound by early restraints and regain your child hood. Or the spirit of the Faerie in us all.
December 3, 2008 at 5:29 pm
As you said, because of course the older, the better, PIE is better than sanskrit, because PIE is older than sanskrit: http : / / indo – european . eu / wiki / index . php / Adamic _ language
December 3, 2008 at 8:31 pm
As you said, because of course the older, the better, Catholic Most Holy Trinity is infinitely better than all “gods” different from Catholic Most Holy Trinity, because Catholic Most Holy Trinity is infinitely older than all “gods” different from Catholic Most Holy Trinity.
December 4, 2008 at 8:05 am
Actually most of you guys are actually worshiping identity.God can have any name.Nirjar saw these posts,if these guys cannot understand simple facts how can they properly understand vedas and upanishads.
December 4, 2008 at 9:43 am
English Words You Speak from Sanskrit
The purpose of this is to show the relationship between Sanskrit and English. To simplify matters, I will be using root-words and words in their purer forms. There will be no need to demonstrate every inflected form of a word. Words placed in parentheses are those English words derived from Sanskrit. Sometimes, there will be mention of words from other intermediary languages, serving as a demonstration of changes in spelling and pronunciation.
Symbols used:
“resulting in” (a related word)
Note: In Sanskrit and classical Latin, v is sometimes pronounced as w, while the opposite is true in German. In Slavic languages, both letters are interchangeable.
D’s and T’s are interchangeable. Similarly, at times, B=P=F=V.
A-/AN-, (prefix) “not, without=Eng. A-/AN- (APOLITICAL, AMORAL; ANOREXIC, “without appetite”). The prefix A- also ends up in Nahuatl (Aztec).
AD > Goth. root AT, pres. ITA (EAT, ATE)
AKSHA, “axle, axis” > Ger. ACHSE
AKSHI, “eye”=Russ. OKO=L. OCULUS=M.E. EYGHE, “eye”. It is common for older English words spelled with a G to drop this letter and exchange it with a Y. (EYE; OCULAR; OCCULT, associated with the Evil Eye.)
AARYA, “people from Central Asia, noble, royal, master” (Aryan)
AASANA, “sitting” (ASANA, “a yoga posture”)
AN*KA, “bend, curve, hook” > L. ANCORA (ANCHOR)
ANTA, “end”
ANTAR, “within, between, among; in the middle” (INTER-NATIONAL, INTERIOR). Akin to ANTARA, “interior, other”. See I-TARA.
ANTI, “before” (ANTIPASTO, something eaten before the main course/pasta; ANTECEDENT, ANTERIOR). This is not the same as Eng. ANTI-, “”against”.
AP/APAS, “work” > L. OPUS/OPERA (OPERATE)
ARD, “make agitated, torment, kill” > L. ARDERE/ARSI, “be violently enraged, passionate; (countries), be in turmoil, at war” (ARDENT, “strongly emotional about”; ARSON)
AS, “to be”, akin to ASTI=L. EST=Ger. IST, “is”. Cf. L. ESSE, “be”, Eng. ESSENCE, ESSENTIAL.
ASHTA, “eight”=L. OCTO, Ger. ACHT (OCTAGON, OCTET, OCTOPUS)
-ATI/-ATE, a verb ending for the third person, singular, in the present tense. Cf. L. nuntiAT, facIT, docET. English has a cognate, as in “my cup runnETH over.”
AUM/OM, the magical, repeated sound used in Yoga
BAAD/VAAD, “bathe” > Old High German BAD, “bath”
BANDH, “bind around” (BIND, BAND, BANDAGE)
BARBARA, “barbarian, one with long hair” (BARBER)
BHAN~J, “break” > L. FRANGERE/FREGI/FRACTUM > Ger. BRECHEN (BREAK, FRACTURE, FRAGILE)
BHRAATHRA, “brother, fraternity” > L. FRATER (BROTHERHOOD)
BHRI, “to bear, carry away, endure” > L. FERRE, “bear”; Old Irish BRITA, “birth” (BEARABLE, BIRTH, TRANSFER, INFER)
BHRUU, “brow”
BHUJ, “bend down” > Anglo-Saxon BUGAN (BOW)
BHUU, “be” > L. FUIT/FUTURUS, forms of esse, “be” (FUTURE)
BHUUTI, “wealth, fortune”. Could this be related to Eng. BOOTY/BUTY, “anything plundered” [?]
BUDH, “awaken, communicate” (BUDDHA; BODHISATVA, “a saint, apostle”; BID L. CANDERE, “shine, be hot”; INCENDERE/INCENSUM, “burn, inflame emotions” (INCANDESCENT, CANDLE, CHANDELIER, INCENDIARY; INCENSED, “angry”)
C[H]AKRA, “wheel”, used to describe points of spiritual power.
CAR, “go, move, travel through, pervade” akin to CARYA, “driving in a carriage” (CAR, CHARIOT, CARRY)
CATUR L. DATA (DATA, “technical information”; DATE [pertaining to time]; DATIVE)
DAM, “tame”=L. DOMARE=O.E. TAM (INDOMITABLE)
DAMA “house”=L. DOMUS (DOMICILE, DOMESTICATE)
DANTA, “tooth” (DENTURE, INDENT)
DAARU, “wood” > Hindi DEODAAR Danish TORV (TURF; TURBARY, “land from which turf or peat is cut”)
DASHA, “ten” > Gr. DEKA (DECADE, DECAGON)
DHARMA, “law, path”, in that SVA-DHARMA, “self-law/path”, refers to modernusage wherein one must follow one’s own path/conscience (e.g. Dharma and Greg TV show)
DHRISHTA, “bold” > Lith. DRISTU > O.E. DURST, past tense of DARE, “be bold”
DHUNI, “roaring, sounding, boisterous” O.N. DUNA, “to thunder, give a hollow sound”(DUN, “to sound”, akin to DIN, “a noisy clamor, uproar”)
DHVAN, “become covered, extinguished, darken” > A.S. DVAN, “be extinguished” > Eng. DUN, “dark brown”
DHVANI, “roar, thunder” > Lith. DUNDETI. “to sound” (THUNDER, DUNDERBOLT)
DHVAN/DHVAS, “to fall to dust” > Ger. DUNST (DUST)
DIV, “shine” akin to DIVA, “heaven; DIVYA, “divine”; DEVA, “god” > L. DEUS, “god; DIVA, “goddess” Gr. DI- > L. DUO, Polish DWA, DWOI-, DWU-, (DUO, DOUBLE, TWIN; DICEPHALOUS, “two-headed”)
DVAAR, “door”
EKA, “the same, equal” > L. AEQUUS, “that which is the same” (EQUAL).
HARDA, “heart”.
GA, “go” akin to GANTI, GAN*GAA, “swift-goer” (GONE; GANGES [River]; O.E. GANG, “go”)
GAGGH, “laugh” (GAG, “laughing-stock”) [?]
GAURII, name of a Hindu goddess (see GARISH)
GO, “cow” (Old Saxon CO, Low German KO, “cow”. There is even a theory that GOD is derived from Skt. GO, because cows and bulls were symbolic representations of gods.)
GURU, “respected person”
HAARYA, “be robbed” akin to HARA, “destroying” (HARRY, “plunder; devastation”; HARASS)
HEKKI, “hiccup”.
I/IDAM, “this, that” > L. ID, “it”; IDEM, “same, identical” (IT, IDENTITY)
I/IR/IT, “go”=L. EO/IRE/II, pres. participle IENT-, “going”; ITER/ITINERIS, “a going, journey (ITINERARY; TRANSIT, “across-go”; TRANSIENT, “person ‘going-through’”)
I-TARA, “other”. Akin to ALTER, ALTERNATE. See ANTAR.
JAN, “produce (offspring, family), cause to be born, come into existence”, akin to JANAS, “race, class of people” > L. GENUS, “origin”; GENS/GENTIS, “clan” (CONGENITAL, GENETIC; GENTLE, “well-born, of good family, kind”; GENTILE, GENERATE, GENERATION, GENERIC, GENOCIDE, KIN/KIND; KINDERGARTEN, “childrens’ garden”)
KAKH, “cackle”
KAL, “count”, akin to KAALA, “a fixed point in time, time in general, proper season” > L. CALCULARE, “calculate” (INCACULABLE, CALENDAR)
KAALA, “black” (see geocities.com/richston2/lang99/influence.htm)
KAPAALA, “skull” > old Gr. KEPHALE, “head”=L. CAPUT,CAPITIS (PRECIPITATE, DECAPITATE; CAPO, “Mafia head”; ENCEPHALITIS, CAPTAIN, PER CAPITA)
KARMA/KARMAN, “act, result, effect” (KARMA)
KATH, “speak about” > O.H.G. QUETHAN (QUOTH, QUOTE)
KONA, “corner, angle, intermediate point of a compass” > Gr. GONOS/GONON, “-angled” (Eng. -GON, as in OCTAGON, POLYGON, figures which have corners and angles)
KRI, “make, accomplish, cause, effect, bring to completion” > L. CREARE/CREATUM, “bring about something” (CREATE, PROCREATE)
LAGHU, “light (in weight, on the feet, on the stomach)”
LAS, “play, frolic, sport”, akin to LASYA (LASCIVIOUS, “arousing sexual feelings”)
LIH akin to ALIKSHATI > Gr. LEIKHO (LICK)
LOK, “look”
LOKA, “place” (LOCALE, LOCUS, LOCOMOTION)
LUBH, “desire greatly, allure, excite lust” > L. LUBET, “there is desire”; LIBIDO, “a desire” (LOVE, LIBIDINOUS)
MA, “first person pronoun” (ME, MY)
MAA, “measure, compare”, akin to MAATRA, “measure”=L. METIRI/MENSUS (METER, COMMENSURATE; IMMENSE, “huge” ["not measurable"])
MAAS L. MUSCA (Sp. MOSQUITO, “small fly”)
MALA, “sin, moral filth” therefore > L. MALUS, “evil, bad” (MALICIOUS, MALADY)
MANAS, “mind” > L. MENS, MENTIS (MENTAL; MINT, “think”)
MANTRA, “incantation, song” (MANTRA, “a repeated word” e.g. om/aum)
MANU, “man”. After some reasearch, however, Oxford English Dictionary has decided this etymology is incorrect.
MASTA, “weight” (MAST, a weight)
MATRI, “mother”
MI/MITA, “mete out, meter”
MIIV, “move”
MIKSH > L. MISCERE/MIXTUS (MIX, MISCIBLE, PROMISCUOUS)
MRI, “die”, akin to MRITA, “dead” > L. MORI, MORTUUS (MORTALITY, MORTICIAN; MORTGAGE, “death=pledge”). See MUR.
MUR, “killer”, akin to MRI, “die” (q.v.) (MURDER)
MUUSH, “mouse”
NA/NIH/NED, “no, not”
NAKTA > Latin NOX/NOCT-, Ger. NACHT (NIGHT, NOCTURNAL)
NAMAN, “name”
NAPAAT, “offspring, (grand)daughter, grandson” > L. NEPOS/NEPOTIS (NEPOTISM, NEPHEW)
NAS, “nose” (NOSTRIL, NASAL)
NAU, “ship” akin to NAVYA (NAVY, NAVIGATE, NAUTICAL)
NAVA/NAVAN, “nine” (NOVENBER, the ninth month of a previous calendar; NOVENA, “a nine-day devotional with prayers”)
NAVA, “new”=Gr. NEOS=L. NOVUS (NOVELTY, NOVICE, INNOVATE, RENOVATE; NAPLES/NAPOLI [Italy]: neos + polis, “city”)
NU, “now”, probably related to NAVA, “new” (q.v.)
PAD, “foot”=L. PES/PEDIS (FOOT, BIPEDAL, “two-footed”; PEDESTRIAN, “foot-walker”; PEDATE, “having feet”; ARTHROPOD, “joint-foot creature”; OCTOPUS, “eight-footed creature”)
PANDITA, “learned, wise” (PUNDIT)
PAN~CHA, “five”=Gr. PENTA (PENTAGON, “five-sided figure”)
PARA, “far; previous (in time) (FAR, FORE-FATHER)
PARI-, prefix “about, near”=Eng. PERI- (PERINATAL, PERIMETER)
PATHA, “path”
PHAL > Ger. SPALTEN, “split”
PITRI, “father”=L. PATER (PAPA, PAPAL, POPE
POSHA, “prosperity, wealth, abundance”. Oxford English Dictionary offers POSH (noun), “money”, perhaps related to another noun, POSH (of uncertain etymology): “The suggestion that this word is derived from the initials of ‘port outward, starboard home’, referring to the more expensive side for accommodations on ships formerly traveling between England and India is often put forward but lacks foundation”.
PRA-, prefix “before, in front of”=Eng. PRE- (PREHISTORY, PREDICT)
PUU, “be bright,illuminate” > Gr. PUR/PURA, “funeral pyre=L. PYRA (O.E. FYR, “fire”; PYROMANIA)
PUUTA, “putrid”
PUUY, “stink” > Fr. PUER, “stink” (”PEE-YOO-EE!”; PEPE LE PEW, a smelly cartoon skunk)
RAAGA, “musical melody” (Eng. RAGA, “melodic formula of Hindu music”; RAG/RAGTIME [?])
RAAJ, “rule”, akin to RAAJA, “king”=L. REX/REGIS; L. REGERE/RECTUM, “rule, govern, direct” (RECTIFY, DIRECT, REGAL, REGULATE, RICHARD; RICH, “having great wealth, powerful”; Ger. REICH, “rich; empire, kingdom”)
RAANI, “queen”=Fr. REINE (REIGN. See RAJ, above)
RABH, with verb-form RAPSYATI, “seize, desire vehemently”, akin to RABHASA, “rapid, violent, desirous of” > L. RAPERE/RAPTUS, “seize, force violently, ravish, hurry” (RAPE, RAPTURE, RAPTURE, RAVISH, RAPID)
RAD, “gnaw, scratch” > L. RODERE, “gnaw”; L. RODERE, “scratch” (RAT, which is a RODENT.)
RAP, “speak” There is mention in Oxford English Dictionary of RAP, “utter, say, talk”, but the listing is under a verb RAP, “strike (a blow), knock with a rap”. Could there be a mistake involved? Could some more-modern Hindu word be the source?
RE, “a vocative particle (generally used contemptuously; often doubled)”. Cf. RI, “a sound inarticulate or repeated as in stammering”. Cf. [?] L. RE-, a prefix used to indicate repetition. However, Latin is supposed to be the original source of Eng. RE-, as in RE-THINK, RE-DONE, etc.
RI, second note of the seven-tone Hindu musical scale (Cf. [?] RE, second tone of Western, 7-note scale: do-RE-mi, etc.)
RISHI, a sage
ROMA, “Rome”, Italy
RUP, “break off” > L. RUMPERE/RUPTUS, “break” (RUPTURE)
SA, “she, that”
SAD, “sit, sink into despondency, despair” akin to SATTI, “sitting” > L. SEDERE (SETTLE, RESIDE, RESIDUE, SEDIMENT, SADNESS)
SAM, “together, in common with” (SYMPATHY, “together-mind”, in that there is a sharing of emotions.) See SAMA.
SAMA (#1), “same” (SIMILAR, SIMULATE) See SAM.
SAMA (#2), “any, every” (SOME)
SAPTAN, “seven” (SEPTEMBER, seventh month of the year in earlier calendars; SEPTENNIAL, “every seven years”)
SARPA, “serpent”
SATII, wife of Shiva > Eng. SUTTEE because of her faithfulness to him and how she cremated herself.
SHAALAA Fr. SALLE (SALON, SALOON)
SHARKARAA, “ground or candied sugar” (SACCHARIN, SUCROSE)
SHATAM, “hundred”=L. CENTUM (CENT, CENTURY, CENTIME)
SIV, “sew” > A.S. SEOWIAN, Goth. SIUJAN (SEW)
SMI, “smile”
SRIV/SRIIV/SHRIV, “to go/become dry; lead astray; frustrate, thwart; cause to fail”. Cf. Eng. [?] SHRIVEL, “become wrinkled, as from heat [dry up?]; be reduced to an inefficient condition; reduce to helplessness”. Oxford English Dictionary says this word derives from Swedish but is uncertain.
STHAA > L. STARE (STAND, STAY)
STHAG, “hide,cause to disappear” > Hindi THAG (THUG)
STHAL, “be firm, stand firm” (STILL)
SUUNU, “son”
SVA, “one’s own” > L. SE/SUA, Fr. SE/SOI/SA (SELF)
SVAAMIN, “spiritual master, teacher” (SWAMI)
SVAN, “to sound” (SONAR, SONI; SWAN, the bird [sic])
SVADU, “sweet”
SVASTIKA, “cross of good fortune, auspicious sign”, akin to SVASTI, a salutation meaning “be well” (SWASTIKA. Hitler perverted the original positive intention of the word)
SVID, “sweat” akin to SVEDA, “sweating”
TAANDAVA, Shiva’s Dance/”Ring around the Rosy”, > Hung. TANC > Germ. TANZ (DANCE)
TARU, “tree”
TAT, “that”
TRI-, prefix “three” (TRIPLE)
TVA, “you”=L. TU/TE/TUA, Fr. TOI (THOU, THEE)
TVAN’G, “tremble” (See TWANG near the end of this site.
UBHA, “both” > L. AMBO (AMBIDEXTROUS, AMBIVALENT)
UURDHVA, “elevated, high” > L. ARDUUS, “steep” (ARDUOUS, “steep”)
UURJ, “be strong” > L. URGERE, “exert pressure, subject (a person) to repeated verbal attacks (URGE)
VA, “wind” akin to VAANA, “blowing” > L. VENTUS, “wind” (WIND, VENTILATE, VENT)
VAACH, “speech” (VOICE, VOCAL)
VAH, “carry, travel by car” > L. VEHICULUM, VEHERE (VEHICULAR, WEIGH)
VAKSH, “be angry” (WAX)
VAM, “vomit”
VAN, “gain, conquer” (WIN)
VAS, “wear clothes” > L. VESTIS, “one’s own dress” (VEST)
VID, “perceive, observe”, akin to VEDA, sacred philosophical writings > L. VIDERE/VISUS, “see” (VIDEO, VISTA, VISION, PROVIDE/PROVISION, DIVIDE/DIVISION, DIVIDEND, VEDIC)
VIIR, “be strong, display heroism”, akin to VIIRA, “man”; VIIRYA, “manliness, semen, poison” > L. VIRUS, “poison” (VIRILE, “manly, strong”. To this we might add L. VIRGA, “rod”, which later turns into Eng. VERGE, “rod, penis”; WEREWOLF, “man-wolf”; VIRULENT, “poisonous”; )
YADA
YAHU (YAHOO, of Gulliver’s Travels)
YUJ, “yoke,join, bind”, akin to YUKTA, “joined”; YUKTI, “junction”; YUGA, “a yoke, couple” > L. IUGARE, “join, fasten”; IUGUM, “yoke”; IUNGERE/IUNCTUM, “join” (JOINT, JUNCTION; YOGA, “union”; YOGI)
YU/YUVAN (JUVENILE, YOUNG)
Sources:
Liddell, Henry George, and Scott, Robert. A GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON
Monier-Williams, Monier. A SANSKRIT-ENGLISH DICTIONARY
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, 2nd edition
OXFORD LATIN DICTIONARY
Stanislawski, J. ENGLISH-POLISH, POLISH-ENGLISH DICTIONARY Walker, Benjamin. THE HINDU WORLD
December 4, 2008 at 9:49 am
THEIR IS NO THING LIKE PIE YOU PEOPLE WILL NOT BELIVE THIS AS IT IS A TOUGH THING TO DIGEST .
AS PROF.BROWN SAID”SANSKRIT IS THE MOTHER OF ALL EUROPEAN LANGUAGES”.
December 4, 2008 at 10:10 am
THERE IS NOTHING TO UNDER STAND HERE MY FRIEND,ITS ONLY TO RELY ON FACTS.
VENKAT YOU ARE THE GUY WHO SEES EVERY THING IN’ADHYATTIC,WELL I AM THE GUY WHO SEES EVERY THING THROUGH ‘YUKTIH’.
December 4, 2008 at 11:31 am
speaking of ADHYATTIC(adhyathmic),i once again remember vivekananda’s explanation about patanjali’s aphorisms(yoga sutra)
http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_1/vol_1_frame.htm
December 4, 2008 at 11:33 am
speaking of ADHYATTIC(adhyathmic),i once again remember vivekananda’s explanation about patanjali’s aphorisms(yoga sutra)
2. Yoga is restraining the mind-stuff (Chitta) from taking various forms (Vrittis).
A good deal of explanation is necessary here. We have to understand what Chitta is, and what the Vrittis are. I have eyes. Eyes do not see. Take away the brain centre which is in the head, the eyes will still be there, the retinae complete, as also the pictures of objects on them, and yet the eyes will not see. So the eyes are only a secondary instrument, not the organ of vision. The organ of vision is in a nerve centre of the brain. The two eyes will not be sufficient. Sometimes a man is asleep with his eyes open. The light is there and the picture is there, but a third thing is necessary — the mind must be joined to the organ. The eye is the external instrument; we need also the brain centre and the agency of the mind. Carriages roll down a street, and you do not hear them. Why? Because your mind has not attached itself to the organ of hearing. First, there is the instrument, then there is the organ, and third, the mind attached to these two. The mind takes the impression farther in, and presents it to the determinative faculty — Buddhi — which reacts. Along with this reaction flashes the idea of egoism. Then this mixture of action and reaction is presented to the Purusha, the real Soul, who perceives an object in this mixture. The organs (Indriyas), together with the mind (Manas), the determinative faculty (Buddhi), and egoism (Ahamkâra), form the group called the Antahkarana (the internal instrument). They are but various processes in the mind-stuff, called Chitta. The waves of thought in the Chitta are called Vrittis (literally “whirlpool”) . What is thought? Thought is a force, as is gravitation or repulsion. From the infinite storehouse of force in nature, the instrument called Chitta takes hold of some, absorbs it and sends it out as thought. Force is supplied to us through food, and out of that food the body obtains the power of motion etc. Others, the finer forces, it throws out in what we call thought. So we see that the mind is not intelligent; yet it appears to be intelligent. Why? Because the intelligent soul is behind it. You are the only sentient being; mind is only the instrument through which you catch the external world. Take this book; as a book it does not exist outside, what exists outside is unknown and unknowable. The unknowable furnishes the suggestion that gives a blow to the mind, and the mind gives out the reaction in the form of a book, in the same manner as when a stone is thrown into the water, the water is thrown against it in the form of waves. The real universe is the occasion of the reaction of the mind. A book form, or an elephant form, or a man form, is not outside; all that we know is our mental reaction from the outer suggestion. “Matter is the permanent possibility of sensations,” said John Stuart Mill. It is only the suggestion that is outside. Take an oyster for example. You know how pearls are made. A parasite gets inside the shell and causes irritation, and the oyster throws a sort of enamelling round it, and this makes the pearl. The universe of experience is our own enamel, so to say, and the real universe is the parasite serving as nucleus. The ordinary man will never understand it, because when he tries to do so, he throws out an enamel, and sees only his own enamel. Now we understand what is meant by these Vrittis. The real man is behind the mind; the mind is the instrument his hands; it is his intelligence that is percolating through the mind. It is only when you stand behind the mind that it becomes intelligent. When man gives it up, it falls to pieces and is nothing. Thus you understand what is meant by Chitta. It is the mind-stuff, and Vrittis are the waves and ripples rising in it when external causes impinge on it. These Vrittis are our universe.
The bottom of a lake we cannot see, because its surface is covered with ripples. It is only possible for us to catch a glimpse of the bottom, when the ripples have subsided, and the water is calm. If the water is muddy or is agitated all the time, the bottom will not be seen. If it is clear, and there are no waves, we shall see the bottom. The bottom of the lake is our own true Self; the lake is the Chitta and the waves the Vrittis. Again, the mind is in three states, one of which is darkness, called Tamas, found in brutes and idiots; it only acts to injure. No other idea comes into that state of mind. Then there is the active state of mind, Rajas, whose chief motives are power and enjoyment. “I will be powerful and rule others.” Then there is the state called Sattva, serenity, calmness, in which the waves cease, and the water of the mind-lake becomes clear. It is not inactive, but rather intensely active. It is the greatest manifestation of power to be calm. It is easy to be active. Let the reins go, and the horses will run away with you. Anyone can do that, but he who can stop the plunging horses is the strong man. Which requires the greater strength, letting go or restraining? The calm man is not the man who is dull. You must not mistake Sattva for dullness or laziness. The calm man is the one who has control over the mind waves. Activity is the manifestation of inferior strength, calmness, of the superior.
The Chitta is always trying to get back to its natural pure state, but the organs draw it out. To restrain it, to check this outward tendency, and to start it on the return journey to the essence of intelligence is the first step in Yoga, because only in this way can the Chitta get into its proper course.
Although the Chitta is in every animal, from the lowest to the highest, it is only in the human form that we find it as the intellect. Until the mind-stuff can take the form of intellect it is not possible for it to return through all these steps, and liberate the soul. Immediate salvation is impossible for the cow or the dog, although they have mind, because their Chitta cannot as yet take that form which we call intellect.
The Chitta manifests itself in the following forms — scattering, darkening, gathering, one-pointed, and concentrated. The scattering form is activity. Its tendency is to manifest in the form of pleasure or of pain. The darkening form is dullness which tends to injury. The commentator says, the third form is natural to the Devas, the angels, and the first and second to the demons. The gathering form is when it struggles to centre itself. The one-pointed form is when it tries to concentrate, and the concentrated form is what brings us to Samâdhi.
December 4, 2008 at 5:47 pm
well nothing is absolute in this universe my friend.
December 4, 2008 at 9:11 pm
Sanskit is too young and too modernistic at all. Proto-Indo-European is Adamic, most traditional and most primordial ever.
http : / / www . utexas . edu / cola / centers / lrc / ielex /
http : / / www . koeblergerhard . de / idgwbhin . html
http : / / indo-european . eu / wiki / index . php / Adamic _ language
Catholic Most Holy Trinity revealed to Anne Catherine Emmerich as follows:
“The first tongue, the mother tongue, spoken by Adam, Sem, and Noe, was different, and it is now extant only in isolated dialects. Its first pure offshoots are the Zend, the sacred tongue of India [Sanskrit], and the language of the Bactrians. In those languages, words may be found exactly similar to the Low German of my native place. The book that I see in modern Ctesiphon, on the Tigris, is written in that language.”
As you see, Catholic Most Holy Trinity declares sanskrit as confused descendant, but not as unconfused Adamic PIE protolanguage.
http : / / www . all – jesus . com / scriptures / bible1-4 . htm
Example cognates:
PIE nokwt- -> sanskrit nakt
PIE ster- -> sanskrit str
PIE penkwe- -> sanskrit pança
PIE wid- -> sanskrit veda
PIE qno- -> sanskrit jna
etc…
December 5, 2008 at 6:14 am
The `Aryan invasion` myth
“To lift the veil of the past, we must first lift the veil of our own minds. ”
The majority of western Ideologists have subscribed to the `Aryan invasion` hypothesis in one form or another ever since its popularity in the 19th century. Despite the lack of strong evidence in its favour, only recently has the balance of opinion begun to shift.
The theory initially came to prominence due to its apparent ability to relate between Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages, including Persian, Greek and Latin. After these similarities were first noticed in 1786 by the British judge and Sanskritist William Jones, researchers in comparative linguistics began to speculate about an original `proto-Indo-European` language. This language may have spawned later tongues, and the idea was proposed that a nomadic race of people, situated somewhere in central Asia, must have spread out in various directions, invading regions of Europe, the Middle East, and what is now the Indian subcontinent, and taking their language with them.
Scholars gave to this hypothetical race the label `Aryan`, from the Sanskrit word Arya. Arya is the term which appears in the Rig-Veda and elsewhere, and claimed that the presence of the Sanskrit language and of Vedic civilization in India was due to a forceful invasion. According to later versions of the theory, a more gradual migration by this central Asian race was also supposed as a possible reason instead of Invasion.
This theory which places the nation of India in the role of `victim` and denies an autochthonous origin to Vedic language and religions is unable to stand the new evidence from the Fields of archaeology and textual analysis. Still, it is important to at least mention some of the refuting arguments here, so that the subject of Indian soteriology, and of hatha-yoga in particular, may be clearly appraised and remain undarkened by the lone, shadow of a false hypothesis that explains the remarkable phonetic and grammatical similarities.
The First point to mention is that, in Vedic literature, the term arya does not in fact refer to a racial type or to a language, but is, `a title of honor and respect given to certain groups for good or noble behavior.` To support the invasion theory, passages of the Vedas that speak of a conflict between light` and `dark` powers had been interpreted as references to a literal battle between fair-skinned `Aryans` and darker-skinned `Dasyus`. The latter term being (wrongly) supposed to denote the Dravidian people most prominent today in South India. As Aurobindo makes clear, however, the conflict being described is a moral and spiritual, not a physical, one:
The Aryan is he who does the work of sacrifice, finds the sacred word of illumination, desires the Gods and increases into the largeness of the true existence. An aryan is the warrior of the light and the traveler to the Truth. The Dasyu is the undivine being who does no sacrifice, amasses a wealth he cannot rightly use because he cannot speak the word or mentalise the superconscient Truth, hates the Word, the gods and the sacrifice and gives nothing of himself to the higher existences but robs and with-holds his wealth from the Aryan.
Secondly, it should be remembered that there is no hard evidence for the invasion theory, only conjectures based on `soft` linguistic evidence, and this soft evidence is completely over-ridden by archaeological discoveries made during the 20th century. These discoveries include not only the well-known sites such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro located `along the banks of the Indus river, but also over five hundred ancient sites associated with the Sarasvat river, some of which are far larger than any Indus valley settlements.
“Sarasvati” is the name given to the major river described in the Vedas, and also to a Vedic goddess. Geological research has indicated that such a river used to flow from the Tibetan Himalaya down to the Arabian Sea, but that `major tectonic shifts…possibly accompanied by volcanic eruptions` led to changes of the river`s Course and its eventual drying up sometime around 1900 B.C.E.” What was once a fertile valley now forms part of the Thar Desert of north-west India and eastern Pakistan. Evidence gleaned from excavations of sites long hidden by the Thar sands suggests the existence of a culturally-advanced civilization throughout the Sarasvati-indus region stretching back to 6500 B.C.E., long before even the earliest proposed dates for an invasion from the north. Artefacts found at Sarasvat-Indus settlements show signs of a culture bearing a marked resemblance to that revealed in the Vedas, as well as a strong continuity with Hindu society thereafter. `This continuity` is evident in the religious ideas, arts, crafts, architecture, writing style, and the system of weights and measures.
These are all the facts that are hard to justify if we believe in Aryans being “foreign invaders who leveled the native civilization of the Indus Valley.”
Thirdly, textual analysis of the Vedas shows that a close correspondence exists between geographical and climatic features described therein and those of northern India as it would have been before the Saraswati dried up, a correspondence which also applies to the flora and fauna.
Furthermore, a comparative study of the Vedic Samhitas and the later Brahmanas and Puranas suggests that a large migration took place around 1900 B.C.E. away from the Indus-Saraswati region and towards the Gangetic plane to the east, not to escape the violence inflicted by some invading hoard, but because the rivers to the west had been `burned out` by the blazing heat of Agni (the Fire deity, perhaps in this case representing the heat of the Sun). Thus a plausible explanation exists for the abandonment.
Textual and archaeological evidence has given proof of existence of the Indus-Sarasvat settlements, which is supported by textual geological data.
Contrary to this establishment of the Aryan invasion hypothesis, the introduction of Vedic religion and culture into India had been assumed to have taken place sometime after 2500 B.C. Interpreters of the new evidence propose a steady development within the Indian subcontinent along the following chronological lines
6500-3100 B.C. E.: Early Indus-Saraswati civilization, early Rig-Veda.
3100-1900 B.C.E.: Mature Indus-Sarasvat civilization; period of the four Vedas;
1900-1000 B.C.E.: Migration of Indus-Saraswati civilization to the region of the Ganga river; late Vedic and Brahmana period.
While additional significant archaeological Finds no doubt remain to be made, the likelihood is that these will serve only to push the tentative dates proposed above back still farther into the ancient past, and not to undermine the basis of the new
Schematic.
Whatever future research throws up, the Aryan invasion myth can safely be consigned to the dustbin of history.
December 5, 2008 at 6:37 am
SEE this article also
(10) A fallacy that relates to the period
of the Vedas, Upnishads and the Puranas.
It has already been explained that the Vedas, the Upnishads and the Puranas are: (a) eternal and Divine, (b) firstly produced by the creator Brahma, (c) they are not the writings of any human being, and (d) all of them were again revealed and rewritten by Bhagwan Ved Vyas long before he revealed the Bhagwatam, which was sometime before 3072 BC. Sanskrit language is also eternal which was firstly produced by Brahma and then it was reproduced by Ved Vyas along with the Vedas and the Upnishads.
But, the western writers and also the encyclopedias wrongfully say that the Sanskrit language started around 1500 BC and the Vedas came after that, whereas the Puranas came at a much later date sometime between 400 and 800 AD. They call Ved Vyas as only a legendary figure. Not only that, they derogate Bhartiya religion by all possible means, mutilate the history and abuse the Vedas by saying they are the poetic compositions of some foreign Aryan tribe who spoke Sanskrit and came to India from a still-unknown land around 1500 BC; and a lot more misleading statements like these.
For the last 200 years such a wrong image of Hinduism is being injected into the innocent minds of the school-going children as well as in the minds of the research scholars all over the world who study Hindu religion. Someone has to take the lead to correct these wrong statements about Bhartiya religion and history and feed the correct information into the encyclopedias of the world and save millions of innocent seekers of truth whose spiritual progress is being hampered and paralyzed because of such negative informations that confuse their mind and damage their faith.
Let us now come to the reality and see how it all started. On the 2nd of February, 1786, a British jurist and a great scholar of Latin and Greek languages, Sir William Jones, who had also studied Sanskrit in India, gave a stunning speech in the Asiatic Society of Calcutta (Bengal) about the amazing similarity of some Sanskrit words with that of Latin and Greek, and the audience was thrilled with his skilled oratory and the style of the interpretation of his findings. But, in the end, he strongly asserted that, not Sanskrit, but there must be some other unknown common language from which all those languages must have originated.
Was he correct? No. Absolutely not. Because Sanskrit is the first language of the earth planet. Its root system of forming a word and its detailed grammar have no comparison with any of the languages of the world, and because it is the original language, so it is very likely that some of its daily spoken words could have been adopted by the other languages which itself is the evidence that Sanskrit is the mother language of the world.
But still his linguistic conjectures and skilled speculations led the other European linguists to proceed on the same lines. Thus, the term “Indo-European (or Proto-Indo European) language” was created, which factually never existed. (Article 23) In this way, the attention of the whole world was withdrawn from looking into the greatness of the Sanskrit language and was drawn towards the opposite side of the truth, which was like searching for water in a mirage in a desert.
December 5, 2008 at 7:03 am
IS LORD KALKI PREDICTED IN THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS?
Here are some additional interesting points to consider. There are verses from the book of Revelations in the Bible that are very similar to the above descriptions in the Puranas about Lord Kalki. These verses are so similar that they cannot be ignored and may provide additional insight for Christians and similarities they may share with Vedic culture. In Revelations (19.11-16, & 19-21) it states:
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, but no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat on the horse.”
This sounds so much like the incarnation of Lord Kalki that it could hardly be anyone else. Surely, by the time Lord Kalki appears, no one will have the slightest expectation of Him or His appearance. No one will know His name. And His army of brahmanas will be as pure as if they had descended from heaven. At the time of Lord Kalki’s appearance, He will kill the remaining miscreants and deliver the few saintly people from the present conditions of the earth, changing it back to the Golden Age of Satya-yuga. In this regard, Revelations (14.1-3) also describes:
“And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb [a typical symbol for the Divine or an incarnation of the Divine] stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps; And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.”
One significant description in the above verses is that those who are redeemed from the earth will have God’s name written on their foreheads. This is a widespread custom of the brahmanas in India to write the name of God, such as Vishnu or Krishna, on their foreheads. This is tilok, which is usually put on with clay made from the banks of a holy river. We often see this in the middle of the forehead in the shape of a “V” which represents the name of God and that the body is a temple of God, or the three-lined markings of the Shaivites. The Vaishnava mark is made while reciting “Om keshavaya namaha,” which means “Salutations to Lord Keshava,” another name of Krishna.
So herein could be an indication that when the last of society is delivered from the earth during the end times, they will be those who wear the name of God on their foreheads, at least according to these verses. Also, as in accord with other Vedic prophecies, we can understand that there will be very few people left in the world who will have any piety at all. So it would fit in with the Vedic prophecies that by the time Lord Kalki appears, there may, indeed, be only 144,000 who will be left in the world worthy of being delivered from the godless and chaotic conditions of the earth. Or these may be the seeds of the new civilization that will start the beginning of the next age of Satya-yuga.
December 5, 2008 at 9:56 am
HERE IS SOME MORE EVIDENCE ABOT THE PuREST LANGUAGE OF THIS EATH:
It is no small wonder that the language which was used before thousands of years is being used today in the same way. There is no change in the structure or in the style of Sanskrit language and hence the old literature of the ancient India can be understood and learnt without slightest difficulty. The language of Ramayana and Mahabharata has not grown old or become outdated. Anybody with the rudimentary knowledge of Sanskrit can go through the great epics with the minimum possible efforts. The languages which are much much younger to Sanskrit have undergone so much changes that their original form has been lost in oblivion. The credit of this maintenance of Sanskrit’s eternal beauty through the ages goes to the great intellectual giant Panini.
These have all evolved from a single language (or, more immediately, a group of closely related dialects), namely ‘Primitive Indo-European’ or just ‘Indo-European’, spoken in about the third millenium BC, of which no direct record remains. The original Indo-European speakers seem to have been tribes inhabiting the plains of Eastern Europe, particularly the area north of the Black Sea (archaeological remains in the South Russian Steppes are in harmony with this supposition), from where migration subsequently occurred in many directions. With the discovery of Hittite, Sanskrit has ceased to be the oldest recorded Indo-European language: but for many reasons, including the fact that Hittite separated early from the main Indo-European stock, Sanskrit remains of central importance to the student of the history of the Indo-European language.
Sanskrit belongs, more specifically, to the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European. The other most important member of this branch is Persian. The earliest Indo-Iranian speakers are conveniently known as Aryans, from the name which they gave themselves (Sanskrit arya, Avestan airya – from the latter the modern name Iran is derived, while the name “Eire”, at the other end of the Indo-European spectrum, may also be cognate). Although it is reasonable to assume that the original homeland of the Aryan tribes was the north of the Caucasus, our earliest record of them comes neither from this region nor from the Indo-Iranian area but from south of the Caucasus, from the Mitanni kingdom of Northern Mesopotamia, where a ruling dynasty bearing Aryan names and worshipping Aryan gods such as Indra had established itself in the first half of the second millenium BC. However, the main movement of Aryan migration was not south but east into Central Asia, and from there by separate penetrations into Iran and India. Thereafter the Aryans of Iran and the Aryans of India went their separate ways both culturally and linguistically. The oldest stage of Iranian is represented by Avestan, the sacred language of the Zoroastrians, and by Old Persian, the dialect used in the cuneiform inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings.
In India, a highly evolved and urbanised civilisation had existed long before the coming of the Aryans. This was the ‘Indus Valley Civilisation’, known to us in particular from excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, and dating from at least the middle of the third millenium. The culture was stable over a long period, and literate. It came to a sudden end, and it is tempting in the extreme to attribute its destruction to the coming of the Aryans. However, an awkward time gap exists, and has not yet been successfully explained, for the Indus civilisation seems to have perished in about 1700 BC and there is no evidence that the Aryans reached India before the latter half of the second millenium.
The survival in Baluchistan up to the present day of a Dravidian language, Brhui, so far from what is now the main Dravidian area in Southern India, makes it reasonable to conclude that before the arrival of the Aryans Dravidian was spoken over a much wider area, and the suggestion has naturally been made that the inhabitants of the Indus cities spoke a Dravidian language. At present this remains unproved, unless recent claims of successful decipherment of the Indus script are accepted, and other non-Aryan language families do exist in India, most notably the group of Munda languages. Although the language of the Aryans established itself over most of Northern India, it seems that in the long run the Aryans were affected both culturally and linguistically by the peoples they conquered, and Dravidian and Munda influences (particularly the former) can be traced in the development of Sanskrit itself.
The speech introduced by the Aryans into India developed and diversified, and the major modern languages of Northern India (like Hindi, Bengali, Panjabi, Gujarati, Marathi etc.) are descended from it. The generic term for such languages is Indo-Aryan. One may conveniently divide the development of Indo-Aryan into three stages: Old, Middle and Modern.
Old Indo-Aryan is equivalent to Sanskrit only in the widest sense of the latter term, and is divided principally between Vedic and the later Classical Sanskrit. Our record of Old Indo-Aryan begins with the hymns of the Rgveda, which date back to at least 1000 BC and are the product of a considerable literary skill. That they were composed a fair time after the arrival of the Aryans in India is shown both by the absence of any reference to a homeland outside India and by divergences, principally phonetic, in the language itself from what can be reconstructed as the common Indo-Iranian tongue. Intermediate between the language of the Rgveda and that of the Classical period is the language of the Brahmanas, prose works which seek to interpret the mystical significance of the Vedic ritual, the earliest of them written well before the middle of the first millenium BC. The Upanishads are a part of the Brahmana literature.
With the passage of time the language of even the educated priestly class diverged more and more from that of the sacred hymns themselves, and it became increasingly a matter of concern that the hymns should be transmitted without corruption, in order to preserve their religious efficacy. Consequently, a study began to be made of the principles of linguistic, and more particularly of phonetic, analysis. from this developed a grammatical science which concerned itself not only with the sacred language but also with contemporary educated speech. The grammar of Panini, the Astadhyayi, usually attributed to the fourth century BC, is evidently the culmination of a long and sophisticated grammatical tradition, though the perfection of his work caused that of his predecessors to vanish. In less than 4000 sutras, or brief aphorisms (supplemented on points of detail by the grammarian Katyayana), he analyses the whole phonology and morphology of Sanskrit.
By Classical Sanskrit is meant essentially the language codified by Panini.
The Sanskrit of Panini´s time had the cachet not simply of being the dialect of the educated classes but also of being much closer than was the popular speech to the language of the sacred scriptures themselves.
The beginnings of Middle Indo-Aryan antedate Panini, for the speech of the ordinary people had been evolving faster than that of the educated classes. The term samskrta means ‘polished, (grammatically) correct’, and is in contrast with prakrta ‘(speech) of the common people’. Just as Sanskrit interpreted in a wide sense may conveniently stand for Old Indo-Aryan, so Prakrit, interpreted equally widely, may stand for Middle Indo-Aryan (morphological simplification accompanied by drastic phonological simplification, including a reduction in the number of vowels and a simplification of consonant groups).
As Middle Indo-Aryan developed and its various dialects drew further apart, the role of Sanskrit as a lingua franca grew increasingly important, and at a time when brahmanical influence was increasing. In the early centuries AD, first in the north and later in the south, Sanskrit became the only acceptable language both for administration and for learned communication. With the Buddhist Asvaghosa (second century AD), a master of Sanskrit literary stile, begins the great period of Classical Sanskrit, and it lasted for something like a thousand years. Part of the reason for Asvaghosa´s literary importance is that he is very nearly the only significant predecessor of the poet Kalidasa whose work has suvived. Kalidasa is commonly dated to the early fifth century, and on reading his poetry one cannot doubt that it represents the culmination of a great tradition; yet he is the earliest of the major classical poets. Perhaps, like Panini, Kalidasa eclipsed his predecessors and made their work seem not worth preserving.
By now Sanskrit was not longer a mother tongue but a language to be studied and conciously mastered.
Before the introduction of printing into India in the eighteenth century, the script in which Sanskrit was written and taught varied from place to place in India, and was the same, or almost the same, as that used in writing the local vernacular language. Well-travelled pandits might understand many forms of the alphabet, but the basis of Sanskrit tradition lay in recitation and oral communication. The widespread dessimination of printed Sanskrit texts, however, encouraged the predominance of one form of writing, the nagari (or devanagari) script of central India, in which the modern languages Hindi and Marathi are also written. Today even the most traditionally minded pandits are familiar with it, and Sanskrit publications of more than local interest are printed in no other script.
All the Indian scripts, however much elaborated in their forms, are developments over the course of centuries fro a single source. This was the brahmi script, written from left to right, first known to us from the inscriptions of the emperor Ashoka (third century BC). Its origin in unknown. Many suppose it to be an adaptation of the Semitic alphabet, but by the time of the Ashokan inscriptions the adaptation is already too thorough for positive identification. It reflects with considerable accuracy the phonetic structure of the Indo-Aryan languages. All later Indian scripts inherit its unusual graphic system; they differ from it and from each other selely as to the shapes into which the individual letters have evolved.
December 5, 2008 at 10:01 am
SANSKRIT AS THE DEVINE:
There are many aspects by which a language can be said as sacred and how we use it. If a language is used to discover the sacredness, purity and spirituality of life, it becomes a sacred language. Whether or not a language is sacred is determined by who is using it. This in turn has a great deal to do with whether a language is being used consciously or unconsciously, whether we use language as an instrument to accomplish our real purpose in life, that is, wake up and find out who we are; or we are unconsciously programmed by language, to maintain patterns of a struggle for individual survival established by previous generations.
People are always at the effect of the unconscious operation of any language. Suppose a group of people listen to some very simple Sanskrit sounds, sung in a rhythmic sequence, and then individually duplicate the sounds, based upon what they heard many times. Everybody will think that in “my turn” that there is little space left to actually listen and enjoy the sounds. This overriding preoccupation with getting it right is accompanied by an endless barrage of strategies, evaluations, comparisons, judgements, expectations, hopes, rationalizations and fears of consequences. By writing down this list of what everyone was thinking, the unconscious operation of language becomes visible.
Most people are not aware they are thinking all this until they see the language of it written on a flip chart. But this is just peeling away the first layer. There’s a still deeper layer of the unconscious operation of language where we have predefined who we are, based on whether or not we get it right.
We are given every opportunity to simply have a good time, improvise, play with sounds. But instead we choose to take it as a test of survival. In other words, it’s more important to prove our capacity to survive than it is to have a good time. The hidden unconscious language that we base our lives upon, dictates to us that we must get it right or we will be dominated by others, and that threatens our safety, our well being and ultimately our survival.
The first sign of a non-sacred, survival language is that it refers to “getting it right” as “smart”, as “success” etc. Such a language defines a person by the way he/she performs in a particular circumstance. The person is always at the effect of the language. If I get it right, I’m smart. If I get it wrong, I’m stupid. The problems and conflicts that occur with a survival language are myriad. To be happy, one must get it right all the time. And his primary motivation for doing so is to prove that he is brilliant so others won’t control him .. The problem with “getting better” is that he becomes programmed to always be getting better, but it’s never good enough. Getting better is an endless proposition. This survival model of language has conflict and suffering woven into its very fabric.
This particular phenomenon is defined in the Yoga Sutras as avidyaa, the fundamental lack of awareness which is the root klesha, or subtle cause of all suffering. The definition of avidyaa is: anitya-ashuci-duhkha-anaatmasu nitya-shuci-sukha-aatma-khyaatir avidyaa
“Avidyaa (ignorance) is an identity with a self which is not the self; with happiness in what is actually suffering; with purity in what is really impurity; and permanence in what is really impermanent.”
Avidyaa perfectly describes the nature of a survival language. A survival language is steeped in avidyaa. As long as who I am, is defined by such a language, I remain the victim of an endless vicious circle.
The question is — why would we choose a language which keeps us in perpetual self-judgement. The fact is that we never chose the language. It has always been around, and as children, we were given no other options. As long as we do not consciously redesign the way we use language, we remain at the effect of the past, conditioned by the very language of the past to repeat the patterns of the past, again and again.
As long as this survival model of language is in effect, it seems virtually impossible for people to learn Sanskrit. This is to a large degree due to the fact that Sanskrit is a perfect model of a sacred language, and a sacred language cannot be learned by means of a survival language.
This is not to say that English or any other language could not be used as a sacred language. In fact, it has to be, to begin the study of Sanskrit. Conversely, Sanskrit could be used in a survival mode. It’s just that in the design of most languages, there is very little safeguard against them being used as survival languages. And in the design of Sanskrit, there is every conceivable feature built in to keep it operating as a sacred language. The single most outstanding difference between a sacred and a survival language is the definition, orientation and usage in the language of the word “I”. “I” or its equivalent is the source of language. Without I, there is no you, he, she or it.
The evolution of the word “I” into a complex language is a process of creation. In the development of a sacred language, the process is a conscious one; language is an emanation, a creation, an instrument of “I”. In a survival language, “I” is an effect of the cultural patterns already unconsciously established by the language. In Sanskrit, even the sounds which make the word for “I” are consciously selected. AHAM. “A” is the first spoken sound, as well as the first sound of the Sanskrit alphabet. It can be discovered by breathing, in and with the mouth slightly open, releasing the breath with sound that requires the minimal effort. It naturally arises in the throat before the articulation of all other sounds. “HA” is the last letter of the Sanskrit alphabet.
After all the systematic patterns created by the movement of the tongue and lips have produced in perfect order all the other letters of the alphabet, the final sound is “HA”. It also is the only consonant sound that moves by the power of the breath alone, and the only consonant in exact proximity to “A” . The final letter “M” is the very last sound produced in the mouth, because it occurs due to the closing of the lips. In Sanskrit, AHAM is the beginning, the breath of life which brings forth creation, and the end. And this is expressed not just symbolically by the letters A-H-A-M, but physically, based on their location in the mouth. The other most important attribute of a sacred language is that each of its individual sounds are regarded as sacred. Anyone can feel this by getting relaxed and repeating the AHAM, over and over, and while doing so, feeling a complete all-encompassing expression of self.
Then, becoming silent, continue to feel “A” as the inhalation and HAM as the exhalation. “A” is the only sound which is truly internal. “HAM” is the most complete expression possible, arising directly from “A”, and closing after passing through all the positions of all other existing sounds. The design of a sacred language is such that the sounds perfectly express the vibrational essence of that which they describe. In this way, words establish knowledge and understanding directly. The next stage of establishing a sacred language is an intimacy with the other sounds of the language, becoming familiar with their exact location, savoring their delicacy, feeling their force and power, and the unique way they vibrate the body and atmosphere.
This is simply a matter of enjoying sound without inhibition, as we did when we were children. In the process of learning the Sanskrit alphabet, one discovers that all sounds are encompassed in “AHAM”. As other words are created, the sounds which compose them become the means by which “I-AHAM” establish my relationship of unity with, rather than separateness from, all existence.
Important characteristic of a sacred language is that the purpose for which it’s being used is discovering one’s own true nature. Sanskrit is so highly developed and refined as a tool for serving this purpose that even the task of learning the language seems “difficult” — unless the motive for learning is aligned with the function of the language, that is, to know oneself. When Sanskrit is approached with the humility and one-pointedness that is the trademark of a genuine search for truth, it becomes revealed. There arises a simple joy in all aspects of its study. Singing the alphabet is especially inspiring even when one has become proficient.
Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, although a master of Sanskrit, with more than 60 years of study behind him, and his speech impaired by a stroke, still seems to find his greatest delight in leading a group of students through the alphabet. Perhaps, this says a much as anything about the nature of a sacred language.
We seldom hear anyone over seven years of age singing the English alphabet. Its not that these sounds aren’t enjoyable to sing. We do not have the same relation to the English language that adults and children alike who have learned Sanskrit have with it. That relation is a sacred one, based on the energy conveyed through sound, a love for the unique characteristics of each sound in engaging the mind, body, the breath, vocal resonance, the mouth, tongue and lips.
Because of the simplicity of life in ancient times, there was an acute awareness that all changes in life took place as a result of changes in language. As new discoveries occurred in language, there was an immediate and very noticeable shift in human beings’ interactions and in the way that they perceived their environment. The evolution of human awareness was inextricably linked to the development of language. It was natural that more and more attention should be given to its development as the single most important factor in changing the quality of human life. This eventually gave way to discoveries whose magnitude is inconceivable to us in modern times, where language tends to be taken for granted.
The discovery, development and refinement of Sanskrit must have taken place over millennia. Although Sanskrit along with its great power to elevate human consciousness to sublime heights, is often attributed to a divine source, we can also hypothesize that its properties were discoveries that took place as a result of human beings actively and intensively engaging in the discovery of their own divine nature. The most significant question that must have arisen to the ancients was how to continue optimizing the human instrument, the body and mind, as a vehicle for the expansion of awareness and happiness.
Knowing that the operation of the instrument depends entirely on the language with which it is programmed, they worked on the refinement of language software. They scrutinized and experimented with the vocal instrument and the structure of the mouth and then selected only those sounds which had the greatest clarity, purity and power of resonance. They then organized these sounds in such a way that they could mutually enhance and brighten one another, and build upon each other’s resonance. They explored the factor of breath in creating sound, and discovered that by minimizing the breath with certain sounds and maximizing it with others, the language would induce in the instrument a state of relaxed alertness that could keep it operating efficiently and tirelessly for long periods of time, while expanding and building prana-energy. And as they did this, they became happier.
Furthermore, by coordinating the factors of purity of sound, enhanced resonance and breath, there also developed an awareness of the entire body as a resonating chamber through which sound could be transmitted. With increased vibratory power, the concept of the body as solid matter gradually became replaced by one of the body as the center of an energy field. In the process of transmitting sound energy, they observed subtle changes in the field and found they could expand it by following the sound waves. They had discovered that language has the capacity to convert the body and mind into pure energy. They began to feel joy.
It was further discovered that certain combinations of sounds would enhance the expansion of the field more than others, and this was experimented with, until sound combinations which could bring about this effect universally were revealed. Their joy expanded. These particular combinations became useful words for describing as well as feeling the state of consciousness they induced. In this way the breadth and depth of all that exists was explored. They looked and listened and experienced changes in the energy field, to see how the language could be further refined, what new distinctions could be made. Eventually, they fathomed creation and found their own identity at the very source of it all. Their bliss was boundless. When they spoke with one another in this language they established love and harmony.
Over millennia, Sanskrit was refined as an instrument of Yoga. By 500 B.C. it had reached a point where it was perfected, and ready to be laid down formally. The genius Panini was born for that purpose. So masterful, concise and comprehensive was his great work, Ashtadhyayi in formulating the Sanskrit language, that to this day, two and a half millennia later, no one has been able to improve upon his original work. For 25 centuries, the language has not only survived intact, but thrived through the love of countless enlightened sages, yogis and scholars, basically unmodified. Just imagine a language thriving with little change for 2500 years.
In each century there have been spiritual geniuses, who immersed themselves in the blissful and timeless joy of Sanskrit. Many have elaborated or commented on Panini’s original work, but none have changed it or replaced it. Yoga has thrived side by side with Sanskrit, but through all the practice, experimentation and discovery that has taken place in that science, there has been little need to develop new language or modify the old language in order to measure or inspire progress. Sanskrit had been perfected by 500 B.C. as a tool for defining the ultimate pinnacle of human aspiration.
Questions tend to come up as to why Sanskrit has not been used more as a popular language, or why we are not now utilizing it more widely. The primary obstacle, as I see it, is that we have had difficulty in accessing Sanskrit in the way that it is designed to be used. Because of the strong belief we hold that we are our body/mind, our primary concern is what is going to happen to us individually. We see the possibility of change, being happy in the future. And we try to choose and do those things which will most certainly secure our future happiness or enlightenment. This equation is almost universally interpreted as “getting more and getting better”. The approach never works for learning Sanskrit, or for being happy.
The motivation for learning Sanskrit is the enchantment, inspiration, peace and deep sense of spiritual connection felt when listening to it. Or it may have been a pure childlike enjoyment in duplicating those sounds. Most people would have no difficulty learning Sanskrit, if they simply remained in the mode of what motivated them in the first place, their enjoyment. But something else usually happens. The desire to learn Sanskrit starts to be perceived as a future goal, which, when and if achieved, will represent the securing of the happiness which generated the desire to learn it in the first place. The goal is usually accompanied by an expectation of mastering a certain amount of material within a certain period of time. The problem here is the old conditioning, all past memories of happiness, present or future, being thwarted by difficulties and interruptions. Greatest among these memories is the loss of the simple joy of being a child and the pure direct perception of life we all experienced in our childhood.
The nature of a sacred language such as Sanskrit is the direct way that it models life, or accesses through the purity of its sound and rhythms, the perfection and beauty of life that we all experienced as children. On our first exposure to Sanskrit, we reconnect with that purity and joy, and then with the desire to secure that again in our lives, decide that we must learn the language. On a very deep level, it’s a decision to nourish our spirit, and reestablish our oneness with life. But it also at the same time brings us face to face with our existential pain, the entire sum of our conditioning, all that has kept us in a state of feeling alone and separate for the greater part of a lifetime, as well as our repeated failure in attempting to regain that happiness.
Once the task of learning the language is conceived, the criteria for achievement are unconsciously measured. Success is determined by comparing what one has managed to learn with what remains to be known and how much others know. Success also depends on the mastery of a certain quantity of information in a certain period of time. The universal question asked at the beginning, is “How long will it take me to learn it?” But the Sanskrit language is so vast and distinctly different from other languages and other learning tasks, that from the very outset, it becomes apparent that it is going to be very difficult to achieve the expected success in the expected period of time. In addition, there are many Indian speakers and scholars, one could never even hope to catch up with. This inevitably brings the conclusion “Proficiency is further away than I had believed.” Along with this assessment — automatically arise the words “too difficult”. Sanskrit is too difficult.
But the problem is not really the perceived difficulty based on the amount of information that exists in the Sanskrit language. The fact that there is more information actually represents more enjoyment. If one were offered a large collection of the greatest music of all time accompanied by a continuous flow of increasingly majestic and panoramic visions, one would not be disappointed because it would take too long to listen to. In other words, discouragement about being able to learn Sanskrit has absolutely nothing to do with Sanskrit. Sanskrit is an enjoyable experience at all stages. Working with Sanskrit increases and develops energy and clarity of mind. There are seemingly an infinite variety of euphonic sound combinations and rhythmic patterns to be enjoyed. Experiencing them expands the capacity of the mind to operate as the cosmic computer it is designed to be.
The only real problem that arises with regard to learning Sanskrit is forgetting why one decided to learn it in the first place — to feel the joy and purity one felt as a child. When the real purpose is forgotten, we automatically default to concerns about success and failure based on past programming. It is only in regard to this that the idea “too difficult” can arise. Once “too difficult” takes root, the usual result is giving up, because one’s image of oneself being proficient, seems too difficult to attain within the time limitations calculated as a factor in producing the necessary satisfaction. Although such resignation is based on the fact of long-standing pain, it is not the truth. The truth is the original inspiration, the joy, the play, the heightened awareness. If Sanskrit seems too difficult, it’s doing its job perfectly.
A sacred language must teach us to discover where the energy of being flows, and it becomes easy.
The obvious solution is to have no expectations whatsoever with regard to time or quantities of information. This is an approach which serves our original purpose — to enter into that timeless dimension. If concerns come up or it seems to be getting difficult, it’s merely an indication that we’ve forgotten our real purpose. The moment the idea of getting or adding “more” arises, we lose the direct absorption, the enjoyment, the sense of play. This is direct bio-feedback Sanskrit is a play, a dance of energy in the eternal now. It, modeling life, is perfectly designed to take us beyond our expectations, our self images, our programming. But we must be ready to be in the role of a perpetual learner, a student of life, of the ancient, eternal wisdom, miraculously encoded in this sacred language.
If we believe that by learning a sacred language, we will gain knowledge and power, then we look to a future goal which is by definition opposed to our true nature. The power of a sacred language is to immediately mirror this back, as if to say, NO ACCESS. A sacred language, is one which guides us to our own true nature, and every time we derail ourselves, reminds us in some way that we’re missing out on its real nourishment. If we are going to engage, it must be with our total being, one pointed awareness, free from the distraction of where it might bring us, or rather, we might take it in the future. Sanskrit is the living heritage of great rishis who walked this earth thousands of years ago. It presents us with an awesome responsibility and a lifelong challenge, while it inspires us to remain fully engaged in exploring what’s possible for a human being.
Learning Sanskrit is an opportunity to know directly for ourselves what the rishis discovered long ago. Most important, when approached as a sacred language, it makes us happy. From the perspective of Yoga, all life ultimately merges into samadhi. It could be said that samadhi is the essence of yoga, In the Yoga Sutras, samadhi is defined, “tad evaathamaatraanirbhaasam-svaruupa-shuunyam iva samaadhih” that (consciousness, engaged in sustained focus upon a single object), reflecting the object alone, as if empty of its own nature, is samadhi. Everyone has had the experience of samadhi, whether in childhood, or some deeply absorbing experience, such as listening to music.
It’s a period when our usual identity disappears because our habitual use of language has been discontinued. Many teachers used to say “the body is a prison only when you cannot come and go as you please”. The experience of samadhi is the freedom to come and go. Without samadhi we live in a prison of language, whose walls consist of words, whose bars and locked doors are the meanings and significance we unknowingly give to those words. Unknowingly, because the meanings were never consciously selected. They were programmed into us by prior generations. For example, when people make a mistake, they tend to feel stupid or embarrassed. But whoever (aside from lexicographers) really defined for themselves what a “mistake” is?
The great sage Shankara (in the famous Bhajagovindam) wrote:
satsangatve nissangatvam nissangatve nirmohatvam | nirmohatve nishchalatatvam nishchalatattvam jiivanmuktiH ||
In a state of satsanga, good company, (comes) non-attachment; in non-attachment, a state beyond confusion; in truth beyond confusion, motionlessness; in motionlessness, living freedom.
The verse could be used as a model of the necessary conditions for making the shift from being at the effect of language to being at the source of it. It all begins with satsanga, good company. The best example of this that I know of is a group of people who have come together to learn Sanskrit. It seems that on some level, perhaps unconsciously, a person who has decided to learn Sanskrit, has decided in some way to use this sacred language for that which it was designed — to be free.
It is remarkably easy for such a group of people to change their relation to language, to put themselves at the source of language and then select and use language in a way that gives them access to Sanskrit, with ease and enjoyment. Without the mutual agreement of the group, satsanga, good company, it would be highly unlikely that the shift could ever take place. We grew up in a world where a mistake was a bad thing, enough so that most people would not risk making one. This led to massive withdrawal. Though people remained in a group, they were not really part of the group. In truth, fear dominated nearly all groups. Natural unity was shattered. The satsanga was lost. Groups were ineffective. Alone, individuals were powerless. Everyone was hopelessly at the effect of the language of right/wrong and smart/stupid. In effect, a “group” could have been defined as a “body of people which has come together to determine who is worthy and who is unworthy.” Fortunately, the Sanskrit language has given us the word “satsanga”, which could be defined as “a body of people who have come together (sanga) to ascertain reality (sat).” The fundamental agreement of such a group, such as the one which has come together to learn Sanskrit, is that “I” am prior to language.
I use language to direct my attention to a full appreciation of the beautiful sounds of the Sanskrit language, their harmonies and their organization, as well as the truths expressed through the language. The language that makes this possible is the language of yoga, another gift of Sanskrit. The satsanga agrees upon abhyaasa the selecting and sustained attention upon a single focal point, for example, listening to the sounds of the Sanskrit language. It’s also agreed that there’s nothing “wrong” with being off the point. Becoming aware that I am off point, without satsanga — I might worry about what I missed that others got, I might worry about being left behind — “others are succeeding where I fail.”
But in satsanga where the language of yoga has been agreed upon, there is vairaagya or non-attachment, “the full awareness of my own mastery to not-attach myself to habitual experience and simply return to the point, and even acknowledge ‘I missed something — could it be repeated?’”. For the satsanga, if anyone missed anything, it’s an opportunity for it to be reviewed and clarified and enjoyed again by everyone. It sounds too good to be true. Yet it happens exactly this way by shifting our relationship to language. This would not be possible without satsanga.
In the state of satsanga (satsangatve) comes non-attachment (nissangatvam). There is no more attachment to being right, and concurrently the fear of being wrong. The real satisfaction derived from the wholeness of group unity, the much greater capacity of the group to focus together, enjoy sound together, appreciate the beauty of Sanskrit together, all make the prior condition of being at the effect of words such as right/wrong or smart /stupid or success/failure seem totally irrelevant. Through satsanga, there’s a complete shift in our relation to language — we see through the prison walls.
In non-attachment (nissangatve), there comes a state beyond confusion (nirmohatvam). I’m no longer holding myself back because of the fear of consequences. I am feeling my oneness with the group. It’s safe to put myself into it. There is no conflict over wanting acceptance, while fearing rejection. My confusion over whether to participate or not – will I be rejected if I do it wrong or isolated if I do it right — is gone. The illusion, and the confusion (moha) of being separate from others dissolves. The truth that we are one emerges. When we move as one, we go beyond success and failure and access our natural ability to perfectly reflect whatever we perceive — samadhi.
In the state beyond confusion (nirmohatve), is motionlessness (nishcalitatvam). This happens in the Sanskrit satsanga. In the absence of striving to be better, fearing getting worse, the old language that raced through our mind stops. The mind becomes still, sensitive. A state of listening is present, sam٤hi, in which we feel the nuances of Sanskrit, its power, and the subtle way it resonates in the heart of our being, like ancient and eternal music. There’s no more struggle to learn, to gain and accumulate knowledge. The words of Sanskrit, through their sound vibration are like waves of pure energy, which we enjoy as if watching a performance taking place inside us — while their meanings describe our own fathomless perfection, as the seer of all, ancient, eternal.
In motionlessness (nishcalitatve), living freedom (jiivanmukti), The prison walls, even the memory that they were ever there, has dissolved. From beginning to end, from the first attempt to learn Sanskrit to the direct experience of the meaning of its ancient words of truth and power, Sanskrit generates and establishes an entirely different relationship with language. It’s the proper relationship, the true one, establishing our real unity, freedom from the bondage of the past illusions. It keeps us savoring the timeless enjoyment of the universe of sound, and a perfect creation.
By studying this sacred language only, the soul of India can be understood and a good example among foreigners, we can say, is Max Muller a German Scholar.
December 5, 2008 at 10:12 am
WELL, WHAT YOU WILL SAY NOW PIE AND marburg?
December 6, 2008 at 9:44 am
NOW ENJOY BY READING WHAT NASA DOES THINK ABOUT SANSKRIT:
Artificial Intelligence —Sanskrit— The Age of Information — NASA — Knowledge Representation
Sanskrit & Artificial Intelligence — NASA
Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence
by
Rick Briggs
Roacs, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, California
Abstract
In the past twenty years, much time, effort, and money has been expended on designing an unambiguous representation of natural languages to make them accessible to computer processing. These efforts have centered around creating schemata designed to parallel logical relations with relations expressed by the syntax and semantics of natural languages, which are clearly cumbersome and ambiguous in their function as vehicles for the transmission of logical data. Understandably, there is a widespread belief that natural languages are unsuitable for the transmission of many ideas that artificial languages can render with great precision and mathematical rigor.
But this dichotomy, which has served as a premise underlying much work in the areas of linguistics and artificial intelligence, is a false one. There is at least one language, Sanskrit, which for the duration of almost 1000 years was a living spoken language with a considerable literature of its own. Besides works of literary value, there was a long philosophical and grammatical tradition that has continued to exist with undiminished vigor until the present century. Among the accomplishments of the grammarians can be reckoned a method for paraphrasing Sanskrit in a manner that is identical not only in essence but in form with current work in Artificial Intelligence. This article demonstrates that a natural language can serve as an artificial language also, and that much work in AI has been reinventing a wheel millenia old.
First, a typical Knowledge Representation Scheme (using Semantic Nets) will be laid out, followed by an outline of the method used by the ancient Indian Grammarians to analyze sentences unambiguously. Finally, the clear parallelism between the two will be demonstrated, and the theoretical implications of this equivalence will be given.
Semantic Nets
For the sake of comparison, a brief overview of semantic nets will be given, and examples will be included that will be compared to the Indian approach. After early attempts at machine translation (which were based to a large extent on simple dictionary look-up) failed in their effort to teach a computer to understand natural language, work in AI turned to Knowledge Representation.
Since translation is not simply a map from lexical item to lexical item, and since ambiguity is inherent in a large number of utterances, some means is required to encode what the actual meaning of a sentence is. Clearly, there must be a representation of meaning independent of words used. Another problem is the interference of syntax. In some sentences (for example active/passive) syntax is, for all intents and purposes, independent of meaning. Here one would like to eliminate considerations of syntax. In other sentences the syntax contributes to the meaning and here one wishes to extract it.
I will consider a “prototypical” semantic net system similar to that of Lindsay, Norman, and Rumelhart in the hopes that it is fairly representative of basic semantic net theory. Taking a simple example first, one would represent “John gave the ball to Mary” as in Figure 1. Here five nodes connected by four labeled arcs capture the entire meaning of the sentence. This information can be stored as a series of “triples”:
give, agent, John
give, object, ball
give, recipient, Mary
give, time, past.
Note that grammatical information has been transformed into an arc and a node (past tense). A more complicated example will illustrate embedded sentences and changes of state:
John Mary
book past
Figure 1.
“John told Mary that the train moved out of the station at 3 o’clock.”
As shown in Figure 2, there was a change in state in which the train moved to some unspecified location from the station. It went to the former at 3:00 and from the latter at 3:O0. Now one can routinely convert the net to triples as before.
The verb is given central significance in this scheme and is considered the focus and distinguishing aspect of the sentence. However, there are other sentence types which differ fundamentally from the above examples. Figure 3 illustrates a sentence that is one of “state” rather than of “event .” Other nets could represent statements of time, location or more complicated structures.
A verb, say, “give,” has been taken as primitive, but what is the meaning of “give” itself? Is it only definable in terms of the structure it generates? Clearly two verbs can generate the same structure. One can take a set-theoretic approach and a particular give as an element of “giving events” itself a subset of ALL-EVENTS. An example of this approach is given in Figure 4 (”John, a programmer living at Maple St., gives a book to Mary, who is a lawyer”). If one were to “read” this semantic net, one would have a very long text of awkward English: “There is a John” who is an element of the “Persons” set and who is the person who lives at ADRI, where ADRI is a subset of ADDRESS-EVENTS, itself a subset of ‘ALL EVENTS’, and has location ‘37 Maple St.’, an element of Addresses; and who is a “worker” of ‘occupation 1′. . .etc.”
The degree to which a semantic net (or any unambiguous, nonsyntactic representation) is cumbersome and odd-sounding in a natural language is the degree to which that language is “natural” and deviates from the precise or “artificial.” As we shall see, there was a language spoken among an ancient scientific community that has a deviation of zero.
The hierarchical structure of the above net and the explicit descriptions of set-relations are essential to really capture the meaning of the sentence and to facilitate inference. It is believed by most in the AI and general linguistic community that natural languages do not make such seemingly trivial hierarchies explicit. Below is a description of a natural language, Shastric Sanskrit, where for the past millenia successful attempts have been made to encode such information.
Shastric Sanskrit
The sentence:
(1) “Caitra goes to the village.” (graamam gacchati caitra)
receives in the analysis given by an eighteenth-century Sanskrit Grammarian from Maharashtra, India, the following paraphrase:
(2) “There is an activity which leads to a connection-activity which has as Agent no one other than Caitra, specified by singularity, [which] is taking place in the present and which has as Object something not different from ‘village’.”
The author, Nagesha, is one of a group of three or four prominent theoreticians who stand at the end of a long tradition of investigation. Its beginnings date to the middle of the first millennium B.C. when the morphology and phonological structure of the language, as well as the framework for its syntactic description were codified by Panini. His successors elucidated the brief, algebraic formulations that he had used as grammatical rules and where possible tried to improve upon them. A great deal of fervent grammatical research took place between the fourth century B.C and the fourth century A.D. and culminated in the seminal work, the Vaiakyapadiya by Bhartrhari. Little was done subsequently to advance the study of syntax, until the so-called “New Grammarian” school appeared in the early part of the sixteenth century with the publication of Bhattoji Dikshita’s Vaiyakarana-bhusanasara and its commentary by his relative Kaundabhatta, who worked from Benares. Nagesha (1730-1810) was responsible for a major work, the Vaiyakaranasiddhantamanjusa, or Treasury of dejinitive statements of grammarians, which was condensed later into the earlier described work. These books have not yet been translated.
The reasoning of these authors is couched in a style of language that had been developed especially to formulate logical relations with scientific precision. It is a terse, very condensed form of Sanskrit, which paradoxically at times becomes so abstruse that a commentary is necessary to clarify it.
One of the main differences between the Indian approach to language analysis and that of most of the current linguistic theories is that the analysis of the sentence was not based on a noun-phrase model with its attending binary parsing technique but instead on a conception that viewed the sentence as springing from the semantic message that the speaker wished to convey. In its origins, sentence description was phrased in terms of a generative model: From a number of primitive syntactic categories (verbal action, agents, object, etc.) the structure of the sentence was derived so that every word of a sentence could be referred back to the syntactic input categories. Secondarily and at a later period in history, the model was reversed to establish a method for analytical descriptions. In the analysis of the Indian grammarians, every sentence expresses an action that is conveyed both by the verb and by a set of “auxiliaries.” The verbal action (Icriyu- “action” or sadhyu-”that which is to be accomplished,”) is represented by the verbal root of the verb form; the “auxiliary activities” by the nominals (nouns, adjectives, indeclinables) and their case endings (one of six).
The meaning of the verb is said to be both vyapara (action, activity, cause), and phulu (fruit, result, effect). Syntactically, its meaning is invariably linked with the meaning of the verb “to do”. Therefore, in order to discover the meaning of any verb it is sufficient to answer the question: “What does he do?” The answer would yield a phrase in which the meaning of the direct object corresponds to the verbal meaning. For example, “he goes” would yield the paraphrase: “He performs an act of going”; “he drinks”: “he performs an act of drinking,” etc. This procedure allows us to rephrase the sentence in terms of the verb “to do” or one of its synonyms, and an object formed from the verbal root which expresses the verbal action as an action noun. It still leaves us with a verb form (”he does,” “he performs”), which contains unanalyzed semantic information This information in Sanskrit is indicated by the fact that there is an agent who is engaged in an act of going, or drinking, and that the action is taking place in the present time.
Rather that allow the agent to relate to the syntax in this complex, unsystematic fashion, the agent is viewed as a one-time representative, or instantiation of a larger category of “Agency,” which is operative in Sanskrit sentences. In turn, “Agency” is a member of a larger class of “auxiliary activities,” which will be discussed presently. Thus Caitra is some Caitral or instance of Caitras, and agency is hierarchically related to the auxiliary activities. The fact that in this specific instance the agent is a third person-singular is solved as follows: The number category (singular, dual, or plural) is regarded as a quality of the Agent and the person category (first, second, or third) as a grammatical category to be retrieved from a search list, where its place is determined by the singularity of the agent.
The next step in the process of isolating the verbal meaning is to rephrase the description in such a way that the agent and number categories appear as qualities of the verbal action. This procedure leaves us with an accurate, but quite abstract formulation of the scntcnce: (3) “Caitra is going” (gacchati caitra) – “An act of going is taking place in the present of which the agent is no one other than Caitra qualified by singularity.” (atraikatvaavacchinnacaitraabinnakartrko vartamaanakaa- liko gamanaanukuulo vyaapaarah:) (Double vowels indicate length.)
If the sentence contains, besides an agent, a direct object, an indirect object and/or other nominals that are dependent on the principal action of the verb, then in the Indian system these nominals are in turn viewed as representations of actions that contribute to the complete meaning of the sentence. However, it is not sufficient to state, for instance, that a word with a dative case represents the “recipient” of the verbal action, for the relation between the recipient and the verbal action itself requires more exact specification if we are to center the sentence description around the notion of the verbal action. To that end, the action described by the sentence is not regarded as an indivisible unit, but one that allows further subdivisions. Hence a sentence such as: (4) “John gave the ball to Mary” involves the verb Yo give,” which is viewed as a verbal action composed of a number of auxiliary activities. Among these would be John’s holding the ball in his hand, the movement of the hand holding the ball from John as a starting point toward Mary’s hand as the goal, the seizing of the ball by Mary’s hand, etc. It is a fundamental notion that actions themselves cannot be perceived, but the result of the action is observable, viz. the movement of the hand. In this instance we can infer that at least two actions have taken place:
(a) An act of movement starting from the direction of John and taking place in the direction of Mary’s hand. Its Agent is “the ball” and its result is a union with Mary’s hand.
(b) An act of receiving, which consists of an act of grasping whose agent is Mary’s hand.
It is obvious that the act of receiving can be interpreted as an action involving a union with Mary’s hand, an enveloping of the ball by Mary’s hand, etc., so that in theory it might be difficult to decide where to stop this process of splitting meanings, or what the semantic primitives are. That the Indians were aware of the problem is evident from the following passage: “The name ‘action’ cannot be applied to the solitary point reached by extreme subdivision.”
The set of actions described in (a) and (b) can be viewed as actions that contribute to the meaning of the total sentence, vix. the fact that the ball is transferred from John to Mary. In this sense they are “auxiliary actions” (Sanskrit kuruku-literally “that which brings about”) that may be isolated as complete actions in their own right for possible further subdivision, but in this particular context are subordinate to the total action of “giving.” These “auxiliary activities” when they become thus subordinated to the main sentence meaning, are represented by case endings affixed to nominals corresponding to the agents of the original auxiliary activity. The Sanskrit language has seven case endings (excluding the vocative), and six of these are definable representations of specific “auxiliary activities.” The seventh, the genitive, represents a set of auxiliary activities that are not defined by the other six. The auxiliary actions are listed as a group of six: Agent, Object, Instrument, Recipient, Point of Departure, Locality. They are the semantic correspondents of the syntactic case endings: nominative, accusative, instrumental, dative, ablative and locative, but these are not in exact equivalence since the same syntactic structure can represent different semantic messages, as will be discussed below. There is a good deal of overlap between the karakas and the case endings, and a few of them, such as Point of Departure, also are used for syntactic information, in this case “because of”. In many instances the relation is best characterized as that of the allo-eme variety.
To illustrate the operation of this model of description, a sentence involving an act of cooking rice is often quoted: (5) “Out of friendship, Maitra cooks rice for Devadatta in a pot, over a fire.”
Here the total process of cooking is rendered by the verb form “cooks” as well as a number of auxiliary actions:
1. An Agent represented by the person Maitra
2. An Object by the “rice”
3. An Instrument by the “fire”
4. A Recipient by the person Devadatta
5. A Point of Departure (which includes the causal relationship) by the “friendship” (which is between Maitra and Devadatta)
6. The Locality by the “pot”
So the total meaning of the sentence is not complete without the intercession of six auxiliary actions. The action itself can be inferred from a change of the condition of the grains of rice, which started out being hard and ended up being soft.
Again, it would be possible to atomize the meaning expressed by the phrase: “to cook rice”: It is an operation that is not a unitary “process”, but a combination of processes, such as “to place a pot on the fire, to add fuel to the fire, to fan”, etc. These processes, moreover, are not taking place in the abstract, but they are tied to, or “resting on” agencies that are associated with the processes. The word used for “tied to” is a form of the verbal root a-sri, which means to lie on, have recourse to, be situated on.” Hence it is possible and usually necessary to paraphrase a sentence such as “he gives” as: “an act of giving residing in him.” Hence the paraphrase of sentence (5) will be: (6) “There is an activity conducive to a softening which is a change residing in something not different from rice, and which takes place in the present, and resides in an agent not different from Maitra, who is specified by singularity and has a Recipient not different from Devadatta, an Instrument not different from.. .,” etc.
It should be pointed out that these Sanskrit Grammatical Scientists actually wrote and talked this way. The domain for this type of language was the equivalent of today’s technical journals. In their ancient journals and in verbal communication with each other they used this specific, unambiguous form of Sanskrit in a remarkably concise way.
Besides the verbal root, all verbs have certain suffixes that express the tense and/or mode, the person (s) engaged in the “action” and the number of persons or items so engaged. For example, the use of passive voice would necessitate using an Agent with an instrumental suffix, whereas the nonpassive voice implies that the agent of the sentence, if represented by a noun or pronoun, will be marked by a nominative singular suffix.
Word order in Sanskrit has usually no more than stylistic significance, and the Sanskrit theoreticians paid no more than scant attention to it. The language is then very suited to an approach that eliminates syntax and produces basically a list of semantic messages associated with the karakas.
An example of the operation of this model on an intransitive sentence is the following:
(7) Because of the wind, a leaf falls from a tree to the ground.”
Here the wind is instrumental in bringing about an operation that results in a leaf being disunited from a tree and being united with the ground. By virtue of functioning as instrument of the operation, the term “wind” qualifies as a representative of the auxiliary activity “Instrument”; by virtue of functioning as the place from which the operation commences, the “tree” qualifies to be called “The Point of Departure”; by virtue of the fact that it is the place where the leaf ends up, the “ground” receives the designation “Locality”. In the example, the word “leaf” serves only to further specify the agent that is already specified by the nonpassive verb in the form of a personal suffix. In the language it is rendered as a nominative case suffix. In passive sentences other statements have to be made. One may argue that the above phrase does not differ in meaning from “The wind blows a leaf from the tree,” in which the “wind” appears in the Agent slot, the “leaf” in the Object slot. The truth is that this phrase is transitive, whereas the earlier one is intransitive. “Transitivity” can be viewed as an additional feature added to the verb. In Sanskrit this process is often accomplished by a suffix, the causative suffix, which when added to the verbal root would change the meaning as follows: “The wind causes the leaf to fall from the tree,” and since English has the word “blows” as the equivalent of “causes to fall” in the case of an Instrument “wind,” the relation is not quite transparent. Therefore, the analysis of the sentence presented earlier, in spite of its manifest awkwardness, enabled the Indian theoreticians to introduce a clarity into their speculations on language that was theretofore un- available. Structures that appeared radically different at first sight become transparent transforms of a basic set of elementary semantic categories.
It is by no means the case that these analyses have been exhausted, or that their potential has been exploited to the full. On the contrary, it would seem that detailed analyses of sentences and discourse units had just received a great impetus from Nagesha, when history intervened: The British conquered India and brought with them new and apparently effective means for studying and analyzing languages. The subsequent introduction of Western methods of language analysis, including such areas of research as historical and structural linguistics, and lately generative linguistics, has for a long time acted as an impediment to further research along the traditional ways. Lately, however, serious and responsible research into Indian semantics has been resumed, especially at the University of Poona, India. The surprising equivalence of the Indian analysis to the techniques used in applications of Artificial Intelligence will be discussed in the next section.
Equivalence
A comparison of the theories discussed in the first section with the Indian theories of sentence analysis in the second section shows at once a few striking similarities. Both theories take extreme care to define minute details with which a language describes the relations between events in the natural world. In both instances, the analysis itself is a map of the relations between events in the universe described. In the case of the computer-oriented analysis, this mapping is a necessary prerequisite for making the speaker’s natural language digestible for the artificial processor; in the case of Sanskrit, the motivation is more elusive and probably has to do with an age-old Indo-Aryan preoccupation to discover the nature of the reality behind the the impressions we human beings receive through the operation of our sense organs. Be it as it may, it is a matter of surprise to discover that the outcome of both trends of thinking-so removed in time, space, and culture-have arrived at a representation of linguistic events that is not only theoretically equivalent but close in form as well. The one superficial difference is that the Indian tradition was on the whole, unfamiliar with the facility of diagrammatic representation, and attempted instead to formulate all abstract notions in grammatical sentences. In the following paragraphs a number of the parallellisms of the two analyses will be pointed out to illustrate the equivalence of the two systems.
Consider the sentence: “John is going.” The Sanskrit paraphrase would be
“An Act of going is taking place in which the Agent is ‘John’ specified by singularity and masculinity.”
If we now turn to the analysis in semantic nets, the event portrayed by a set of triples is the following:
1. “going events, instance, go (this specific going event)”
2. “go, agent, John”
3. “go, time, present.”
The first equivalence to be observed is that the basic framework for inference is the same. John must be a semantic primitive, or it must have a dictionary entry, or it must be further represented (i.e. “John, number, 1″ etc.) if further processing requires more detail (e.g. “HOW many people are going?”). Similarly, in the Indian analysis, the detail required in one case is not necessarily required in another case, although it can be produced on demand (if needed). The point to be made is that in both systems, an extensive degree of specification is crucial in understanding the real meaning of the sentence to the extent that it will allow inferences to be made about the facts not explicitly stated in the sentence
The basic crux of the equivalence can be illustrated by a careful look at sentence (5) noted in Part II.
“Out of friendship, Maitra cooks rice for Devadatta in a pot over a fire ”
The semantic net is supplied in Figure 5. The triples corresponding to the net are:
cause, event, friendship
friendship, objectl, Devadatta
friendship, object2, Maitra
cause, result cook
cook, agent, Maitra
cook, recipient, Devadatta
cook, instrument, fire
cook, object, rice
cook, on-lot, pot.
The sentence in the Indian analysis is rendered as follows:
The Agent is represented by Maitra, the Object by “rice,” the Instrument by “fire,” the Recipient by “Devadatta,” the Point of Departure (or cause) by “friendship” (between Maitra and Devadatta), the Locality by “pot.”
Since all of these syntactic structures represent actions auxiliary to the action “cook,” let us write %ook” uext to each karakn and its sentence representat(ion:
cook, agent, Maitra
cook, object, rice
cook, instrument, fire
cook, recipient, Devadatta
cook, because-of, friendship
friendship, Maitra, Devadatta
cook, locality, pot.
The comparison of the analyses shows that the Sanskrit sentence when rendered into triples matches the analysis arrived at through the application of computer processing. That is surprising, because the form of the Sanskrit sentence is radically different from that of the English. For comparison, the Sanskrit sentence is given here: Maitrah: sauhardyat Devadattaya odanam ghate agnina pacati.
Here the stem forms of the nouns are: Muitra-sauhardya- “friendship,” Devadatta -, odana- “gruel,” ghatu- “pot,” agni- “fire’ and the verb stem is paca- “cook”. The deviations of the stem forms occuring at the end of each word represent the change dictated by the word’s semantic and syntactic position. It should also be noted that the Indian analysis calls for the specification of even a greater amount of grammatical and semantic detail: Maitra, Devadatta, the pot, and fire would all be said to be qualified by “singularity” and “masculinity” and the act of cooking can optionally be expanded into a number