182-495: Vāsudeva ( Sanskrit : वासुदेव , IAST : Vāsudeva ), later incorporated as Vāsudeva-Krishna ( Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa , " Krishna , son of Vasudeva "), Krishna-Vāsudeva or simply Krishna , was the son of Vasudeva Anakadundubhi , king of the Vrishnis in the region of Mathura . He was a leading member of the legendary Vrishni heroes , and may well have been a historical ruler in the region of Mathura. Vāsudevism arose with
364-494: A Vaishnava concept of primary quadrupled expansion, or chatur vyuha . Vāsudeva is also associated with the qualities of gentleness and strength. The tradition of Vāsudeva-Krishna is considered as separate from other ancient traditions such as that of Gopala-Krishna , with which it amalgamated at a later stage of the historical development. Some early scholars equate it with Bhagavatism . The cult of Krishna Vāsudeva ultimately merged with various traditions such as Bhagavatism ,
546-667: A vāsudevaka is a devotee ( bhakta ) of Vāsudeva. By the end of the 2nd century BCE, Vāsudeva was considered as Devadeva , the "God of Gods", the Supreme Deity, whose emblem was the mythical bird Garuda , as known from the Heliodorus pillar inscription . This pillar, offered by the Greek ambassador and devotee Heliodorus , also shows that Vāsudeva even received dedications from the Indo-Greeks , who also represented him on
728-509: A Brahmi script inscription, was discovered by colonial era archaeologists in Besnagar ( Vidisha , in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh ). Based on the internal evidence of the inscription, it has been dated to between 125 and 100 BCE and is now known after Heliodorus – an Indo-Greek who served as an ambassador of the Greek king Antialcidas to a regional Indian king, Kasiputra Bhagabhadra . The Heliodorus pillar inscription
910-569: A cumulative total of between 16,000 and 18,000 verses depending on the version. The tenth book of the text, which contains about 4,000 verses (~25%) and is dedicated to legends about Krishna, has been the most popular and widely studied part of this text. Krishna is represented in the Indian traditions in many ways, but with some common features. His iconography typically depicts him with black, dark, or blue skin, like Vishnu . However, ancient and medieval reliefs and stone-based arts depict him in
1092-792: A dancing child, or an innocent-looking child playfully stealing or consuming butter ( Makkan Chor ), holding Laddu in his hand ( Laddu Gopal ) or as a cosmic infant sucking his toe while floating on a banyan leaf during the Pralaya (the cosmic dissolution) observed by sage Markandeya . Regional variations in the iconography of Krishna are seen in his different forms, such as Jaganatha in Odisha, Vithoba in Maharashtra, Shrinathji in Rajasthan and Guruvayoorappan in Kerala. Guidelines for
1274-400: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." Krishna Traditional Krishna ( / ˈ k r ɪ ʃ n ə / ; Sanskrit : कृष्ण, IAST : Kṛṣṇa [ˈkr̩ʂɳɐ] ) is
1456-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
1638-591: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
1820-658: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
2002-532: A major deity in Hinduism . He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the Supreme God in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love; and is widely revered among Hindu divinities. Krishna's birthday is celebrated every year by Hindus on Krishna Janmashtami according to the lunisolar Hindu calendar , which falls in late August or early September of
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#17327810169712184-416: A metaphor where each of the eight wives signifies a different aspect of him. Vaishnava texts mention all Gopis as wives of Krishna, but this is understood as spiritual symbolism of devotional relationship and Krishna's complete loving devotion to each and everyone devoted to him. In Krishna-related Hindu traditions, he is most commonly seen with Radha . All of his wives and his lover Radha are considered in
2366-490: A model lover, a divine hero, and the universal supreme being. His iconography reflects these legends and shows him in different stages of his life, such as an infant eating butter, a young boy playing a flute , a young boy with Radha or surrounded by female devotees, or a friendly charioteer giving counsel to Arjuna . The name and synonyms of Krishna have been traced to 1st millennium BCE literature and cults. In some sub-traditions, like Krishnaism , Krishna
2548-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
2730-687: A navigable river named the Jobares. According to Edwin Bryant , a professor of Indian religions known for his publications on Krishna, "there is little doubt that the Sourasenoi refers to the Shurasenas, a branch of the Yadu dynasty to which Krishna belonged". The word Herakles, states Bryant, is likely a Greek phonetic equivalent of Hari-Krishna, as is Methora of Mathura, Kleisobora of Krishnapura, and
2912-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
3094-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
3276-535: A poetic masterpiece, full of imagination and metaphors, with no relation to the realism of pastoral life found in the Harivamsa . Krishna's life is presented as a cosmic play ( Lila ), where his youth is set as a princely life with his foster father Nanda portrayed as a king. Krishna's life is closer to that of a human being in Harivamsa , but is a symbolic universe in the Bhagavata Purana , where Krishna
3458-476: A poor herder but weaves in poetic and allusive fantasy. It ends on a triumphal note, not with the death of Krishna. Differing in some details, the fifth book of the Vishnu Purana moves away from Harivamsa realism and embeds Krishna in mystical terms and eulogies. The Vishnu Purana manuscripts exist in many versions. The tenth and eleventh books of the Bhagavata Purana are widely considered to be
3640-578: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
3822-538: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
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#17327810169714004-460: A saint from Gaudiya Vaishnava school , who described Krishna theology in terms of Bhakti yoga and Achintya Bheda Abheda . Krishna theology is presented in a pure monism ( Shuddhadvaita ) framework by Vallabha Acharya , the founder of Pushti sect of Vaishnavism. Madhusudana Sarasvati, an India philosopher, presented Krishna theology in nondualism-monism framework ( Advaita Vedanta ), while Adi Shankara , credited with unifying and establishing
4186-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
4368-634: A student of the sage Ghora of the Angirasa family. Ghora is identified with Neminatha , the twenty-second tirthankara in Jainism , by some scholars. This phrase, which means "To Krishna the son of Devaki ", has been mentioned by scholars such as Max Müller as a potential source of fables and Vedic lore about Krishna in the Mahabharata and other ancient literature – only potential because this verse could have been interpolated into
4550-579: A type of formation very common in Sanskrit signifying "of, belonging to, descended from". The object of the Vāsudeva worship was initially the warrior hero of the Vrishni clan named Vāsudeva. Vāsudeva later became known as Krishna , who is "Vāsudeva" (i.e. "the son of Vasudeva", ie Vasudeva Anakadundubhi ), a king of the Vrishni clan in the region of Mathura . Vāsudeva, historically is believed to be part of
4732-711: Is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in
4914-476: Is a private religious dedication of Heliodorus to " Vāsudeva ", an early deity and another name for Krishna in the Indian tradition. It states that the column was constructed by "the Bhagavata Heliodorus" and that it is a " Garuda pillar" (both are Vishnu-Krishna-related terms). Additionally, the inscription includes a Krishna-related verse from chapter 11.7 of the Mahabharata stating that
5096-464: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
5278-503: Is an attempt to show in one composition Vāsudeva (avatar of Vishnu ) together with the other members of the Vrishni clan of the Pancharatra system: Samkarsana , Pradyumna and Aniruddha , with Samba missing, Vāsudeva being the central deity from whom the others emanate. The back of the relief is carved with the branches of a Kadamba tree , symbolically showing the relationship being the different deities. The depiction of Vishnu
5460-555: Is celebrated as Krishna Janmashtami . The legends of Krishna's childhood and youth describe him as a cow-herder, a mischievous boy whose pranks earn him the nickname Makhan Chor (butter thief), and a protector who steals the hearts of the people in both Gokul and Vrindavana. The texts state, for example, that Krishna lifts the Govardhana hill to protect the inhabitants of Vrindavana from devastating rains and floods . Other legends describe him as an enchanter and playful lover of
5642-557: Is confirmed by his appearance on the coinage of Agathocles of Bactria (190–180 BCE) and by the devotional character of the Heliodorus pillar inscription. Later, the association with Narayana ( Vishnu ) is confirmed by the Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions of the 1st century BCE. It is generally thought that "by the beginning of the Christian era, the cult of Vāsudeva, Vishnu and Narayana amalgamated". By
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5824-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
6006-583: Is listed as the 57th name in the Vishnu Sahasranama . Based on his name, Krishna is often depicted in idols as black- or blue-skinned. Krishna is also known by various other names, epithets, and titles that reflect his many associations and attributes. Among the most common names are Mohan "enchanter"; Govinda "chief herdsman", Keev "prankster", and Gopala "Protector of the 'Go'", which means "soul" or "the cows". Some names for Krishna hold regional importance; Jagannatha , found in
6188-415: Is moved and says his heart will not allow him to fight and kill others. He would rather renounce the kingdom and put down his Gandiva (Arjuna's bow). Krishna then advises him about the nature of life, ethics, and morality when one is faced with a war between good and evil, the impermanence of matter, the permanence of the soul and the good, duties and responsibilities, the nature of true peace and bliss and
6370-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
6552-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
6734-589: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
6916-584: Is the worship of Bala-Krishna, the Divine Child Krishna - a quite prominent feature of modern Krishnaism. The last element seems to have been Krishna Gopijanavallabha, Krishna the lover of the Gopis, among whom Radha occupies a special position. In some books Krishna is presented as the founder and first teacher of the Bhagavata religion." Arrian in his work Indica , quotes the earlier work of
7098-401: Is thrashing around, and at the other end a person seemingly holding a basket over his head. The earliest text containing detailed descriptions of Krishna as a personality is the epic Mahabharata , which depicts Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu. Krishna is central to many of the main stories of the epic. The eighteen chapters of the sixth book ( Bhishma Parva ) of the epic that constitute
7280-521: Is unrelated to the later Hindu god of the Bhagavad Gita fame. For example, Archer states that the coincidence of the two names appearing together in the same Upanishad verse cannot be dismissed easily. Yāska 's Nirukta , an etymological dictionary published around the 6th century BCE, contains a reference to the Shyamantaka jewel in the possession of Akrura , a motif from
7462-577: Is within the universe and beyond it, as well as the universe itself, always. The Bhagavata Purana manuscripts also exist in many versions, in numerous Indian languages. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is considered as the incarnation of Krishna in Gaudiya Vaishnavism and by the ISKCON community. The date of Krishna's birth is celebrated every year as Janmashtami . According to Guy Beck, "most scholars of Hinduism and Indian history accept
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7644-570: Is worshipped as the Supreme God and Svayam Bhagavan (God Himself). These sub-traditions arose in the context of the medieval era Bhakti movement . Krishna-related literature has inspired numerous performance arts such as Bharatanatyam , Kathakali , Kuchipudi , Odissi , and Manipuri dance . He is a pan-Hindu god, but is particularly revered in some locations, such as Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, Dwarka and Junagadh in Gujarat;
7826-553: The Bhagavad Gita can be considered, according to Friedhelm Hardy , as the first Krishnaite system of theology. Ramanuja , a Hindu theologian and philosopher whose works were influential in Bhakti movement , presented him in terms of qualified monism , or nondualism (namely Vishishtadvaita school). Madhvacharya , a philosopher whose works led to the founding of Haridasa tradition of Vaishnavism, presented Krishna in
8008-445: The Bhagavad Gita contain the advice of Krishna to Arjuna on the battlefield. During the ancient times that the Bhagavad Gita was composed in, Krishna was widely seen as an avatar of Vishnu rather than an individual deity , yet he was immensely powerful and almost everything in the universe other than Vishnu was "somehow present in the body of Krishna". Krishna had "no beginning or end", "fill[ed] space", and every god but Vishnu
8190-653: The Bhagavad Gita . Around the 4th century CE, another tradition, the cult of Gopala-Krishna of the Ābhīras , the protector of cattle, was also absorbed into the Krishna tradition. Around 180 BCE, the Indo-Greek king Agathocles issued some coinage (discovered in Ai-Khanoum , Afghanistan) bearing images of deities that are now interpreted as being related to Vaisnava imagery in India. The deities displayed on
8372-540: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
8554-659: The Mahābhārata , the Harivamsa , the Bhagavata Purana , and the Vishnu Purana . The scenes from the narrative are set in ancient India, mostly in the present states of Uttar Pradesh , Bihar, Rajasthan , Haryana, Delhi, and Gujarat . The legends about Krishna's life are called Krishna charitas ( IAST : Kṛṣṇacaritas). In the Krishna Charitas , Krishna is born to Devaki and her husband, Vasudeva , of
8736-580: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
8918-597: The Gregorian calendar . The anecdotes and narratives of Krishna's life are generally titled as Krishna Līlā . He is a central figure in the Mahabharata , the Bhagavata Purana , the Brahma Vaivarta Purana , and the Bhagavad Gita , and is mentioned in many Hindu philosophical , theological , and mythological texts. They portray him in various perspectives: as a god-child, a prankster,
9100-613: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
9282-922: The Jagannatha aspect in Odisha , Mayapur in West Bengal; in the form of Vithoba in Pandharpur , Maharashtra, Shrinathji at Nathdwara in Rajasthan, Udupi Krishna in Karnataka , Parthasarathy in Tamil Nadu and in Aranmula , Kerala, and Guruvayoorappan in Guruvayoor in Kerala. Since the 1960s, the worship of Krishna has also spread to the Western world and to Africa, largely due to
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#17327810169719464-469: The Puri Hindu temple, is a popular incarnation in Odisha state and nearby regions of eastern India . The tradition of Krishna appears to be an amalgamation of several independent deities of ancient India, the earliest to be attested being Vāsudeva . Vāsudeva was a hero-god of the tribe of the Vrishnis , belonging to the Vrishni heroes , whose worship is attested from the 5th–6th century BCE in
9646-753: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
9828-532: The Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
10010-531: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
10192-647: The Viṣṇudharmottara purāṇa , and can be interpreted as an architectural representation of the Caturvyuha concept and the Pancaratra doctrine, centering on the depictions of the four main emanations of Vishnu : Vāsudeva, Samkarshana , Pradyumna and Aniruddha . According to Lubotsky, it is likely that the entrance is dedicated to the Vāsudeva aspect of Vishnu; the Anantashayana side is his role as
10374-582: The Vrishni or Satvata tribe, and according to them his followers called themselves Bhagavatas . This religion formed between the 4th century BC and the 2nd century BC (the time of Patanjali ), according to evidence in Megasthenes and in the Arthashastra of Kautilya , when Vāsudeva was worshiped as supreme Deity in a strongly monotheistic format, where the supreme Being was perfect, eternal and full of grace. In many sources outside of
10556-639: The Yadava clan in Mathura . Devaki's brother is a tyrant named Kamsa . At Devaki's wedding, according to Puranic legends, Kamsa is told by fortune tellers that a child of Devaki would kill him. Sometimes, it is depicted as an akashvani announcing Kamsa's death. Kamsa arranges to kill all of Devaki's children. When Krishna is born, Vasudeva secretly carries the infant Krishna away across the Yamuna, and exchanges him with Yashoda 's daughter. When Kamsa tries to kill
10738-461: The same name by Megasthenes which claims that Herakles , son of Zeus had come to India and was honoured by the locals as an 'indigenous' Indian deity. This reference is understood to be to Vāsudeva. But Heracles, whom tradition states to have arrived as far as India, was called by the Indians themselves 'Indigenous.' This Heracles was chiefly honoured by the Surasenians, an Indian tribe, among whom are two great cities, Methora and Cleisobora, and
10920-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
11102-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
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#173278101697111284-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
11466-459: The 1st millennium CE. The inscription is a reliable historical record, providing a name and floruit to the Satavahana dynasty . The first dedicatory sentence in the inscription mentions: Praise ( Sidham ) to Dharma , adoration to Indra , adoration to Samkarshana and Vāsudeva the descendants of the Moon (" Chandra ") endowed with majesty, and to the four guardians of the world (" Lokapalas "), Yama, Varuna, Kubera and Vasava ; praise to Vedisri,
11648-571: The 2nd century BCE with the coinage of Agathocles and the Heliodorus pillar, but the name of Krishna appears rather later in epigraphy. At the Chilas II archaeological site dated to the first half of the 1st-century CE in northwest Pakistan, near the Afghanistan border, are engraved two males, along with many Buddhist images nearby. The larger of the two males held a plough and club in his two hands. The artwork also has an inscription with it in Kharosthi script, which has been deciphered by scholars as Rama-Krsna , and interpreted as an ancient depiction of
11830-429: The 2nd century CE, the " avatara concept was in its infancy", and the depiction of the four emanations of Vishnu (the Chatur-vyūha ), consisting in the Vrishni heroes including Vāsudeva and minus Samba, starts to become visible in the art of Mathura at the end of the Kushan period. The Harivamsa describes intricate relationships between Krishna Vāsudeva, Sankarsana, Pradyumna and Aniruddha that would later form
12012-412: The 4th century BC in the cult of Vāsudeva-Krishna, which was then grafted in the 2nd century AD onto the cult of Narayana . By the 4th century, Vishnu's prominence increased considerably. He was now regarded as a member of the Trimurti , the cosmic triad of Gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva". From the 4–5th century, Vāsudeva-Krsna is identified with Vishnu and Narayana, and fuses with Gopala-Krishna : In
12194-399: The 4th century CE have been reattributed to Vāsudeva, a period during which Vāsudeva seems to have been much more important than Vishnu. Other statues of Vishnu show him as three-headed (with an implied fourth head in the back), the Visnu Vaikuntha Chaturmurti or Chaturvyuha ("Four-Emanations") type, where Vishnu has a human head, flanked by the muzzle of a boar (his avatar Varaha ) and
12376-414: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
12558-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
12740-416: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
12922-417: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
13104-552: The Heliodorus pillar at Vidisha. The Temple measured 30x30 meters, and the walls were 2.4 meters thick. Pottery finds confirmed that the Temple dated to the 2nd century BCE. An earlier and smaller elliptic temple structure underneath probably dates to the end of the 3rd century BCE. The Naneghat inscription, dated to the 1st century BCE, mentions both Samkarshana and Vāsudeva, along with the Vedic deities of Indra , Chandra , and
13286-577: The Hindu tradition to be the avatars of the goddess Lakshmi , the consort of Vishnu. Gopis are considered as Lakshmi's or Radha's manifestations. According to the epic poem Mahabharata , Krishna becomes Arjuna's charioteer for the Kurukshetra War , but on the condition that he personally will not raise any weapon. Upon arrival at the battlefield and seeing that the enemies are his family, his grandfather, and his cousins and loved ones, Arjuna
13468-535: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
13650-519: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
13832-532: The Jobares of Jamuna . Later, when Alexander the Great launched his campaign in the northwest Indian subcontinent , his associates recalled that the soldiers of Porus were carrying an image of Herakles. The Buddhist Pali canon and the Ghata-Jâtaka (No. 454) polemically mention the devotees of Vâsudeva and Baladeva. These texts have many peculiarities and may be a garbled and confused version of
14014-664: The Kavyas of Kalidasa we find not only Vāsudeva-Krsna identified with Vishnu and Narayana, but Krsna is also called Gopala-Krsna. He has obtained the Kaustubha jewel from the serpent Kaliya of the Jamuna, "wears the peacock feathers resembling the cloud adorned with rainbow", and his wife is Rukmini and his brother Balarama. The Dashavatara Temple in Deogarh is closely related to the iconic architectural temple structure described in
14196-600: The Krishna legends. The texts of Jainism mention these tales as well, also with many peculiarities and different versions, in their legends about Tirthankaras . This inclusion of Krishna-related legends in ancient Buddhist and Jaina literature suggests that Krishna theology was existent and important in the religious landscape observed by non-Hindu traditions of ancient India . The ancient Sanskrit grammarian Patanjali in his Mahabhashya makes several references to Krishna and his associates found in later Indian texts. In his commentary on Pāṇini's verse 3.1.26, he also uses
14378-532: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
14560-496: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
14742-761: The Parasaragotra, who is a devotee of Bhagavat ( Vishnu ) and has performed an Asvamedha sacrifice. – Ghosundi Hathibada Inscriptions, 1st-century BCE At Chilas II archeological site dated to the first half of 1st-century CE in northwest Pakistan , near the Afghanistan border, are engraved two males along with many Buddhist images nearby. The larger of the two males holds a plough and club in his two hands. The artwork also has an inscription with it in Kharosthi script, which has been deciphered by scholars as Rama-Krsna , and interpreted as an ancient depiction of
14924-593: The Sanskrit canon". Some scholars believe that, among others, the detailed description of Krishna's peace mission in the 5th Book of the Mahabharata (Udyogaparvan) is likely to be based on real events. The epic's translator J.A.B. van Buitenen in this context assumes “that there was some degree of verisimilitude in the Mahabharata’s depictions of life.” A wide range of theological and philosophical ideas are presented through Krishna in Hindu texts. The teachings of
15106-499: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
15288-638: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
15470-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
15652-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
15834-596: The Vrishni cult at this point. Various early statues showing a deity with the attributes of Vāsudeva have long been attributed to Vishnu. But it is now thought that statues dedicated to the worship of Vishnu only started to appear from the 4th century CE during the Gupta Empire period, derived from, and using the attributes of Vāsudeva, but adding an aureole starting at the shoulders: the Vishnu Caturanana ("Four-Armed Vishnu") statues. The statues before
16016-567: The Yadavas to the newly built city of Dwaraka . Thereafter Pandavas rise. Krishna befriends Arjuna and the other Pandava princes of the Kuru kingdom. Krishna plays a key role in the Mahabharata . The Bhagavata Purana describes eight wives of Krishna that appear in sequence as Rukmini , Satyabhama , Jambavati , Kalindi , Mitravinda , Nagnajiti (also called Satya), Bhadra and Lakshmana (also called Madra). This has been interpreted as
16198-524: The air to "steal" butter or buttermilk, spilling it all over the group. Krishna legends then describe his return to Mathura. He overthrows and kills the tyrant king, his maternal uncle Kamsa/Kansa after quelling several assassination attempts by Kamsa. He reinstates Kamsa's father, Ugrasena , as the king of the Yadavas and becomes a leading prince at the court. In one version of the Krishna story, as narrated by Shanta Rao, Krishna after Kamsa's death leads
16380-407: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
16562-406: The best of royal princes ("kumara")! Vāsudeva and Samkarshana are also mentioned in the 1st century BCE Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions : (This) enclosing wall round the stone (object) of worship, called Narayana-vatika (Compound) for the divinities Samkarshana-Vāsudeva who are unconquered and are lords of all (has been caused to be made) by (the king) Sarvatata, a Gajayana and son of (a lady) of
16744-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
16926-527: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
17108-470: The coinage of Agathocles of Bactria (190–180 BCE). The Heliodorus pillar , joining earth, space and heaven, is thought to symbolize the "cosmic axis" and express the cosmic totality of the Deity. Next to the pillar, a large Temple of Vāsudeva was discovered, where he was celebrated together with his deified kinsmen, the Vrishni heroes. The cult of Vāsudeva was one of the major independent cults, together with
17290-572: The coins appear to be Saṃkarṣaṇa - Balarama with attributes consisting of the Gada mace and the plow , and Vāsudeva-Krishna with attributes of the Shankha (conch) and the Sudarshana Chakra wheel. According to Bopearachchi , the headdress of the deity is actually a misrepresentation of a shaft with a half-moon parasol on top ( chattra ). The Heliodorus Pillar , a stone pillar with
17472-614: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
17654-440: The court of Chandragupta Maurya towards the end of 4th century BCE, made reference to Herakles in his famous work Indica . This text is now lost to history, but was quoted in secondary literature by later Greeks such as Arrian , Diodorus , and Strabo . According to these texts, Megasthenes mentioned that the Sourasenoi tribe of India, who worshipped Herakles, had two major cities named Methora and Kleisobora, and
17836-478: The creator (Aniruddha); the sage form of Nara-Narayana side symbolizes his preservation and maintainer role in cosmic existence (Pradyumna); and the Gajendramoksha side represents his role as the destroyer (Samkarsana). To this day, a group of religious mendicants known as Vasudevs are people believed to be incarnation of Krishna. "The Vasudevs, the village mendicants, also live on the alms they get from
18018-601: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
18200-411: The cult of Gopala-Krishna or the cult of Bala-Krishna , to form the basis of the current tradition of monotheistic religion of Krishna : "Present day Krishna worship is an amalgam of various elements. According to historical testimonies Krishna-Vāsudeva worship already flourished in and around Mathura several centuries before Christ. A second important element is the cult of Krishna Govinda. Still later
18382-488: The cult of Vāsudeva had spread over a wide region by the 1st-century BCE to the start of common era. According to Quintanilla, the Vasu Doorjamb and the inscription is "one of the most important and most beautiful objects" from the time of Sodasa, likely from a "temple to Vāsudeva". The carvings on the doorjamb are three woven compositions. It has a leafy vine that runs along the length of the red sandstone jamb. Along
18564-431: The cult, devotee or bhakta is defined as Vāsudevaka . The cult of Vāsudeva may have evolved from the worship of a historical figure belonging to the Vrishni clan in the region of Mathura . He is known as a member of the five " Vrishni heroes ". It is thought that the hero deity Vāsudeva may have evolved into a Vaishnavite deity through a step-by-step process: 1. deification of the Vrishni heroes , of whom Vāsudeva
18746-564: The cults of Narayana , Shri and Lakshmi , which later coalesced to form Vaishnavism . After the cult of Vāsudeva had been established, the tribe of the Vrishnis fused with the tribe of the Yadavas , who had their own hero-god named Krishna . The early Krishna is known from the Mahabharata , where he is described as the chief of the Yadavas kingdom of Dvārakā (modern Dwarka in Gujarat ). The fused cult of Vāsudeva-Krishna became one of
18928-453: The decline of Vedism in India, which occurred during the 8th to 6th century BCE. Vāsudeva then became the object of one of the earliest forms of personal deity worship in India, and is attested from around the 4th century BCE. At that time, Vāsudeva was already considered as a deity, as he appears in Pāṇini 's writings in conjunction with Arjuna as an object of worship, since Pāṇini explains that
19110-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
19292-471: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
19474-580: The different types of yoga to reach this state of bliss and inner liberation. This conversation between Krishna and Arjuna is presented as a discourse called the Bhagavad Gita . It is stated in the Indian texts that the legendary Kurukshetra War led to the death of all the hundred sons of Gandhari. After Duryodhana's death, Krishna visits Gandhari to offer his condolences when Gandhari and Dhritarashtra visited Kurukshetra, as stated in Stree Parva. Feeling that Krishna deliberately did not put an end to
19656-460: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
19838-490: The early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in
20020-433: The events that led to the Bhagavad Gita – a scripture of Hinduism. In these popular depictions, Krishna appears in the front as the charioteer, either as a counsel listening to Arjuna or as the driver of the chariot while Arjuna aims his arrows in the battlefield of Kurukshetra . Alternate icons of Krishna show him as a baby ( Bala Krishna , the child Krishna), a toddler crawling on his hands and knees,
20202-406: The figural sculpture on 17th–19th century terracotta temples of Bengal. In many temples, the stories of Krishna are depicted on a long series of narrow panels along the base of the facade. In other temples, the important Krishnalila episodes are depicted on large brick panels above the entrance arches or on the walls surrounding the entrance. This summary is an account based on literary details from
20384-491: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
20566-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
20748-517: The four Lokapala guardians Yama , Varuna and Kubera and Vāsava . This provided the link between Vedic tradition and the Vaishnava tradition. Given it is inscribed in stone and dated to 1st-century BCE, it also linked the religious thought in the post-Vedic centuries in late 1st millennium BCE with those found in the unreliable highly variant texts such as the Puranas dated to later half of
20930-471: The framework of dualism ( Dvaita ). Bhedabheda – a group of schools, which teaches that the individual self is both different and not different from the ultimate reality – predates the positions of monism and dualism. Among medieval Bhedabheda thinkers are Nimbarkacharya , who founded the Kumara Sampradaya (Dvaitadvaita philosophical school), and Jiva Goswami ,
21112-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
21294-558: The gopis (milkmaids) of Vrindavana, especially Radha . These metaphor-filled love stories are known as the Rasa lila and were romanticized in the poetry of Jayadeva , author of the Gita Govinda . They are also central to the development of the Krishna bhakti traditions worshiping Radha Krishna . Krishna's childhood illustrates the Hindu concept of Lila , playing for fun and enjoyment and not for sport or gain. His interaction with
21476-475: The gopis at the rasa dance or Rasa-lila is an example. Krishna plays his flute and the gopis come immediately, from whatever they were doing, to the banks of the Yamuna River and join him in singing and dancing. Even those who could not physically be there join him through meditation. He is the spiritual essence and the love-eternal in existence, the gopis metaphorically represent the prakṛti matter and
21658-501: The head of a lion (his avatar Narasimha ), two of his most important and ancient avatars, laid out upon his aureole. Recent scholarship considers that these "Vishnu" statues still show the emanation Vāsudeva Krishna as the central human-shaped deity, rather than the Supreme God Vishnu himself. Over centuries, the cult of Vāsudeva transformed into Vaishnavism . Overall, "Vaishnavite Hinduism is believed to have originated in
21840-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
22022-401: The historicity of Krishna – that he was a real male person, whether human or divine, who lived on Indian soil by at least 1000 BCE and interacted with many other historical persons within the cycles of the epic and puranic histories." Yet, Beck also notes that there is an "enormous number of contradictions and discrepancies surrounding the chronology of Krishna's life as depicted in
22204-501: The impermanent body. This Lila is a constant theme in the legends of Krishna's childhood and youth. Even when he is battling with a serpent to protect others, he is described in Hindu texts as if he were playing a game. This quality of playfulness in Krishna is celebrated during festivals as Rasa-Lila and Janmashtami , where Hindus in some regions such as Maharashtra playfully mimic his legends, such as by making human gymnastic pyramids to break open handis (clay pots) hung high in
22386-486: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
22568-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
22750-458: The left in the place of seniority, with a hand in abhaya mudra and the other hand on the hip holding a conch shell. Vāsudeva also has a crown, which distinguishes him from the others. Then follow Pradyumna , holding a bow and an arrow, Samba , holding a wine goblet, and Aniruddha , holding a sword and a shield. The fact that they stand around Narasimha suggests a fusion of the Satvata cult with
22932-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
23114-456: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
23296-459: The location where Krishna is believed to have died. It is also known as Dehotsarga , states Diana L. Eck , a term that literally means the place where Krishna "gave up his body". The Bhagavata Purana in Book 11, Chapter 31 states that after his death, Krishna returned to his transcendent abode directly because of his yogic concentration. Waiting gods such as Brahma and Indra were unable to trace
23478-511: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
23660-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
23842-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
24024-602: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
24206-443: The names "Vāsudeva" and "Krishna" starts to appear with the Mahabharata and the Harivamsa , both completed in the 3rd century CE, where "Vāsudeva" appears as the patronymic of Krishna, his father being called Vasudeva Anakadundubhi in these writings. "Vāsudeva-Krishna" refers to "Krishna, son of Vasudeva ", "Vāsudeva" in the lengthened form being a vṛddhi -derivative of the short form "Vasudeva" standing for Vasudeva Anakadundubhi,
24388-400: The natural color of the material out of which he is formed, both in India and in southeast Asia. In some texts, his skin is poetically described as the color of Jambul ( Jamun , a purple-colored fruit). Krishna is often depicted wearing a peacock-feather wreath or crown, and playing the bansuri (Indian flute). In this form, he is usually shown standing with one leg bent in front of
24570-464: The navigable river Iobares flows through their territory. However Arrian himself does not consider the stories about Herakles credible, stating: If anyone believes this, at least it must be some other Heracles, not he of Thebes, but either of Tyre or of Egypt, or some great king of the higher inhabited country near India. It has been proposed that Megasthenes misheard the words "Hari-Krishna" as "Herakles". According to Upinder Singh , "Vāsudeva-Krishna
24752-464: The newborn, the exchanged baby appears as the Hindu goddess Yogamaya , warning him that his death has arrived in his kingdom, and then disappears, according to the legends in the Puranas. Krishna grows up with Nanda and his wife, Yashoda , near modern-day Mathura . Two of Krishna's siblings also survive, namely Balarama and Subhadra , according to these legends. The day of the birth of Krishna
24934-545: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
25116-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
25298-557: The other in the Tribhanga posture. He is sometimes accompanied by cows or a calf, which symbolise the divine herdsman Govinda . Alternatively, he is shown as a romantic young boy with the gopis (milkmaids), often making music or playing pranks. In other icons, he is a part of battlefield scenes of the epic Mahabharata . He is shown as a charioteer, notably when he is addressing the Pandava prince Arjuna , symbolically reflecting
25480-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
25662-439: The path Krishna took to leave his human incarnation and return to his abode. There are numerous versions of Krishna's life story, of which three are most studied: the Harivamsa , the Bhagavata Purana , and the Vishnu Purana . They share the basic storyline but vary significantly in their specifics, details, and styles. The most original composition, the Harivamsa is told in a realistic style that describes Krishna's life as
25844-447: The path to immortality and heaven is to correctly live a life of three virtues: self- temperance ( damah ), generosity ( cagah or tyaga ), and vigilance ( apramadah ). The Heliodorus pillar site was fully excavated by archaeologists in the 1960s. The effort revealed the brick foundations of a much larger ancient elliptical temple complex with a sanctum, mandapas , and seven additional pillars. The Heliodorus pillar inscriptions and
26026-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
26208-551: The preparation of Krishna icons in design and architecture are described in medieval-era Sanskrit texts on Hindu temple arts such as Vaikhanasa agama , Vishnu dharmottara , Brihat samhita , and Agni Purana . Similarly, early medieval-era Tamil texts also contain guidelines for sculpting Krishna and Rukmini. Several statues made according to these guidelines are in the collections of the Government Museum, Chennai . Krishna iconography forms an important element in
26390-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
26572-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
26754-611: The recitation of the phrase " Om Namo Bhagavate Vāsudevāya " ( listen ) (in devanagari : ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय), which is one of the most popular Hindu mantras , and one of the most important mantras in Vaishnavism . It means " Om , I bow to Lord Vāsudeva", who is variously understood as Krishna or Vishnu . Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
26936-609: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
27118-497: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
27300-562: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
27482-496: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
27664-556: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
27846-483: The significant traditions of the early history of Krishnaism , becoming a major component of the amalgamated worship of Krishna, the 8th incarnation of Vishnu . According to the Vaishnavite doctrine of the avatars , Vishnu takes various forms to rescue the world, and Vāsudeva-Krishna became understood as one of these forms, and one of the most popular ones. This process lasted from the 4th century BCE when Vāsudeva
28028-615: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
28210-619: The stem of the vine are curling leaves and blossoms, that wrap along as those found in nature, a rosette added in where the intertwining vines meet. The wider band has lotus rhizome carved in, with subtle naturalistic variations, wherein the lotus flowers are shown in all their stages of bloom, states Quintanilla. Some sculptures during this period suggest that the concept of the avatars was starting to emerge, as images of " Chatur-vyūha " (the four emanations of Vishnu ) are appearing. The famous "Caturvyūha Viṣṇu" statue in Mathura Museum
28392-693: The supreme deity Narayana . These four inscriptions are notable for being some of the oldest-known Sanskrit inscriptions. A Mora stone slab found at the Mathura-Vrindavan archaeological site in Uttar Pradesh , held now in the Mathura Museum , has a Brahmi inscription. It is dated to the 1st century CE and mentions the five Vrishni heroes , otherwise known as Saṃkarṣaṇa, Vāsudeva, Pradyumna , Aniruddha , and Samba . The inscriptional record for Vāsudeva starts in
28574-435: The temple are among the earliest known evidence of Krishna-Vasudeva devotion and Vaishnavism in ancient India. The Heliodorus inscription is not isolated evidence. The Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions , all located in the state of Rajasthan and dated by modern methodology to the 1st century BCE, mention Saṃkarṣaṇa and Vāsudeva, also mention that the structure was built for their worship in association with
28756-619: The text, or the Krishna Devakiputra, could be different from the deity Krishna. These doubts are supported by the fact that the much later age Sandilya Bhakti Sutras , a treatise on Krishna, cites later age compilations such as the Narayana Upanishad but never cites this verse of the Chandogya Upanishad. Other scholars disagree that the Krishna mentioned along with Devaki in the ancient Upanishad
28938-653: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
29120-399: The two brothers Balarama and Krishna. The Vasu Doorjamb Inscription is a significant early Sanskrit inscription from Mathura. The mention of Sodasa 's time who, states Salomon, is "dated with reasonable certainty to the early early years of the first century AD". Its mention of Vasu, temple, Vedika and a torana (gateway) is significant as it confirms that the large temple building tradition
29302-458: The two brothers, Balarama and Krishna. The first known depiction of the life of Krishna himself comes relatively late, with a relief found in Mathura , and dated to the 1st–2nd century CE. This fragment seems to show Vasudeva , Krishna's father, carrying baby Krishna in a basket across the Yamuna . The relief shows at one end a seven-hooded Naga crossing a river, where a makara crocodile
29484-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
29666-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
29848-413: The villagers. The religious cult from which this art form originated was that of Vasudev-Krishna which was in existence in the fourth century B.C. It gained popularity only after the first century B.C., and in subsequent centuries it was absorbed into the wider religious framework of Vaisnavism" A popular short prayer for worshipping Vāsudeva is Dvadasakshar i ("the twelve-syllable mantra"), consisting in
30030-652: The war, in a fit of rage and sorrow, Gandhari said, "Thou were indifferent to the Kurus and the Pandavas whilst they slew each other. Therefore, O Govinda, thou shalt be the slayer of thy own kinsmen!" According to the Mahabharata , a fight breaks out at a festival among the Yadavas, who end up killing each other. Mistaking the sleeping Krishna for a deer, a hunter named Jara shoots an arrow towards Krishna's foot that fatally injures him. Krishna forgives Jara and dies. The pilgrimage ( tirtha ) site of Bhalka in Gujarat marks
30212-443: The well-known Puranic story about Krishna. Shatapatha Brahmana and Aitareya-Aranyaka associate Krishna with his Vrishni origins. In Ashṭādhyāyī , authored by the ancient grammarian Pāṇini (probably belonged to the 5th or 6th century BCE), Vāsudeva and Arjuna , as recipients of worship, are referred to together in the same sutra . Megasthenes , a Greek ethnographer and an ambassador of Seleucus I to
30394-492: The word Kamsavadha or the "killing of Kamsa", an important part of the legends surrounding Krishna. Many Puranas tell Krishna's life story or some highlights from it. Two Puranas, the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana , contain the most elaborate telling of Krishna's story, but the life stories of Krishna in these and other texts vary, and contain significant inconsistencies. The Bhagavata Purana consists of twelve books subdivided into 332 chapters, with
30576-492: The work of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). The name "Krishna" originates from the Sanskrit word kṛṣṇa , which means "black", "dark" or "dark blue". The waning moon is called Krishna Paksha , relating to the adjective meaning "darkening". Some Vaishnavas also translate the word as "All-Attractive", though it lacks that meaning in Sanskrit. As a name of Vishnu , Krishna
30758-407: The writings of Pāṇini , and from the 2nd century BCE in epigraphy with the Heliodorus pillar . At one point in time, it is thought that the tribe of the Vrishnis fused with the tribe of the Yadavas , whose own hero-god was named Krishna. Vāsudeva and Krishna fused to become a single deity, which appears in the Mahabharata , and they started to be identified with Vishnu in the Mahabharata and
30940-502: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
31122-467: Was a logical practice for the Greeks, in order to appropriate their power: "Venerating Vāsudeva, as did Heliodor in the time of Antialkidas, should not be regarded as a "conversion" to Hinduism, but rather as the result of a search for the most helpful local powers, upholding own traditions in a foreign garb." A large temple, probably dedicated to Vāsudeva or the Vrishni heroes , was also discovered next to
31304-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
31486-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
31668-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
31850-738: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
32032-457: Was an independent deity, to the 4th century CE, when Vishnu became much more prominent as the central deity of an integrated Vaishnavite cult, with Vāsudeva-Krishna now only one of his manifestations. "Vāsudeva" is the first name to appear in the epigraphical record and in the earliest literary sources such as the writings of Pāṇini . It is unknown at what point of time precisely Vāsudeva came to be associated with "Krishna". The association between
32214-437: Was in vogue in the Mathura region by at least the start of the common era. Further, it also attests to the popularity of the Vāsudeva tradition in this period. The Vasu Doorjamb inscription of Sodasa in Uttar Pradesh viewed with other epigraphical evidence such as the Besnagar Heliodorus pillar in Madhya Pradesh , the Hathibada Ghosundi Inscriptions in Rajasthan , and the Naneghat inscriptions in Maharashtra suggest that
32396-492: Was seen as ultimately him, including Brahma , "storm gods, sun gods, bright gods", light gods, "and gods of ritual." Other forces also existed in his body, such as "hordes of varied creatures" that included "celestial serpents." He is also "the essence of humanity." The Harivamsa , a later appendix to the Mahabharata, contains a detailed version of Krishna's childhood and youth. The Chandogya Upanishad (verse III.xvii.6) mentions Krishna in Krishnaya Devakiputraya as
32578-482: Was stylistically derived from the type of the ornate Bodhisattvas, with rich jewelry and ornate headdress. Two Kushan Empire emperors were named after Vāsudeva: Vāsudeva I (191–232 CE) and Vāsudeva II (275–300 CE). Vāsudeva appears prominently in a relief from Kondamotu, Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh , dating to the 4th century CE, which shows the Vrishni heroes standing in genealogical order around Narasimha . Vāsudeva follows Saṃkarṣaṇa, being second from
32760-463: Was the Indian God bearing the closest resemblance to the Greek God Herakles". The cult of Vāsudeva soon extended well beyond the area of Mathura, as shown by the Heliodorus pillar , established by an Indo-Greek ambassador to the court of an Indian king in Vidisha , in the name of Vāsudeva. In the Heliodorus pillar, Vāsudeva is described as Deva deva , the "God of Gods", the Supreme Deity. According to Harry Falk , making dedications to foreign gods
32942-414: Was the leader 2. association with the God Narayana - Vishnu 3. incorporation into the Vyuha concept of successive emanations of the God. In literature, the Vrishni heroes and Vāsudeva are mentioned by Pāṇini in Astadhyayi verse 6.2.34 around the 4th century BCE, while Krishna is referred to as Krishna Varshneya in verse 3.187.51 of the Mahabharata . Epigraphically, the deified status of Vāsudeva
33124-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
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