Divisions
140-432: Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas The Atharvaveda or Atharva Veda ( Sanskrit : अथर्ववेद , IAST : Atharvaveda , from अथर्वन् , "priest" and वेद , "knowledge") or Atharvana Veda ( Sanskrit : अथर्वणवेद , IAST : Atharvaṇaveda ) is the "knowledge storehouse of atharvāṇas , the procedures for everyday life". The text
280-606: A compilation of poetry and knowledge that developed in two different regions of ancient India, the Kuru region in northern India and the Pancalas region of eastern India. The former was home to Paippalāda, whose name was derived from the sacred fig tree named Pippala (Sanskrit: पिप्पल). This school's compositions were in the Rigvedic style. The Pancalas region contributions came from composer-priests Angirasas and Bhargavas, whose style
420-405: 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." Bhrigu Bhrigu ( Sanskrit : भृगु , IAST : Bhṛgu ) is a rishi of Adi-rishi tradition. He is one of the seven great sages,
560-433: 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
700-546: A historical collection of beliefs and rituals addressing practical issues of daily life of the Vedic society, and it is not a liturgical Yajurveda-style collection. The Caraṇavyuha , a later era Sanskrit text, states that the Atharvaveda had nine shakhas , or schools: paippalāda , stauda , mauda , śaunakīya , jājala , jalada , brahmavada , devadarśa and cāraṇavaidyā . Of these, only
840-484: A household. Some hymns were not about magic spells and charms, but prayer qua prayer and philosophical speculations. The contents of the Atharvaveda contrasts with the other Vedas. The 19th century Indologist Weber summarized the contrast as follows, The spirit of the two collections [Rigveda, Atharvaveda] is indeed widely different. In the Rigveda there breathes a lively natural feeling, a warm love for nature; while in
980-424: A husband! As this comfortable cave, O Indra!, furnishing a safe abode hath become pleasing to all life, thus may this woman be a favourite of fortune, beloved, not at odds with her husband! Do thou ascend the full, inexhaustible ship of fortune; upon this bring, hither the suitor who shall be agreeable to thee! Bring hither by thy shouts, O lord of wealth, the suitor, bend his mind towards her; turn thou
1120-591: 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
1260-681: A legend in which sages gathered at the bank of the river Sarasvati to participate in a great yajna . The gathered sages could not decide who among the Trimurti (supreme trinity) of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva was pre-eminent and should be the recipient of the yajna . They deputed Bhrigu to determine this answer. Upon being entrusted with the task, Bhṛgu decided to test each of the Trimurti. He first visited Brahma at Satyaloka , and to test his patience, he refused to sing in his praise or prostrate before him. Brahma grew angry, but realised that his son
1400-658: 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
1540-467: A loved one or recovery from some illness. In these cases, the affected would be given substances such as a plant (leaf, seed, root) and an amulet . Some magic spells were for soldiers going to war with the goal of defeating the enemy, others for anxious lovers seeking to remove rivals or to attract the lover who is less than interested, some for success at a sporting event, in economic activity, for bounty of cattle and crops, or removal of petty pest bothering
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#17327657907631680-454: 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
1820-479: 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
1960-546: 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
2100-578: 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
2240-486: 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
2380-454: A similar nature, likely of new compositions and was added later. The 143 hymns of the 20th book of Atharvaveda Samhita is almost entirely borrowed from the Rigveda. The hymns of Atharvaveda cover a motley of topics, across its twenty books. Roughly, the first seven books focus primarily on magical poems for all sorts of healing and sorcery, and Michael Witzel states these are reminiscent of Germanic and Hittite sorcery stanzas, and may likely be
2520-439: 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
2660-711: 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
2800-516: 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
2940-547: Is also called Padmavati. A variation of this is the legend behind Tirupati , in which a furious Lakshmi is born as Padmavati on earth and Vishnu assumes the form of Srinivasa and Venkateswara . Bhrigu is regarded to have had his ashram (hermitage) on the Vadhusar River, a tributary of the Drishadwati River near Dhosi Hill in the state of Brahmavarta , presently on the border of Haryana and
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#17327657907633080-447: Is cognate to Avestan āθrauuan "priest" and possibly related to Tocharian *athr , "superior force". The Atharvaveda is also occasionally referred to as Bhrgvangirasah and Brahmaveda , after Bhrigu and Brahma , respectively. The Atharvaveda is dated by Flood at ca. 900 BCE, while Michael Witzel gives a dating at, or slightly after, c. 1200/1000 BCE. The ancient Indian tradition initially recognized only three Vedas. The Rigveda,
3220-473: Is considered to be a Daitya-Guru, teacher of the Asuras . Shukra learned the mṛtyu sañjivini vidya from Lord Shiva , with which he could revive the dead and grant them immortality. Additionally, Shukra is also known the planet Venus in astronomical terms. Once, while Puloma was pregnant with Chyavana, Bhṛgu had gone for a bath. While he was gone, an asura who was also named Puloma came to Bhrigu's āśrama in
3360-403: Is earth and sky held? is there space beyond the sky? what are seasons and where do they go? does Skambha (literally "cosmic pillar", synonym for Brahman ) penetrate everything or just somethings? does Skambha know the future? is Skambha the basis of Law, Devotion and Belief? who or what is Skambha ?" The wonderful structure of Man (...) How many gods and which were they, who gathered
3500-452: 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
3640-414: Is in these anuvakas that sage Varuni advises Bhrigu with one of the oft-cited definition of Brahman, as "that from which beings originate, through which they live, and in which they re-enter after death, explore that because that is Brahman". This thematic, all encompassing, eternal nature of reality and existence develops as the basis for Bhrigu's emphasis on introspection and inwardization, to help peel off
3780-834: Is knowledge that frees people. The second Mundakam describes the nature of the Brahman , the Atman (Self, Soul), and the path to know Brahman. The third Mundakam continues the discussion and then asserts that the state of knowing Brahman is one of freedom, fearlessness, liberation and bliss. The Mundaka Upanishad is one of text that discuss the pantheism theory in Hindu scriptures. The text, like other Upanishads, also discusses ethics. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
3920-564: Is mainly in verse deploying a diversity of Vedic meters. Two different recensions of the text – the Paippalāda and the Śaunakīya – have survived into modern times. Reliable manuscripts of the Paippalada edition were believed to have been lost, but a well-preserved version was discovered among a collection of palm leaf manuscripts in Odisha in 1957. The Atharvaveda is sometimes called
4060-464: Is one of oldest surviving record of the evolutionary practices in religious medicine and reveals the "earliest forms of folk healing of Indo-European antiquity". ' The Atharvaveda Samhita contains hymns many of which were charms, magic spells and incantations meant to be pronounced by the person who seeks some benefit, or more often by a sorcerer who would say it on his or her behalf. The most frequent goal of these hymns, charms, and spells were long life of
4200-532: 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
4340-572: Is sometimes called the "Veda of magical formulas ", an epithet declared to be incorrect by many scholars. The Samhita layer of the text likely represents a developing 2nd millennium BCE tradition of magico-religious rites to address superstitious anxiety, spells to remove maladies believed to be caused by demons, and herbs- and nature-derived potions as medicine. Many books of the Atharvaveda Samhita are dedicated to rituals without magic and to theosophy. The text, states Kenneth Zysk ,
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4480-479: 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,
4620-454: Is the fourth Veda , and is a late addition to the Vedic scriptures of Hinduism . The language of the Atharvaveda is different from Rigvedic Sanskrit, preserving pre-Vedic Indo-European archaisms . It is a collection of 730 hymns with about 6,000 mantras, divided into 20 books. About a sixth of the Atharvaveda texts adapt verses from the Rigveda , and except for Books 15 and 16, the text
4760-589: 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
4900-496: The Sāmaveda . There is no absolute dating of any Vedic text including the Atharvaveda. The dating for Atharvaveda is derived from the new metals and items mentioned therein; it, for example, mentions iron (as krsna ayas , literally "black metal"), and such mentions have led Michael Witzel to the estimate that the Atharvaveda hymns were compiled in the early Indian Iron Age , at, or slightly after, c. 1200/1000 BCE. corresponding to
5040-540: 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
5180-580: 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
5320-613: 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
5460-692: The Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan in India . His son Chyavana, known for Chyavanprash also had his āśrama at Dhosi Hill. Bhṛgu is also worshipped at Bharuch , Swamimalai , Tirumala , Ballia , Nanguneri , Thiruneermalai , and Mannargudi . An āśrama for Bhṛgu is in Maruderi, Chengalpattu district in Tamil Nadu. Khedbrahma in Gujarat is associated with Brahma and Bhṛgu's legend of testing
5600-682: The Mundaka Upanishad , the Mandukya Upanishad and the Prashna Upanishad . The Veda may be named, states Monier Williams , after the mythical priest named Atharvan who was first to develop prayers to fire, offer Soma, and who composed "formulas and spells intended to counteract diseases and calamities". The name Atharvaveda, states Laurie Patton, is for the text being "Veda of the Atharvāṇas". The oldest name of
5740-518: The Narmada river in Gujarat , leaving his son Chyavana at Dhosi Hill . According to Bhagavata Purana , he was married to Khyati , one of the nine daughters of Prajāpati Kardama . She was the mother of Lakshmi as Bhargavi . They also had two sons named Dhata and Vidhata. He had one more son with Kavyamata , who is better known than Bhrigu himself – Shukra , learned sage and guru of
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5880-699: 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
6020-532: 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 ,
6160-476: 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
6300-496: The Saptarshis , and one of the many Prajapatis (the facilitators of creation) created by Brahma . The first compiler of predictive astrology and also the author of Bhrigu Samhita , an astrological ( jyotisha ) classic. Bhrigu is considered a manasaputra ("mind-born-son") of Brahma . The adjectival form of the name, Bhārgava , is used to refer to the descendants and the school of Bhṛgu. According to Manusmriti , Bhṛgu
6440-537: The asuras . The sage Chyavana is also said to be his son with Puloma, as is the folk hero Mrikanda . [Maha:1.5] One of his descendants was sage Jamadagni , who in turn was the father of sage Parashurama , considered an avatar of Vishnu . Bhṛgu is mentioned in the Shiva Purana and the Vayu Purana , where he is shown present during the great yajna of Daksha (his father-in-law). He supports
6580-406: 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
6720-500: 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
6860-422: The "Veda of magical formulas ", a description considered incorrect by other scholars. In contrast to the 'hieratic religion' of the other three Vedas, the Atharvaveda is said to represent a 'popular religion', incorporating not only formulas for magic , but also the daily rituals for initiation into learning ( upanayana ), marriage and funerals. Royal rituals and the duties of the court priests are also included in
7000-414: 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
7140-532: 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
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#17327657907637280-512: The Atharva there prevails, on the contrary, only an anxious dread of her evil spirits and their magical powers. In the Rigveda we find the people in a state of free activity and independence; in the Atharva we see it bound in the fetters of the hierarchy and superstition. Jan Gonda cautions that it would be incorrect to label Atharvaveda Samhita as mere compilation of magical formulas, witchcraft and sorcery. While such verses are indeed present in
7420-493: The Atharvaveda are prayers and incantations wishing a child or loved one to get over some sickness and become healthy again, along with comforting the family members. The Vedic era assumption was that diseases are caused by evil spirits, external beings or demonic forces who enter the body of a victim to cause sickness. Hymn 5.21 of the Paippalāda edition of the text, for example, states, Heaven our father, and Earth our mother, Agni
7560-492: The Atharvaveda. The Atharvaveda was likely compiled as a Veda contemporaneously with Samaveda and Yajurveda , or about 1200 BCE – 1000 BCE. Along with the Samhita layer of text, the Atharvaveda includes a Brahmana text, and a final layer of the text that covers philosophical speculations. The latter layer of Atharvaveda text includes three primary Upanishads, influential to various schools of Hindu philosophy . These include
7700-425: 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
7840-532: 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
7980-521: 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
8120-476: 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
8260-519: 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
8400-544: The Mundaka Upanishad is referred to as one of the Mantra Upanishads. The Mundaka Upanishad contains three Mundakams (parts), each with two sections. The first Mundakam, states Roer, defines the sciences of "Higher Knowledge" and "Lower Knowledge", and then asserts that the acts of oblations and pious gifts are foolish and do nothing to reduce unhappiness in the current life or the next - rather, it
8540-532: 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
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#17327657907638680-496: 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
8820-423: The Samhita layer, a significant portion of the Samhita text are hymns for domestic rituals without magic or spells, and some are theosophical speculations such as "all Vedic gods are One". Additionally, the non-Samhita layers of Atharvaveda text include a Brahmana and several influential Upanishads. The Atharvaveda includes mantras and verses for treating a variety of ailments. For example, the verses in hymn 4.15 of
8960-499: 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
9100-509: The Shaunakiya recension, and the more recently discovered manuscripts of Paippalāda recension have survived. The Paippalāda edition is more ancient. The two recensions differ in how they are organized, as well as content. For example, the Book 10 of Paippalada recension is more detailed and observed carefully not doing a single mistake, more developed and more conspicuous in describing monism ,
9240-638: 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
9380-406: The Trimurti. Lastly, Bhṛgu migrated to Bhuinj Satara , Maharashtra where he took Samadhi . His āśrama and his daughter 's temple also situated there. His son 's āśrama and samadhi are also situated on Chyavaneshwar hill near Bhuinj. In Tattiriya Upanishad , first six anuvakas of Bhrigu Valli are called Bhargavi Varuni Vidya , which means "the knowledge Bhrigu got from (his father) Varuni". It
9520-447: 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
9660-451: 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
9800-421: The abode of Vishnu, Vaikuntha . Vishnu was resting his head on the lap of Lakshmi when the sage arrived. Bhṛgu kicked Vishnu on the chest to wake him up, enraged by the perceived insult. Vishnu woke up, greeted Bhṛgu, and starts massaging his feet, regarding his chest to have been sanctified due to its contact with the sage's foot. Overpowered with emotion, Bhṛgu went back to the sages and declared Vishnu to be
9940-459: 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
10080-432: The attention of every agreeable suitor towards her! The Atharvaveda Samhita, as with the other Vedas, includes some hymns such as 4.1, 5.6, 10.7, 13.4, 17.1, 19.53-54, with metaphysical questions on the nature of existence, man, heaven and hell, good and evil. Hymn 10.7 of Atharvaveda, for example, asks questions such as "what is the source of cosmic order? what and where is planted this notion of faith, holy duty, truth? how
10220-420: The balasa, cough, udraja, terrible are your missiles, O fever, avoid us with them. Several hymns in the Atharvaveda such as hymn 8.7, just like the Rigveda's hymn 10.97, is a praise of medicinal herbs and plants, suggesting that speculations about the medical and health value of plants and herbs was an emerging field of knowledge in ancient India. The Atharvavedic hymn states (abridged), The tawny colored, and
10360-404: The book with the shortest hymns as Book 1, and then in an increasing order (a few manuscripts do the opposite). Most of the hymns are poetic and set to different meters, but about a sixth of the book is prose. Most of the hymns of Atharvaveda are unique to it, except for the one sixth of its hymns that it borrows from the Rigveda , primarily from its 10th mandala. The 19th book was a supplement of
10500-526: The breast, the neck bones of man? how many disposed the two teats? who the two collar bones? how many gathered the shoulder bones? how many the ribs? Who brought together his two arms, saying, "he must perform heroism?" (...) Which was the god who produced his brain, his forehead, his hindhead? (...) Whence now in man come mishap, ruin, perdition, misery? accomplishment, success, non-failure? whence thought? What one god set sacrifice in man here? who set in him truth? who untruth? whence death? whence
10640-440: 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
10780-527: 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
10920-416: The concept of "oneness of Brahman , all life forms and the world". The Atharvaveda Samhita originally was organized into 18 books ( Kāṇḍas ), and the last two were added later. These books are arranged neither by subject nor by authors (as is the case with the other Vedas), but by the length of the hymns. Each book generally has hymns of about a similar number of verses, and the surviving manuscripts label
11060-614: 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
11200-608: The continuation of the Daksha yajna even after being warned that without an offering for Shiva , it was asking for a catastrophe for everyone present there. In the Tattiriya Upanishad , he is described to have had a conversation with his father Varuni on Brahman . In the Bhagavad Gita , Krishna says that among sages, Bhrigu is the representative of the opulence of God . The Bhagavata Purana describes
11340-653: 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
11480-467: 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
11620-471: 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
11760-460: 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
11900-480: The early Kuru Kingdom . The priests who practised the Atharvaveda were considered to be the lowest tier of Brahmins , in comparison to the priests who practised the Rigveda, Samaveda, or Yajurveda [considered by whom?]. A stigma held by some against Atharvaveda priests is documented in Odisha well into the modern day. The Atharvaveda is a collection of 20 books, with a total of 730 hymns of about 6,000 stanzas. The text is, state Patrick Olivelle and other scholars,
12040-490: 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
12180-548: 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
12320-484: The fleers was Aarushi, who was pregnant at that time. In order to protect her unborn child, she hid her garbha (womb) in her thigh as she fled. The Kshatriyas, however, found out about this and caught her. As she was getting captured, her thigh broke and a child came out. The child was radiating immensely, and his light blinded the Kshatriya kings. The kings realized their mistakes and asked for forgiveness. The child, who
12460-411: The form of a boar and kidnapped, or carried away, Bhṛgu's wife. Because of this, Bhṛgu's wife had a miscarriage. Despite being prematurely born, the infant was radiating light like the sun, which burned the asura into ashes. Later, when Puloma went back to Bhrigu with her prematurely-born yet miraculous child, Bhṛgu asked her how the asura had come to know of the location of the āśrama. She revealed that it
12600-412: 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
12740-413: The fourth Veda, and make references to only three Vedas. Olson states that the ultimate acceptance of Atharvaveda as the fourth Veda probably came in the 2nd half of the 1st millennium BCE. However, notes Max Muller , the hymns of Atharvaveda existed by the time Chandogya Upanishad was completed (~700 BCE), but were then referred to as "hymns of Atharvangirasah". Frits Staal states that the text may be
12880-537: 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
13020-406: The greatest among the Trimurti. According to some traditions, Vishnu's consort Lakshmi grew angry at him because the chest was considered as Lakshmi's place ( vakshasthala ) and left Vaikuntha to be born on earth. She was found on a lotus flower, and was raised by Bhrigu and his wife Khyati, which is why another name of Lakshmi is Bhargavi, daughter of Bhṛgu. Since she was found on a lotus, she
13160-585: The heavenly spirit Around us rise no din of frequent slaughter, nor Indra's arrow fly, for day is present! The Atharvaveda includes Gopatha Brahmana text, that goes with Atharva Samhita . The Atharvaveda has three primary Upanishads embedded within it. The Mundaka Upanishad , embedded inside the Atharvaveda, is a poetic-style Upanishad with 64 verses, written in the form of mantras . However, these mantras are not used in rituals; rather they are used for teaching and meditation on spiritual knowledge. In ancient and medieval era Indian literature and commentaries,
13300-431: 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
13440-441: The immortal? The Atharvaveda, like other Vedic texts, states William Norman Brown , goes beyond the duality of heaven and hell, and speculates on the idea of Skambha or Brahman as the all pervasive monism. Good and evil, Sat and Asat (truth and untruth) are conceptualized differently in these hymns of Atharvaveda, and the Vedic thought, wherein these are not dualistic explanation of nature of creation, universe or man, rather
13580-486: 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
13720-432: 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
13860-412: 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
14000-514: 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 ,
14140-546: The men-watcher, let them send the ten days’ fever far away from us. O fever, these snowy mountains with Soma on their back have made the wind, the messenger, the healer for us, Disappear from here to the Maratas. Neither the women desire you, nor the men whosoever, Neither a small one, nor a grown-up weeps here from desire of fever. Do not harm our grown-up men, do not harm our grown-up women, Do not harm our boys, do not harm our girls. You who simultaneously discharge
14280-511: 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
14420-429: 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
14560-401: 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
14700-602: 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
14840-545: 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,
14980-663: The oldest section. Books 8 to 12 are speculations of a variety of topics, while Books 13 to 18 tend to be about life cycle rites of passage rituals. The Srautasutra texts Vaitāna Sūtra and the Kauśika Sūtra are attached to the Atharvaveda Shaunaka edition, as are a supplement of Atharvan Prayascitthas , two Pratishakhyas , and a collection of Parisisthas . For the Paippalada edition of Atharvaveda, corresponding texts were Agastya and Paithinasi Sutras but these are lost or yet to be discovered. The Atharvaveda
15120-403: 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
15260-431: 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
15400-629: The outer husks of knowledge, in order to reach and realize the innermost kernel of spiritual self-knowledge. Bhrigu decided to write his famous books of astrology, the Bhrigu Samhita . Bhrigu collected birth charts, wrote full-life predictions, and compiled them together as Bhrigu Samhita . Bhrigu Samhita is believed to be one of the first book of its kind in the field of astrology . The lineage of Bhrigu includes Shukra , Chyavana , Aurva , Richika, Jamadagni , Parashurama , Bhargava , Balai , and Dadhichi . Shukra, son of Bhṛgu,
15540-497: The pale, the variegated and the red, the dusky tinted, and the black – all Plants we summon hitherward. I speak to Healing Herbs spreading, and bushy, to creepers, and to those whose sheath is single, I call for thee the fibrous, and the reed like, and branching plants, dear to Vishwa Devas, powerful, giving life to men. The conquering strength, the power and might, which ye, victorious plants possess, Therewith deliver this man here from this consumption, O ye Plants: so I prepare
15680-458: The positive auspicious side came to be celebrated and the name Atharva Veda became widespread. The latter name Angiras which is linked to Agni and priests in the Vedas, states George Brown, may also be related to Indo-European Angirôs found in an Aramaic text from Nippur. Michael Witzel states the etymology of Atharvan is Proto Indo-Iranian *atharwan "[ancient] priest, sorcerer", and it
15820-414: 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
15960-439: 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
16100-480: 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
16240-510: The recently discovered Paippalada version of the Atharvaveda, discuss how to deal with an open fracture, and how to wrap the wound with Rohini plant ( Ficus infectoria , native to India): Let marrow be put together with marrow, and joint together with joint, together what of the flesh fallen apart, together sinew and together your bone. Let marrow come together with marrow, let bone grow over together with bone. We put together your sinew with sinew, let skin grow with skin. Numerous hymns of
16380-609: 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
16520-497: 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,
16660-497: The remedy. The contents of the Atharvaveda have been studied to glean information about the social and cultural mores in the Vedic era of India. A number of verses relate to spells for gaining a husband, or a wife, or the love of a woman, or to prevent any rivals from winning over one's "love interest". May O Agni!, a suitor after our own heart come to us, may he come to this maiden with fortune! May she be agreeable to suitors, charming at festivals, promptly obtain happiness through
16800-562: 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
16940-496: 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
17080-556: 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
17220-615: 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
17360-460: The text transcends these and the duality therein. Order is established out of chaos, truth is established out of untruth, by a process and universal principles that transcend good and evil. Some hymns are prayer qua prayer, desiring harmony and peace. For example, Give us agreement with our own; with strangers give us unity Do ye, O Asvins, in this place join us in sympathy and love. May we agree in mind, agree in purpose; let us not fight against
17500-436: The text, according to its own verse 10.7.20, was Atharvangirasah , a compound of " Atharvan " and " Angiras ", both Vedic scholars. Each scholar called the text after itself, such as Saunakiya Samhita , meaning the "compiled text of Saunakiya". The "Atharvan" and "Angiras" names, states Maurice Bloomfield, imply different things, with the former considered auspicious while the latter implying hostile sorcery practices. Over time,
17640-653: 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
17780-408: 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
17920-564: 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
18060-487: The verse 3.12.9.1 of Taittiriya Brahmana, the verse 5.32-33 of Aitareya Brahmana and other Vedic era texts mention only three Vedas. The acceptance of the Atharvanas hymns and traditional folk practices was slow, and it was accepted as another Veda much later than the first three, by both orthodox and heterodox traditions of Indian philosophies. The early Buddhist Nikaya texts, for example, do not recognize Atharvaveda as
18200-446: 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
18340-524: Was Agni who had told the asura Puloma about their whereabouts. Angered, Bhṛgu cursed Agni that he would consume all that came in his way. Aurva was the son of Chyavana and his wife Aarushi (daughter of Manu). After King Krutavirya's death, his sons invaded the Bhargava rishis' ashrams to get their wealth. Since the Kshatriyas were hunting them down, the rishis had to leave their ashrams. Among
18480-515: Was Aurva, returned their eyesight, however, his strong hatred towards the Kshatriyas remained even as he grew older. Aurva began to perform austerities to bring justice to his ancestors ( pitrus ) for how the Kshatriya kings had treated them, and the rigorousness of his austerities caused the world to start burning down. Frightened by the destruction caused by Aurva's intense austerities, Aurva's pitrus appeared before him, and pleaded him to withdraw
18620-514: Was a compatriot of and lived during the time of Svāyambhuva Manu , the progenitor of humanity. Along with Manu, Bhṛgu had made important contributions to the Manusmṛti , which was constituted out of a sermon to a congregation of saints in the state of Brahmavarta, after the great floods in this area. As per the Skanda Purana , Bhṛgu migrated to Bhrigukaccha, modern Bharuch , on the banks of
18760-408: 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
18900-427: 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
19040-472: 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
19180-738: 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
19320-447: Was testing him and allowed him to pass. Bhṛgu left for Kailasha , the abode of Shiva. Upon seeing the sage, Shiva rose to his feet and moved forward with great joy to embrace the sage. Bhṛgu, however, refused the embrace, and tested him by calling the deity a maligner of social conventions and rituals. Shiva was infuriated and prepared to strike the sage with his trident , but was calmed by his consort, Parvati . The sage then travelled to
19460-534: Was unlike the metric Rigvedic composition, and their content included forms of medical sorcery. The Atharvaveda editions now known are a combination of their compositions. The core text of the Atharvaveda falls within the classical Mantra period of Vedic Sanskrit , during the 2nd millennium BC - younger than the Rigveda , and roughly contemporary with the Yajurveda mantras, the Rigvedic Khilani , and
19600-442: 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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