Traditional
144-409: A ganacakra ( Sanskrit : गणचक्र gaṇacakra "gathering circle"; Tibetan : ཚོགས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ། , Wylie : tshogs kyi 'khor lo ) is also known as tsok , ganapuja , cakrapuja or ganacakrapuja . It is a generic term for various tantric assemblies or feasts, in which practitioners meet to chant mantra , enact mudra , make votive offerings and practice various tantric rituals as part of
288-490: A sādhanā , or spiritual practice. The ganachakra often comprises a sacramental meal and festivities such as dancing, spirit possession , and trance ; the feast generally consisting of materials that were considered forbidden or taboo in medieval India like meat, fish, and wine. As a tantric practice, forms of gaṇacakra are practiced today in Hinduism , Bön and Vajrayāna Buddhism . Professor Miranda Shaw summarises
432-540: A mandala of sacred space. Pettit emphasises the importance of the gathered "group" ( gana ) or sangha to Vajrayana sādhanā and the creation of sacred space such as the ganachakra: The power of sacred bonding in a temporary or virtual sacred space is an intrinsic, if normally invisible, component of a Vajrayana community experience. The community is that experience, and ceases to exist without it. To dwell in that sacredness requires not only that one perceive it, but to maintain that perception requires discipline, faith and
576-584: A mantra into its design. It is considered to represent the abode of the deity. Each yantra is unique and calls the deity into the presence of the practitioner through the elaborate symbolic geometric designs. According to one scholar, "Yantras function as revelatory symbols of cosmic truths and as instructional charts of the spiritual aspect of human experience" Many situate yantras as central focus points for Hindu tantric practice. Yantras are not representations, but are lived, experiential, nondual realities. As Khanna describes: Despite its cosmic meanings
720-602: A silk tapestry from the Yuan dynasty that serves as a diagram of the Tibetan cosmology, which was given to China from Nepal and Tibet. In the mandala, the outer circle of fire usually symbolises wisdom. The ring of eight charnel grounds represents the Buddhist exhortation to be always mindful of death, and the impermanence with which samsara is suffused: "such locations were utilized in order to confront and to realize
864-555: A yantra is a reality lived. Because of the relationship that exists in the Tantras between the outer world (the macrocosm) and man's inner world (the microcosm), every symbol in a yantra is ambivalently resonant in inner–outer synthesis, and is associated with the subtle body and aspects of human consciousness. The term 'mandala' appears in the Rigveda as the name of the sections of the work, and Vedic rituals use mandalas such as
1008-553: A circle and partake of sacramental (dry) meat and wine (often liquor) served in skull-cups . The feasts also provide an occasion for the exchange of ritual lore, the ritual worship of women ( sripuja ), and the performance of sexual yogas. The feast culminates in the performance of tantric dances and music that must never be disclosed to outsiders. The revelers may also improvise " songs of realization " ( caryagiti ) to express their heightened clarity and blissful raptures in spontaneous verse. Samuel holds that: [S]erious Tantric practice
1152-459: A clear and vivid visualized image. With every mandala comes what Tucci calls "its associated liturgy ... contained in texts known as tantras ", instructing practitioners on how the mandala should be drawn, built and visualised, and indicating the mantras to be recited during its ritual use. By visualizing "pure lands", one learns to understand experience itself as pure, and as the abode of enlightenment. The protection that we need, in this view,
1296-403: 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." Mandala A mandala ( Sanskrit : मण्डल , romanized : maṇḍala , lit. 'circle', [ˈmɐɳɖɐlɐ] )
1440-712: A feast-offering known as tsok or, in Sanskrit, ganapuja. Pettit states that sacred space is created spontaneously wherever the Three Jewels (cognate with the gankyil ) is manifest and that this sacred architecture or mandala is not dependent upon the built environment of monolithic cultures: Sacred Space is created spontaneously wherever the Three Jewels - the Buddha or teacher, the Dharma teaching or its texts, and
1584-433: 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
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#17327973285971728-591: 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
1872-658: 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
2016-416: A mandala or sacred architecture which expresses the omnipresence of enlightenment, that is the ground of both "secular" and "sacred" experiences and activities that are never perceived apart from its all-encompassing confines. The invocation of divine presence of mandala is especially effective when undertaken by several people in a ritual context, and it is incumbent for practitioners to do so periodically with
2160-542: A monastery. These sand mandalas are made to be destroyed to symbolize impermanence, the Buddhist belief that death is not the end, and that one's essence will always return to the elements. It is also related to the belief that one should not become attached to anything. To create these mandalas, the monks first create a sketch, then take colorful sand traditionally made from powdered stones and gems into copper funnels called Cornetts and gently tap sand out of them to create
2304-571: A monk to violate his monastic vows. The presence of a woman or Dakini is required at High Tantric initiation and also at the Tantric feast of the Ganachakrapuja, but in the eleventh century reform the actual Dakini physically present was replaced by a mind-consort ( yid kyi rig-ma ), a visualization of the Dakini. One did the sexual practice only in visualization, not in actuality. In this way
2448-454: 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
2592-479: 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
2736-459: A notebook a small circular drawing, [...] which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. [...] Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is: [...] the Self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious. When I began drawing the mandalas, however, I saw that everything, all the paths I had been following, all the steps I had taken, were leading back to
2880-546: 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
3024-402: A profound sense of love and respect for members of the mandala - that is, all living beings. Pettit links the importance of the group or gana to the manifestation of the ganachakra and the sacred space or the mandala (in this sense cognate with chakra ) with the liturgical tools of mantra, visualisation and sacred architecture : The potential for sacred space to manifest spontaneously
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#17327973285973168-522: 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
3312-538: 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
3456-439: 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
3600-527: A single point—namely, to the mid-point. It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation....I saw that here the goal had been revealed. One could not go beyond the center. The center is the goal, and everything is directed toward that center. Through this dream I understood that the self is the principle and archetype of orientation and meaning. Therein lies its healing function. For me, this insight signified an approach to
3744-625: A territorially defined state with fixed borders and a bureaucratic apparatus, but they diverged considerably in the opposite direction: the polity was defined by its centre rather than its boundaries, and it could be composed of numerous other tributary polities without undergoing administrative integration. Empires such as Bagan , Ayutthaya , Champa , Khmer , Srivijaya and Majapahit are known as "mandala" in this sense. Fashion designer Mandali Mendrilla designed an interactive art installation called Mandala of Desires (Blue Lotus Wish Tree) made in peace silk and eco friendly textile ink, displayed at
3888-615: A way to create easily accessible objects of reverence for the lower-classes of Japanese society. Shinran designed a mandala using a hanging scroll, and the words of the nembutsu ( 念仏 ) written vertically. This style of mandala is still used by some Jodo Shinshu Buddhists in home altars, or butsudan . Bodhimaṇḍala is a term in Buddhism that means "circle of awakening ". Sand mandalas are colorful mandalas made from sand that are ritualistically destroyed. They originated in India in
4032-473: Is Vajrabhairava mandala a silk tapestry woven with gilded paper depicting lavish elements like crowns and jewelry, which gives a three-dimensional effect to the piece. A mandala can also represent the entire universe, which is traditionally depicted with Mount Meru as the axis mundi in the center, surrounded by the continents. One example is the Cosmological Mandala with Mount Meru ,
4176-711: 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
4320-458: Is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. In the Eastern religions of Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism and Shinto it is used as a map representing deities, or especially in
4464-400: Is a symbolic offering of the entire universe. Every intricate detail of these mandalas is fixed in the tradition and has specific symbolic meanings, often on more than one level. Whereas the above mandala represents the pure surroundings of a Buddha, this mandala represents the universe. This type of mandala is used for the mandala-offerings, during which one symbolically offers the universe to
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4608-455: Is a tendency oft-promoted by Tibetan lamas who disseminate teachings in the Western world, to treat references to sexual union and to sadhana that engages with the "five impure substances" (usually referred to as the "five nectars") as symbolic. In the twilight language of correspondences and substitutions there is no inconsistency. Although, when modern tantric apologists and scholars employ
4752-516: 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
4896-542: Is called Cakrapuja. A Lord of the Cakra (Cakreshvara) presides sitting with his Shakti in the center. During the Cakra, there is no distinction of caste, but Pashus of any caste are excluded. There are various kinds of Cakra—productive, it is said, of differing fruits for the participator therein. As amongst Tantrik Sadhakas we come across the high, the low, and mere pretenders, so the Cakras vary in their characteristics from say
5040-452: 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
5184-403: Is from our own minds, as much as from external sources of confusion. In many tantric mandalas, this aspect of separation and protection from the outer samsaric world is depicted by "the four outer circles: the purifying fire of wisdom, the vajra circle, the circle with the eight tombs, the lotus circle". The ring of vajras forms a connected fence-like arrangement running around the perimeter of
5328-440: Is generally seen as appropriate for a small minority only. The ancient Indian gaṇacakra , the circle ritual...discussed earlier, is far in the past. In Tibetan practice it has long been replaced by the gaṇapuja (Tibetan: tshogs ), a considerably tamer affair, still involving a sacramental meal but normally performed indoors and without possession or dancing. John Woodroffe (writing as Arthur Avalon, 1918) affirms that
5472-486: Is now protected and announced as historical monument and site by the government of Manipur in the same year. The site is situated 12 km aerial distance from Kangla with the GPS coordinates of 24° 48' N and 93° 49' E. It covers a total area of around 224,161.45 square meters. This square mandala has four similar protruding rectangular ‘gates’ in the cardinal directions guarded each by similar but smaller rectangular ‘gates’ on
5616-488: Is nowhere higher than in Vajrayana Buddhist practice, which employs the use of mantra and visualization to create an experience of sacredness. Through liturgical performances, or amidst the activities of everyday life, a yogi is to experience, imaginately imaginatively or better yet spontaneously, the presence of divinity - Buddhahood embodied - in his or her own person, companions and environment. These constitute
5760-532: 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
5904-479: 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,
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6048-772: Is the Taima mandala , dated to about 763 CE. The Taima mandala is based on the Contemplation Sutra , but other similar mandalas have been made subsequently. Unlike mandalas used in Vajrayana Buddhism, it is not used as an object of meditation or for esoteric ritual. Instead, it provides a visual representation of the Pure Land texts, and is used as a teaching aid. Also in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, Shinran and his descendant, Rennyo , sought
6192-699: Is the 9th century Borobudur in Central Java, Indonesia. It is built as a large stupa surrounded by smaller ones arranged on terraces formed as a stepped pyramid , and when viewed from above, takes the form of a giant tantric Buddhist mandala, simultaneously representing the Buddhist cosmology and the nature of mind. Other temples from the same period that also have mandala plans include Sewu , Plaosan and Prambanan . Similar mandala designs are also observable in Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. Circular diagrams are often used in phylogenetics , especially for
6336-589: 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
6480-540: 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
6624-575: The Aghori monastic order, whereas "right-hand path" tantrics ( dakṣiṇācārins ) oppose these. In the Vamachara tradition, adherents engage in literal consumption and use of the Five Ms, along with other ritual elements such as incense, music, and costumes. This approach represents a more overt embrace of these elements to attain spiritual transformation. In contrast, Dakṣiṇācāra practitioners interpret
6768-580: 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
6912-591: The Five Wisdom Kings , this forms the Mandala of the Two Realms . Mandalas are commonly used by tantric Buddhists as an aid to meditation. The mandala is "a support for the meditating person", something to be repeatedly contemplated to the point of saturation, such that the image of the mandala becomes fully internalised in even the minutest detail and can then be summoned and contemplated at will as
7056-613: 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
7200-521: The Mahasiddha tradition which has roots in a complex and coterie of esoteric traditions of numerous siddha and sadhu Buddhist, Hindu and non-sectarian practices and views: The Higher Tantras could not be a congregational practice of monks because Tantric sadhana, as well as celebrations of the High Tantric feast or Ganachakrapuja, required partaking of meat, wine, and sexual intercourse. At
7344-601: The Mandala of the Womb Realm and the Mandala of the Diamond Realm . These two mandalas are engaged in the abhiseka initiation rituals for new Shingon students, more commonly known as the Kechien Kanjō ( 結縁灌頂 ). A common feature of this ritual is to blindfold the new initiate and to have them throw a flower upon either mandala. Where the flower lands assists in the determination of which tutelary deity
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#17327973285977488-517: The Navagraha mandala to this day. In Vajrayana Buddhism, mandalas have been developed also into sandpainting . They are also a key part of Anuttarayoga Tantra meditation practices. The man mandala can be shown to represent in visual form the core essence of the Vajrayana teachings. The mandala represents the nature of the Pure Land, Enlightened mind. An example of this type of mandala
7632-699: 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
7776-532: 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 ,
7920-531: 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
8064-656: The invocation that believers chant, are written down the center of all Nichiren-sect Gohonzons , whose appearance may otherwise vary depending on the particular school and other factors. Mandalas have sometimes been used in Pure Land Buddhism to graphically represent Pure Lands , based on descriptions found in the Larger Sutra and the Contemplation Sutra . The most famous mandala in Japan
8208-633: The panchamrita of Tantra, Hindu and Buddhist traditions are directly related to the Mahābhūta or Five Elements and that the panchamakara is actually a vulgar term for the pañcatattva : Worship with the Pañcatattva generally takes place in a Cakra or circle composed of men and women, Sadhakas and Sadhikas, Bhairavas and Bhairavis sitting in a circle, the Shakti being on the Sadhaka's left. Hence it
8352-406: 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
8496-500: 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
8640-556: The "Five Buddhas", archetypal Buddha forms embodying various aspects of enlightenment. Such Buddhas are depicted depending on the school of Buddhism , and even the specific purpose of the mandala. A common mandala of this type is that of the Five Wisdom Buddhas (a.k.a. Five Jinas ), the Buddhas Vairocana , Aksobhya , Ratnasambhava , Amitabha and Amoghasiddhi . When paired with another mandala depicting
8784-414: 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
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#17327973285978928-532: 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
9072-542: The 8th–12th century but are now practiced in Tibetan Buddhism. Each mandala is dedicated to specific deities. In Buddhism Deities represent states of the mind to be obtained on the path to enlightenment, the mandala itself is representative of the deity's palace which also represents the mind of the deity. Each mandala is a pictorial representation of a tantra . for the process of making Sand mandalas they are created by monks who have trained for three–five years in
9216-677: The Buddhas or to one's teacher. Within Vajrayana practice, 100,000 of these mandala offerings (to create merit) can be part of the preliminary practices before a student even begins actual tantric practices. This mandala is generally structured according to the model of the universe as taught in a Buddhist classic text the Abhidharma-kośa , with Mount Meru at the centre, surrounded by the continents, oceans and mountains, etc. Various Mandalas are described in many Pali Buddhist texts . Some of
9360-425: 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
9504-532: 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
9648-521: 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
9792-443: The Five Ms symbolically and metaphorically, emphasizing their spiritual significance and using them as symbols for meditation and inner transformation. This interpretation encourages practitioners to transcend their worldly desires gradually and embrace subtle Tantric practices. New branches: Tantric techniques : Fourfold division: Twofold division: Thought forms and visualisation: Yoga : Samuel defines
9936-476: 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
10080-519: 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
10224-532: 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
10368-496: 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
10512-669: The Sangha community of practitioners - are found. A place that elicits reverence should be sacred, and wherever the Jewels are found, the pieties of lay and ordained Buddhists are bound to be expressed. In Hindu tantra, a ganachakra typically consists of five elements known as panchamakara or the "five Ms". These are madya ( alcohol ), māṃsa ( meat ), matsya ( fish ), mudrā (grain), and maithuna ( sexual intercourse ). Taboo -breaking elements are only practiced literally by "left-hand path" tantrics ( vāmācārins ) such as
10656-499: 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
10800-638: 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
10944-832: The Tattva-cakra for the Brahma-kaulas, and the Bhairavi-cakra (as described in Mahanirvana, VII. 153) in which, in lieu of wine, the householder takes milk, sugar and honey (Madhura-traya), and in lieu of sexual union does meditation upon the Lotus Feet of the Divine Mother with Mantra, to Cakras the ritual of which will not be approved such as Cudacakra, Anandabhuvana-yoga and others referred to later. The ganachakra , or 'tantric feast', can be seen as
11088-447: 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
11232-451: 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
11376-407: 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
11520-440: 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
11664-513: The case of Shinto, paradises, kami or actual shrines. In Hinduism, a basic mandala, also called a yantra , takes the form of a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point . Each gate is in the general shape of a T. Mandalas often have radial balance . A yantra is similar to a mandala, usually smaller and using a more limited colour palette. It may be a two- or three-dimensional geometric composition used in sadhanas , puja or meditative rituals, and may incorporate
11808-445: The center and therefore to the goal. Jung claimed that the urge to make mandalas emerges during moments of intense personal growth. He further hypothesized their appearance indicated a "profound re-balancing process" is underway in the psyche; the result of the process would be a more complex and better integrated personality. The mandala serves a conservative purpose – namely, to restore a previously existing order. But it also serves
11952-527: 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
12096-462: The common appearance of a circle motif across religions and cultures. He hypothesized that the circle drawings reflected the mind's inner state at the moment of creation and were a kind of symbolic archetype in the collective unconscious. Familiarity with the philosophical writings of India prompted Jung to adopt the word "mandala" to describe these drawings created by himself and his patients. In his autobiography, Jung wrote: I sketched every morning in
12240-614: 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
12384-481: The creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique. [...] The process is that of the ascending spiral, which grows upward while simultaneously returning again and again to the same point. American art therapist Joan Kellogg later created the MARI card test, a free response measure , based on Jung's work. Transpersonal psychologist David Fontana proposed that
12528-653: 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
12672-467: 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
12816-471: 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
12960-460: 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
13104-490: 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
13248-639: The examples of the Theravada Buddhist Mandalas are: In Sigālovāda Sutta , Buddha describes the relationships of a common lay persons in Mandala style. One Japanese branch of Mahayana Buddhism – Shingon Buddhism – makes frequent use of mandalas in its rituals as well, though the actual mandalas differ. When Shingon's founder, Kūkai , returned from his training in China, he brought back two mandalas that became central to Shingon ritual:
13392-444: The experience of a gaṇacakra : The feast is an esoteric ritual that unfolds in many stages. The sacred space for the ceremony is demarcated by geometric designs drawn on the ground with powdered pigments, and an elaborate array of offerings and foods are laid out. The participants don special insignia like bone ornaments and crowns and use musical instruments of archaic design... for inducing heightened awareness. Practitioners sit in
13536-548: 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
13680-519: The form of the mandala, the sacred enclosure consisting of concentric squares and circles drawn on the ground and representing that adamant plane of being on which the aspirant to Buddha hood wishes to establish himself. The unfolding of the tantric ritual depends on the mandala; and where a material mandala is not employed, the adept proceeds to construct one mentally in the course of his meditation." A "mandala offering" in Tibetan Buddhism
13824-412: 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
13968-421: The founder of this branch of Japanese Buddhism , during the late 13th Century. The Gohonzon is the primary object of veneration in some Nichiren schools and the only one in others, which consider it to be the supreme object of worship as the embodiment of the supreme Dharma and Nichiren's inner enlightenment. The seven characters Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō , considered to be the name of the supreme Dharma, as well as
14112-470: The ganachakra succinctly: Vajrayāna or Tantric Buddhism had its origin in India, where it seems to have been practised, at any rate in its earlier period, say the fourth to eighth centuries CE, by small initiatory cult groups. The central ritual of these groups was the gaṇacakra , a night-time sacramental circle, usually outdoors, often in a cremation ground or similarly spooky and 'powerful' location, with distinctly antinomian elements. These included
14256-537: 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
14400-523: The graphical representation of phylogenetic relationships. Evolutionary trees often encompass numerous species that are conveniently shown on a circular tree, with images of the species shown on the periphery of a tree. Such diagrams have been called phylogenetic mandalas. Mandala as an art form first appeared in Buddhist art that were produced in India during the first century B.C.E. These can also be seen in Rangoli designs in Indian households. One of
14544-431: 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
14688-536: The initiate should follow. The mandala in Nichiren Buddhism is a moji-mandala ( 文字曼陀羅 ), which is a paper hanging scroll or wooden tablet whose inscription consists of Chinese characters and medieval-Sanskrit script representing elements of the Buddha's enlightenment , protective Buddhist deities, and certain Buddhist concepts. Called the Gohonzon , it was originally inscribed by Nichiren ,
14832-486: 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
14976-455: The king's state. In historical, social and political sense, the term "mandala" is also employed to denote traditional Southeast Asian political formations (such as federation of kingdoms or vassalized states). It was adopted by 20th century Western historians from ancient Indian political discourse as a means of avoiding the term 'state' in the conventional sense. Not only did Southeast Asian polities not conform to Chinese and European views of
15120-432: 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
15264-438: The left and right. Within the square there is an eight petalled flower or rayed-star, recently called as Maklang ‘Star fort’ by the locals, in the centre covering a total area of around 50,836.66 square meters. The discovery of other five giant mandalas in the valley of Manipur is also made with Google Earth. The five giant mandalas, viz., Sekmai mandala, Heikakmapal mandala, Phurju twin mandalas and Sangolmang mandala are located on
15408-412: 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
15552-514: 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 ,
15696-511: 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
15840-429: 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
15984-401: 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
16128-602: 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
16272-630: The most intense archaeological discoveries in recent years that could redefine the history of eastern thought and tradition of mandala is the discovery of five giant mandalas in the valley of Manipur , India, made with Google Earth imagery. Located in the paddy field in the west of Imphal , the capital of Manipur, the Maklang geoglyph is perhaps the world's largest mandala built entirely of mud. The site wasn't discovered until 2013 as its whole structure could only be visible via Google Earth satellite imagery. The whole paddy field, locally known as Bihu Loukon ,
16416-597: 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,
16560-403: 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
16704-431: 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
16848-570: The outer mandala circle. As a meditation on impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism ), after days or weeks of creating the intricate pattern of a sand mandala , the sand is brushed together into a pile and spilled into a body of running water to spread the blessings of the mandala. Kværne in his extended discussion of sahaja , discusses the relationship of sadhana interiority and exteriority in relation to mandala thus: ...external ritual and internal sadhana form an indistinguishable whole, and this unity finds its most pregnant expression in
16992-414: 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
17136-498: The practices of the Higher Tantras could be taken into the monasteries and incorporated into the congregations practice and liturgy of the monks known as puja. Samding Dorje Phagmo In Tibetan Buddhism , it is traditional to offer a tsok (Tib. for ganachakra ) to Padmasambhava or other deities, usually gurus, on the tenth lunar day , and to a form of dakini such as Yeshe Tsogyal , Mandarava or Vajrayogini on
17280-439: 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
17424-480: 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
17568-609: 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
17712-497: 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,
17856-444: The ritual use of sexuality, although it is not clear how far this was performed literally and how far symbolically. The gaṇacakra involved possession, dancing and singing, and also magical procedures. It was seen as an occasion to enter a non-ordinary state of consciousness. Vajranatha associates the ganachakra with the higher tantras, the anuttarayogatantra , and associates a non-monastic origin and tributary of this rite to
18000-562: 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
18144-496: 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
18288-426: The sand mandala. Each color represents attributes of deities. While making the mandalas the monks will pray and meditate, each grain of sand represents a blessing. Monks will travel to demonstrate this art form to people, often in museums. The re-introduction of mandalas into modern Western thought is largely credited to psychologist Carl Gustav Jung . In his exploration of the unconscious through art, Jung observed
18432-556: 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
18576-615: 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
18720-452: The symbolic nature of a mandala may help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises." Buddhist architecture often applied mandala as the blueprint or plan to design Buddhist structures, including temple complex and stupas. A notable example of mandala in architecture
18864-607: The term "symbolic" as though no external practices were engaged in literally, they mislead and perpetuate an untruth. In the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Chöd , a variation of the gaṇacakra has the practitioner visualizing offering their own body as a feast for all beings who are all invited to the feast. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
19008-412: The transient nature of life". Described elsewhere: "within a flaming rainbow nimbus and encircled by a black ring of dorjes , the major outer ring depicts the eight great charnel grounds, to emphasize the dangerous nature of human life". Inside these rings lie the walls of the mandala palace itself, specifically a place populated by deities and Buddhas . One well-known type of mandala is the mandala of
19152-653: 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
19296-490: The twenty-fifth lunar day. Generally, participants are required by their samaya (bond or vow) to partake of meat and alcohol, and the rite tends to have elements symbolic of coitus . Traditions of the Ganachakra liturgy and rite extends remains of food and other compassionate offerings to alleviate the insatiable hunger of the hungry ghosts , genius loci and other entities. David Snellgrove (1987) holds that there
19440-408: 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
19584-564: 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
19728-552: The very least the latter two would force a monk to break his vows. And so what came about in the eleventh century was a change in the external style of practice; the Anuttara Tantras, many of them freshly brought from India and newly translated into Tibetan, came to be practiced in the style of the lower Yoga Tantras. Although there is a great deal of ritual in the Yoga Tantras, there is nothing there that would require
19872-608: The western bank of the Iril River. Another two fairly large mandala shaped geoglyph at Nongren and Keinou are also reported from Manipur valley, India, in 2019. They are named as Nongren mandala and Keinou mandala. The Rajamandala (or Raja-mandala ; circle of states) was formulated by the Indian author Kautilya in his work on politics, the Arthashastra (written between 4th century BCE and 2nd century BCE). It describes circles of friendly and enemy states surrounding
20016-502: 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
20160-408: 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
20304-427: 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
20448-472: 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
20592-686: 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
20736-442: 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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