158-475: Jayanta ( Sanskrit : जयन्त , lit. '"victory"')), is a character who appears in Hindu literature . He is the son of Indra , the king of the devas (gods), and his wife, Shachi (Indrani). He has a sister called Jayanti . He appears in various Hindu scriptures, fighting in wars on behalf of the devas. Jayanta also appears in the epic Ramayana and other lore, in which he disguises himself as
316-418: A mango tree, which was then split in half by Kartikeya using his vel. One half of the tree became his mount, the peacock, while the other half became the rooster entrenched on his flag. Guha (Muruga) You who has form and who is formless, you who are both being and non-being, who are the fragrance and the blossom, who are the jewel and its lustre, who are the seed of life and life itself, who are
474-527: A peacock and a rooster , respectively. After Surapadma was killed, Kartikeya took the peacock as his vahana and the rooster as his pennant . Indian religious literature describes Kartikeya and Ganesha as sons of Shiva and Parvati. Shavite puranas such as Ganesha Purana , Shiva Purana and Skanda Purana state that Ganesha is the elder of the two. Mahabharata and the Puranas mention various other brothers and sisters of Skanda or Kartikeya. In
632-402: A Tamil deity, underwent a process of adoption and incorporation into the pantheon of North Indian deities. In contrast, G. S. Ghurye states that according to the archeological and epigraphical evidence, the contemporary deity worshipped as Murugan, Subrahmanya and Kartikeya is a composite of two influences: Skanda from the south, and Mahasena from the north. He as the warrior-philosopher god was
790-523: A blade of grass and unleashes the divine weapon Brahmastra out of it on the crow, who flees in fear. The crow flies across the universe, but the weapon follows. Turned back by Indra, Brahma , Shiva , and various rishis (sages), the crow takes refuge in Rama, and surrenders to him. The son of Indra requests pardon, but Rama says that the Brahmastra cannot be withdrawn. So, the son of Indra asks it to hit
948-407: A crow attacked her. The crow pecks at her twice; once on her breast or between her breasts in some versions. The Ramcharitmanas replaces the breast with feet. In a hurry to drive away the crow, she tries to fasten her garments, but ends up loosening them. Rama is awakened and recognises the crow, whose claws were dripping in blood, as the son of Indra. An enraged Rama, at the behest of Sita, picks
1106-531: A crow. In the Sundara Kanda (the fifth Book of the epic Ramayana ), when Hanuman meets Sita , she narrates an incident that happened in the forest in Chitrakuta . The prince of Ayodhya and an avatar of the god Vishnu , Rama , is exiled to the forest with his wife Sita (an avatar of Vishnu's wife, Lakshmi ) and his brother, Lakshmana . A fatigued Rama was sleeping in the lap of Sita, when
1264-399: 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." Murugan Traditional Kartikeya ( IAST : Kārtikeya ), also known as Skanda , Subrahmanya , Shanmukha and Murugan ,
1422-433: 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
1580-519: A function, and twelve arms, and tells of the temples dedicated to him in the hilly regions and of his victory over evil. The ancient Tamil lexicon Pinkalandai identifies the name Vel with the slayer of Tarakasura. Paripatal , a Sangam literary work from the third century CE, refers to Kartikeya as Sevvel ("red spear") and as Neduvel ("great spear"). In Mahayana Buddhism , the Mahaparinirvana Sutra mentions Kumara as one of
1738-979: A hill, there will be a temple dedicated to Murugan. As he is venerated as the lord of Kurinji , which is a mountainous region, most of his temples are located on hillocks. Most renowned among them are the Six Abodes of Murugan , a set of six temples at Thiruparankundram , Tiruchendur , Palani , Swamimalai , Tiruttani , and Pazhamudircholai which are mentioned in Sangam literature. Other major temples dedicated to Murugan are located at Kandakottam , Kumaran Kundram , Kumarakkottam , Manavalanallur , Marudamalai , Pachaimalai , Sikkal , Siruvapuri , Thiruporur , Vadapalani , Vallakottai , Vayalur , and Viralimalai . Places of worship dedicated to Subramanya in Kerala include temples at Haripad , Neendoor , Kidangoor and Kodumbu . In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana , he
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#17327811719641896-591: 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
2054-658: 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
2212-454: 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
2370-479: 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
2528-546: 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
2686-578: 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
2844-423: A reflection of legends surrounding his birth wherein he was fused from six boys or borne of six conceptions. He is described to have aged quickly from childhood, becoming a warrior, leading the army of the devas and credited with destroying rakshasas including Tarakasura and Surapadma . He is regarded as a philosopher who taught the pursuit of an ethical life and the theology of Shaiva Siddhanta . Kaumaram
3002-538: 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
3160-439: 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
3318-612: A union of polarities. He is considered a uniter, championing the attributes of both Shaivism and Vaishnavism (which revere Shiva and Vishnu as their supreme deities, respectively). Kartikeya's theology is most developed in the Tamil texts and in the Shaiva Siddhanta tradition. He is described as dheivam (abstract neuter divinity, nirguna brahman ), as kadavul (divinity in nature, in everything), as Devan (masculine deity), and as iraivativam (concrete manifestation of
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#17327811719643476-673: A war fought by Kartikeya against the asuras. As Kartikeya was born to save the devas from the tyrnany of the asuras, he was appointed as the commander of the devas and engaged in conflict with the asuras. Shiva granted him an army of 30,000 warriors to assist in the war against the oppressive asura brothers, whom Kartikeya was born to defeat. Kartikeya was assisted by nine warriors, headed by Virabahu , who served as sub-commanders of his army. These nine men were borne by nine lesser clones of Shakti who appeared from her silambu (anklet). Kartikeya believed that asuras and devas were all descendants of Shiva and that if asuras were to correct their ways,
3634-408: A warrior with attributes of a hunter and a philosopher. He wields a divine spear known as the vel , granted to him by Parvati. The vel signifies his power, or shakti , and symbolizes valor, bravery and righteousness. He is sometimes depicted with other weapons, including a sword, a javelin, a mace, a discus and a bow. His vahana or mount is depicted as a peacock , known as Paravani. While he
3792-424: A while and rest. When he tried to lift them again, he was unable to move one of the hills. He found a youth standing atop the hill and fought with him, only to be defeated. Agasthya identified the youth as Kartikeya, and the two discussed the dispute. The hill was left to remain at its resting location, which later became Palani . Kartikeya later resurrected Idumban as his devotee. The mythology behind Idumban carrying
3950-412: A wish wherein they could only be killed by the son of Shiva, which offered them near-immortality. They subsequently oppressed other celestial beings including the devas, and started a reign of tyranny in the three worlds . When the devas pleaded to Shiva for his assistance, he manifested five additional heads on his body, and a divine spark emerged from each of them. Initially, the wind god Vayu carried
4108-711: 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
4266-501: Is a fifteenth century anthology of Tamil religious songs composed by Arunagirinathar in veneration of Murugan. Kanda Shasti Kavasam is a Tamil devotional song composed by Devaraya Swamigal in the ninteenth century CE. Murugan (Kartikeya), being known as the God of the Tamils, has many temples dedicated to him across Tamil Nadu . An old Tamil saying states that wherever there is
4424-571: Is a physical burden which consists of two semicircular pieces of wood or steel which are bent and attached to a cross structure in its simplest form, which is then balanced on the shoulders of the devotee. By bearing the Kavadi, the devotees processionally implore Murugan for assistance, usually as a means of balancing a spiritual debt or on behalf of a loved one who is in need of help or healing. Worshipers often carry pots of cow milk as an offering ( pal kavadi ). The most extreme and spectacular practice
4582-516: 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
4740-523: Is also associated with sensuality and retribution. Anthropologist Gananath Obeyesekere has suggested that the deity's popularity among Buddhists is due to his purported power to grant emotional gratification, which is in stark contrast to the sensual restraint that characterizes Buddhist practice in Sri Lanka. According to Asko Parpola , the Jain deity Naigamesa , who is also referred to as Hari-Naigamesin,
4898-524: Is also said to have married Valli, the daughter of a tribal chief . In Tamil folklore, both Devasena and Valli were daughters of Vishnu in the previous birth. When they reincarnated , Devasena was adopted as the daughter of Indra as a result of her penance and Valli was born on the Earth. However, both were destined to marry the son of Shiva. There are references in the ancient Vedas to "Skanda", which can be interpreted to refer to Kartikeya. For example,
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5056-438: Is depicted in early Jain texts as riding the peacock and as the leader of the divine army, both characteristics of Kartikeya. Kavadi Aattam is a ceremonial act of sacrifice and offering to Murugan practiced by his devotees. Its origin has been linked to a mythic anecdote about Idumban . It symbolizes a form of debt bondage through the bearing of a physical burden called Kavadi ( lit. ' burden ' ). The Kavadi
5214-629: Is found in numismatic evidence linked to the Yaudheyas , a confederation of warriors in North India who are mentioned by the ancient Sanskrit grammarian Pāṇini. During the Kushan era , that included rule over the northwest Indian subcontinent , more coins featuring Kartikeya were minted. He is also found on ancient Indo-Scythian coins, where his various names are minted in Greek script . Skanda
5372-452: 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
5530-408: Is generally regarded as a mango . Shiva expressed his intention of dividing the fruit between his two sons, Ganesha and Kartikeya, but Narada counseled that the fruit could not be divided. So, it was decided to award the fruit to whomsoever first circled the world thrice. Accepting the challenge, Kartikeya started his journey around the globe atop his peacock mount . However, Ganesha surmised that
5688-528: Is hailed as the lord of Palani hills , the tutelary deity of the Kurinji region whose cult gained immense popularity. Tamil literary works such as Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai by Nakkīraṉãr and Tiruppukal by Arunagirinathar are devoted to Murugan. Archaeological evidence from the first century CE and earlier shows an association of his iconography with Agni , the Hindu god of fire, indicating that Kartikeya
5846-792: Is known by 108 different names, though other names also exist in common usage. Most common amongst these include Skanda (from skand- , 'to leap or to attack'), Murugan ('handsome'), Kumara ('youthful'), Subrahmanya ('transparent'), Senthil ('victorious'), Vēlaṇ ('wielder of vel '), Swaminatha ('ruler of gods'), Saravaṇabhava ('born amongst the reeds'), Arumukha or Shanmukha ('six faced'), Dhanadapani ('wielder of mace') and Kandha ('cloud'). On ancient coins featuring his images, his name appears inscribed as Kumara, Brahmanya, or Brahmanyadeva. On some ancient Indo-Scythian coins, his name appears in Greek script as Skanda, Kumara, and Vishaka. Various Indian literary works recount different stories surrounding
6004-585: Is narrated in the Vana Parva of the Mahabharata , where he is described as the son of Agni and Svaha . It is narrated that Agni goes to meet the wives of the Saptarshi (seven great sages) and, while none of the wives reciprocates Agni's feelings of love, Svaha is present and attracted to Agni. Svaha takes the form of six of the wives, one by one, and has sex with Agni six times. She is unable to take
6162-492: Is part of Shaivite literature. While the text is named after Skanda (Kartikeya), he does not feature either more or less prominently in the text than in other Shiva-related Puranas. The text has been an important historical record and influence on the Hindu traditions related to war-god Skanda. The earliest text titled Skanda Purana likely existed by the sixth century CE, but the Skanda Purana that has survived into
6320-532: 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
6478-578: Is revered in regions with significant population of Tamil people and people of Tamil origin, including those in Malaysia , Singapore , Sri Lanka , Thailand , Indonesia and Myanmar , Fiji , Mauritius , Seychelles , Réunion , South Africa and Canada , Caribbean countries including Trinidad and Tobago , Guyana and Suriname , countries with significant Indian migrants including the United States and Australia . Sri Subramanyar Temple at
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6636-479: 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,
6794-567: Is the Hindu god of war . He is generally described as the son of the deities Shiva and Parvati and the brother of Ganesha . Kartikeya has been an important deity in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times . It has been postulated that the Tamil deity of Murugan was syncretized with the Vedic deity of Skanda following the Sangam era . He is regarded as the "God of the Tamil people" and
6952-765: Is the Hindu denomination that primarily venerates Kartikeya. Apart from significant Kaumaram worship and temples in South India , he is worshipped as Mahasena and Kumara in North and East India . He is also worshipped in Sri Lanka , Southeast Asia (notably in Malaysia , Singapore , Thailand and Indonesia ), other countries with significant populations of Tamil origin (including Fiji , Mauritius , South Africa and Canada ), Caribbean countries (including Trinidad and Tobago , Guyana and Suriname ), and countries with significant Indian migrant populations (including
7110-500: Is the carrying of el kavadi , a portable altar up to 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) tall and weighing up to 30 kg (66 lb) decorated with peacock feathers, which is attached to the body of the devotee through multiple skewers and metal hooks pierced into the skin on the chest and back. Once all sages and gods assembled in Kailasha , the abode of Shiva, which resulted in the tilting of Earth due to an increase in weight on
7268-589: 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
7426-550: Is worshipped under the names Subrahmanya, Kumara Swamy, and Skanda, with major temples at Mopidevi , Biccavolu , Skandagiri, Mallam, and Indrakeeladri, Vijayawada. In Kukke Subramanya and Ghati Subramanya temples in Karnataka , he is worshipped as Subrahmanya and is regarded as the lord of the serpents . In West Bengal , Kartikeya is associated with childbirth and is worshipped in Kartik temples. Temples also exist in
7584-540: 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
7742-560: The Chandogya Upanishad (eighth to sixth century BCE) equates Sanat-Kumara (eternal son) and Skanda, as he teaches the sage Narada to discover his own Atman (soul, self) as a means to ultimate knowledge, true peace, and liberation. The earliest clear evidence of Kartikeya's importance emerges in the Hindu epics , such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata , where his story is recited. Mentions of Skanda are found in
7900-580: 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
8058-613: 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
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#17327811719648216-460: The Kumbha Mela is celebrated every twelve years in remembrance of the incident. The Uttara Kanda , the final book of the Ramayana, describes a battle between Indra and the rakshasa king Ravana . While Indra battles Ravana, Jayanta fights with Ravana's son, Meghanada . A fierce battle ensues between Jayanta and Meghanada; ultimately Ravana's son strikes Jayanta, who falls unconscious. In
8374-468: The Kurinji landscape. In that role he was seen as a guardian who consistently defended the Tamils against foreign invasions with the stories of his astonishing and miraculous deeds increasing his stature in the community, who began to view him as god. Many of the major events in the narrative of Murugan's life take place during his youth, which encouraged the worship of Murugan as a child-god. According to Raman Varadara , Murugan, originally regarded as
8532-753: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
8690-532: 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 ,
8848-531: 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
9006-468: The Theravada Buddhist pantheon in countries such as Sri Lanka and Thailand . The Nikaya Samgraha describes Skanda Kumara as a guardian deity of the land, along with Upulvan (Vishnu), Saman and Vibhisana . In Sri Lanka, Skanda, as Kataragama deviyo , is a popular deity among both Tamil Hindus and Sinhalese Buddhists. While many Sri Lankan Buddhists regard him as a bodhisattva , he
9164-689: The United States and Australia ). The epithet Kartikeya is linked to the circumstances surrounding the deity's birth. According to the Skanda Purana , six divine sparks emerged from Shiva , forming six separate baby boys. These boys were raised by handmaidens known as the Krittikas . Later, Parvati fused them into one, creating the six-headed Kartikeya. Kartikeya means "of the Krittikas" in Sanskrit . According to Hindu literature, he
9322-404: The hemisphere where the gathered stood. Shiva asked sage Agasthya to move towards the south to restore the balance. Agasthya employed an asura named Idumban to carry two hills called Sivagiri and Sakthigiri (Mountains of Shiva and Shakti ) on his shoulders to be placed in the south, to balance the weight. Idumban carried the hills and set southward, stopping en-route to place them down for
9480-406: 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
9638-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
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#17327811719649796-414: 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
9954-532: 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
10112-425: 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
10270-532: 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
10428-521: 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
10586-476: 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
10744-519: 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
10902-532: 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
11060-496: 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
11218-499: 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
11376-638: 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
11534-462: The South Indian iconography and mythology for Murugan have remained unique to Tamil Nadu. According to Fred Clothey, the evidence suggests that mythology relating to Kartikeya became widespread in North India sometime around 200 BCE or later. In addition to textual evidence, his importance is affirmed by the archeological , epigraphic , and numismatic record of this period. For example, he
11692-405: The Tamils." Korravai is often identified as the mother of Murugan. Tirumurukarruppatai , estimated to be have been written in the second to fourth century CE, is an ancient Tamil epic dedicated to Murugan. He is called Murugu and described as a god of beauty and youth, with such exaltations as "his body glows like the sun rising from the emerald sea". It describes him with six faces—each with
11850-447: 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
12008-451: 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
12166-460: The actual fruit of wisdom for his devotees rather than any physical fruit such as a mango or a pomegranate. Though Kartikeya had powers derived from Shiva, he was innocent and playful. Shiva granted him celestial weapons and the divine spear vel , an embodiment of the power of Shakti (Parvati). On obtaining the vel, Kartikeya was imparted with the knowledge of distinguishing between good and evil. Texts Kanda Puranam and Kumarasambhavam recount
12324-459: 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
12482-552: The birth of Kartikeya. In Valmiki 's Ramayana (seventh to fourth century BCE), he is described as the child of deities Rudra and Parvati, with his birth aided by Agni and Ganga . The Shalya Parva and the Anushasana Parva of the third-century BCE Hindu epic Mahabharata narrate the legend of Skanda, presenting him as the son of Maheshvara (Shiva) and Parvati: Shiva and Parvati were disturbed during sex, causing Shiva to inadvertently spill his semen . The semen
12640-440: 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
12798-506: The celestial tree, Pārijātapuṣpa , from Indra's realm. Jayanta is described battling Krishna's son Pradyumna , and is defeated. In the Skanda Purana , Jayanta is defeated by the asura Surapadman , who is finally killed by the commander-in-chief of the devas, Skanda . The Vayu Purana narrates a tale wherein Jayanta is cursed and turned into a bamboo . This tale is also told in context of devadasi lore, with some variations. Once,
12956-527: 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
13114-448: The coming of age of Kartikeya. Kartikeya killed the next brother Simhamukha and faced off with Surapadma in the final battle. Surapadma took a large form with multiple heads, arms and legs trying to intimidate Kartikeya. When Kartikeya threw his vel, Surapadma escaped to the sea and took the form of a large mango tree , which spread across the three worlds. Kartikeya used his vel to split the tree in half, with each half transforming into
13272-419: The conflict could be avoided. He sent messengers to communicate as much and to give the asuras a fair warning, which they ignored. Kartikeya killed Tarakasura and his lieutenant Krowchaka with his vel. While Tarakasura was confused at facing Shiva's son, as he thought his war was not with Shiva, Kartikeya felt it necessary to vanquish him, as his vision was occluded by Maya . Zvelebil interprets this episode as
13430-476: The confusion, Puloman , his maternal grandfather, takes Jayanta away from the battlefield, unseen by anyone and hides him in the ocean. Indra presumes Jayanta dead, and fights more powerfully, but Meghanada defeats him too. Jayanta is also described to fight in the battle between the devas and asuras in the Padma Purana . The Harivamsa mentions a battle between Indra and the god Krishna to acquire
13588-559: 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
13746-524: The crow's right eye, and he is left half-blind. While Jayanta is not explicitly named in the episode, various commentaries on the epic like the Tilaka and the Bhushana by Govindaraja identify Jayanta as the "son of Indra"; some other commentaries do not identify any individual son of Indra. Govindaraja remarks only Jayanta is known as the son of Indra. Besides the Ramayana , Jayanta is said to have assumed
13904-541: 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
14062-489: The curse would end when Urvashi is presented with a talaikole (a bamboo staff, Jayanta) on her dance debut ( Arangetram ). As ordained, the lovers were released from the curse and returned to Svarga, where Urvashi got united with Jayanta as the bamboo staff. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
14220-401: The daughter of Indra and his wife Shachi . In Tamil literature , he has two consorts: Devayanai (identified with Devasena) and Valli . In Kanda Puranam , Devayanai ( lit. ' Divine elephant ' ; as she was brought up by Airavata , the elephant ) is depicted as the daughter of Indra, who was given in marriage to Kartikeya for his help in saving the devas from the asuras. Kartikeya
14378-467: 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
14536-429: The devotees to enter a state of trance . Devotees usually prepare for the rituals by keeping clean, doing regular prayers, following a vegetarian diet , and fasting while remaining celibate . They make pilgrimage to the temples of Kartikeya on bare feet and dance along the route while bearing these burdens. Tonsuring is performed by devotees as the ritual fulfillment of a vow to discard their hair in imitation of
14694-471: 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
14852-460: 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
15010-437: The divine fruit of knowledge. The practice is followed in modern times in temples where the devotees are provided the mixture as a prasad . Vetrivel Muruganukku Arogara (meaning 'victory for vel wielding Murugan') is a Tamil mantra commonly chanted by devotees while worshiping Kartikeya. Om Saravana Bhava is a common chant used by the devotees to invoke Kartikeya. Tiruppukal (meaning 'holy praise' or 'divine glory')
15168-490: 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
15326-541: The eighty gods worshipped by the common people. The Arya Kanikrodhavajrakumarabodhisattava Sadhanavidhi Sutra (T 1796) features a section for the recitation of a mantra dedicated to the deity, where he is also paired with Isvara . Yi Xing 's Commentary of the Mahavairocana Tantra clarifies that Kumara is the son of Isvara. The sixteenth-century Siamese text Jinakalamali mentions him as a guardian god. Ancient Yaudheya and Kushan period coins dated to
15484-514: The first and second centuries CE show Kartikeya with either one or six heads, with one-headed depictions being more common. Similarly, sculptures show him with either one or six heads, with the six head iconography dated to post- Gupta Empire era. Artwork found in Gandhara and Mathura dated to the Kushan period shows him with one head, dressed in a dhoti (a cloth wrapped at the waist, covering
15642-548: 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
15800-436: The flow of River Ganges, among other feats. He imprisons Brahma as he could not explain the meaning of Aum . When Shiva asks for the meaning of the mantra , Kartikeya teaches it to his father. According to the Mahabharata , the devas and gods gift him various objects and animals. As per Kanda Puranam , sage Narada once visited Shiva at Kailasha and presented him with a Gnana palam (fruit of knowledge). This fruit
15958-426: The form of Arundhati, Vasishtha 's wife, because of Arundhati's extraordinary virtuous powers. Svaha deposits the semen of Agni into the reeds of Ganges river, where it develops and is born as the six-headed Skanda. In Kanda Puranam , Kartikeya is portrayed as a child playing in the cosmos . In his childhood, he fiddles with the orbits of planets , stacks the mountains in Kailasha on top of Mount Meru and stops
16116-522: The form of the crow in some versions of the Samudra Manthana episode. A pot of amrita (elixir of life) emerged from the churning of the ocean by the devas and the asuras . The asuras seized the pot, but Jayanta took it from them in the guise of a crow. Pursued by the asuras, he is regarded to have flown for twelve days without rest. He stopped at four locations on Earth: Prayaga (in modern Prayagraj) , Haridwar , Ujjain , and Nashik , where
16274-480: The form that Kartikeya assumed in childhood. Newborns may undergo a ritual of tonsuring and ear piercing at temples dedicated to Kartikeya. Panchamritam ( lit. ' mixture of five ' ) is a sacred sweet mixture made of banana , honey , ghee , jaggery and cardamom along with date fruits and Sugar candies , which is offered to Kartikeya. It is believed to have been prepared before by Ganesha to soothe his brother Kartikeya after their battle for
16432-412: 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
16590-537: 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
16748-445: The hills on the shoulder may have influenced the practice of Kavadi. Worshipers also practice a form of mortification of the flesh by flagellation and by piercing their skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers. These practices are suppressed in India, where public self-mutilation is prohibited by law. Vibuthi , a type of sacred ash, is spread across the body, including the piercing sites. Drumming and chanting of verses help
16906-431: 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
17064-486: 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
17222-432: 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
17380-442: The late Vijayanagara period , when he was accepted as a single deity with diverse facets. In Mahayana Buddhism , he is described as a manifestation of Mahābrahmārāja with five hair coils and a handsome face emanating purple-golden light that surpasses the light of the other devas. In Chinese Buddhism , Skanda (also sometimes known as Kumāra) is known as Weituo, a young heavenly general, the guardian deity of local monasteries and
17538-455: The legs) armour , wielding a spear in his right hand with a rooster on his left. Artworks from Gandhara show him in Scythian dress, likely reflecting the local dress culture of the time, with a rooster-like bird that may draw from Parthian influence to symbolize Kartikeya's agility and maneuverability as a warrior god. Kartikeya's iconography portrays him as a youthful god, dressed as
17696-412: 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
17854-514: 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 ,
18012-490: The means and the existence itself, who are the supreme guru, come and bestow your grace, O Guha [Murugan] Kantaranuputi 51 , Arunagirinathar (Translator: Kamil Zvelebil), Consistent elements of Kartikeya's narrative across the diverse corpus of legends relating to him include his birth by a surrogate in difficult circumstances, his upbringing by a host of mothers, and his later reunion with his biological family. According to Fred Clothey, Muruga thus symbolizes
18170-511: 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
18328-431: The modern era exists in many versions. Ancient Tamil text Tolkappiyam from the second century BCE mentions Ceyon ("the red one"), identified with Murugan, whose name is mentioned as Murukan ("the youth"). Extant Sangam literature works dated between the third century BCE and the fifth century CE glorify Murugan, "the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent," as "the favoured god of
18486-429: 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
18644-401: 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
18802-602: 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
18960-565: The mythology in the earlier Vedic texts is different. In these, Agni is described as Kumara, whose mother is Ushas (goddess Dawn) and whose father is Purusha. Section 10.1 of the Taittiriya Aranyaka mentions Sanmukha (six faced one), while the Baudhayana Dharmasutra mentions a householder's rite of passage that involves prayers to Skanda (Kartikeya) and his brother Ganapati (Ganesha) together. Chapter 7 of
19118-404: The northern and eastern Indian traditions, Kartikeya is generally regarded as a celibate bachelor. In Sanskrit literature , Kartikeya is married to Devasena ( lit. ' Army of Devas ' ; as her husband was 'Devasenapati' lit. ' Commander of army of Devas ' ). Devasena is described as the daughter of Daksha in the Mahabharata , while Skanda Purana considers her as
19276-545: 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,
19434-403: 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
19592-431: 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
19750-485: The patron deity for many ancient northern and western Hindu kingdoms, and of the Gupta Empire , according to Ghurye. After the seventh century, Skanda's importance diminished while his brother Ganesha's importance rose in the west and north, while in the south the legends of Murugan continued to grow. According to Norman Cutler, Kartikeya-Murugan-Skanda of South and North India coalesced over time, but some aspects of
19908-414: 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
20066-439: 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
20224-480: 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
20382-667: The protector of Buddhist dhamma . According to Henrik Sorensen, this representation became common after the Tang period , and became well established in the late Song period . He is also regarded as one of the twenty-four celestial guardian deities , who are a grouping of originally Hindu and Taoist deities adopted into Chinese Buddhism as dharmapalas . Skanda was also adopted by Korean Buddhism , and he appears in Korean Buddhist woodblock prints and paintings. According to Richard Gombrich , Skanda has been an important deity in
20540-609: 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
20698-497: 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,
20856-874: The rest of India in Pehowa in Haryana , in Manali and Chamba in Himachal Pradesh and Rudraprayag in Uttarakhand . Kartikeya is worshipped as Kumar in Nepal . In Sri Lanka , Murugan is predominantly worshipped by Tamil people as Murugan and by the Sinhalese as Kataragama deviyo , a guardian deity. Numerous Murugan temples exist throughout the island, including Kataragama temple , Nallur Kandaswamy temple and Maviddapuram Kandaswamy Temple . Murugan
21014-562: 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
21172-426: The sacred, saguna brahman ). According to Fred Clothey, as Murugan, he embodies the "cultural and religious whole that comprises South Indian Shaivism". He is a central philosopher and a key exponent of Shaiva Siddhanta theology, as well as the patron deity of the Tamil language . Originally, Murugan was not worshipped as a god, but rather as an exalted ancestor, heroic warrior and accomplished Siddhar born in
21330-583: The sage Agastya arrived in Indra's court, and was welcomed by Indra, organising a dance performance of the apsara Urvashi . In the performance, Urvashi and Jayanta looked into each other's eyes in love. The distracted Urvashi missed a beat, and the dance went haywire. An agitated Agastya cursed Urvashi to be born on earth as a devadasi, and Jayanta to become a bamboo tree in the Vindhya mountains. The duo bowed in reverence, and prayed for mercy. The sage said that
21488-496: 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
21646-556: 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
21804-615: 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
21962-472: The sparks, later handing them to the fire god Agni because of the unbearable heat. Agni deposited the sparks in the Ganges river. The water in the Ganges began to evaporate due to the intense heat of the sparks. Ganga took them to Saravana lake, where the sparks developed into six baby boys. The six boys were then raised by the Krittikas and they were later fused into one by Parvati. Thus, the six-headed Kartikeya
22120-542: The term Kumara appears in hymn 5.2 of the Rig Veda . The verses mention a brightly-colored boy hurling weapons, evoking motifs associated with Kartikeya such as his bright glowing skin and his possession of divine weapons including the vel . These motifs are also found in other Vedic texts, such as in sections 6.1-3 of the Shatapatha Brahmana : while Kumara is one of the names used to mention Kartikeya,
22278-653: 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
22436-408: 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
22594-564: 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
22752-470: The works of Pāṇini (fifth century BCE), in Patanjali 's Mahabhasya and Kautilya 's Arthashastra (third to second century BCE). Kalidasa 's epic poem Kumarasambhava from the fifth-century CE features the life and story of Kartikeya. Kartikeya forms the main theme of Skanda Purana , the largest Mahapurana , a genre of eighteen Hindu religious texts. The text contains over 81,000 verses, and
22910-525: The world was no more than his parents Shiva and Shakti combined, circumambulated them, and won the fruit. When Kartikeya returned, he was furious to learn that his efforts had been in vain, and felt cheated. He discarded all his material belongings and left Kailasha to take up abode in the Palani Hills as a hermit . According to Fred Clothey, Kartikeya did this out of a felt need to mature from boyhood. According to Kamil Zvelebil , Kartikeya represents
23068-502: 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
23226-420: Was a significant deity in early Hinduism. The iconography of Kartikeya varies significantly. He is typically represented as an ever-youthful man, riding or near an Indian peafowl (named Paravani), and sometimes with an emblem of a rooster on his banner. He wields a spear called the vel , supposedly given to him by his mother Parvati. While most icons represent him with only one head, some have six heads,
23384-408: 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
23542-427: 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
23700-472: 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
23858-738: 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
24016-526: Was armed with near immortality . In his quest to rule the three worlds, he expelled the devas from Svarga . Indra , the king of devas, devised a scheme to disrupt Shiva’s meditation and beguile him with thoughts of love, so that he could sire an offspring and thusly end Tarakasura's immortality. Shiva was engaged in meditation , and hardly noticed the courtship of Parvati , the daughter of Himavan who sought him as her consort. Indra tasked god of love Kamadeva and his consort Rati to disturb Shiva. Shiva
24174-580: Was born, conceived to answer the devas' pleas for help and deliver them from the asuras. Kumarasambhava ( lit. ' Birth of Kumara ' ) from the fifth-century CE narrates a similar story on his birth wherein Agni carries the semen of Shiva and deposits them in Bhagirathi River (headstream of Ganges). When the Krittikas bathe in the river, they are impregnated and give birth to Kartikeya. An alternate account of Kartikeya's parentage
24332-469: Was depicted with an elephant mount in early iconography, his iconography of a six faced lord on a peacock mount became firmly enshrined after the sixth century CE, along with the progression of his role from that of a warrior to that of a philosopher-teacher, and his increasing prominence in the Shaivite cannon. According to the Skanda Purana , when Kartikeya faced asura Surapadma, the latter turned into
24490-444: Was furious with the act and burnt Kamadeva to ashes. But Shiva's attention then turned towards Parvati, who had performed tapas in order to win his affection, and married her, then conceiving Kartikeya. According to the seventeeth-century CE text Kanda Puranam (the Tamil rendition of the older Skanda Purana) , the asura brothers Surapadma, Simhamukha and Tarakasura performed tapas to Shiva, who granted them with various weapons and
24648-441: Was regarded as a philosopher in his role as Subramanhya, while Murugan was similarly regarded as the teacher of Tamil literature and poetry. In the late Chola period from the sixth to thirteenth centuries CE, Murugan was firmly established in the role of a teacher and philosopher, while his militaristic depictions waned. Despite the changes, his portrayal was multi-faceted, with significant differences between Skanda and Murugan until
24806-492: Was then incubated in the Ganges , preserved by the heat of the god Agni, and eventually born as baby Kartikeya. According to Shiva Purana , asura Tarakasura performed tapas to propitiate the creator god Brahma . Brahma granted him two boons: one, that none shall be his equal in all of the three worlds , and two, that only a son of Shiva could slay him. As Shiva was a yogi and thus unlikely to bear children, Tarakasura
24964-442: 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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