124-470: The Jabala Upanishad ( Sanskrit : जाबाल उपनिषद् , IAST : Jābāla Upaniṣad), also called Jabalopanisad , is a minor Upanishad of Hinduism . The Sanskrit text is one of the 20 Sannyasa Upanishads, and is attached to the Shukla Yajurveda . The Jabala Upanishad is an ancient text, composed before 300 CE and likely around the 3rd century BCE. It is among the oldest Upanishads that discuss
248-401: A sannyasi (renunciate) abandons all rituals, is without attachments to anything or anyone, and is one who is devoted to the oneness of Atman and Brahman . The Jabala Upanishad is an ancient text, composed before 300 CE and likely around the 3rd century BCE, and among the oldest that discuss the subject of renouncing the worldly life for the exclusive pursuit of spiritual knowledge. The text
372-639: A collection of 50 Upanishads translated into the Persian language , with the title of Oupanekhat ; in this collection the Jabala Upanishad is listed at number 29 and "Jabala" is spelled "Djabal". This Persian translation was itself translated into Latin by Anquetil du Perron in 1801–02, wherein Anquetil remarked that the Indians are reading this collection of Upanishads all the time "knowing it to be
496-482: 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." Paramahamsa Upanishad The Paramahansa Upanishad ( Sanskrit : परमहंस उपनिषद ), is one of the 108 Upanishadic Hindu scriptures , written in Sanskrit and
620-433: 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
744-591: 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
868-658: 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
992-454: 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
1116-479: 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
1240-546: 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
1364-515: A place to revere and not leave. In the second chapter, sage Atri asks Yajnavalkya "how can I know this infinite, non-manifested Atman?" The Atman, states Yajnavalkya, can be found in Avimuktam . Atri then asks how to find Avimuktam . The Jabala Upanishad uses wordplay to express a literal and hidden allegorical meaning. Yajnavalkya answers that Avimuktam is to be found between Varana and Nasi , or Varayati and Nasayati . Geographically,
SECTION 10
#17327868970551488-651: A professor at the University of Texas at Austin , states that the Sannyasa ashrama as a separate stage is mentioned in Aruni Upanishad , which likely is a more ancient Upanishad. It is unclear when the Jabala Upanishad was composed, as is true with most ancient Indian texts. Textual references and literary style suggest that this Hindu text is ancient, composed before the Asrama Upanishad which
1612-578: 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
1736-538: 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
1860-483: A sacrifice to the Atman whenever he feeds himself or rinses his mouth with water. Feeding and dressing his Prana (life force) is the only duty of the renouncer. Yajnavalkya states that the renouncer can choose a hero's death by dying in a "just war", or abstain from eating any food, or go into water or fire, or start off on the "great journey". This section has led some scholars to believe that this Upanishad may be giving
1984-439: 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
2108-456: A staff simply as a piece of wood goes through the stages of Maharaurava other hells, prone to worldly comforts and without knowledge. The one who understands the difference between "staff of knowledge" and "staff of wood", is a Paramahansa . He does not fear pain, nor longs for pleasure. He forsakes love. He is not attached to the pleasant, nor to the unpleasant. He does not hate. He does not rejoice. Firmly fixed in knowledge, his Self
2232-461: Is Avimuktam – a place that Shiva never left. This Avimuktam is a part of Varanasi (Banaras). All renouncers, after having wandered places, should stay at this Avimuktam . This is the place, asserts the Upanishad, where Rudra imparts the moksha knowledge just when the last vital breaths of the dying are departing, leading one to videhamukti (salvation after death). This place is holy,
2356-711: 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
2480-516: 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
2604-407: Is also referred to as Jabalopanishad ( Sanskrit : जाबालोपनिषत् ) or Gabala Upanishad . The themes of this Upanishad are meditation and renunciation. Sage Yajnavalkya "as the expounder of the precepts of this Upanishad" elaborates on the aspects of renunciation of the worldly life, in the interests of achieving spiritual enlightenment as the "transcendence of attachment to every desire, including
SECTION 20
#17327868970552728-529: Is better established. These textual references and literary style suggest that this Hindu text was composed before the Asrama Upanishad which is dated to the 3rd-century CE. The German scholar of Upanishads, Sprockhoff, assigns it to be from the last few centuries of the 1st millennium BCE. The Upanishad, in its opening and concluding hymns, emphasizes the primacy of infiniteness of the Brahman and
2852-465: Is concealed, they may only seem insane. They do not carry staves, nor bowl, nor hair tuft, nor sacred thread, but they are the ones who seek after the Atman (self, soul). Naked as he was born, beyond the pair of opposites (joy versus sorrow etc.), without belongings, wholly devoted to the way to truth, the Brahman, with a pure heart, going out, begging alms at a proper time only to sustain his life, with
2976-495: Is dated to 300 CE. Hajime Nakamura , a Japanese scholar of Vedic literature, dates Jabala Upanishad along with Paramahamsa Upanishad to around the start of the common era. The German scholar of Upanishads, Joachim Sprockhoff, assigns it to be from the last few centuries prior to the beginning of the common era, while the German Indologist Georg Feuerstein dates it to around 300 BCE. The text
3100-452: 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
3224-440: Is his state. To him, he is that calm and unchanging Being, a single mass of bliss and consciousness. That alone is his highest abode. That alone is his topknot and his sacred string. By knowing that the highest Self (Brahman) and the lower self (Atman) are one, the difference between them dissolves into oneness. This knowledge is his twilight worship. Paramahansa Yogi is neither opinionated or affected by defamation, or
3348-468: Is in. The Jabala Upanishad seems to justify suicide as an individual choice in certain circumstances, a view opposed by earlier Vedic texts and Principal Upanishads . Those too sick may renounce the worldly life in their mind. The Jabala Upanishad presents the Vedanta philosophy view that one who truly renounces lives an ethical life, which includes not injuring anyone in thought, word or deed . Such
3472-475: Is jealous, not a show off, is humble, and is oblivious to all the human frailties. He is immune to the existence of his body, which he treats as a corpse. He is beyond false pretensions and lives realizing the Brahman. In chapter 3, the Upanished states that carrying the staff of knowledge gives him the epithet "Ekadandi", as he is a renouncer of all pleasures of the world; in contrast is the person who carries
3596-612: Is listed at number 39 or 40 depending on the manuscript. In later compilations brought out in South India, it is part of the 108 Upanishads. In the 30 minor Upanishads published by the 19th-century Sanskrit scholar Ramamaya Tarkaratna in the Bibliothica Indica , the Jabala Upanishad is given the name Gabala Upanishad and listed at number 28. The Jabala Upanishad is one of the 20 Sannyasa Upanishads. The Sultan Mohammed Dara Shikhoh , in 1656 helped organize and publish
3720-607: Is no other than the attributeless Brahman". In the third chapter, the shortest in the Upanishad, the students of Brahman ask Yajnavalkya to recommend a hymn that guides someone to immortality. Yajnavalkya recommends the Satarudriya , the hymn with the hundred names of the god Rudra. This hymn is found in sections 16.1 to 16.66 of the Vajasaneyi Samhita in Yajurveda , and is conceived as many epithets of Atman. In
3844-435: Is not essential for anyone too sick or in mortal danger – such a person may renounce verbally or mentally. In the sixth and final chapter, Yajnavalkya lists exemplars of Paramahamsas , the highest renouncers: the sages Samvartaka , Aruni , Svetaketu , Durvasa , Ribhu , Nidagha , Jadabharata , Dattatreya and Raivataka . The Paramahamsas do not carry articles or show signs that suggest they have renounced, their conduct
Jabala Upanishad - Misplaced Pages Continue
3968-654: Is one of the 31 Upanishads attached to the Atharvaveda . It is classified as one of the Sannyasa Upanishads. According to Ramanujacharya , Paramhansa is one of the forms of Lord Vishnu who imparted vedas to Lord Brahma in the form of Divine Swan as per Vishnu-Sahasranama. The Upanishad is a discourse between the Hindu god Brahma and sage Narada . Their conversation is centered on the characteristics of Paramahansa (highest soul) Yogi. The text describes
4092-634: Is one of the oldest renunciation-related Upanishads. In the anthology of 108 Upanishads of the Muktika canon, narrated by Rama to Hanuman , it is listed at number 13. In the Colebrooke anthology of 52 Upanishads, which is popular in North India , the Jabala Upanishad is listed at number 51. In Narayana's anthology of 52 Upanishads, which is popular in South India , the Jabala Upanishad
4216-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
4340-479: 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,
4464-403: Is the yoni (womb, birthplace) of all fires. If he cannot obtain this fire, he should offer the oblation "Om! I offer to all godheads, svaha " with water as he begins the renunciation stage of life. As he offers this oblation, he should learn that the liberating mantra of Om is the three Vedas and the Brahman to be revered. If he is too ill (to observe renunciation), then he may practise
4588-589: 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
4712-525: Is this place of Avimuktam ?" Yajnavalkya replies that Avimuktam is already within Atri, "where his nose and eye brows meet, for there is the place of the world of heaven and highest world of Brahman." This Avimuktam is the "abode of Brahman". A person who is aware of Brahman reveres it as the Atman in the Avimuktam within him. Ramanathan interprets this verse to mean that one who knows the true nature of Avimuktam understands that "the individual Self (soul)
4836-540: 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
4960-580: 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
5084-613: 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
Jabala Upanishad - Misplaced Pages Continue
5208-753: 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
5332-532: 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 ,
5456-531: 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
5580-643: The Universe , with the Brahman representing the infinite. The Upanishad's theme is presented in four hymns as an explanation by Lord Brahma to Narada's query on the aspect of the path of the Paramahansa Yogis. Hansa or divine swan, which is used to highlight the supremacy of the Paramahansa Yogi, meaning the "illumined one", metaphorically represents the quality of the swan to separate milk from water. Brahma explains that attaining
5704-406: 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
5828-500: 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
5952-414: 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
6076-532: 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
6200-425: 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
6324-532: 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
SECTION 50
#17327868970556448-521: 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
6572-476: 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
6696-519: 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
6820-532: 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
6944-496: 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
7068-499: 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
7192-523: 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
7316-447: 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
7440-451: 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
7564-457: The Vedic basis that makes renunciation an individual choice and right. This choice has been referred to as a Vikalpa by the later scholars, which the society and state must respect. The Jabala Upanishad concurred with some Dharmasastras on the right to renounce and lead a monastic life, but its views contradicted others such as those in Manusmriti verses 6.35–37. The text fed a debate on
SECTION 60
#17327868970557688-459: 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
7812-408: The belly as his utensil, even-tempered whether he gets anything or not, staying homeless, whether in a deserted house, in a temple, on a heap of grass, on an ant-hill, at the roots of tree, in a potter's workshop, on a river bank, in a mountain cave, in a ravine, in a hollow tree, at a waterfall, or just bare ground, not striving, free from feeling of "mine", given to pure contemplation, firmly rooted in
7936-628: The best book on religion". The Anquetil translation brought the Upanishads to the attention of Arthur Schopenhauer and other western philosophers. The Sanskrit text of this Upanishad has six chapters. Sage Yajnavalkya answers questions in the first five, wherein the questions are posed by Brihaspati, Atri, students of Brahman-Atman, King Janaka and by Atri again. The last chapter lists the names of famous sages who were model sannyasis (renunciates). The extant texts are found in two versions. One consists of six chapters structured into 14 verses, while
8060-440: 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
8184-480: The choice is entirely up to the individual, without needing to have completed any stage of life nor requiring the consent of anyone else. If an individual feels Vairagya (detachment from the world), the Jabala Upanishad maintains that no preconditions apply, and the individual has the spiritual right to renounce immediately. This principle in the Jabala Upanishad was cited by medieval-era scholars such as Adi Shankara , Vijñāneśvara , Sureśvara , and Nilakantha as
8308-459: The choice of ending life to the individual and justifying suicide in certain circumstances. This view is different from Vedic texts and Principal Upanishads which consider suicide to be wrong. According to this Upanishad, the renouncer pilgrim undertakes the journey to the knowledge of Brahman with purity of thought, without belongings, with his head shaved, wearing discoloured garments, free from enmity towards all, and he lives on alms. This method
8432-506: The city of Varanasi is situated on the Ganges river, where two small, mostly dry rivers named Varana and Asi join the Ganges. Metaphorically, the text adds, Varana is named as it wards off errors of organs ( Varayati ), and Nasi is named as it destroys the sins committed by one's organs ( Nasayati ). Atri, after listening to this metaphorical answer, repeats his question, with "but where
8556-527: 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
8680-614: 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
8804-653: 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
8928-572: The day he feels detached from the world, regardless of which stage of life he is in, and whether he has completed that stage. Yajnavalkya states that some people perform the Prajapati ritual when they renounce, but this should not be done. A person should instead make an offering to Agni (fire) that is one's own vital breath. He should make the "three-element offering", namely, to " Sattva [goodness], Rajas [energy] and Tamas [darkness]" within. He should revere Prana (internal life force) because it
9052-413: The desire for renunciation itself". According to Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , a professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, this Upanishad seems to justify suicide in certain circumstances, a view opposed by earlier Vedic texts and principal Upanishads . The text discusses the city of Banaras as "one Shiva never leaves", and as a holy place to revere. It also is among the earliest texts which states that
9176-467: 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
9300-471: 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
9424-460: 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
9548-490: 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
9672-548: 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
9796-569: The first stage and the Grihastha (householder) as the second stage. The third stage of life, in the Vedic texts, combined Vanaprastha (retired or forest dweller) and Sannyasa (renunciation) as one ashrama. According to Soti Shivendra Chandra, a scholar at the Rohilkhand University , the separation of Vanaprastha and Sannyasa as two different stages of life is first mentioned in the Jabala Upanishad . However, Patrick Olivelle ,
9920-412: 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
10044-503: The four stages of life are not necessarily sequential in that anyone can renounce their worldly life at any time. The Jabala Upanishad presents the Vedanta philosophy view that the proper life of a sannyasi is not about any rituals, nor wearing any sacrificial thread, but about the knowledge of one's soul (Atman, self). In the Vedic-era literature, only three ashramas (life stages) were mentioned, with Brahmacharya (student) as
10168-417: The fourth chapter of the Upanishad, King Janaka of Videha asks Yajnavalkya, "Lord, explain Sannyasa [renunciation]." Yajnavalkya answers that one may complete Brahmacharya (the student stage of life), then Grihastha (householder), followed by Vanaprastha (retirement) and finally Sannyasa (pilgrimage as Parivrajaka Bhikshu , renunciation). Or, continues Yajnavalkya, one may renounce immediately after completing
10292-537: 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
10416-518: The highest status of spirituality, who abandons all external signs of asceticism and discards all relationships or worldly comforts to know "Brahman, the nature of the Self". The first chapter of the Upanishad opens as a conversation between Brihaspati and Yajnavalkya, where Brihaspati asks Yajnavalkya for information about the place where the seat of all beings, the Brahman, lives. Yajnavalkya states that true Brahman-seat of all beings, or Kurukshetra ,
10540-431: 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
10664-486: 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
10788-432: 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
10912-412: 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
11036-514: 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 ,
11160-511: 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
11284-425: The monk as a Jivanmukta , a liberated soul while alive, and Videhamukta is liberation in afterlife. The text was likely composed in the centuries preceding the start of common era. It is notable for the use of words Yogin and calling renouncers by that epithet. The century in which Paramahansa Upanishad was composed is not known. The text is ancient since it is referred to in other ancient text whose dating
11408-429: 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
11532-401: 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
11656-602: 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
11780-545: 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,
11904-403: 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
12028-437: The other version has six chapters with the same content but does not number the 14 verses. The first three chapters are devoted to defining the place where the seat of all beings and ultimate reality ( Brahman ) resides, and how to reach it through meditation , the Hindu god Shiva and the city of Varanasi. The next three chapters relate to renunciation . They describe the characteristics of a Paramahamsa as one who has reached
12152-431: 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
12276-414: 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
12400-439: 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
12524-480: 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
12648-424: The question of when someone may renounce the worldly life to lead a monastic one. The Laghu-Samnyasa Upanishad , Kathashruti Upanishad and Paramahamsa Upanishad suggest that a man may renounce after sequentially completing the student, householder and retirement stages of life, and then getting the consent of his elders and direct family members. In contrast, the Jabala Upanishad and Aruni Upanishad assert that
12772-609: 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
12896-497: 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,
13020-515: The renunciation only mentally and by words. — Yajnavalkya in Jabala Upanishad Chapter 5 In the fifth chapter, Atri asks Yajnavalkya whether someone pursuing Brahman can be without the sacred thread. According to the translation by Paul Deussen , a professor and German Indologist, Yajnavalkya answers that "this very thing is sacred thread, namely the Atman". A renouncer or Parivrajaka (another term for renouncer) performs
13144-611: The right of the individual, and medieval Hindu scholars relied on and sided with the Jabala Upanishad . The Jabala Upanishad influenced other scholarly works as well. The Jivanmukti-viveka , written by the 14th-century Advaita Vedanta scholar and Vijayanagara Empire mentor Vidyaranya , refers to the Jabala Upanishad while describing those who achieve living liberation. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
13268-562: 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
13392-496: 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
13516-556: 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
13640-615: 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
13764-478: The stage of Paramahansa Yogi is an arduous task and such yogis are a rarity. The Paramahansa yogi is the man of the Vedas , asserts the text, he alone abides in Brahman, the eternally pure Ultimate Reality. This yogi not only renounces his wife, sons, daughters, relatives, friends, but also the sacred thread, all rituals and recitations and the topknot hair tuft. The Paramahansa has the following characteristics, states
13888-402: The student stage of life, or after the householder stage, regardless of whether or not one has completed the sacred fire ritual or any other rituals. Olivelle interprets the sacred fire ritual reference as an indirect reference to marriage, and thus the text asserts that those who have married or never married can both renounce. The Jabala Upanishad herein recommends that a person may renounce on
14012-491: The subject of renouncing the worldly life for the exclusive pursuit of spiritual knowledge. The text discusses the city of Banaras in spiritual terms, as Avimuktam . It describes how that city became holy, then adds that the holiest place to revere is one within – the Atman (soul, self). The Upanishad asserts that anyone can renounce – this choice is entirely up to the individual, regardless of which Ashrama (stage of life) he
14136-531: The supreme Self, eradicating all evil deeds, [...] he is called a Paramahamsa. The Paramahamsa is the renouncer who seeks his own self, abandons impure acts and evil within, who devotes himself to meditating on the Atman and the Brahman. Five important Upanishad texts, according to Olivelle – the Jabala plus the Aruni , Laghu-Samnyasa , Kathashruti and Paramahamsa Upanishads – provide different answers to
14260-416: The text: A Paramahansa is affected neither by cold nor by heat, neither by pleasure nor by pain, neither by respect nor by disrespect. A Paramahansa gives up slander, pride, jealousy, deceit, arrogance, desire, he gives up hate, pleasure, pain, lust, anger, greed, delusion, he gives up excitement, indignation, egotism, and the like. He constantly abides in that eternally pure Being. That itself
14384-653: 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
14508-408: 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
14632-564: 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
14756-502: 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
14880-408: 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
15004-427: 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
15128-472: 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
15252-738: 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
15376-442: 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
#54945