Divisions
129-553: Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas The Shvetashvatara Upanishad ( Sanskrit : श्वेताश्वतरोपनिषद् , IAST : Śvetāśvataropaniṣad ) is an ancient Sanskrit text embedded in the Yajurveda . It is listed as number 14 in the Muktika canon of 108 Upanishads . The Upanishad contains 113 mantras or verses in six chapters. The Upanishad
258-471: A "collection", and "a methodically, rule-based combination of text or verses". Saṃhitā also refers to the most ancient layer of text in the Vedas , consisting of mantras , hymns, prayers, litanies and benedictions . Parts of Vedic Samhitas constitute the oldest living part of Hindu tradition. Samhita is a Sanskrit word from the prefix sam (सम्), 'together', and hita (हित), the past participle of
387-472: 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." Samhita Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas Samhita ( IAST : Saṃhitā ) literally means "put together, joined, union",
516-433: 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
645-591: 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
774-658: 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
903-454: 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
1032-479: 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
1161-546: 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
1290-513: A poetic style and structure. However, unlike other ancient poetic Upanishads, the meter structure of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad varies significantly, is arbitrary and inconsistent within many verses in later chapters, some such as verse 2.17 lack a definite poetic meter entirely, suggesting that the text congealed from the work of several authors over a period of time, or was interpolated and expanded over time. The first chapter
1419-578: 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
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#17327655538051548-529: A resting swan. The verse 1.5, for example, states, "we meditate on the river whose water consists of five streams, which is wild and winding with its five springs, whose waves are the five vital breaths, whose fountainhead is the mind, of course of the five kinds of perceptions. It has five whirlpools, its rapids are the five pains, it has fifty kinds of sufferings, and five branches." Adi Shankara and other scholars have explained, using more ancient Indian texts, what each of these numbers correspond to. For example,
1677-538: 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
1806-439: 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
1935-468: Is Brahman, in everything is Deva (God), it is the individual Self and the highest Self. As in other chapters of the Upanishad, several of these verses are also found in more ancient texts; for example, verse 4.3 of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad is identical to hymn 10.8.27 of Atharva Veda. The verses are notable for their grammar, where through numerous poetic phrases, the gender of the highest Self (God),
2064-428: Is a bahuvrihi compound of ( Śvetaśva + tara ), where tara means "crossing", "carrying beyond". The word Shvetashvatara translates to "the one carrying beyond on white horse" or simply "white mule that carries". The text is sometimes spelled as Svetasvatara Upanishad. It is also known as Shvetashvataropanishad or Svetasvataropanishad, and as Shvetashvataranam Mantropanishad. In ancient and medieval literature,
2193-711: 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
2322-409: Is a homage to sage Shvetashvatara for proclaiming Brahman-knowledge to ascetics . This closing credit is structurally notable because of its rarity in ancient Indian texts, as well as for its implication that the four-stage Ashrama system of Hinduism, with ascetic Sannyasa , was an established tradition by the time verse 6.21 of Shvetashvatara Upanishad was composed. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad has
2451-617: Is a woman's petition to deity Agni , to attract suitors and a good husband. May O Agni!, a suitor after this girl's heart come to her, May he come to this maiden with fortune! May she be agreeable to suitors, charming at festivals, promptly obtain happiness through a husband! There are many well known books written in the post-vedic period, also known as samhitas, because the word “samhita” also means “systematic compilation of knowledge”. Vedic samhitas should not be confused with these samhitas of post-vedic period. Some post-vedic Samhitas are – The Vedas are divided in two parts: The first
2580-516: 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
2709-500: Is contested, but it is generally accepted to be a late-period Upanishadic composition. The text includes a closing credit to sage Shvetashvatara , who is considered the author of the Upanishad. However, scholars believe that while sections of the text shows an individual stamp by its style, verses and other sections were interpolated and expanded over time; the Upanishad as it exists now is the work of more than one author. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad opens with metaphysical questions about
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#17327655538052838-452: 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
2967-403: Is meticulously and metrically stated as neuter gender, as against the occasional masculine gender that is found in some ancient texts. The Upanishad states that Brahman is in all Vedic deities, in all women, in all men, in all boys, in all girls, in every old man tottering on a stick, in every bee and bird, in all seasons and all seas. Out of the highest Self, comes the hymns, the Vedic teachings,
3096-414: Is notable for its discussion of the concept of personal god – Ishvara , and suggesting it to be a path to one's own Highest Self. The text is also notable for its multiple mentions of both Rudra and Shiva , along with other Vedic deities, and of crystallization of Shiva as a central theme. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad is commented by many of its ancient and medieval scholars. It is a foundational text of
3225-619: Is one of the 33 Upanishads from Taittiriyas, and associated with the Shvetashvatara tradition within Karakas sakha of the Yajurveda. It is a part of the "black" "krishna" Yajurveda, with the term "black" implying "the un-arranged, motley collection" of content in Yajurveda, in contrast to the "white" (well arranged) Yajurveda where Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and Isha Upanishad are embedded. The chronology of Shvetashvatara Upanishad
3354-483: Is one unborn being (feminine), red, white and black, but producing many creatures like herself, There is one unborn being (masculine) who loves her and stays with her, there is another unborn being (masculine) who leaves her after loving her. The metaphor of three colors has been interpreted as the three Gunas , with red symbolizing harmonious purity (Sattva), white as confused passion (Rajas), and black as destructive darkness (Tamas). An alternative interpretation of
3483-532: 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
3612-479: 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,
3741-581: Is the consistent one, with characteristics that makes it likely to be the work of one author, probably sage Shvetashvatara. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad opens with the metaphysical questions about first causes . Scholars have differed somewhat in their translations, with Max Muller translating the questions thus, The Brahma-students say: Is Brahman the cause? Whence are we born? Whereby do we live, and whither do we go? O ye who know Brahman, tell us at whose command we abide, whether in pain or in pleasure. Should time, or nature, or necessity, or chance, or
3870-449: Is the path to moksha (liberation). From meditating on it, states verse 1.11, man journeys unto the third state of existence, first that of blissful universal lordship, then further on to "perfect freedom, the divine alone-ness, the kevalatvam where the individual self is one with the divine self." The Shvetashvatara Upanishad, in verses 1.13 to 1.16, states that to know God, look within, know your Atman (Self). It suggests meditating with
3999-589: 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
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4128-473: Is this "power of the Divine Self" ( Deva Atman Shakti , देवात्मशक्तिं) within each individual that presides over all the primal causes, including time and self. Verses 1.4 through 1.12 of the Upanishad use Samkhya-style enumeration to state the subject of meditation, for those who seek the knowledge of Self. These verses use a poetic simile for a human being, with the unawakened individual Self described as
4257-552: Is this Highest Brahman which is Eternal and where there is the triad - the bhoktri (subject), the bhogya (object), and the preritri (mover). With meditation, when a being fully realizes and possesses this triad within self, he knows Brahman. In verse 1.10, the text states the world is composed of the Pradhana which is perishable, and Hara the God that is the imperishable. By meditating on Hara and thus becoming one with God Hara ,
4386-540: 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
4515-797: The Vedas ( Rigveda , Yajurveda , Samaveda and Atharvaveda ). The Vedas have been divided into four styles of texts – the Samhitas (mantras and benedictions), the Brahmanas (text on rituals, ceremonies, sacrifices and symbolic-sacrifices), the Aranyakas (commentaries on rituals, ceremonies and sacrifices), and the Upanishads (text discussing meditation, philosophy and spiritual knowledge). The Samhitas are sometimes identified as karma-khanda (कर्म खण्ड, action / ritual-related section), while
4644-580: 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
4773-613: 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
4902-753: 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
5031-532: 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 ,
5160-531: 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
5289-406: 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
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5418-588: The tristubh meter, you are the sky. May the Adityas prepare you, with the jagati meter, you are the heaven. May the Visvedevas , common to all men, prepare you, with the anustubh meter, you are the directions. You are the unchanging direction, make unchanging in me children, abundance of wealth, abundance of cattle, abundance of heroism. A hymn in the Atharva Veda Samhita, for example,
5547-500: 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
5676-414: 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
5805-532: 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
5934-425: 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
6063-532: 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
6192-521: 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
6321-476: 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
6450-519: 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
6579-532: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
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#17327655538056708-496: 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
6837-737: The Pancharatra Samhitas and the Brhat Samhita , an astrological work, as well as in the Bhagavata Purana , which self-references as a samhita. The Gayatri mantra is among the famous Hindu mantras . It is found in Rig Veda Samhita. :ॐ भूर्भुवस्वः। तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यम्। भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि। धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात् – Rig Veda 3.62.10 Weber noted that the Samhita of Samaveda is an anthology taken from
6966-779: The Rigveda-Samhita. The difference is in the refinement and application of arts such as melody, meters of music, and literary composition. Thus, the root hymn that later became the Rathantara (Excellent Chariot) mantra chant is found in both Rigveda and Samaveda Samhitas, as follows, The Yajur Veda consists of: 1. Āpastamba-mantra-pāṭhá (Kr̥ṣṇa-yajur-vedá) 2. Kāṭha-saṁhitā́ (Kr̥ṣṇa-yajur-vedá) 3. Kapiṣṭhala-kāṭha-saṁhitā́ (Kr̥ṣṇa-yajur-vedá) 4. Māitrāyaṇa-saṁhitā́ (Kr̥ṣṇa-yajur-vedá) 5. Tāittirīya-saṁhitā́ (Kr̥ṣṇa-yajur-vedá) 6. Vājasaneya-saṁhitā́ (Şukla-yajur-vedá) with (Kāṇvá and Mā́dhyaṁdina as sub-divisions) Of these six,
7095-473: The Samhitas of Rig Veda, Atharva Veda and Yajur Veda. The text has six Adhyaya (chapters), each with varying number of verses. The first chapter includes 16 verses, the second has 17, the third chapter contains 21 verses, the fourth is composed of 22, the fifth has 14, while the sixth chapter has 23 verses. The last three verses of the sixth chapter are considered as epilogue. Thus, the Upanishad has 110 main verses and 3 epilogue verses. The epilogue verse 6.21
7224-499: 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
7353-638: 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
7482-621: The Svetasvatara Upanishad was probably composed in the 5th to 4th century BCE, contemporary with the Buddha. Paul Muller-Ortega dates the text between 6th to 5th century BCE. Phillips chronologically lists Shvetashvatara Upanishad after Mandukya Upanishad, but before and about the time the Maitri Upanishad, the first Buddhist Pali and Jaina canonical texts were composed. Winternitz, suggests that Svetasvatara Upanishad
7611-802: The Tāittirīya and the Vājasaneya saṁhitā́-s are the most extant ones. The Āpastamba-mantra-pāṭhá consists of mantras only found in the Āpastamba Kalpa sūtrá literature of the Kr̥ṣṇa-yajur-vedá. The hymns in Section 4.1.5 of the Yajurveda Samhita , dedicated to several ancient deities, state: May the Vasus prepare you, with the gayatri meter, you are the earth, May the Rudras prepare you, with
7740-412: The Upanishad discusses Yoga as a means for self-knowledge. The verses 2.8 and 2.9 describes yoga as state of body and mind, wherein the body is in threefold erect posture, and mind along with all senses are withdrawn into an introspective point within (the heart). In this state of yoga, the individual then breathes gently slowly through the nose, states the Upanishad, with any physical motions subdued or
7869-515: The Upanishads are identified as jnana-khanda (ज्ञान खण्ड, knowledge / spirituality-related section). The Aranyakas and Brahmanas are variously classified, sometimes as the ceremonial karma-khanda , other times (or parts of them) as the jnana-khanda . The Vedic Samhitas were chanted during ceremonies and rituals, and parts of it remain the oldest living part of Hindu tradition. A collective study of Vedas and later text suggests that
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#17327655538057998-447: 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
8127-451: 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
8256-417: The all prevading Atman, as butter lying dormant in milk, rooted in self-knowledge and self-discipline – which is the final goal of the Upanishad, the final goal of Upanishad. (16) The second Adhyaya of Shvetashvatara Upanishad is a motley collection of themes. It begins with prayer hymns to God Savitr, as the rising sun, the spiritual illuminator and the deity of inspiration and self-discipline. Thereafter,
8385-459: 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
8514-461: The body is still, the mind calm and undistracted. Such is the state where the self-reflective meditation starts. The text recommends a place to perform such yoga exercise as follows, In a clean level spot, free from pebbles, fire and gravel, Delightful by its sounds, its water and bowers, Favorable to thought, not offensive to the eye, In a hidden retreat protected from the wind, One should practise Yoga. The Upanishad, in verse 2.13, describes
8643-440: 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
8772-651: The changing conditions of joy and sorrow? Are Time, Nature, Necessity, Chance, Basic matter, the Spirit, the primal cause? Can the union of these be thought of as the primal cause? It is not that, however, because the Self exists. Still the Self also is not powerful enough to create joy and sorrow! The Upanishad asserts, in verse 1.3, there are individuals who by meditation and yoga have realized their innate power of Self, powers that were veiled by their own gunas (innate personality, psychological attributes). Therefore, it
8901-527: 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
9030-563: The compendium of Samhitas and associated Vedic texts were far larger than currently available. However, most have been lost at some point or over a period of Indian history. Historically, there were five recensions of the Rigveda Samhita, but now only one survives. The Samaveda has three Samhitas, two of which are quite similar, while the Atharvaveda has two. The term "samhita" also appears in titles of some non-Vedic texts like
9159-614: 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
9288-653: 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
9417-404: The delight of Prakrti . All three are stated in the verse to be "unborn", implying that all three are eternal. The Samkhya school of Hinduism cites this verse for Vedic support of their dualistic doctrine. The Vedanta school, in contrast, cites the same verse but points to the context of the chapter which has already declared that everything, including the feminine (Prakrti) and masculine (Purusha),
9546-467: 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
9675-471: 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
9804-460: 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
9933-490: 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
10062-598: The elements be considered as the cause, or he who is called the Purusha ? It cannot be their union either, because that is not self-dependent, and the self also is powerless, because there is, independent of him, a cause of good and evil. Paul Deussen translates the opening metaphysical questions of the Upanishad thus, The teachers of Brahman say: What is the primal cause? What is Brahman? Wherefrom have we been born? By what do we subsist? and on what are we founded? By whom regulated, do we have our being, ye wise men? in
10191-420: The first benefits of Yoga to be agility, better health, clear face, sweetness of voice, sweet odor, regular body functions, steadiness, and feeling of lightness in one's personality. Yoga then leads to the knowledge of the essence of the Self, the nature of the Self. Verses 3.1 through 3.6 of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad describe the "Atman, Self" as the personal God, as the one and only Lord, that resides within,
10320-548: 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
10449-440: The five streams are five receptive organs of a human body, the five waves are the five active organs of a human body, and five rapids are the major health-related life stages. The subject of meditation, states Shvetashvatara Upanishad, is the knower and the non-knower, the God and non-God, both of which are eternal. The text distinguishes the highest Self from the individual Self, calling the former Isha and Ishvara, and asserting it
10578-412: 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
10707-556: The fourth group of ancient Upanishads, after Katha and Mundaka Upanishads. Deussen states that Shvetashvatara Upanishad refers to and incorporates phrases from the Katha Upanishad, and chronologically followed it. According to Patrick Olivelle , it was composed after the Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Kena and Katha, probably in the last few centuries BCE, showing non-Vedic influences . Flood as well as Gorski state that
10836-537: 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
10965-540: The greatest, concealed in all beings, one that encompasses all of the universe, formless, without sorrow, changeless, all prevading, kind ( Shiva ), one who applies the power of knowledge, the Purusha, one with the whole world as it is, one with the whole world as it has been, one with the whole world as it will be. It is the Atman, the Self of all. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad, in verses 4.1 through 4.8 states that everything
11094-826: The help of syllable Om, where one's perishable body is like one fuel-stick and the syllable Om is the second fuel-stick, which with discipline and diligent churning of the sticks unleashes the concealed fire of thought and awareness within. Such knowledge and ethics is, asserts the Upanishad, the goal of Upanishad. तिलेषु तैलं दधिनीव सर्पिरापः स्तस्वरणीषु चाग्निः । एवमात्माऽत्मनि गृह्यतेऽसौ सत्येनैनं तपसा योऽनुपश्यति ॥ १५ ॥ सर्वव्यापिनमात्मानं क्षीरे सर्पिरिवार्पितम् । आत्मविद्यातपोमूलं तद्ब्रह्मोपनिषत्परं तद्ब्रह्मॊपनिषत्परमिति ॥ १६ ॥ As oil in sesame seeds, as butter in milk, as water in Srota , as fire in fuel-sticks, he finds in his own self that One (Atman), he, who sees him through Satya (truthfulness) and Tapas (austerity). (15) He sees
11223-431: 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
11352-607: The individual Self and the cosmic Self, is nothing but Oneness and of a single Brahman. The verses 4.9 and 4.10 of Shvetashvatara Upanishad state the Māyā doctrine found in many schools of Hinduism. The text asserts that the Prakrti (empirical nature) is Māyā , that the individual Self is caught up by this Māyā (magic, art, creative power), and that the cosmic Self is the Māyin (magician). These verses are notable because these verses are one of
11481-486: 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
11610-432: 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
11739-412: 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
11868-514: 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 ,
11997-455: 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
12126-429: 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
12255-401: 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
12384-602: 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
12513-611: The most generic context, a Samhita may refer to any methodical collection of text or verses: any shastra , sutra , or Sanskrit Epic, along with Vedic texts, might be referred to as a Samhita . Samhita , however, in contemporary literature typically implies the earliest, archaic part of the Vedas. These contain mantras – sacred sounds with or without literal meaning, as well as panegyrics, prayers, litanies and benedictions petitioning nature or Vedic deities. Vedic Samhita refer to mathematically precise metrical archaic text of each of
12642-597: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
12771-462: The oldest known explicit statement of the Māyā doctrine. The verse 4.10 is also significant because it uses the term Maheswaram (Sanskrit: महेश्वरम्), literally the highest Lord (later epithet for Shiva), for the one who is "Māyā-maker". There is scholarly disagreement on what the term Māyā means in Upanishads, particularly verse 4.10 of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad; Dominic Goodall, for example, states that
12900-403: 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
13029-549: The origin of all gods, calling it the Isha or Rudra . This innermost Self, is stated as under the sway of Māyā or empirical Prakrti . This theme of Eka Deva (one God) – eternal, all prevading and forging the world with his heat – in Svetasvatara Upanishad, is common in more ancient Sanskrit texts such as Rig Veda's hymns 10.72.2 and 10.81.3, Taittiriya Samhita 4.6.2.4, Taittiriya Aranyaka 10.1.3, White Yajur Veda's Vajasaneyi Samhita 17.19, Atharva Veda 13.2.26 and others. Similarly,
13158-431: 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
13287-477: The past and the future, asserts the Shvetashvatara Upanishad. The fourth chapter of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad contains the famous metaphorical verse 4.5, that was oft-cited and debated by the scholars of dualistic Samkhya , monist Vedanta and theistic Vedanta schools of Hinduism in ancient and medieval era, for example in Vedanta Sutra's section 1.4.8. The metaphor-filled verse is as follows, There
13416-507: The philosophy of Shaivism , as well as the Yoga and Vedanta schools of Hinduism. Some 19th century scholars initially suggested that Shvetashvatara Upanishad is sectarian or possibly influenced by Christianity, hypotheses that were disputed, later discarded by scholars. The name "Shvetashvatara" has the compound Sanskrit root Shvetashva (श्वेताश्व, Shvet + ashva), which literally means "white horse" and "drawn by white steeds". Shvetashvatara
13545-414: 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
13674-439: 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
13803-472: The primal cause of all existence, its origin, its end, and what role, if any, time, nature, necessity, chance, and the spirit had as the primal cause. It then develops its answer, concluding that "the Universal Selfs exists in every individual, it expresses itself in every creature, everything in the world is a projection of it, and that there is Oneness, a unity of Selfs in one and only Self". The text
13932-480: 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
14061-609: 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
14190-497: 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,
14319-562: 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
14448-496: 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
14577-556: 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
14706-615: 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
14835-433: The term generally meant "supernatural power", not "illusion, magic", in the Upanishads, and Māyā contextually means "primal matter" in verse 4.10 of Shvetashvatara. Saiddhantika Non - Saiddhantika Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
14964-646: The text is frequently referred to in the plural, that is as Svetasvataropanishadah . Some metric poetic verses, such as Vakaspatyam simply refer to the text as Shvetashva . The chronology of Shvetashvatara Upanishad, like other Upanishads, is uncertain and contested. The chronology is difficult to resolve because all opinions rest on scanty evidence, an analysis of archaism, style and repetitions across texts, driven by assumptions about likely evolution of ideas, and on presumptions about which philosophy might have influenced which other Indian philosophies. Ranade places Shvetashvatara Upanishad's chronological composition in
15093-484: The three colors is based on an equivalent phrase in chapter 6.2 of Chandogya Upanishad, where the three colors are interpreted to be "fire, water and food". The unborn being with feminine gender is symbolically the Prakrti (nature, matter), while the two masculine beings are Cosmic Self and the Individual Self, the former experiencing delight and staying with Prakrti always, the latter leaves after experiencing
15222-653: 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
15351-408: 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
15480-499: The verbal root dhā (धा) 'put'. The combination word thus means "put together, joined, compose, arrangement, place together, union", something that agrees or conforms to a principle such as dharma or in accordance with justice, and "connected with". Samhitā (संहिता) in the feminine form of the past participle, is used as a noun meaning "conjunction, connection, union", "combination of letters according to euphonic rules", or "any methodically arranged collection of texts or verses". In
15609-564: 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
15738-470: The verses 3.5 and 3.6 are also found in the more ancient Vajasaneyi Samhita as verses 16.2 and 16.3, in Taittiriya Samhita 4.5.1.1, as well as in chapter 8.5 of the chronologically much later Nilarudra Upanishad. These verses symbolically ask Rudra to be graceful and "not hurt any man or any beast". The verses 3.7 through 3.21 of the Upanishad describes Brahman as the highest, the subtlest and
15867-502: 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
15996-408: 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
16125-427: 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
16254-472: 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
16383-738: 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
16512-894: Was probably a pre-Buddhistic composition along with Katha, Isha, Mundaka and Prasna Upanishad, but after the first phase of ancient Upanishads that were composed in prose such as Brihadaranyaka, Chandogya, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Kaushitaki and Kena. Winternitz states that Isha was likely composed before post-Buddhist Upanishads such as Maitri and Mandukya. Some sections of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad are found, almost in its entirety, in chronologically more ancient Sanskrit texts, as attempts to support it's doctrines "with Vedic-proof texts." For example, verses 2.1 through 2.3 are also found in chapter 4.1.1 of Taittiriya Samhita as well as in chapter 6.3.1 of Shatapatha Brahmana , while verses 2.4 and 2.5 are also found as hymns in chapters 5.81 and 10.13 of Rig Veda respectively. Similarly, many verses in chapters 3 through 6 are also found, in nearly identical form in
16641-442: 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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