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140-506: Sharabha ( Sanskrit : शरभ , Śarabha ) or Sarabha is an eight-legged part-lion and part-bird deity in Hindu religion , who is described as more powerful than a lion or an elephant, possessing the ability to clear a valley in one jump in Sanskrit literature . In later literature, Sharabha is described as an eight-legged deer. The Shaiva scriptures narrate that the deity Shiva assumed

280-532: A Kapalika . In Vamana Purana 's version, Sharabha doesn't have upper hand over Narasimha and it ends with Narasimha becoming the calm Vishnu again and Sharabha becoming a lingam when Narada looks at them. One version also mentions that Sharabha, after subduing Narasimha, assumed his original form of a lion, the mount of goddess Durga and returned to rest at her feet. In the Kalika Purana , Varaha - Vishnu's boar avatar - had amorous dalliance with

420-460: A ball-shaped top, or they may be separate and end in sharp points. The vajra is considered inseparable from the bell, and both are sold in dharma stores only in matching sets. The bell is also metal with a ribbed spherical head. The bell also depicts the face of Dhatvisvari , a female buddha and the consort of Akshobhya . The vajra has also been associated as the weapon of Indra , the Vedic king of

560-476: A bone, bow, musala, and fire; and the left hands to display noose, varada, mace , arrow, flag, and another type of sword, a snake, a lotus flower, skull-cup , pustaka, plough, and mrudanga with one hand encircling Durga in a hug. This form is extolled to usher good luck, cure all diseases and destroy all enemies. The Chola dynasty in Tamil Nadu was particularly favourable to the beliefs of Shaiva sect. It

700-483: A carved scene of animal mutilation. Initially, a deer is prey to a large python, which is then lifted by an elephant and results in the lion attacking the elephant. The lion is then shown as being devoured by Sharabha, with the last scene depicting Gandaberunda destroying Sharabha. In iconographic representations of the myth of Shiva vis-à-vis Vishnu, Sharabha form has been built around Narasimha but substantially embellished with wings to represent Kali and Durga to denote

840-480: 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." Vajra The use of the bell and vajra as symbolic and ritual tools is found in all schools of Tibetan Buddhism . The vajra is a round, symmetrical metal scepter with two ribbed spherical heads. The ribs may meet in

980-416: A female symbol, denotes prajna (wisdom). Some deities are shown holding each the vajra and bell in separate hands, symbolizing the union of the forces of compassion and wisdom, respectively. An instrument symbolizing vajra is extensively used in the rituals of the tantra. It consists of a spherical central section, with two symmetrical sets of five prongs, which arc out from lotus blooms on either side of

1120-433: 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

1260-591: 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

1400-484: A large Himalayan goat. In Puranic literature , Sharabha is associated with the god Shiva and incarnates to subdue fierce manifestations of Vishnu. The legend of Sharabha fighting Narasimha - the man-lion form of Vishnu - brings to fore the overt rivalry between the devotees of Vishnu ( Vaishnava sect) and those of Shiva ( Shaiva sect), which exposes the fierce debate aspect. The Shiva Purana describes Sharabha as lion-faced, with matted hair, wings and eight feet, and

1540-461: A large number of weapons from Dadhichi's bones, including the vajrayudha, which was fashioned from his spine. The deva are then said to have defeated the asura using the weapons thus created. There have also been instances where the war god Skanda ( Kartikeya ) is described as holding a vajra. According to the Ramayana , as a child, Hanuman grew to enormous proportions, and attempted to swallow

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1680-658: 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

1820-404: A loud cry. The iconography of Sharabheshvaramurti (Shiva as Sharabha) is specifically defined in texts such as Kamikagama and Sritattvanidhi . In Kamikagama , Sharabha is described in the form of a bird with golden color, with two uplifted wings, two red eyes, four legs in the form of a lion touching the ground, four legs with claws upwards, and with an animal tail. The top part of the body

1960-594: A major figure of Theravada Buddhism in the 5th century, identified the Bodhisattva Vajrapani with Indra. Many later puranas describe the vajra, with the story modified from the Rigvedic original. One major addition involves the role of the Sage Dadhichi . According to one account, Indra , the king of the devas , was once driven out of Devaloka by an asura named Vritra . The asura was

2100-550: A mere irritation and not a threat to the world, contrary to what was brought out in the Shiva Purana and the Linga Purana . The perception was that Vishnu may permanently adopt the fierce form of Narasimha, which would be detrimental to his divine role. Hence, the purpose of Shiva-Sharabha was to ensure that Vishnu discarded his lion body and returned to his original divine form. Narasimha struck Sharabha with his body, it

2240-454: 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

2380-479: 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

2520-546: 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

2660-512: A rare image of the Chola period, in black basalt, depicts Shiva as Sharabha. It is deified in an exclusive small shrine, as part man, beast and bird, destroying the man-lion incarnation of Vishnu, Narasimha. This highlights the hostility between the Shaiva and Vaishnava sects. In Chennakeshava Temple, Belur , Karnataka, built in 1113, Gandaberunda , the two-faced bird identified with Vishnu appears in

2800-578: 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

2940-486: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond

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3080-439: 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

3220-413: A thousand arms. The Sharabha Upanishad portrays Sharabha with two heads, two wings, eight legs of the lion with sharp claws and a long tail. The Kalika Purana describes Sharabha as black in colour, with four feet downwards and four feet uplifted, with an enormous body. It also has a long face and nose, nails, eight legs, eight tusks, a cluster of manes, and a long tail. It jumps high repeatedly making

3360-711: 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

3500-556: Is a cognate of گرز ("Gorz"), which is the Persian word for "club". [1] The earliest mention of the vajra is in the Rigveda , part of the four Vedas . It is described as the weapon of Indra , the chief among the devas . Indra is described as using the vajra to kill sinners and ignorant persons. The Rigveda states that the weapon was made for Indra by Tvaṣṭṛ , the maker of divine instruments. The associated story describes Indra using

3640-401: Is a symbol for the nature of reality, or sunyata , indicating endless creativity, potency, and skillful activity. The vajra and bell are used in many rites by a lama or any Vajrayana practitioner of sadhana . The vajra is a male polysemic symbol that represents many things for the tantrika. The vajra is representative of upaya (skilful means) whereas its companion tool, the bell which is

3780-516: 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

3920-541: Is also a reference to Sharabha in the Vishnu Sahasranama , the thousand names of Vishnu, and the literal meaning seems to suggest the praise of Sharabha (the lion-killing animal). Adi Shankara refers to this 356th name of Vishnu Sahasranama as not mentioning the lion-killing animal at all and instead interprets the name to mean, "As the Lord shines in the body as the indwelling Self, He is called Sharabha, while

4060-539: Is also said that Sharabha then decapitated and de-skinned Narasimha so Shiva could wear the hide and lion-head as a garment. The Linga Purana and the Sharabha Upanishad also mention the mutilation and murder of Narasimha. After the mutilation, Vishnu assumed his normal form and retired to his abode, after duly praising Shiva. It was from here on that Shiva came to be known as "Sharabeshamurti" or "Simhagnamurti". The Skanda Purana considers Narasimha as

4200-535: Is based on the Sanskrit verb SR, which means "to injure to destroy". According to C. V. Radhakrishna Sastri, "Sara also refers to an arrow, and the perishable body shines if it is aimed at Bhagavan , because He shines in that body." In the Jataka tales of the Buddha 's previous lives, there is narration related to his birth as Bodhisattva in a forest as a Sharabha, the eight-legged deer. A king, while trying to hunt

4340-423: Is between the five "poisons" with the five wisdoms. The five poisons are the mental states that obscure the original purity of a being's mind, while the five wisdoms are the five most important aspects of the enlightened mind. Each of the five wisdoms is also associated with a Buddha figure. (see also Five Wisdom Buddhas ) The vajra is almost always paired with a ritual bell called a ghanta . The Tibetan term for

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4480-452: 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

4620-532: 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

4760-410: Is represented additionally with horns of an antelope and claws of an eagle. Sometimes, the goat head is replaced by a lion's, horse's feet by a lion's and horns can be of a ram. A common feature of all representations is the horse's body. It is often depicted as mounts of young Devas or dwarfs in a Torana – a six-level archway behind an enlightenment throne of a Buddha or Bodhisattva. Together with

4900-503: Is said that the sectarian aspect got highlighted during their reign. This is evident from the four Sharabha images, the earliest at the Vikramsolishwaram temple near Kumbakonam built by Vikrama Chola (1118–35). The other images are at Darasuram and Kampahareshvarar temple , Thirubuvanam built by a Chola ruler, Kulottunga Chola III where Sharabha's image is housed in a separate shrine. A sculpture of Sharbeshwaramurti in

5040-639: Is shown as human but with the face of a lion with an ornamented crown; side tusks are also depicted giving an overall frightening sight. It also shows the Narasimha beneath Sharabha's legs as a lion-faced human with anjali (hands folded prayer gesture). (See Infobox image) In the Sritattvanidhi , the depiction prescribed for Sharabheshvaramurti is of thirty arms; arms on the right are to hold thunderbolt , mushti, abhaya, chakra (discus), sakti, staff , goad , sword, khatvanga , axe , akshamala ,

5180-479: 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,

5320-414: Is that Sharabha is a combination of a huge animal-bird beast with enormous strength manifested with the purpose of pacifying similar ferocious avatar of Vishnu such as Narasimha (man-lion). The Narasimha-Sharabha legend is linked to deities assuming mythical animal forms to slay or subdue each other. Vishnu assumed the form of Narasimha to slay Hiranyakashipu , an asura (demon) king, who was terrorising

5460-589: 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

5600-540: 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

5740-644: The Buddha . Similies in Sanskrit literature compare warriors to Sharabha. In defining the ecological theme in Hindu medicine related to jungle and the aroma of meats, Sharabha has also been listed among the deer natives of Kashmir in Dalhana's 12th century commentary on the Sushruta Samhita . However, the features explained are of an eight legged animal of the size of a camel with huge horns and conjectured as

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5880-580: 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

6020-613: 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

6160-647: The Proto-Indo-European root *weg'- which means "to be(come) powerful". The related Proto-West-Uralic *vaśara ("axe, mace", (later) "hammer"; whence Ukonvasara , " Ukko 's hammer") is an early loanword from the Proto-Indo-Aryan *vaj’ra- but not from Proto-Iranian , state Parpola and Carpelan, because its palatalized sibilant is not consistent with the depalatalization which occurred in Proto-Iranian. The Sanskrit Vajra

6300-647: 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

6440-532: 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 ,

6580-531: 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

6720-424: The devas and heaven . It is used symbolically by the dharmic traditions of Hinduism , Buddhism , and Jainism , often to represent firmness of spirit and spiritual power. According to Hinduism , the vajra is considered one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. According to Asko Parpola , the Sanskrit vajra- ( वज्र- ) and its Avestan cognate vazra- are possibly ultimately derived from

6860-456: The earth goddess . He and his three boar sons then created mayhem in the world, which necessitated Shiva to take the form of Sharabha, to kill the Varaha form. Here, Narasimha appears to aid Varaha. After Being Bestowed strength by Vishnu, Sharabha kills Narasimha first and then kills Varaha, allowing Vishnu to reabsorb the energies of both his forms. This version of the story finds an allusion in

7000-406: 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

7140-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined

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7280-414: 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

7420-532: 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

7560-425: 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

7700-532: 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

7840-521: 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

7980-476: 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

8120-519: 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

8260-532: 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

8400-496: 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

8540-532: The Prapanchasara Tantra. Vaiṣṇava scholars, including prominent 16th century Dvaita philosophers such as Vijayīndra Tīrtha , reject the depiction of Narasiṁha being subdued or destroyed by Śarabha. They dismiss the Śaiva Purāṇas that contain such narratives as tāmasic (imbued with ignorance) and therefore not authoritative within the Vaiṣṇava tradition. Vijayīndra Tīrtha addresses the refutation of

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8680-499: 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

8820-638: 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

8960-681: The Tribhuvanam temple, a Shiva temple in Tanjore district , in Tamil Nadu is seen with three legs, with body and face of a lion and a tail. It has four human arms, the right upper hand holds axe, noose is held in the lower right hand, the deer in the upper left hand and fire in the lower left hand. Narasimha is shown with eight arms, flaying and struggling under Sharbeshwaramurti's feet. In the Airavatesvara Temple at Darasuram,

9100-447: 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

9240-451: 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

9380-459: 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

9520-401: The asura, headed by Vritra, once and for all. Dadhichi however told them of what he had done and informed them that their weapons were now a part of his bones. However, Dadhichi, realising that his bones were the only way by which the deva could defeat the asura willingly gave his life in a pit of mystical flames he summoned with the power of his austerities. Brahma is then said to have fashioned

9660-497: The battle between the two mighty and powerful forces, i.e Narasimha and Sharaba took place, which continued for a long time and both of them did not calm down at all and fought fiercely. Afterwards Lord Narasimha, filled with fury and with a massive physical form, with nails from His thousand hands caught hold of this Sharaba a form assumed by Rudra and tore open the chest of the Sharaba, using His sharp and deadly nails and killed it in

9800-603: The body is sara (perishable)." Narasimhan Krishnamachari, a scholar on the Vishishtadvaita philosophy, states that the name "Sharabha" has been interpreted in two ways namely; the first interpretation means "the Destroyer (of those who transgress the bounds of ethics)," as given by the Sri Vaishnava commentator, Parasara Bhattar and the second interpretation as given by Adi Shankara, among others. The former

9940-440: 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

10080-527: 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

10220-559: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in

10360-653: 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

10500-400: The deer, fell into a precipice with his horse. The deer, instead of abandoning the king to his fate, rescued him. The king was deeply touched by the compassionate gesture and banned hunting in his country. In Tibetan Buddhism , sharabha is represented as a beast with a goat's head and horns, a lion's mane and horse's body and legs. It symbolizes determination, strength and speed. Sometimes, it

10640-467: 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

10780-765: The devas, they symbolize the perfection of effort (virya). The Government of Karnataka , the University of Mysore and the Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited have adopted Sharabha, with modifications in their emblem. In Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited logo, Sharabha is depicted in the form of a body of a lion with the head of an elephant to represent the virtues of wisdom, courage and strength. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )

10920-471: 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

11060-460: 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

11200-490: 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

11340-453: The female powers ( shaktis ) of Shiva; Sharabha is also shown with a bird head and a serpent in his beak. The Hindu epic Mahabharata narrates: a dog, with the help of a rishi (sage) assumes various animal forms - starting from a dog to a tiger then to an elephant followed by a lion and a sharabha - terrorized every one in the hermitage of the rishi. Eventually, Sharabha assumed a further fiercer form. In this fierce form he wanted to devour

11480-548: 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

11620-544: The form of Sharabha to pacify Narasimha - the fierce man-lion avatar of Vishnu worshipped by the Vaishnava sect. This form is popularly known as Sharabheshvara ("Lord Sharabha") or Sharabheshvaramurti . Vaishnavas refute the portrayal of Narasimha as being destroyed by Shiva-Sharabha, and regard Sharabha as a name of Vishnu. Some Vaishnava scriptures such as the Narasimha Purana suggest that Vishnu assumed

11760-593: The form of the ferocious two-headed bird Gandabherunda , who in turn defeated Sharabha. In Buddhism , Sharabha appears in Jataka Tales as an earlier birth of the Buddha . It also appears in Tibetan Buddhist art, symbolizing the perfection of effort. As a figure of power and majesty, Sharabha has appeared in numerous emblems. In early Sanskrit literature , Sharabha is initially described as an aggressive beast that roared and scared other animals in

11900-412: 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

12040-537: 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

12180-417: The hills and forest areas. In the later Hindu epic Mahabharata , Sharabha was described as a lion-slaying being with eight legs, eyes on the top; living in the forest and which ate raw flesh. It is also mentioned as residing on Mount Krauncha but not as a monster. In another account, Sharabha is an ordinary beast residing along with lions and tigers on Mount Gandhamadana . The epic also includes Sharabha in

12320-431: 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

12460-486: 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

12600-432: 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

12740-412: 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

12880-414: The list of edible animals - the mrigajatis - the animal group of antelope, deer, hare, bear, ruru deer, sambar, gayal, boar, and buffalo - which was offered as part of food at dinner to guests. Sharabha appears primarily as the incarnation of the god Shiva , as a name of a monkey-king in the epic Ramayana , also as a proper name of heroes and serpent Nāgas and one of the names of god Vishnu as well as

13020-514: 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 ,

13160-511: 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

13300-429: 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

13440-401: 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

13580-602: 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

13720-545: 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,

13860-403: 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

14000-431: 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

14140-473: The phenomenal world (or in Buddhist terms Samsara ), the other represents the noumenal world ( Nirvana ). This is one of the fundamental dichotomies which are perceived by the unenlightened. Arranged equally around the mouth of the lotus are two, four, or eight creatures which are called makara . These are mythological half-fish, half-crocodile creatures made up of two or more animals, often representing

14280-414: 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

14420-439: 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

14560-480: 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

14700-418: The recipient of a boon whereby he could not be killed by any weapon that was known till the date of his receiving the boon, and additionally, that no weapon made of wood or metal could harm him. Indra, who had lost all hope of recovering his kingdom is said to have approached Shiva , who could not help him. Indra, along with Shiva and Brahma , went to seek the aid of Vishnu . Vishnu revealed to Indra that only

14840-609: 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

14980-497: 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,

15120-481: The rishi. The rishi then narrating the process of change in Sharabha's development, as a result of his benevolence, cursed Sharabha to go back to his original form of a dog. The epic does not relate Shiva to Sharabha. The legend of Sharabha as an incarnation of Shiva is narrated in many Hindu scriptures and each presents a different version to suit one's religious beliefs. But one common refrain in all these depictions

15260-499: The ritual bell used in Buddhist religious practices is tribu . Priests and devotees ring bells during the rituals. Together these ritual implements represent the inseparability of wisdom and compassion in the enlightened mindstream. The bell is the most commonly used of all musical instruments in tantric Buddhist ritual. The sound made by the bells is regarded as very auspicious and is believed to drive out evil spirits from where

15400-486: The ritual is being performed. When the bell is being used with the vajra its use is varied depending on the ritual or the mantras being chanted. During meditation ringing the bell represents the sound of Buddha teaching the dharma and symbolizes the attainment of wisdom and the understanding of emptiness. During the chanting of the mantras the Bell and Vajra are used together in a variety of different ritualistic ways to represent

15540-562: 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

15680-440: The same manner as He had killed Hiranyakashipu." The Jvala Narasimha stotra says This form is also the destroyer of Sharabha as "ॐ शरभध्वंसिने नमः". Another such name is found, where Narasimha is shown as the destroyer of Virabhadra i.e Sharabheswara नृसिंहो वीरभद्रजित् Salutations to Narasimha, the conqueror of Śarabheśvara. ~ Padma puran 6.174.85,6.71.194, Nārada Pāñcarātra (Viṣṇu Sahasranāma), Viṣṇu Maharnava Tantra There

15820-496: 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

15960-556: 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

16100-615: 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

16240-423: The sphere and come to a point at two points equidistant from the centre, thus giving it the appearance of a "diamond sceptre", which is how the term is sometimes translated. The vajra is made up of several parts. In the center is a sphere which represents Sunyata , the primordial nature of the universe, the underlying unity of all things. Emerging from the sphere are two eight petaled lotus flowers. One represents

16380-439: The sun, regarding it to be a ripe fruit. He also attempted to devour Rahu , who had been divinely assigned the function of swallowing the sun. Furious, Rahu pleaded his case to Indra , who immediately appeared to the scene upon his elephant mount, Airavata . When Hanuman attempted to seize his mount, Indra retaliated by striking the former's chin with the vajra, who descended upon the earth. The child's spiritual father and god of

16520-434: The term for the spiritual teacher is the vajracharya ; one of the five dhyani buddhas is vajrasattva , and so on. The practice of prefixing terms, names, places, and so on by vajra represents the conscious attempt to recognize the transcendental aspect of all phenomena; it became part of the process of "sacramentalizing" the activities of the spiritual practitioner and encouraged him to engage all his psychophysical energies in

16660-653: 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

16800-432: The union of opposites, (or a harmonisation of qualities that transcend our usual experience). From the mouths of the makara come tongues which come together in a point. The five-pronged vajra (with four makara, plus a central prong) is the most commonly seen vajra. There is an elaborate system of correspondences between the five elements of the noumenal side of the vajra, and the phenomenal side. One important correspondence

16940-499: The union of the male and female principles. The hollow of the bell represents the void from which all phenomena arise, including the sound of the bell, and the clapper represents form. Together they symbolize wisdom (emptiness) and compassion (form or appearance). The sound, like all phenomena, arises, radiates forth and then dissolves back into emptiness. Various figures in Tantric iconography are represented holding or wielding

17080-411: The universe, and was a devotee of Shiva. The Shiva Purana mentions: After slaying Hiranyakashipu, Narasimha's wrath threatened the world. At the behest of the gods, Shiva sent Virabhadra to tackle Narasimha. When that failed, Shiva manifested as Sharabha. The Shiva Purana and some Purana s mention Sharabha attacking Narasimha and immobilising him. He thus quelled Narasimha's terrifying rage. It

17220-406: The vajra ( Standard Tibetan : dorje ) is the symbol of Vajrayana , one of the three major schools of Buddhism . Vajrayana is translated as "Thunderbolt Way" or " Diamond Way " and can imply the thunderbolt experience of Buddhist enlightenment or bodhi . It also implies indestructibility, just as diamonds are harder than other gemstones . In the tantric traditions of Buddhism, the vajra

17360-457: The vajra, some epithets used for Indra in the Rigveda were Vajrabhrit (bearing the vajra), Vajrivat or Vajrin (armed with the vajra), Vajradaksina (holding the vajra in his right hand), and Vajrabahu or Vajrahasta (holding the vajra in his hand). The association of the Vajra with Indra continued with some modifications in the later Puranic literature, and in Buddhist works. Buddhaghoṣa ,

17500-550: The vajra, which he held in his hand, to slay the asura Vritra , who took the form of a serpent. In the context of Rigvedic weaponry, the word vájra appears to have been used for the sling as a weapon, but also for extremely effective sling projectiles specially crafted from lead corresponding to cast lead projectiles as they were in widespread use in the cultural areas of the Middle East and the ancient world, especially in classical antiquity. On account of his skill in wielding

17640-495: The vajra. Three of the most famous of these are Vajrasattva , Vajrapani , and Padmasambhava . Vajrasattva (lit. vajra-being) holds the vajra, in his right hand, to his heart. The figure of the Wrathful Vajrapani (lit. vajra in the hand) brandishes the vajra, in his right hand, above his head. Padmasambhava holds the vajra above his right knee in his right hand. The term is employed extensively in tantric literature:

17780-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines

17920-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit

18060-430: The waters of the holy rivers to Naimisha Forest , thereby allowing the sage to have his wish fulfilled without a further loss of time. Dadhichi is then said to have given up his life by the art of yoga after which the devas fashioned the vajrayudha from his spine. This weapon was then used to defeat the asura, allowing Indra to reclaim his place as the king of Devaloka. Another version of the story exists where Dadhichi

18200-400: The weapon made from the bones of Dadhichi would defeat Vritra. Indra and the other devas, therefore, approached the sage, whom Indra had once beheaded, and asked him for his aid in defeating Vritra. Dadhichi acceded to the devas' request, but said that he wished that he had time to go on a pilgrimage to all the holy rivers before he gave up his life for them. Indra then brought together all

18340-543: The wind, Vayu , caught him before he crashed upon the ground, and withdrew to a cave. In retaliation, he called upon all of the air that permeated creation, causing the suffocation of all life in the universe. Brahma , the god of creation, summoned a number of deities to the cave to placate Vayu. Indra imbued the limbs of Hanuman with the power of his celestial thunderbolt. New branches: Tantric techniques : Fourfold division: Twofold division: Thought forms and visualisation: Yoga : In Buddhism ,

18480-713: The Śarabha legend, along with ten other Śaivite accounts, in his work Śaivasarvasvakhaṇḍanam. This legend is also featured in Narasimha Purāna. As per the Ahobila Mahatamya chapter 8 of the Brahmanda Puran, Sharabha was killed in the battle against Narasimha avatara तं युद्धमानौ तु तदा चिरेण बलवत्तरौ । न शमं जग्मतुर्देवौ नृसिंहशरभाकृतीः ॥ ततः क्रुद्धो महाकायो नृसिंहो भीमनिस्स्वनः । सहस्रकरजैस्त्रस्तस्य गात्राणि पीडयन् ॥ ततः स्फुरच्छटाचोटो रुद्रं शरभरूपिणम् । विदारयन्नखैस्तीक्ष्णैर्हिरण्यकशिपुं यथा ॥ "Then

18620-446: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times

18760-494: Was Vishnu who groaned in pain and not Sharabha who was in an "adamantine body". It was then that Vishnu realised that Sharabha was none other than Shiva and bowed and praised Sharabha. Shiva then blesses Vishnu and gives him a boon to kill demons . A purana ends the story with the gods fearing that Sharabha may not be able to control his rage and thus urging Shiva to give up his Sharabha form. Thereafter, Shiva dismembered Sharabha's form; his limbs were given away and his torso became

18900-408: 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

19040-427: 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

19180-472: 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

19320-738: 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

19460-406: Was asked to safeguard the weapons of the devas as they were unable to match the arcane arts being employed by the asura to obtain them. Dadhichi is said to have kept at the task for a very long time and finally tiring of the job, he is said to have dissolved the weapons in sacred water which he drank. The deva returned a long time later and asked him to return their weapons so that they might defeat

19600-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as

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