161-627: Svayam Bhagavan ( Sanskrit : स्वयं भगवान् , romanized : Svayaṁ-Bhāgavan ; roughly: "God Itself") is a Sanskrit concept in Hinduism , referring to the absolute representation of Bhagavan (the title "Lord" or "God") as the Supreme God in a monotheistic framework. The concept is most commonly (but not always) associated with a male deity, for instance in Hindu sub-movements like Krishnaism and Gaudiya Vaishnavism , in which Krishna
322-758: A Padma (lotus), Kaumodaki gada (mace), Panchajanya shankha (conch), and Sudarshana chakra (discus). As stated in the epic Itihāsa , the Mahabharata : I am Narayana, the Source of all things, the Eternal, the Unchangeable. I am the Creator of all things, and the Destroyer also of all. I am Vishnu , I am Brahma and I am Shankara , the chief of the gods. I am king Vaisravana, and I am Yama,
483-621: A serpent in the sea. He quotes, "This Nārāyana of the Āryan pantheon seems to be the supreme being of the Mohenjo-Darians, a god who was probably styled Ān, a name still kept in Tamil literature as Āndivanam, the prototype of the historic Siva ". In the Vedas and the Puranas , Narayana is described as having the divine blackish-blue color of water-filled clouds, four-armed, holding
644-534: A concept of power, wisdom or illusionary maya . The second alternative understanding of the evident supremacy of Svayam Bhagavan in the Gita, is a popular view on Krishna being the highest and fullest Avatar of the Lord, Vishnu or Narayana. "The Bhagavad Gita depicts Krishna not only as Brahman but also as an 'Avatar of Vishnu' and the friend of Arjuna ." In summary in accordance with this view Svayam Bhagavan Krishna
805-404: 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." Narayana Narayana ( Sanskrit : नारायण , IAST : Nārāyaṇa ) is one of the forms and epithets of Vishnu . In this form, the deity
966-433: 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
1127-639: A group of people," who are referred as bhagavatas . Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] ) 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
1288-715: A key sutra , not only to the Bhagavata Purana but to Vedanta and thus all the Vedas. According to the Upanishads it is believed that when Brahma, who is said to be the original created being, was approached by the sages, the Four Kumaras , he was presented with critical questions: – Who is the Supreme Lord? Who does death fear? – By knowing whom, does everything become realized? – Who is that person, who
1449-591: 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
1610-658: 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
1771-454: 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
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#17327805897101932-479: 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
2093-546: 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
2254-578: 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
2415-538: 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
2576-460: A second category, tad ekatma rupa (meaning: one that one and not different ). 'Svayam' as a term means not depending on others or being himself . In his instruction to Sanatana Goswami, at Kasi, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu explains the implications of the vadanti verse: "The word brahman refers to Svayam Bhagavan , who has one consciousness without a second, and without whom there is nothing else." (Gupta 2007, p 36). Rūpa Gosvāmī has described
2737-401: A significant statement. Jiva Goswami has called it Paribhasa-sutra , the “thesis statement” upon which the entire book or even theology is based. In another place of the Bhagavata Purana 10.83.5–43 those who are named as wives of Krishna all explain to Draupadi how the 'Lord himself' ( Svayam Bhagavan , Bhagavata Purana 10.83.7) came to marry them. As they relate these episodes, several of
2898-439: 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
3059-480: A subordination of the 'puravatara' Krishna to Vishnu. However, Vaishnava traditions do not adhere to the concept of Svayam Bhagavan with the same views as those who support the concept. To support their view they quote the 149th chapter of Anushāsanaparva in the epic Mahabharata , Bhishma which states, with Krishna present, that mankind will be free from all sorrows by chanting the Vishnu sahasranama , which are
3220-686: Is recognized as "the Lord whose being is sacrifice, Yajna Purusha " Some believe that thus this verse of the Rig Veda is a foundation of Vaishnava tradition. In the Gopala Tapani Upanishad the Rig Veda verse(1.22.20) was addressed paraphrasing the original of the Vedic hymn in accordance with the beliefs of the Gaudiya Vaishnava : It outlines a specific view held by the Gaudiya Vaishnava and Vallabha Sampradaya , that
3381-518: Is "not one among many but the Lord himself". Sanat-Kumara Samhita confirms the belief that this Kama Gayatri is the foundational structure of the Goloka , believed to be the abode of Krishna, who is the original Vaasudeva: "In the whorl of the lotus flower which is Lord Krishna's transcendental abode, the Gopala mantra is written." While some place Krishna-centered worship as Svayam Bhagavan in
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#17327805897103542-530: Is Nārāyaṇī. He is said to have been born from Avalokiteśvara 's heart. The Buddhas are sometimes described as having a firm body like Nārāyaṇa. The Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra describes him as having three faces with a greenish-yellow complexion. He holds a wheel in his right hand and rides upon a garuḍa . Chapter 6 of the Yiqiejing Yinyi explains that he belongs to the Kāmadhātu and is veneration for
3703-426: Is a common view that Bhagavad Gita was propounding Krishna-theism before first major proponents of monism . Other pervading understandings of the position of Svayam Bhagavan asserted in the Gita are connected to, non-Krishna-centered, traditions. One tradition follows predominately the views of Sankaracharya commentary on Brahma Sutras and is referred as maya-vad which justifies Svayam Bhagavan supremacy by
3864-606: Is a divine figure with attributed supremacy in Vaishnavism. The theological interpretation of svayam bhagavān differs with each tradition, and the literal translation of the term has been understood in several distinct ways. Translated from the Sanskrit language , the term literally means " Bhagavan Himself" or "directly Bhagavan". Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition often translates it within its perspective as primeval Lord or original Personality of Godhead ; it also considers
4025-544: Is a friendly duel between cousin brothers Neminatha (Tirthankara) and Krishna (Naryana) in which Neminath lost to Krishna without any effort at all. There is also a story of Neminatha lifting the conch of Krishna and blowing it without any effort. The Jain Mahabharata describes Krishna's conflict with Jarasandha , who he kills. Narayana is hailed in certain parts of the Vedas like the Narayana Suktam and
4186-452: Is according to Pancaratra is at the source of creation. Pancaratra sources are accepted by all of Vaishnava traditions, and confirmed by Yamunacarya who preceding in the line of Ramanuja , summarizing in his Agamapramanya , a defense of the revelation of the tantric Vaishnava Pancaratra, defending whole body of the texts being part of the Veda: "The Pancadratra Tantra is authoritative like
4347-516: 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
4508-563: Is also a view of Gaudiya Vaishnavas that Sanatana Goswamis Brihad Bhagavatamrita , has illustrated this principle, not just in terms of comparative cosmology or avatara hierarchy as in Vaishnava Pancaratra, but also in terms of cosmology of adi-rasa . The cosmological principle of the four dhamas (with a separate place for the last two: Vaikuntha – abode of Vishnu or Narayana , tad-ekatma rupa , in transcendence, and Goloka as abode of Svayam Bhagavan in transcendence)
4669-549: Is also perceived and understood from an eclectic assortment of perspectives and viewpoints. When Krishna is recognized to be Svayam Bhagavan , it can be understood that this is the belief of Gaudiya Vaishnavism , the Vallabha Sampradaya , and the Nimbarka Sampradaya , where Krishna is accepted to be the source of all other avatars, and the source of Vishnu himself. This belief is drawn primarily from
4830-492: Is also synonymous with Narayana and Arjuna is referred to as Nara. The epic identifies them both in plural 'Krishnas', or as part incarnations of the earlier incarnations of Vishnu , recalling their mystical identity as Nara-Narayana . Narayana (as Krishna) is also described in the Bhagavad Gita as having a universal form ( Vishvarupa ) which is beyond the ordinary limits of human perception or imagination. In
4991-506: Is among the highest and fullest of all Avatars and is considered to be the " paripurna avatara ", complete in all respects and the same as the original. According to them Krishna is described in the Bhagavata Purana as the purnavatara (complete manifestation) of Bhagavan, while other incarnations are called partial. "Krishna being Bhagavan; the mind of man 'centred intensely', whatever the motive and however ignorant it might be,
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5152-499: Is behind the repetition of the creation of this Universe? His own original or sweet form, Sva-bimbaṁ is not manifested very often in the Universe, loka-locanam . Gaudiya Vaishnavas quote sources that claim that it happens only once in a kalpa (universal day of Brahma ), which consists of fourteen manvantaras , each having seventy-one divya-yugas . To answer the four Kumaras, Brahma needed to relate this secret word of
5313-508: Is centred in Him."(p. 334) Generally there is a universal acceptance of the uniqueness of Krishna incarnation throughout Hinduism , as well as the principles involved in His life and personality for which He has been described as Svayam Bhagavan . There is an element of countenance in many Krishna centered traditions to the subordination of Krishna to Vishnu. The reasons for that are given that it
5474-695: Is conceived as the Supreme Soul in the texts. The Mahāsamaya Sutta (DN 20) of the Pali Canon mentions a deity by the name Veṇhu (Sanskrit: Viṣṇu ), though the text suggests that this name may also signify a class of deva. He also appears in the Veṇḍu Sutta (SN 2.12) as Veṇḍu where he addresses Gautama Buddha by celebrating the joy experienced by those who follow the Dhamma . He also makes brief mention of Manu . Mahayana Buddhism elaborates on
5635-473: Is considered to be the purna-avatara (full incarnation) of Vishnu or, according to some, the universal Narayana who transcends even Brahman . Supremacy or a concept of originality is often referred to in the words of Krishna himself, as for example, the theologian Abhinavagupta , in another tradition of Hinduism, introduces a quotation from the Bhagavad-gita of 'I', Krishna referencing Himself as
5796-690: Is depicted in yogic slumber under the celestial waters , symbolising the masculine principle and associated with his role of creation. He is also known as Purushottama , and is considered the Supreme Being in Vaishnavism . Narayan Aiyangar states the meaning of the Sanskrit word 'Narayana' can be traced back to the Laws of Manu (also known as the Manusmriti , a Dharmaśāstra text), which states: The waters are called narah, (for)
5957-462: Is devoid of inauspicious or evil qualities. As the etymology of Bhagavān is perfectly illustrated in the Vishnu Purana, referring to the Vishnu Purana on who is Bhagavan too is perfect. Vishnu Purana clearly states that Bhagavan denotes none but Vāsudeva alias Narayana - Krishna . Svayam means Himself, thus Svayam Bhagavān refers to one who is Bhagavān (Vāsudeva) Himself. As Śrī Kr̥ṣṇa,
6118-452: 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
6279-630: Is himself Narayana. Narayana is often identified with supreme, however, when his beauty and sweetness (madhurya) overshadow his majesty, he is known as Krishna , i.e. Svayam Bhagavan . As Friedhelm Hardy says, the concept of Bhagavan, "a single, all-powerful, eternal, personal and loving God ... is an empty slot, to be filled by concrete characteristics" and these characteristics culminate in Krishna. In Gaudiya Vaishnava , Vallabha Sampradaya Nimbarka sampradaya and old Bhagavata school, Krishna believed to be fully represented in his original form in
6440-532: 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
6601-602: Is regarded as Svayam Bhagavan. As stated in the Bhagavata Purana , Vishnu appeared before Vasudeva and Devaki in his divine original four-armed form before being born as Krishna. After worshipping Vishnu, Vasudeva and Devaki asked him to conceal his heavenly appearance. Vishnu complied by changing into his infant form of Krishna. Svayam Bhagavan is a term most often used in Gaudiya Vaishnava and other Krishna-centered theologies, and that title
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6762-479: 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,
6923-513: Is the sum of all “noble attributes”—i.e. omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and all-merciful, all qualities attributed to Vishnu by all Vaishavas. According to South Indian traditions he is also advitya (Sanskrit meaning without rival). To such Vaishnavas, Shiva , Brahma , and the other gods of the Hindu pantheon are viewed as Brahman's agents or servants , created and commissioned by him. Some Vaishnavas consider them to be or see that they have
7084-551: Is the key concept of Krishnaism . Gaudiya is one of the main traditions worshiping Radha Krishna that developed this concept. Primary theology of Caitanyaite or Gaudiya traditions is based and presented in Bhagavata Purana and Caitanya Caritamrita . Svayam in Svayam rupa does not imply one and only, and all conceptions by previous Vaishnava traditions, according to the Gaudiya Vaishnavas beliefs, fall under
7245-498: Is the key of the graphical presentation, but it is also an answer to the dilemma. In accordance with the cosmology of the Brihad Bhagavatamrita Krishna is believed being the original and most complete in all rasas or tastes is in fact not engaged and non engaging, is his independence, he does not even, at least in this his original form, carry symbols of Viṣṇu , he only carries his own flute, and that
7406-465: Is the pleasure of his devotees. The form of Narayana is linked with the concept of sacrifice in the earliest known references to him. In Vedic sources such as the Purusha sukta , Narayana is given as the name of the self-offering of the great cosmic sacrifice of the Rig Veda . Narayana is not mentioned in Rig Veda itself, but came to be regarded as the seer who authored the hymn . It is possible that
7567-589: 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
7728-411: Is the ultimate source from which Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and Prakriti originate. He is Svayam Bhagavan while other incarnation are his partial manifestations. The comments of Sridhara Svami (an early Sankara sect commentator), bring out uniqueness of Krishna. According to him Krishna is perfect as all potencies are observed to be full in him. In Atharvavedasamhita , Krishna is described as having slain
7889-421: Is used there exclusively to designate Krishna, there being conflicting semantics or other usages in the Bhagavata Purana. Traditions of Gaudiya Vaishnavas , the Nimbarka Sampradaya and followers of Vallabha consider him to be the source of all avatars , and the source of Vishnu and Narayana . As such, he is therefore regarded as Svayam Bhagavan . Though Krishna is recognized as Svayam Bhagavan by many, he
8050-630: The svayaṁ-rūpa in his Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta : "The form of the Supreme Personality of Godhead that does not depend on other forms is called svayaṁ-rūpa , the original form." The tad-ekātma-rūpa forms are also described in the Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta "The tad-ekātma-rūpa forms simultaneous to svayaṁ-rūpa form and are non-different. At the same time by their bodily features and specific activities they appear to be different." Two best known Vedic descriptions of
8211-475: 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
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#17327805897108372-464: The Narayana Sukta , Narayana is essentially the supreme force and/or essence of all: 'Nārāyaṇa parabrahman tatvam Nārāyaṇa paraha'. Narayana's eternal and supreme abode beyond the material universe is Vaikuntha , a realm of bliss and happiness called Paramapada , which means the final or highest place for liberated souls, where they enjoy bliss and happiness for eternity in the company of
8533-530: The Sutras that describe the life of Gautama Buddha . It is said that The Buddha "is endowed with the great strength of Nārāyaṇa, he is called the great Nārāyaṇa himself." The Chinese Manichaean manuscript Moni Guangfo , a syncretic religious text incorporating both Buddhist and Manichaean elements, considers Narayana ( Chinese : 那羅延 ; pinyin : Naluoyan ) to be one of the Five Buddhas, with
8694-470: The Tiruvaymoli was and is significant to his Sri Vaishnava adherents, as it became a model prayer for future generations. In this prayer, Ramanuja describes Narayana to be the "beloved consort of Sri and of Bhumi and Nila ". He is stated to reside in his abode of Vaikuntha, where he assumes the role of the creation, preservation, as well as the destruction of the universe. Narayana is extolled to be
8855-643: The Vishnu Purana , Bhagavata Purana , Garuda Purana , and the Padma Purana , Narayana is Vishnu himself, who incarnates in various avatars . According to the Bhagavad Gita , he is also the "Guru of the Universe". The Bhagavata Purana declares Narayana as the Supreme Personality of Godhead , who engages in the creation of 14 worlds within the universe Brahma who is Deity of rajas - guna , himself sustains, maintains and preserves
9016-610: The Bhagavad-gita states that this bhakti-yoga is secretive: - "Just hear from Me again about the most confidential part of the instructions in Bhagavad-gītā ." It is also described as such in Bhagavata Purana Vaishnavas of ISKCON often stress their view that in both cases Krishna is speaking about himself, aham and me in Sanskrit mean, I am and Me respectively. While some commentators derive secondary meanings, all major Sanskrit dictionary accept that
9177-453: The Bhagavata Purana , that at the end of the list of avataras concludes with the following text: All of the above-mentioned incarnations are either plenary portions or portions of the plenary portions of the Lord, but Sri Krishna is the original Personality of Godhead ( Svayam Bhagavan ). Not all commentators on the Bhagavata Purana stress this verse, however a majority of Krishna-centered and contemporary commentaries highlight this verse as
9338-580: 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
9499-607: The Dravidian , and ultimately, the Indus Valley Civilisation , prior to his syncretism with Vishnu. To this end, he states that the etymology of the deity is associated with the Dravidian nara , meaning ‘water’, ay , which in Tamil means "to lie in a place", and an , which is the masculine termination in Dravidian languages . He asserts that this is also the reason why Narayana is represented as lying on
9660-613: 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
9821-538: The Pancharatras , a sectarian text that was accepted as authoritative by both the Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita schools of Vedanta . They are mechanisms by which the universe is ordered, was created, and evolves. Narayana possesses the chatur-vyuha aspects of Vasudeva, Sankarshana, Pradyumna, and Aniruddha, who evolve one after the other in the development of the universe. In the Mahabharata , Krishna
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#17327805897109982-753: 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
10143-531: 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
10304-406: The Vishnu Suktam . He is also hailed in selective Vaishnava Upanishads like the Narayana Upanishad , Mahanarayana Upanishad , and the Nrisimha Tapaniya Upanishad . The Padma Purana relates an episode where Narayana grants Rudra (Shiva) a boon. The destroyer deity seeks two boons. Firstly, he wishes to be the greatest of the devotees of Narayana, as well as bearing the reputation of
10465-575: The Wayback Machine are among quoted works by Jiva Goswami , "Vaishnavas don't argue among themselves if Krishna or Vishnu is the Supreme. They consider it a matter of one's relationship with the Lord. Someone has a relationship with Vishnu, someone with Rama, someone with Krishna, etc. as per rasa theology." In the Caitanya Caritamrita Chaitanya discusses this in a joking mood with Venkatta Bhatta from Sri sampradaya . While Pustimarga tradition predates Gaudiya Vaisnavism in Radha worship. When Chaitanya traveled through South India in 1509-10, he stayed at
10626-406: 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
10787-422: The seed mantra. And this is believed to be the answer to the question, who is supreme god and how he creates this world. Brahma replied to the sages: "Krisna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Death fears Govinda. By knowing Gopijanavallabha everything becomes realized. By pronouncing the word "svaha" the Personality of Godhead created the world. In the wider context of the Bhagavata's total perspective, Krishna
10948-500: 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
11109-441: The "famous statement" of the Bhagavatam (1.3.28). A different viewpoint differing from this theological concept is the concept of Krishna as an avatar of Narayana or Vishnu. It should be however noted that although it is usual to speak of Vishnu as the source of the avatars, this is only one of the names of the God of Vaishnavism, who is also known as Narayana, Vasudeva-Krishna, and just Krishna, and behind each of those names there
11270-414: 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
11431-414: 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
11592-425: 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
11753-475: 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
11914-521: 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
12075-534: The Gaudiyas, falls under category of tad-ekātma-rūpa , According to the Gaudiya Vaishnava interpretation, it is also confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.7), which says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat : "There is no truth superior to Me." Where Krishna is 'bhagavan' himself, whose partial manifestations are the other gods. This idea is reflected in the Bhagavata Purana . The Brahma Vaivarta Purana tells us Krishna
12236-476: 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
12397-519: 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
12558-763: The Krishna-centered theology, Gaudiya Vaishnavas and followers of the Vallabha Sampradaya and Nimbarka Sampradaya, use the Gopala Tapani Upanishad , Vedanta Sutras and other Hindu scriptures such as the Bhagavata Purana as in verse 1.3.28 and the Brahma Vaivarta Purana , among others, to support their view that Krishna is indeed the Svayam Bhagavan . This belief was summarized by the 16th century author Jiva Goswami in some of his works, such as Krishna-sandarbha . In
12719-644: The Madhya lila of the Chaitanya charitamrita a presentation is given, with a reference to the particular verse of the tenth canto of Bhagavata Purana as to the reason why Lakshmi also known as Sri (thus the name of Sri Sampradaya) is burning with desire and still not capable of entering to the realm of Vrindavana . Prabodhananda Sarasvati who was a Sri Sampradaya sannyasi was converted as to supreme position of Radha-Krishna being Svayam Bhagavan instead of Lakshmi-Narayana. He as well apparently came to appreciate
12880-532: 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
13041-496: 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
13202-499: 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
13363-638: 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
13524-447: 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
13685-451: 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
13846-422: The Vedic sentences ordaining sacrifice on the grounds that it is based on knowledge free from all defects". Amalananda, also defends Pancaratra and while confirming that Agamas do not have the same self-authenticating validity, as the four Vedas, but the authenticity of it assured because Veda bear witness to the omniscience of Vasudeva . This position also forms the basis of Bhagavata Purana based theology. It
14007-594: The acquisition of power. Chapter 41 adds that he has eight arms that wield various "Dharma weapons" ( dharmayuda ) with which he subjugates the asuras . He appears as an interlocutor in several Mahayana sutras , including the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra , Sarvapuṇyasamuccayasamādhi Sūtra and the Nārāyaṇaparipṛcchā Dhāraṇī . He is also mentioned in several places in the Lalitavistara Sūtra , one of
14168-459: 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
14329-440: 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
14490-508: The cardinal points are my body, and the Air is my mind... ...And, O Brahmana, whatever is obtained by men by the practice of truth, charity, ascetic austerities, and peace and harmlessness towards all creatures, and such other handsome deeds, is obtained because of my arrangements. Governed by my ordinance, men wander within my body, their senses overwhelmed by me. They move not according to their will but as they are moved by me. As per texts like
14651-563: The character of this deity, where is often called Nārāyaṇa ( Chinese : 那羅延天 ; Tibetan : མཐུ་བོ་ཆེ། ) or more rarely, Narasiṃha ( 納拉辛哈 ) and Vāsudeva ( 婆藪天 ). Literature often depicts him as a Vajradhara ( 金剛力士 ). He is present in the Womb Realm Mandala and is among the twelve guardian devas of the Diamond Realm Mandala . He is associated with Śrāvaṇa in esoteric astrology. His queen consort
14812-527: 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
14973-554: The concept as for example followers of the Swaminarayan Sampraday believe that Lord Narayana manifested himself as Swaminarayan . This view is only supported within their particular tradition. Some early schools of thought, such as Pancaratra in particular, refer to Vasudeva-Krishna (Krishna, the son of Vasudeva) as the source of all incarnations and as no different from the ultimate and absolute reality, and as non-distinct from Vasudeva and any other manifestations of
15134-527: The conclusion of Vishnu worship is meditation on gopa-rupah or specific form of Krishna. The Krishna Upanishad supports this conclusion of Gopala Tapani, and refers to the original "the most divine form of bliss dwells in the supremacy of love of Lord Krishna", saksad , Hari as gopa-rüpa . (1.10-12): Gaudiya Vaishnava believe that Krishna possesses qualities that are absent in other forms and they relate to his sweetness in Vrindavana lila . Krishna
15295-614: 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
15456-564: The creation are purusha sukta and nasadiya sukta . One hymn addresses to Vishvakarma, The one who makes all. To beliefs of Vaishnavas , the Visvakarma Sukta of Rig Veda (10.82) refers to Garbhodakasayi Viṣṇu indirectly as the Supreme God: The waters verily first retained the embryo in which all the gods were aggregated, single deposited on the navel of the unborn (ajah), in which all beings abide. and according to
15617-653: 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
15778-467: 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
15939-471: 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
16100-568: The direct meaning of aham and me , refers to Krishna himself. When Gaudiya Vaishnavas present their views on Krishna being Svayam Bhagavan , they present a number of perspectives some include comparison with other forms such as Vishnu, that are considered supreme in other sampradayas. The Bhagavat Sandarbha Archived 16 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine and the Tattva Sandabha Archived 16 February 2011 at
16261-460: 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
16422-548: 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
16583-412: 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
16744-484: The giant Kesi, Keshava. The Kaustiki Brahmana (30.9) alludes to Krishna Angirasa, who is an object of evening ceremony in connection with Brahmanaacchamsin priest. The Aitareya Aranyaka speaks of two Krishnas of Harita Gotra. However the south Indian Vaishnavism makes very little stress on Krishna and altogether ignored Radha in contrast with the other traditions. To the views of the Gaudiya Sampradaya,
16905-537: 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
17066-507: The highest Self who transcends the perishable and imperishable. The Sri Vaishnavas identify Vishnu with the Brahman, while Krishna-centered traditions will associate Para Brahman with Krishna as Svayam Bhagavan. According to Ramanujacharya , Brahman is personal . Indeed, he is the supreme person, creator and Lord, who leads souls to salvation. Far from having no (positive) attributes, as some Advaita Vedanta followers maintain, Brahman
17227-431: 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
17388-529: The house of Venkata Bhatta, the father of Gopala Bhatta , priest of Srirangam . Venkata and his two brothers, Gopala's uncles Trimalla and Prabodhananda Sarasvati "were converted from their Sri Vaishnava faith in Lakshmi - Narayana as supreme to one in Radha Krishna " as Svayam Bhagavan. The dialog of this conversion is recorded in 16 c. Caitanya Caritamrita biography by Krishna dasa Kaviraja . In
17549-497: The infant Krishna over his head across the flooded Yamuna river, belonging to c. first century is housed in the Mathura Museum. A Mora stone inscription of about the same time refers to some images of Bhagavata Vrshni Panchaviras, Sankarshana, Vasudeva, Pradyumna, Samba and Aniruddha – which were very beautifully carved in stone. A Gupta period research makes a "clear mention of Vasudeva as the exclusive object of worship of
17710-486: 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
17871-432: 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
18032-412: 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
18193-456: 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 ,
18354-588: The lord of the deceased spirits. I am Siva , I am Soma, and I am Kasyapa the lord of the created things. And, O best of regenerate ones, I am he called Dhatri, and he also that is called Vidhatri, and I am Sacrifice embodied. Fire is my mouth, the earth my feet, and the Sun and the Moon are my eyes; the Heaven is the crown of my head, the firmament and the cardinal points are my ears; the waters are born of my sweat. Space with
18515-636: The medieval times of Indian history, there is some evidence suggesting the opposite. In antiquity Krishna images were worshiped at many places. Quoting Curtius, Dr. D.C. Sircar says that an image of Herakles (i.e. Vasudeva-Krishna according to Sircar) was being carried in front of the Paurava army, as it advanced against the Greeks led by Alexander the Great ( The Cultural Heritage of India , vol. 4. p. 115) An interesting terracotta plaque showing Vasudeva carrying
18676-511: 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
18837-429: 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
18998-401: 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
19159-602: 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
19320-774: The most perfect descent (avatāra) of Narayana (Vāsudeva), He is no different from the latter, and hence, the Bhāgavata states kr̥ṣṇastu bhagavān svayam – Kr̥ṣṇa is the Supreme, Blessed Lord (Nārāyaṇa) Himself. Early commentators of Bhagavata Purana such as Madhvacharya translated the term Svayam Bhagavan as "he who has bhagavata "; meaning "he who has the quality of possessing all good qualities". Others have translated it simply as "the Lord Himself". Followers of Vishnu-centered sampradayas of Vaishnavism rarely address this term, but believe that it refers to their belief that Krishna
19481-409: 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 ,
19642-435: 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 the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of
19803-545: 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,
19964-403: 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
20125-643: The other buddhas being Zoroaster , Śākyamuni , Jesus , and Mani . Balabhadra and Narayana are mighty half-brothers, who appear nine times in each half of the time cycles of the Jain cosmology and jointly rule half the earth as half-chakravarti. Ultimately Prati-naryana is killed by Narayana for his unrighteousness and immorality. Narayana are extremely powerful and are as powerful as 2 Balabhadras. Chakravartins are as powerful as 2 Narayanas. Hence Narayanas become half-chakravartins. Tirthankaras are much more powerful than Chakravartins. In Jain Mahabharata , there
20286-431: 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
20447-582: The passing from the world of nirapeksa or unflinching devotees. Baladeva Vidyabhusana , in his commentary on Gopala Tapani Upanishad states: Glory to the Gopala Tapani Upanishad , which to the pious reveals Lord Krishna, the original Personality of Godhead, the Supersoul near to all moving and unmoving creatures. The word used is krsna svayam isvaram , the paraphrase of the Bhagavata Purana verse 1.3.28 that Jiva Goswami has called
20608-529: 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 the Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from
20769-414: 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
20930-439: 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
21091-480: 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
21252-609: 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
21413-497: 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,
21574-562: 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
21735-578: The sage who composed the Purusha Sukta hymn has been assimilated to the Purusha whose praise he had sung, and he himself became the object of worship. Mentions of a divine sage named Narayana, along with counterpart Nara , appears in many Puranic texts. Purusha is also identified with Vishnu in the Rig Veda and interpreted accordingly by many traditions of Vaishnavism . In the Bhagavata he
21896-496: 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
22057-405: The same status that of angels have in the western religious traditions. “The entire complex of intelligent and non-intelligent beings – is viewed as real and constitutes the form, i. e., the body of the highest Brahman”. A soul-body relationship, according to Ramanujacharya, is “entirely subordinate” to its soul, having no independent reality or value. However Ramanujacharya himself did not stress
22218-438: The same throughout the world. Secondly, he desires the ability to offer salvation to whoever seeks refuge in him. The prowess of Narayana is described in the Ramayana : Narayana, like unto a luminous cloud, with his excellent shafts loosed from His bow, as so many lightning strokes, exterminated those rangers of the night with their hair dishevelled and streaming in the wind. Their parasols broken, their rich apparel torn by
22379-556: 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
22540-495: The shafts, their entrails ripped open, their eyes wide with fear, those warriors, throwing away their arms, fell into a frenzy of terror. Resembling elephants attacked by a lion, those night-rangers with their mounts emitted cries whilst fleeing from that Primeval Lion [i.e., Vishnu’s incarnation as Nrsimha—half man, half lion], who pursued them. Ramanuja 's prayer of surrender to Narayana in the Sharanagati Gadyam of
22701-449: The six attributes of the Lord – aiśvaryam (wealth), vīryam (valour), jñānam (wisdom), balam (prowess), śaktī (power) and tejas (splendour). Thus, Bhaga-vān means the possessor of the six divine qualities, ṣadguṇa . Another interpretation of Bhagavān as per Viṣṇu Purāṇa is bha denotes aiśvaryam and vīryam, ga denotes jñānam and balam and va denotes śaktī and tejas, and an which is etymoligically na , means 'none', symbolising that he
22862-529: The sixth book of the Hindu epic Mahābhārata , the Bhishma Parva (where the Bhagavad Gita is part of), Krishna offers numerous quotations that reaffirm the belief that he himself is the Svayam Bhagavan . Verse 7.7 of the Bhagavad Gita, is often used to support the opinion that Krishna himself is the Svayam Bhagavan , and that no impersonal form of Brahman supersedes his existence, as it
23023-615: 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
23184-509: The supremacy of Radha worship from Caitanya. The view of South Indian Vaishnava groups on sarga , or subtle creation, is based upon scriptural adherence to Narayana or Vishnu being the cause of creation expanding into Viraja and then Maha-Viṣṇu glancing over pradhana , and that is the start of actual function of creation. This view is not contradicted by Krishna-centered Vashnavism and does not appear to be in contradiction with Svayam Bhagavan who as Vasudeva (son of Vasudeva, Krishna)
23345-459: The supreme lord. Vaikuntha is situated beyond the material universe and hence, cannot be perceived or measured by material science or logic. Sometimes, Kshira Sagara , where Narayana or Vishnu rests on Shesha in his reclining ananta shayana form, is also perceived as Vaikuntha within the material universe. The Śruti texts mention Narayana as the primordial being who was present even when Brahma and Ishana ( Shiva ) were not present. He
23506-453: The supreme self. The term Krishnaism has been used to describe the cults of Krishna, reserving the term "Vaishnavism" for cults focusing on Vishnu in which Krishna is an Avatar, rather than a transcended being. "Greater Krishnaism" corresponds to the second and dominant phase of Vaishnavism, revolving around the cults of Vasudeva , Krishna, and Gopala . Today the faith has a significant following outside of India as well. Supremacy of Krishna
23667-510: The terms such as Supreme Personality of Godhead and Supreme God as an equivalent to the term Svayam Bhagavan , and may also choose to apply these terms to Vishnu, Narayana and many of their associated avatars . 'Bhagavān', to be understood, is split into Bhaga and vān . vān and mān are Sanskrit male-denoting words, meaning 'possessor of' which are used as a suffix to nouns like Bhaga (blessed attributes), Śrī (splendour), Kīrti (fame) etc. Thus, Bhaga, as per Viṣṇu Purāṇa, refers to
23828-458: The thousand names of the all-pervading supreme being Vishnu, who is the master of all the worlds, supreme over the devas and who is one with Brahman. This seems to indicate that Krishna is identical with Vishnu. Indeed, Krishna himself said, "Arjuna, one may be desirous of praising by reciting the thousand names. But, on my part, I feel praised by one shloka . There is no doubt about it.” Many Vaishnava schools have different interpretation of
23989-653: 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
24150-768: The universe as Vishnu by accepting sattva - guna . Narayana himself annihilates the universe at the end of Maha-Kalpa as Kalagni Rudra who is presiding deity of tamas - guna . According to the Bhagavata Purana , Purusha Sukta , Narayana Sukta , and the Narayana Upanishad from the Vedas, he is the ultimate soul. According to Madhvacharya , Narayana is one of the five vyuhas of Vishnu , which are cosmic emanations of God, in contrast to his incarnate avatars . Madhvacharya separates Vishnu's manifestations into two groups: Vishnu's vyuhas (emanations) and His avataras (incarnations). The Vyuhas have their basis in
24311-408: 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
24472-564: 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
24633-407: The waters are, indeed, the offspring of Nara; as they were his first residence (ayana), he thence is named Narayana. This definition is used throughout post-Vedic literature such as the Mahabharata and the Vishnu Purana . 'Narayana' is also defined as the 'son of the primeval man ', and 'Supreme Being who is the foundation of all men'. L. B. Keny proposes that Narayana was associated with
24794-401: The wives speak of themselves as Krishna's devotees. Many Krishna-centered traditions believe that Svayam Bhagavan personally carries his unalloyed devotees ( vahamy aham ) like a husband carries his bride across the threshold into the house of prema bhakti . Badarayana Vyasa says in his Brahma Sutras , visesam ca darsayati , implying that the scripture declares a difference with regard to
24955-502: 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
25116-408: 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
25277-427: 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
25438-472: 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
25599-738: 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
25760-478: Was the easiest way to accommodate Krishna's human story within the composite Vaishnava theological perspective. These "core texts assert and defend the ultimacy of Krishna's identity". However inclusion of Krishna in the list of avataras does not necessarily subordinate him to Vishnu as one of the latter's expansions. Early authors, such as 12th century Jayadeva considered dasavatara to be principal incarnations of Krishna, rather than Vishnu. The prime supporters of
25921-442: 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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