On a question of Milind Joshi re: English usage of Sanskrit words

[Guest guest]

Namaste.

 

This is in reply to

 

http://www.escribe.com/culture/advaitin/m25885.html

 

where Milind Joshi asks: "Why do we use words like

/Sanyasin, Advaitin, Vedantin /etc, when in Sanskrit the

pronunciation is clearly /Sanyasi, Advaiti /or /Vedanti/?.

Or am I missing something?"

 

 

I see what you mean, Milind-ji. But the confusion comes

because of transliteration usages adopted over the years by

different people.

 

For every Sanskrit noun there is a generic form by which

it is listed in the dictionary. The following are generic

forms for certain nouns. The corresponding nominative

singular is given in parentheses against each.

 

sAkshin : witness (sAkshI)

pakshin : bird (pakshI)

shikhin : peacock (shikhI)

sannyAsin : renunciate (sannyasI)

sannyAsa : renunciation (sannyAsaH)

dhanin : rich man (dhanI)

muni : sage (muniH)

rAma : Rama (rAmaH)

hari : Vishnu (hariH)

brahman : the Absolute Transcen dental Reality (brahma)

advaitin : one who professes advaita (advaitI)

vedAntin : one professes vedAnta (vedAntI)

avatAra: physical manifestation by descent from a subtle

form (avatAraH)

 

Now there are two ways of handling these (and similar)

nouns when using them in the English language.

 

One way is to always use only the nominative singular.

The other way is to always use the generic form.

 

In the first case we would have

sAkshI, pakshI, shikhI, sannyAsI, dhanI, muniH, rAmaH,

hariH, brahma, advaitI, vedAntI, avatAraH.

 

In the second case we would have

sAkshin, pakshin, shikhin, sannyAsin, dhanin, muni, rAma,

hari, brahman, advaitin, vedAntin, avatAra

 

If we want consistency in our usage we will have to stick

either to the first way of usage all the time or the second

way of usage all the time.

 

And you can see that the words

sannyAsi, advaiti, vedAnti, etc. are nowhere in the

picture. Actually the short endings for these words are

wrong usages of Sanskrit if they are meant to be Sanskrit.

However there are Hindi equivalents of all these words,

which also get transliterated in the English language and

when this is mixed up wiuth the above usage of Sanskrit

words from the Sanskrit language, a further confusion

arises regarding the ‘correct’ usage. For instance the

Hindi forms of some of the above words are:

 

sannyasi, sannyas, rAM, advaiti, avatAr.

 

So now you have a lot of choice to use what you like! And

in the process consistency suffers !

 

PraNAms to all advaitins

profvk

 

 

 

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

 

New on my website, particularly for beginners in Hindu philosophy:

Empire of the Mind:

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/HNG/ManversusMind.html

 

Free will and Divine will - a dialogue:

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/HNG/FWDW.html