quote translation

gringasalsera · February 12, 2008

I need help translating this quote into sanskrit.... "In order for your practice to be grounded in the earth, it must be done consistantly, for a long amount of time, with devotion."

pokoya · March 27, 2008

Ok...first let's correct the spelling of "consistently." Despite being American, I will use the British spelling of practise.....practice just looks too strange for me. We have a couple of choices we could use for earth. Pṛthivī, and bhū are both feminine. Selecting the first, we use the locative form to say "in the earth".

locative pṛthivyām पृथिव्यां

"In order" is expressed by the infinitive form of the verb. "In order to be" is therefore bhavitum, भवितुम् . Practise is prayoga, masculine, प्रयोग, and your practise will be tava prayoga, तव प्रयोग. To express the sense of must, we use the gerundive of a verb with a tavya ending. To say, "(it) must be done", we use the verb kṛ, "to do", and the gerundive formation with tavya gives us, kartavya, "(it) must be done," कर्तव्य.

Consistently, in English, is an adverb. There are a couple of ways to make a word an adverb, depending on whether it is an adjective or a substantive. Using the word aviruddha, अविरुद्ध, and putting it into the instrumental, aviruddhena, अविरुद्धेन, gives us, "consistently"....(as well as unobstructedly, unimpededly, and not incompatibly with....the other meanings of aviruddhena). For a very long time, is translated simply by ciram चिरं.

Finally, the instrumental form of bhakti, which is feminine, gives us, "with devotion", and that is baktyā बक्त्या.

पृथिव्यां निष्ठ भवितुम् कर्तव्य अविरुद्धेन चिरं बक्त्या तव प्रयोग

The Sanskrit word order of the sentence I have devised, would translate thus:

In the earth grounded in order to be must be done consistently for a long time with devotion your practise.

I would have to devote more time to study, before I could give better assurances of the correctness of the word order.