Modified rules that always work (Hreem ...)

[Guest guest]

Jaya Jagannatha

Pranaam Gurudeva,

 

I am glad you agreed on hreem and namah. It is now crystal-clear that the

disagreement between us is very minimal and mainly in names. We can easily

reconcile now.

 

I understand that your motivation in coming up with this formula is to give

some rules for people who don't know any Indian language script. But, as you

also acknowledge, this formula fails in some cases. I think I can help.

 

The procedure I gave previously will work perfectly in all cases, even for

beeja aksharas and also for the very complex koota beeja aksharas. You

probably want to make one small modification in the case of names, to

consider Sanjaya instead of Sanjay.

 

I will state my slightly modified rules again:

 

(1) Try to represent the correct pronunciation. For example, write India as

" indiya " , ethiopiya as " ethiyopiya " , Russia as " rashya " , Phyllis as

" philis " , Narayan as " narayan " , national as " neshanal " , om as " om " , hreem as

" hreem " , phat as " phat " etc.

 

(2) In the case of NAMES, take the intended name behind the name, which is

valid in Sanskrit. This usually involves adding " a " at the end of a NAME

ending in a consonant. For example, " sanjay " is an invalid word in Sanskrit

(Arab influence!) and " sanjaya " is the valid Sanskrit word corresponding to

it. Thus, change the name. For example, change bharat to " bharata " , sanjay

to " sanjaya " , narayan to " narayana " , raam to " raama " , saar naath to " saara

naatha " (note that a is added to both the words)), shiv to " shiva " , Rajiv to

" rajiva " etc. Names ending in vowels need no change. For example, yogendra

says yogendra, hari stays hari, narayana stays narayana, guru stays guru

etc.

 

[Note 1: I am assuming here that if a name ending in a consonant is a valid

Sanskrit word (e.g. Sarajit, Satyavak, Marut), no change is needed, as the

name itself is the desired name (adding a to sarajit changes its meaning and

adding a to satyavak and marut makes them meaningless. BTW, maaruta is

right, but maruta has no meaning. Only marut has meaning). But those who

don't know Sanskrit may ignore this point for now. In any case, I don't know

if Sanjay agrees with me on this note. Moreover, for non-Sanskrit names like

Brendan, Phyl, Sanjay seems to suggest that this change is needed, i.e. you

have to take brendana, phila instead. I will not comment.

 

Note 2: If what you have is not a name (e.g. beeja aksharas like hreem,

phat, namah etc), this rule does not apply. Do NOT change hreem to

hreema and phat to phata.]

 

(3) Now, count the vowels. Treat " ai " , " aa " , " ae " , " au " , " ou " , " ee " , " ei " ,

" ie " , " oe " , " ea " , " oo " , " ue " etc as ONE vowel each, because they ARE (in

terms of sound). For example, " ai " in " sailaja " is one long vowel and not

two vowels, oo in " anoosha " is one long vowel and so on.

 

(4) The number of vowels in a word exactly corresponds to the number of

syllables or aksharas.

 

ExaAmples:

 

indiaya = I nd I y A. It has 3 vowels - I, I, A.

solai = s O l AI. It has 2 vowels - O and AI.

ethiyopiya = E th I y O p I y A. It has 5 vowels - E, I, O, I, A.

narayana = n A r A y A n A. It has 4 vowels - 4 A's.

narasimha = n A r A s I mh A. It has 4 vowels - A, A, I, A.

hreem = hr EE m. It has 1 vowel - EE (it is one long vowel).

phat = ph A t. It has 1 vowel - A.

sklhreem = sklhr EE m. It has 1 vowel - EE.

vashat = v A sh A t. It has 2 vowels - A, A.

pratyoosha = pr A ty OO sh A. It has 3 vowels - A, OO and A (oo is one long

vowel equal to u).

bharata = bh A r A t A. It has 3 vowels - 3 A's.

 

This procedure is fool-proof.

 

Now, if you want to mark the start of each syllable, Sanjay and I have

different ways - his based on modern Devanagari script and mine based on

ancient-cum-modern grammar rules. For now, the issue is to find the number

of aksharas anyway. So, let us leave akshara boundaries for now.

 

BTW, Sanjay, thank you for the Tripura Sundari mantra. On Vijaya Dasami last

year, we had a Soubhagya Panchadasi homam in Boston, in which we did havan

with this mantra. The gentleman who conducted it is a very devoted and

sincere individual, but I somehow felt that the mantra was inaccurate. As I

was doing the havan, I did not feel like the mantra was right. He gave the

mantra by inserting " a " after almost every consonant (om kai la hreem ha sa

ka ha la hreem sa ka la hreem). This converts each koota beeja akshara

(complex seed syllable) into several aksharas and greatly increases the

number of aksharas.

 

Though pronouncing koota beejas is difficult, breaking them up into multiple

aksharas is no good. It changes the mantra drastically.

 

I left it then and today I got the right version from you. Thank you! Things

fall in place for me now. But is " skhl-hreem " right? It somehow seems wrong

to me. If you can clearly write down this mantra again after cross-checking

it, I will greatly appreciate it. I want to read it correctly this time, as

I have already read it incorrectly thousands of times.

 

I am grateful for your confidence in me. I was worried by your latest mail

to varahamihira.

 

Your sishya,

Narasimha

 

PS: You cc'ed your mail to sjvc and left varahamihira, the

original forum of all the argument. I am cc'ing to varahamihira too.

 

-

" Sanjay Rath " <srath

" Com Sjvc (AT) (DOT) " <sjvc >; " Narasimha P.V.R. Rao "

<pvr

Saturday, May 18, 2002 4:58 AM

RE: Hreem - To Narayan and Sanjay (Re: Assignment - Phonemes)

 

> Dear Narasimha

> Jaya Jagannath

>

> You are right at every point in this letter. Hreem is a beejakshara and

> inspite of my mentioning this specifically too many mistakes are being

made.

> Namah is as correctly shown by you. The importance of the lesson is that

the

> names will work with this method but with mantra and beejakshara and even

> those tough KUTA BEEJA, this formula will simply go for a six. Take the

> tripura sundari mantra:

>

> om kail-hreem hskahl-hreem skhl-hreem.

> each of the words is actually only ONE Beejakshara called a Kuta Beeja and

> this cannot be computed by the formula I have given. Thus, you will

realise

> the limitations of the formula for using with names and maybe with simple

> mantra only.

>

> By the way, I know you mean nothing. Your heart is clean else you would

not

> be BORN WITH A DHARMAKARMADHIPATI YOGA. I believe in Jyotish vidya. Now,

the

> essence is that we should try to derive simple methods to help the people

> not familiar with devanagari.

>

> Sanjay Rath

>

>

> Narasimha P.V.R. Rao [pvr]

> Saturday, May 18, 2002 6:56 AM

> varahamihira

> Cc: srath

> Hreem - To Narayan and Sanjay (Re: Assignment - Phonemes)

>

>

> Jaya Jagannatha

> Dear Narayan,

>

> > (d) As explained earlier om namo narayanaya is Ashtakshari.

> > om hreem narayanaya namah

> > om = 1

> > hree|ma = 2

> > na|ra|ya|na|ya = 5

>

> This is exactly what I was afraid of and why I argued so strongly against

> Sanjay's rules!

>

> The sound " hreem " is most certainly not two aksharas. It is a beeja

akshara

> (seed syllable) and I am MOST POSITIVE that it is just one

akshara/syllable.

> There is absolutely no doubt.

>

> Sounds like " phat " , " hreem " , " shreem " , " kleem " , " kshroum " , " hum " , etc are

> SINGLE aksharas. They cannot be taken to be two aksharas, as you did

above.

>

> When you count the aksharas in mantras, remember the above. Sometimes the

> rules given by Sanjay will mislead you here, but the alternative rules I

> gave will always work. In any case, remember that the above are beeja

> aksharas and hence one akshara each. For example, Sanjay also conceded

> previously that phat is a beeja akshara, though his rule would have you

> thinking that it is two aksharas (pha | t).

>

> Sanjay's rule seems to be tailormade for _names_ where he takes " Sanjaya "

> instead of " Sanjay " etc (doubt: If somebody's name is " Satyavaak " , which

is

> a perfectly meaningful Sanskrit word with 3 syllables, will you change it

to

> " Satyavaaka " and make it a meaningless word of 4 syllables?). I have an

> issue with that, especially for non-Sankrit names like Brendan, but we can

> atleast agree in the case of mantras (i.e. not names). I will be shocked

if

> Sanjay says that Hreem is two aksharas as you wrote.

>

> To Sanjay: I apologize for any harshness in whatever I wrote in the last

> several days. We've had many arguments, but I've never been so aggressive

> and dismissive of your view as I've been this time and you've never been

so

> offended. I apologize for whatever happened. We can arrive at a consensus

> after a discussion when you come here.

>

> Meanwhile, I will greatly appreciate it if you can confirm that you also

> agree that all the beeja aksharas I wrote above are one akshara each.

> Otherwise, there will be some doubt and confusion in the minds of some

> students.

>

> > na|ma|ha = 3

> > Total Aksharas = 11

>

> " Namaha " is a wrong south Indian pronunciation and the correct

pronunciation

> is namah, with " h " (visarga) pronunced gently with a release of air. It is

> almost like " nama " . I don't know if Sanjay will agree or not, but visarga

> does not count as an akshara. So " namah " is only two aksharas (na | mah).

I

> am most certain, but, in case Sanjay says otherwise, I will not argue for

> now. I will leave it to Sanjay.

>

> May Jupiter's light shine on us,

> Narasimha

>

> PS: In case you lost mail in the email address transition, let me clarify

> again that I never accused you of wrong Jyotish teachings. I only asserted

> that you were passing on wrong knowledge in akshara counting and I

probably

> should not have done that also. You know me enough to know how much

respect

> I have for you. You know what kind of a person I am.