Sanskrit Tidbits-9:Sanskrit alphabets,phonemes and mathematics
अक्षराणामकारो ऽस्मि
Shri Bibek Debroy
Does this seem familiar to you? Probably not, not unless you are extremely familiar with BG. This is the first part of 10.33. अक्षर can be translated as either letter or syllable. In this context, letter is indicated and Krishna is telling Arjuna that among letters, Krishna is अ-कार. Why अ-कार? Because अ-कार is the first letter in the Sanskrit alphabet. That part is obvious. But there is more to it than that. You know the Sanskrit alphabet by now and there are vowels and consonants, so to speak. The vowels are स्वरवर्ण and the consonants are व्यञ्जनवर्ण. What does the word व्यञ्जन mean? It has several different meanings – curry, side-dish, seasoning, ornament, decoration. In other words, quite unlike English, consonants are add-ons in Sanskrit. They are embellishments. The vowels are the important lot. How many consonants are there? Beginning with क and ending with ह, there are 33. Add अं अः and we have 35. Let us park that number for the moment.
Vowels can be ह्रस्व, दीर्घ or प्लुत. ह्रस्व means that the sound is pronounced for one मात्रा or measure. दीर्घ means that the sound is pronounced for two measures, प्लुत means that it is pronounced for three measures. Having said this, the three primary sounds are अ इ उ. All the other sounds are derived from these. And because अ is the first of these, we have that shloka in BG. Denoting the time over which these three sounds are pronounced, we can thus have the sounds अ(१) इ(१) उ(१), अ(२) इ(२) उ(२) and अ(३) इ(३) उ(३). अ(२) is nothing but आ, इ(२) is nothing but ई and उ(२) is nothing but ऊ. अ(३) इ(३) उ(३) longer exist as sounds, but they used to exist in Vedic Sanskrit, which is how we still have a legacy in ॐ. अ and इ give us ए, अ and ए give us ऐ, अ and उ give us ओ and अ and ओ give us औ. If we remember this, it will be easier to understand some of the rules of sandhi.
How many vowels do we then have? The list is अ आ इ ई उ ऊ ऋ ॠ ऌ ॡ ए ऐ ओ औ and the now missing अ(३) इ(३) उ(३), 17 all together. If we also had some other variants of ऋ and ऌ once upon a time, we would have 35+19=54. Have you ever wondered why 108 is a sacred number? Let us say you are performing meditation using a rudraksha maalaa. You go forward once, counting one bead per akshara and then you come back again, in reverse order. We have 108. I don’t believe this of course. It is the result of someone’s fertile imagination and is concocted. Nonetheless, it is an attractive hypothesis. Going back to 108, no one quite knows how and why that number turned out to be sacred. The answer probably has to do with mathematics and astronomy.
In mathematics, 108 is an interesting number. For instance, 11, 22, 33 is 108 if those terms are multiplied together. The sum of the digits of 108 is 9 and 108 is therefore divisible by 9. That property of a number being divisible by the sum of its digits is rare. In astronomy, there are 27 nakshatras and each nakshatra is divided into four quarters or padas. 27 multiplied by 4 equals108. Alternatively, there are 12 rashis and 9 planets and 12 multiplied by 9 give us 108. There are other rationales given, connected to the diameter of the sun or the moon and the average distance of either from the earth. No one quite knows the answer. So let’s return to Sanskrit.
We are used to classifying Sanskrit letters into स्वरवर्ण and व्यञ्जनवर्ण and within व्यञ्जनवर्ण, into various vargas. But let me give you another classification that has always puzzled me. A shloka first. Given your knowledge of Sanskrit, you should have no problems understanding this. At the end of the dance, the lord of dance (Nataraja) sounded his drum fourteen (nine plus five) times. He wished to uplift successful (siddha) sages like Sanaka and thus produced what is known as the Shiva sutras. Four great sages were born through Brahma’s mental powers and these are Sanaka, Sanatana, Sanandana and Sanatkumara. That’s what one means by sages like Sanaka. Phonemes are smallest units of sound. The Shiva sutras were revealed to Panini (the grammarian) and he accordingly classified the phonemes of the Sanskrit language into the 14 categories that I have shown below. In each of these categories, you have sounds that are phonologically similar. So far, so good. Thereafter, I have always found it extremely difficult to understand Panini. That’s actually true of everything that’s a sutra and I will explain this in a later tidbit.
नृत्तावसाने नटराजराजो ननाद ढक्कां नवपञ्चवारम्।
उद्धर्त्तुकामो सनकादिसिद्धादिनेतद्विमर्शे शिवसूत्रजालम्॥
१. अ इ उ ण् |
२. ऋ ऌ क् |
३. ए ओ ङ् |
४. ऐ औ च् |
५. ह य व र ट् |
६. ल ण् |
७. ञ म ङ ण न म् |
८. झ भ ञ् |
९. घ ढ ध ष् |
१०. ज ब ग ड द श् |
११. ख फ छ ठ थ च ट त व् |
१२. क प य् |
१३. श ष स र् |
१४. ह ल् |
If you are really curious, you might want to delve into this. Just because I have got confused, there is no reason why you should be. Western mathematicians have written learned papers on Panini, the Shiva sutras and Panini’s phonology. Here are the links to three such papers: here, here, here. But let me warn you. Not only is it difficult to understand Panini, the mathematics is also fairly heavy. However, we should be aware that the Sanskrit language has, thousands of years down the line, given rise to such papers. I wonder how many Indians know this.