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Sanskrit Tidbits-4:Can you detect anything wrong in this picture?

 

त्वमेव माता च पिता त्वमेव।  त्वमेव बन्धुश्च सखा त्वमेव।

त्वमेव विद्या द्रविणं त्वमेव।  त्वमेव सर्वं मम देव देव॥

From what you already know, this should be simple to translate and understand.  “Eva” is difficult to translate.  It only adds emphasis and the meaning varies marginally, depending on context.  This is a prayer to the God of all gods.  You are my mother.  You are also my father.  You are my “bandhu”.  You are also my friend.  You are knowledge.  You are strength (or prosperity).  You are everything.  Notice that I have not translated “bandhu”.  Whenever I ask people what “bandhu” means, they say that it means “friend”.  It does mean friend in Sanskrit, as it does in many Indian languages.  But “sakhaa” also means friend.  If “bandhu” also means friend, then why am I saying “friend” twice?  Words in Sanskrit have multiple meanings and when trying to understand something written in Sanskrit, one should be careful that one has got the right meaning.  Don’t artificially apply a meaning you think is right, without checking it with a dictionary.  The primary meaning of “bandhu” is not friend, but relative, as in blood-relative.  That’s the sense in which one should interpret it here, not in the sense of “friend”.  In the Bhagavad Gita, you won’t find Krishna and Arjuna addressing each other as “bandhu”.  They aren’t blood-relatives.  They address each other as “sakhaa”.  What’s “baandhava”?  Again, “friend” and “relative” are tempting translations that aren’t incorrect.  However, “baandhava” is better translated as a relative with whom one doesn’t have a blood relationship, such as an in-law.  Krishna and Arjuna are “baandhava”s.  “Mitra” is also a friend.  Time to confuse you.

मित्र: मित्रम पश्यति। मित्रम मित्रम पश्यति।

 What’s the difference between these two sentences?  The intention was to confuse you and I am certain I have succeeded.  The word “mitra” means sun.  It also means friend.  When it means sun, it is masculine gender, mitrah.  When it means friend, it is neuter gender, mitram.  The first sentence means that the sun is looking at a friend or the sun is looking at another sun, assuming a second sun were to exist.  The second sentence means that a friend is looking at the sun, or at another friend.  Got it?  There is a famous shloka that I am not going to burden you with now.  It says that a “mitram” is someone you work with.  A “sakhaa” is someone you share kinship of heart with, a true friend.  A “bandhu” is someone from whom you cannot bear to be separated.  A “suhrida” is someone who is always devoted to you.  A “baandhava” is someone who accompanies you to the king’s palace and to the cremation-ground (when you are dead).

Kalidasa was a great Sanskrit poet and we will return to Kalidasa’s poetry later.  One of his poems is titled “Raghuvamsha” and is about the lineage of Raghu, Rama’s ancestor.  That is the reason Rama is also known as Raghava.  Raghu’s son was Aja and his queen was Indumati.  When Indumati died, Aja lamented and that lamentation is often cited.  In the first part of this lamentation, Aja describes Indumati as grihini (housewife), sachivah (adviser), sakhi (feminine of sakhaa) and mitah (mitram).

Back to words and their meanings.  I have given you an image and it is one that all of you will be able to identify.  It is an image of the Bhagavad Gita and we have Krishna and Arjuna on the chariot.  Can you detect anything wrong in this picture?  Arjuna had several names and one of these was Savyasachi.  When I ask people why Arjuna was called Savyasachi, they invariably say this was because he was ambidextrous.  “Savya” actually means left and Arjuna was known as Savyasachi because he was left-handed.  The Mahabharata doesn’t tell us that he was ambidextrous.  That’s a deduced or derived meaning.  Therefore, contrary to every depiction that you see of Arjuna, the bow should be held in the right hand and he should be taking the arrow out with the left.  “Asavya” or “dakshina” means right.  And “dakshina” also means south.  In many societies and cultures, the left side is inauspicious.  Take the word “sinister” for example.  It means inauspicious.  But it originally meant the left-side.  Have you done a “pradakshina” of temples?  Why do we do this clock-wise?  Why not counter clock-wise?  If you do it clock-wise, the deity will always be on your right.  If you do it counter clock-wise, the deity will be on your left.

The word “vaam” means left and the word “vaamaa” means lady or wife.  But do not take this to mean that a woman in inauspicious.  Look at all the images of Shiva-Parvati that you can find.  Or Lakshmi-Narayana.  You will always find Parvati to Shiva’s left and Lakshmi to Narayana’s left.  There is one exception though.  Sometimes, there are depictions of Shiva and Parvati’s marriage.  In those cases, you will find Parvati to Shiva’s right before the marriage and to Shiva’s left after the marriage.  Therefore, by looking at the image, you will be able to determine whether the marriage has happened or not.  Next time you have a picture taken, be careful, depending on whether it is a spouse or a girl friend/boy friend.

Sanskrit is rich in words and vocabulary.  But there are some English words for which a satisfactory Sanskrit term is difficult to find.  Take “boredom”.  It is difficult to find a good Sanskrit term for boredom.  You will find a word like “avinoda”, but that’s an approximation.  It is not quite boredom.  You will never be bored in Sanskrit.

By the end of this course, you should be able to read the Bhagavad Gita (BG) in Sanskrit on your own.  You won’t be able to understand everything, because in addition to Sanskrit, you need to know some concepts.  However, with a dictionary to help, you shouldn’t have any problems with the Sanskrit of BG.  Try it out just now.  Check out 1.31, 6.37, 11.32 and 13.28 and see it you can identify the verb and the subject.  The first number refers to the chapter number and the second number to the shloka number.  You won’t understand much else of the shlokas yet.  But the fact that you understand some parts in Sanskrit should give you confidence.

Sanskrit Tidbits

Bibek Debroy
Chapters
Sanskrit Tidbits-43:Exploring Sanskrit Bharati’s Sanskrit Wikipedia Sanskrit Tidbits-41:Vedic Sanskrit and wisdom of Upanishadas Sanskrit Tidbits-40:The brilliance of Sanskrit poet Magha Sanskrit Tidbits-39:Kalidasa anecdotes Sanskrit Tidbits-37:Valmiki’s Poetry Sanskrit Tidbits-36:First Shloka of Valmiki Ramayana Sanskrit Tidbits-35: Durga Saptashati famous hymn sung by Gods for Goddess Durga made easy Sanskrit Tidbits-34:An introduction to Maarkandeya Purana Sanskrit Tidbits-33:Shivaashtakam made easy Sanskrit Tidbits-32:A shloka by Vivekananda in honour of Paramahansa Sanskrit Tidbits-31:Spiritual aspect of Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-30:Manusmriti on crimes,punishments,penances and intercourse Sanskrit Tidbits-29:More on different Varnas-Brahman,Shudra as per ManuSmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-28:Manusmriti and Position of Women Sanskrit Tidbits-27:18 Types of cases dealt by kings as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-26:Duties of a king as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-25:Strictures on different kinds of food as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-24:Brahmin and Sanatan Dharma as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-23:Different types of Marriages as per Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-22:An introduction to Manusmriti Sanskrit Tidbits-21:How Sanskrit is a two-way flow Sanskrit Tidbits-20:More about the sanskrit thesaurus Amarkosha Sanskrit Tidbits-19:An introduction to Amarkosha,the Sanskrit Thesaurus Sanskrit Tidbits-18:Jayadeva’s Geet Govind and erotic undertones in Radha-Krishna’s love Sanskrit Tidbits-17:Exploring Jayadeva’s Geet Govind Sanskrit Tidbits-16:Metres in Sanskrit,Fibonacci Series,Pascal’s Triangle and Binomial Theorem Sanskrit Tidbits-15:Poetry,Kalidasa,Jaideva and Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-14: Deeper Nuances of Sanskrit Poetry Sanskrit Tidbits-13:An introduction to Vedangas Sanskrit Tidbits-11:Rules, Formulae and Aphorisms Sanskrit Tidbits-10: Fun with riddles in Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-9:Sanskrit alphabets,phonemes and mathematics Sanskrit Tidbits-8: Myth behind different names of Lotus in Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-7: Myth behind most commonly used words in hymns Sanskrit Tidbits-6:How innovative is Sanskrit! Sanskrit Tidbits-5: The Importance of Pronounciation in Sanskrit Sanskrit Tidbits-4:Can you detect anything wrong in this picture? Sanskrit Tidbits-3 Sanskrit Tidbits-2 Sanskrit Tidbits-1