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Faith & Beliefs | How’s your Sanskrit today?
The Kansas City Star ^ | July 10, 2012 | Vern Barnet

Posted on 07/14/2012 7:48:30 PM PDT by James C. Bennett

You may know more Sanskrit than you realize.

In fact, the word know comes from the same Indo-European root for the Sanskrit jnana. A Greek form of the root inflected by Latin gives us the English term gnostic, referring to knowledge of spiritual mysteries. You, faithful reader, know what agnostic means.

Have you ever watched or created a video? Again, an IE root is the source of the term. Some scholars think the Sanskrit vidya, another word for knowledge, arose from a lexeme for seeing. With the twists and turns of consonants and vowels as language developed, we have an astounding number of English words, from advice and evidence to wit and wizard.

Its opposite, avidya, in a spiritual context, is not seeing the unity of our individual selves with the cosmic reality.

Yoga is a term so familiar we no longer italicize it. It means union with God or the practice that makes that union achievable. The English word most closely related is yoke, but other transformations have given us join, junction, conjugal, subjugation and zygote.

Sutra is another familiar term, used for some Hindu, Jain and Buddhist sacred texts, such as the Brahma Sutra and the Heart Sutra. In Sanskrit sutra means thread, as in a thread of thought. The English word derived from the IE source is sew.

I was surprised to find my favorite Sanskrit term in the 2001 “New Oxford American Dictionary,” though I doubt its technically fair definition is very intelligible — shunyata: “the doctrine that phenomena are devoid of an immutable or determinate intrinsic nature.”

This nontheistic Buddhist teaching is a simple but profound insight that everything depends on everything else. In our time of partisanship, academic specialization and widening gaps in our social order, I wish this Sanskrit term were better known.

(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: faithandphilosophy; india; indoeuropean; language; sanskrit
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1 posted on 07/14/2012 7:48:37 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
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To: SunkenCiv; blam; muawiyah

Of interest?


2 posted on 07/14/2012 7:52:58 PM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: James C. Bennett

Hain kisi ko nahin pataa,
Nahin pataa,
Nahin hai pataa, nahin hai pataa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHDFFH4lY9s&list=PLB7259AC9F9151B2A


3 posted on 07/14/2012 7:56:51 PM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood ("Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???")
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To: James C. Bennett

Hain kisi ko nahin pataa,
Nahin pataa,
Nahin hai pataa, nahin hai pataa.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHDFFH4lY9s


4 posted on 07/14/2012 7:57:15 PM PDT by Sir Francis Dashwood ("Arjuna, why have you have dropped your bow???")
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To: James C. Bennett

Assassin
Juggernaut
Thug
Guru
Pundit
Avatar


5 posted on 07/14/2012 7:59:19 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
'Assassin' is Arabic in origin, not Indo-European, AFAIK.

The Assassins (Arabic: حشاشين Ḥashshāshīn, also Hashishin, Hassassin, or Hashashiyyin) were an order of Nizari Ismailis, particularly those of Persia and Syria that formed around 1092. Posing a strong military threat to Sunni Seljuq authority within the Persian territories, the Nizari Ismailis captured and inhabited many mountain fortresses under the leadership of Hassan-i Sabbah. The modern word "assassin" is derived from their name.

6 posted on 07/14/2012 8:03:36 PM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: James C. Bennett; SunkenCiv; blam
My own (private life) surname means "First Sacrifice" in Sanskrit.

A Jain pilgrim to the West once built a chapel next to the family estate in Brittany ~ he became a 6th century Christian saint ~ his name means " "Joyful Servant" in Sanskrit.

I've found referring to Sanskrit or to friends who studied it in India for some period of time to be very useful in pursuing place name meanings for names that popped up in the early Dark Ages period.

Frankly i had no idea India sent missionaries out anywhere ~ we view it as always being a sea of poor people with a wealthy ruling aristocracy. Actually, it had a high standard of living during the Early Medieval period (the Dark Ages right after the end of the world) and high education standards.

The Jains had a number of kings and princes who had the wherewithal to education and then send Jain missionaries to the West. Apparently some of them made it and ended up in church histories.

Their purpose had been to teach AHEMSA, or total pacifism. This actually caught on in Christian circles. The monasteries rose after the end of the world (545 AD or thereabout) and those pledges look remarkably Jain-like. One saint's sermons to the kings of Wales and Brittany was so heavy on AHEMSA you could probably hear that from a visiting dagombra (skyclad) to this day!

The Jain missionaries USED Sanskrit like we've used Latin in the past, but it's probable that the plight of the West was understood in India because the missionaries sent out to educate people seem to have written in latin as well ~ so they had learned that from Catholic and jewish missionaries to india.

Regarding the end of the world, one of the descriptions given of what it looked like on the ground was provided by St. Gildas and that is often interpreted by the English historians to be a story of Ancient Saxons invading and burning out Britons. it reads much more like a large boloid cruising through NW Europe setting fire to everything ~ that happens circa 535AD.

7 posted on 07/14/2012 8:10:45 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: James C. Bennett

They smoked hashish to fortify themselves for their murderous missions, didn’t they? Hence the name?


8 posted on 07/14/2012 8:13:38 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (let me ABOs run loose, lew)
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To: muawiyah

Informative post. Thanks!


9 posted on 07/14/2012 8:19:02 PM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck

Yup, that’s true.


10 posted on 07/14/2012 8:19:10 PM PDT by James C. Bennett (An Australian.)
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To: muawiyah
Regarding the end of the world, one of the descriptions given of what it looked like on the ground was provided by St. Gildas and that is often interpreted by the English historians to be a story of Ancient Saxons invading and burning out Britons. it reads much more like a large boloid cruising through NW Europe setting fire to everything ~ that happens circa 535AD.

Check this out:

On King Arthur and Khumric British History

The side link PDF: "23 Major Facts"

In particular, "#20 - The Discovery of America AD 562"

How the heck could bolide swarms burn ancient Britain "from sea to sea" without it being acknowledged by history?!

11 posted on 07/14/2012 8:33:27 PM PDT by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: James C. Bennett

> Of interest?

Yes, dhanyavaada.


12 posted on 07/14/2012 8:33:27 PM PDT by Jyotishi (Seeking the truth, a fact at a time.)
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To: Talisker
How? It's part of the Arthurian stories ~ why do you think everything was burned up?

You do realize that as the Saxons fled whatever had happened further North and West, the Britons relocated to Brittany which needed to have every plant replanted (Merlin is credited with doing the vinyards, both here and at the headwaters of the Rhone Valley), and animals had to be brought in.

Here's the problem with history in NW Europe after the big event that destroyed civilization, there wasn't much civilization left and there was substantial depopulation of the region.

So, the loss of NW European civilization is KNOWN ~ it happened ~

St. Gildas describes building materials flying into the air! That's something more than a bunch of cowboys setting fire to the barn!

13 posted on 07/14/2012 8:40:31 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
"Joyful Servant"

Anandadas? Dasananda? Harshadas?

14 posted on 07/14/2012 8:46:16 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: Talisker
A lot of that particular body of material is made up of a hodge podge of this and that and seeks to turn everybody into a member of a lost tribe.

Today we know that the ancestors of just about everybody in the British Isles lived in the Western European refugia (Southern France and Northern Spain) in the ice age ~ and they just walked there as the ice moved out.

The particular celtic languages were brought about 700 BC from the Celtic evacuation of the Danube ~ so there is a minor volkswandering ~ but it wasn't a lot of people, just a leadership elite. They were technologically more advanced than the natives so they took over the place!~ still same ethnic group though.

15 posted on 07/14/2012 8:46:44 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Frankly i had no idea India sent missionaries out anywhere ~ we view it as always being a sea of poor people with a wealthy ruling aristocracy. Actually, it had a high standard of living during the Early Medieval period (the Dark Ages right after the end of the world) and high education standards.

It is also highly likely that India had Christians in the first century. Thomas, of the Doubting Thomas story, is said to have died in India. I would be surprised if India hadn't sent out Christian missionaries in the past two thousand years.

16 posted on 07/14/2012 8:48:32 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: nickcarraway

Tumulo - tumultuous
Mata - mother
Prajapati - progenitor
Dva - two
Trai - three
Sapta - seven
Mani - jewel (money, “mani” is pronounced “muhni”)
Raja - king - royal
Divya - divine
Ashta - bone - osteo
Danta - teeth - dentist
Nasa - nose
Shankha - conch
Pada - foot - podiatry
Hrida - heart
Mrityu - death - mortal, morturay
Duhitr - daughter
Bhartr -brother
(Can’t remember sister but it is similar to sister)
Pita - father, paternal
jna - to know (the word “know” comes from jna)
Sarkar - sugar
Agni - fire - ignite

These are off the top of my head.


17 posted on 07/14/2012 8:58:01 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: James C. Bennett
This nontheistic Buddhist teaching is a simple but profound insight that everything depends on everything else.

Technically, what the author is describing in this particular sentence is pratityasamutpada, not sunyata, the doctrine that phenomena are devoid of an immutable or determinate intrinsic nature, although the two things certainly imply each other.

18 posted on 07/14/2012 9:22:24 PM PDT by John Valentine (Deep in the Heart of Texas)
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To: James C. Bennett
Of interest?

I liked it.

19 posted on 07/14/2012 9:32:53 PM PDT by null and void (Day 1270 of our ObamaVacation from reality - Heroes aren't made Frank, they're cornered...)
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To: James C. Bennett

Hobson-Jobson: The words English owes to India

http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.com/2012/07/hobson-jobson-words-english-owes-to.html?spref=tw


20 posted on 07/14/2012 10:06:29 PM PDT by Jyotishi (Seeking the truth, a fact at a time.)
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