Misplaced Pages

#379620

135-473: Bhikshatana ( Sanskrit : भिक्षाटन ; Bhikṣāṭana ; literally, "wandering about for alms, mendicancy") or Bhikshatana-murti ( Bhikṣāṭanamūrti ) is an aspect of the Hindu god Shiva as the "Supreme mendicant " or the "Supreme Beggar". Bhikshtana is depicted as a nude four-armed man adorned with ornaments who holds a begging bowl in his hand and is followed by demonic attendants and love-sick women. Bhikshatana

270-599: A consequence Brahma died, but the spiritual credit he had accumulated over a lifetime of devout asceticism pulled him immediately back from death. Upon his resurrection, Brahma accepted Shiva's superiority. The reason for the decapitation of Brahma remains the same in the narratives of the Shiva Purana and the Matsya Purana . In the Skanda Purana , the trigger is not Brahma's arrogance but his incest with his daughter while in

405-534: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." The Sanskrit language scholar Moriz Winternitz states, Sanskrit was never a dead language and it is still alive though its prevalence is lesser than ancient and medieval times. Sanskrit remains an integral part of Hindu journals, festivals, Ramlila plays, drama, rituals and

540-581: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to

675-492: A lifestyle would lead to moksha (salvation). Other scriptures describe other visits by Shiva to Deodar Forest in his Bhikshatana form. The Vamana Purana mentions Shiva entering the Deodar Forest twice as a beggar. Maddened by the death of his first wife Sati but chased by the love-god Kamadeva , Shiva escapes to the Deodar Forest and lives as a mendicant. The sages' wives who come to grant him food become sexually excited at

810-522: A means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with a focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts,

945-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This

1080-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be

1215-596: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given

1350-573: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and

1485-534: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond

SECTION 10

#1733085163380

1620-567: A scantily-scad Mohini. The Skanda Purana narrates that Bhikshatana-Shiva appears on another occasion as a naked, fierce Kapali beggar. Once, at a sacrifice hosted by Brahma, Bhikshatana appears and begs for food. The Brahmins performing the sacrifice try to drive him away, considering a hungry beggar unfit for sacrificial rites. Bhikshatana throws his skull begging-bowl on the ground and the Brahmins throw it out, but another skull bowl appears in its place. Consequently, hundreds of skulls appear, polluting

1755-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from

1890-563: A staff the bones of the slain and be treated by society as an outcast. Similarly, Bhikshtana is described as using Brahma's skull as his begging bowl and his bones as a stave. He wandered begging at the seven houses of the Saptarishi – the seven great sages – and lived in cremation grounds outside a town. Images of Bhikshatana are found throughout Shaiva temples of South India, but are almost unknown in Northern India. Sculpted in stone adorning

2025-675: A strong erotic element in most of his verses, where the women directly desire physical contact with Bhikshatana. A woman in Appar's poetry sings: As he gazed at me my garments slipped, I stood entranced, I brought him alms but nowhere did I see the Cunning One – If I see him again I shall press my body against his body never let him go that wanderer who lives in Ottiyur. The 8th-century saint Cuntarar described Bhikshatana as having matted hair and skin smeared with ash, and wearing bark clothes and

2160-473: A subsidiary deity, and cast in bronze as a temple festival processional icon in almost every major Tamil Shiva temple. Many Tamil language hymns sing of Bhikshatana's wanderings, often narrating of the pining of the love-smitten who are enamoured of him. The Kurma Purana narrates that during a particular council of rishis (sages), the god Brahma arrogantly declared that he was the Supreme Creator of

2295-431: A tiger skin around his waist. He added that Bhikshatana would roam begging for food by day and dance at night in front of a fire, in company of his wife and several jackals. In more recent times the poet Papanasam Sivan (1890–1973) composed four songs which describe Bhikshatana. In "Picchaikku Vandiro", Sivan wonders why Shiva roams as beggar and muses that it may be because Parvati is asking for jewels or his son Ganesha

2430-432: A trishula decorated with peacock feathers. The left leg is firmly rooted in the ground while the right one is slightly bent, suggesting walking. He often wears paduka (wooden sandals) but sometimes may be barefoot. The sandals are unique and identifying feature of Bhikshatana's iconography and distinguish him from other forms of Shiva and all other deities, who are always depicted barefoot. Sometimes Bhikshatana's iconography

2565-692: Is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in

2700-508: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand

2835-406: Is also depicted as asking for alms from the goddess Annapurna, a form of Parvati as the goddess of food. The Satarudriya describes Shiva as gathering food through begging, evocative of his Bhikshatana form. In spite of this he is described as a sustainer of the universe and of life-sustaining food. Though Shiva is commonly described as a beggar, the specific theme of the expiatory wandering—which

SECTION 20

#1733085163380

2970-572: Is also interpreted as Annapurna , the goddess of grain. Various gods, celestial beings, and sages bow to him with folded hands . In some scenes, the sages are depicted as angry and trying to beat Bhikshatana, alluding to the Deodar Forest legend. The theme of Shiva as a beggar is not unique to the Bhikshatana icon and his legends. Shiva is often described as wandering the universe as a homeless beggar-ascetic with his consort Parvati's raison d'être being to bring him back to his marital and home life. Shiva

3105-404: Is amalgamated with that of Bhairava, in which case he displays Bhairava's attributes in addition to his own. One feature that does not appear in the canons but is often found in stone sculptures and bronzes is the presence of a small bell tied by a string just below the right knee. The bell is interpreted by the scholar Mahadev Chakravarti to be symbolic of Bhikshatana's outcast status, as the bell

3240-470: Is asking for modak (sweets), or perhaps just to show the world that he looks fabulous, even as a mendicant. The "Saundarya Vellantanil" tells of a love-struck maiden describing Bhikshatana's beauty from head to toe and her longing for him. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )

3375-512: Is considered a gentler form of Shiva's fierce aspect Bhairava and a gentle phase between Bhairava's two gruesome forms, one of which decapitates one head of the four headed god Brahma and the other of which kills the god Vishnu 's gatekeeper. Bhikshatana is the form of Bhairava that Shiva assumes to atone for his sin of severing Brahma's fifth head. He wanders the universe in the form of a naked Kapali mendicant, begging for alms with Brahma's kapala (skullcup) as his begging bowl, until his sin

3510-479: Is expiated upon reaching the holy city of Varanasi . Another legend describes Bhikshatana's visit to the Deodar (Pine) Forest to dispense the ignorance of sages and lead them to true knowledge. During his visit, he seduces the wives of the sages who come to give him alms. Horrified by Bhikshatana's "heretic" appearance and actions, the sages have a long confrontation with him. Ultimately Bhikshatana triumphs, establishing

3645-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to

3780-475: Is often pictured with four arms in South Indian iconography. The front right arm is stretched out downwards and the hand holds a bit of grass or another plant in the kataka gesture, near the mouth of his pet deer or antelope, who leaps playfully by his side. The back right arm is raised and holds a damaru (drum). The front left hand holds a kapala (skull-cup), used as a begging bowl. The back left hand holds

3915-430: Is placed in a different time period unrelated to Bhikshatana's expiatory wandering. The Kurma Purana goes on to state that after the encounter with the sages of the Deodar Forest, Bhikshatana continued to wander, visiting various countries of gods and demons before he finally reached the abode of the god Vishnu . Vishnu's gatekeeper Vishvaksena did not allow him to enter. Angered, Bhikshatana slew Vishvaksena and impaled

4050-463: Is quite similar to that of the Kankala-murti aspect who, like Bhikshatana, is associated with the legend of Shiva's atonement for severing Brahma's head. The chief difference is that Bhikshatana is nude and Kankala-murti is clothed. Though Shiva is often described as a naked ascetic Yogi , iconographically he is rarely portrayed as nude except in his form as Bhikshatana. Often the seductive nature of

4185-524: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in

Bhikshatana - Misplaced Pages Continue

4320-514: Is related to Bhikshatana through his legends. However, unlike Nataraja, Bhikshatana is not related to specific temples, but has become "part of the mythological and festival-related traditions of all the major Tamil shrines". For instance, in Chidambaram (where a famous Nataraja temple stands), Bhikshatana is paraded in a golden chariot during the annual temple festival. In the Mylapore temple festival,

4455-679: Is resurrected and the sanctified Bhairava-Shiva, having bathed in the sacred pond in Varanasi, casts off the appearance of Bhikshatana and returns to his abode. As told in the Kurma Purana, Bhikshatana-Shiva wanted to reveal the ignorance of the sages, who were engrossed in Dharma (righteousness) and extreme austerities but had forgotten the Samkhya (Supreme Knowledge). The naked, handsome, ithyphallic (with an erect phallus, urdhvalinga ) beggar Shiva entered

4590-500: Is superior. Brahma lies about finding the head of the infinite pillar and declares himself as superior. In the Varaha Purana , in which Shiva is born from Brahma's brow, Brahma calls his son a Kapali and angers him. In all versions, an infuriated Shiva or Bhairava cuts off Brahma's head as a punishment. However, all Puranas (Kurma, Varaha, Shiva, Skanda, and Vamana ) agree that the head of Brahma stuck to Bhairava-Shiva's left palm due to

4725-480: Is symbolic of the Pariah " untouchables " of South India, who traditionally had to ring a bell when entering a Brahmin village. In bronzes, the deer and the trishula were generally cast separately and positioned later in the icon, but since many of these separate pieces have been lost over time, bronzes often appear without them. Bhikshatana is often accompanied by women and bhuta-gana (goblin attendants of Shiva). One of

4860-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,

4995-508: Is the core of the Bhikshatana tale—originates uniquely from the ascetic traditions of the Kapalika sect and its precessor Pashupata sect. Bhikshatana mirrors the role of Kapali (skull-bearer), the wandering ascetic who defends himself with a trident and magical powers, holds a skull-bowl, and worships Shiva (the term Kapali also being used to designate a member of the Kapalika sect). Scriptures like

5130-437: Is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on the role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as

5265-662: The Gaṇa s are attendants of Shiva and live on Mount Kailash . Ganesha was chosen as their leader by Shiva; the deity's title is gaṇeśa or gaṇapati , meaning, "lord or leader of the ganas ". The term gana is employed in the Rigveda in reference to the Maruts : śardhaṃ-śardhaṃ va eṣāṃ vrātaṃ-vrātaṃ gaṇaṃ-gaṇaṃ suśastibhiḥ | anu krāmema dhītibhiḥ || Let us wait with sacred praises and holy rites upon your several strength, and separate troop, and individual company. Chapter 108 of

5400-526: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside

5535-562: The Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata describes a discussion between Yudhishthira and Bhishma regarding the strength of the ganas, how they defend themselves from disunion, the subjugation of their enemies, and forging friendships. Bhishma's answers to these questions are recorded in the form of shlokas (verses) from 16 – 32 of the chapter. In the Shiva Purana , after Ganesha's life

Bhikshatana - Misplaced Pages Continue

5670-568: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created

5805-613: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c.  350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c.  late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in

5940-744: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became

6075-532: The Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,

6210-526: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to

6345-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of

6480-416: The third eye . He wears a patta (ornamental head band)—sometimes adorned with a human skull motif—on his forehead. Snake ornaments adorn his body, and bronze images often depict multiple necklaces, a waist-band, armlets, elbow bands, bracelets, anklets, and rings on all his toes and fingers. A snake is also tied around his waist and a white yagnopavita (sacred thread) is worn across the chest. Bhikshatana

6615-460: The trishula (trident) in his right hand. Bhikshatana is depicted with jatabhadra (dishevelled matted locks) or with jatamandala (matted hair arranged in a circle). A serpent may be depicted in his matted hair, which is also adorned by the crescent moon. His forehead bears a tripundara , the Shaiva tilaka composed of three horizontal lines of sacred ash with a red dot in the middle representing

6750-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined

6885-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and

SECTION 50

#1733085163380

7020-560: The 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of the Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what

7155-521: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to

7290-511: The Bengali version of the Shiva Purana, Brahma insults Shiva using his fifth head's mouth, while the rest of them praise Shiva when he comes to Brahma's abode as a guest. In another instance in the Shiva Purana, when an argument erupts between Brahma and Vishnu over who is superior, Shiva appears as an infinite fiery pillar ( Linga ) in front of the pair. They decide whoever finds the end of the pillar

7425-509: The Bhikshatana icon is paraded in the streets along with four dogs signifying the Vedas and gana attendants. Shiva is described as sent by his consort Parvati (Karpagambal) to beg as he has lost her ring. Repentant for her harsh treatment of Bhikshatana and jealous of the glances of the women in the streets, who attracted are by his appearance, Parvati's icon rushes behind Bhikshatana and "dances" to win him back. Shiva relents and they travel together to

7560-767: The Cosmic Dancer. The same legend is retold in the Tamil Kovil Puranam and Kandha Puranam with some differences. This legend is also told in the Sthala Purana related to the Chidambaram Temple dedicated to Shiva-Nataraja. The ceiling of the Shivakamasundari shrine in the Nataraja temple complex illustrates this legend in a series of frescos, where Bhikshatana is depicted as a white naked mendicant accompanied by

7695-521: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with

7830-513: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of

7965-480: The Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit

8100-469: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that

8235-507: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of

SECTION 60

#1733085163380

8370-461: The Kurma Purana explicitly identify Shiva with a Kapali – "an outsider who scares by his looks, and sometimes charms" – in this form. To atone for the sin of severing the god Brahma's fifth head, Shiva is said to have separated the body of Bhairava from his own and sent it to wander with the skull of Brahma in his hand, a vow that parallels the Maha- vrata ("great vow") that a Kapali must undertake to dispel

8505-594: The Linga became an infinite fiery pillar of light. Anusuya , the wife of sage Atri , enlightened the sages that the couple was none other than Shiva and Vishnu. The sages thereafter worshipped the Linga. Pleased, Shiva returned to the forest as a beggar in an ugly form with his wife Parvati . Eventually, he revealed his supreme form to the sages and exalted the Pashupata vow – by which a man restrains his passion, becomes celibate, and roams naked smeared with ash – declaring that such

8640-521: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around

8775-489: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support

8910-488: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of

9045-616: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with

9180-470: The Universe. Shiva appeared at the assembly as an infinite pillar of light and challenged Brahma's statement. After deliberation, the council accepted Shiva as the true Creator, but Brahma remained obstinate. Angered by Brahma's vanity, Shiva—as the terrifying Bhairava —cut off one head of the five-headed Brahma with a mere flick of his fingernail (an act iconographically depicted as Brahmashirascheda-murti ). As

9315-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into

9450-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to

9585-455: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound

9720-409: The attendants placed to the left of Bhikshatana should carry a large bowl used for storing the food alms of Shiva. The women, often seven in number, are variously pictured as enamoured of Shiva, eager to embrace him, blessing him, or serving him food in his begging bowl with a ladle. The clothes of some of these women are slipping from their loins, symbolising their lust. The woman giving Bhikshatana alms

9855-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era

9990-517: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on

10125-609: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in

10260-455: The corpse on his trident, which added to his sin. This form of Shiva with a corpse on his trident is called Kankala-murti ("One with the skeleton"). Bhikshatana, now as Kankala-murti, entered Vishnu's abode and begged for food. Vishnu offered his own blood as food in one version. In another version, Vishnu cut an artery on Bhikshatana's forehead; a stream of blood spurts into his begging bowl as his food. Vishnu then directed Bhikshatana to visit

10395-639: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting

10530-504: The curse of the sages fails. In retribution, Shiva casts a curse on the sages so that they, like Bhikshatana, will become beggars with matted hair and be devoid of knowledge. Those who would still worship him would gain knowledge, wealth, and progeny, and be reborn into good families. In the Skanda Purana, the sages of the Deodar Forest are performing rituals and start to think of themselves as gods. To humble these arrogant sages, Shiva takes

10665-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and

10800-467: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in

10935-456: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes

11070-451: The dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had a limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as

11205-483: The early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in

11340-583: The false sages, Bhikshatana-Shiva's emasculation and establishment of Linga worship also appear in the Mahabharata , the Shiva Purana, and the Bhagavata Purana . The Linga Purana also mentions the visit of Bhikshatana-Shiva to Deodar Forest to entice the wives of sages, who had taken up austerities "detrimental to the perpetuation of a healthy social order." The scripture mentions Bhikshatana-Shiva's deformed but attractive nude black-red form, his seduction of

11475-543: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to

11610-490: The forest, begging for alms from the sages' wives. They were so enamoured of him that while granting alms, they allowed their clothes to fall off and followed him, dancing and singing, love-sick. Bhikshatana was accompanied by Mohini —Vishnu disguised as Bhikshatana's enchanting wife, who maddens the sages' sons in love. The sages, unable to recognise Shiva, abused and cursed him, even assaulting him. They cursed that his Linga (phallus) should fall off. Shiva allowed it to be so and

11745-408: The form of Bhikshatana—an attractive young beggar—and Vishnu becomes Mohini, his wife. While the sages fall for Mohini, the women wildly chase Shiva. When the sages regain their senses, they perform a black magic sacrifice, which produces a serpent, a lion, an elephant (or tiger), and a dwarf, all of which attack Shiva, who overpowers them. Shiva then dances on the dwarf and takes the form of Nataraja ,

11880-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as

12015-476: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. The Vedic Sanskrit found in

12150-445: The handsome beggar Shiva, seducer of married women. He speaks of women allured by Bhikshatana's speech and his glance. The women tell that the handsome beggar wearing tiger-skin and smeared with ash had come riding a white bull and holding an axe, and used a skull as his begging bowl. Although he begged for alms, he would not accept any from the woman, deeming them "petty". He did however warn the women of deceptions and cunning. Appar adds

12285-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with

12420-478: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as

12555-459: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from

12690-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and

12825-462: The lips of women, who become enamoured of Bhikshatana. In a verse, Campantar rhetorically asks why the giver of all things and one who ends all troubles of devotees—Shiva—is wandering begging for food with a disgusting white skull. In another verse a woman comments on his strange appearance and describes how she is frightened by the serpent that wraps around his body when she approaches to give him alms. Another 7th-century Nayanar saint, Appar, talks about

12960-451: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,

13095-407: The mere sight of him. The sages curse his Linga to fall off and it becomes the infinite pillar. Brahma and Vishnu propitiate him and Shiva reabsorbs the Linga into his body. In another instance, while passing the Deodar Forest, Parvati notices sages who worship Shiva and have emaciated their bodies with fasts and severe vows. Parvati requests Shiva to save them from further pain, but Shiva declares that

13230-501: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of

13365-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India

13500-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created

13635-593: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around

13770-407: The naked Bhikshatana is emphasised in his torso and buttocks. Though his manhood is fully visible, Bhikshatana is never displayed as ithyphallic in South Indian iconography. In contrast to textual descriptions, Orissan images of Bhikshatana depict him clothed with tiger skin and other body ornaments, but displaying an erect phallus. He is two-armed, holding the begging bowl kapala in his left hand and

13905-583: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,

14040-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as

14175-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for

14310-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and

14445-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes

14580-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view

14715-404: The references to Shiva seeking alms had reduced to only three or four by the time of Manikkavacakar (9th century AD). The poems of Campantar , Appar , and Cuntarar focus on two forms of Shiva: Nataraja and Bhikshatana. The 7th-century Nayanar saint Campantar mentions that Bhikshatana wanders from door to door asking for alms with the beggar's call "Ladies, give me alms" and places his verses on

14850-596: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly

14985-490: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,

15120-446: The rites-of-passage. Similarly, Brian Hatcher states that the "metaphors of historical rupture" by Pollock are not valid, that there is ample proof that Sanskrit was very much alive in the narrow confines of surviving Hindu kingdoms between the 13th and 18th centuries, and its reverence and tradition continues. Hanneder states that modern works in Sanskrit are either ignored or their "modernity" contested. Gana In Hinduism ,

15255-559: The sacred city of Varanasi , where his sin would be expiated. The encounter with Vishnu's gatekeeper is also retold with some variation in the Vamana Purana and the Matsya Purana. All Puranas agree that upon reaching Varanasi, Brahma's skull falls off Bhikshatana's palm at a place now called Kapala-mochana ("liberating from the skull") and Vishaksena's corpse disappears. The sin, personified by Brahmahatya, vanishes into hell. Vishaksena

15390-453: The sacrifice, which compels Brahma to promise Shiva that no sacrifice will be deemed complete without an invocation to him, Kapaleshvara—the Lord of the skulls. The iconography of Bhikshatana is discussed in all Shaiva Agamic texts, including Amshumadbhedagama, Kamikagama, Supredagama, Karanagama and the iconographic work Shilparatna ; the texts are mostly South Indian in origin. The iconography

15525-418: The sages are simply foolish and have not restrained their passion and anger. He enters the forest as a handsome man, wearing only a garland of sylvan flowers. He entices the sages' wives, who give him alms. As before, the Linga of the cursed Shiva falls off, but eventually the sages realise their folly and worship the Linga. Similar accounts of Bhikshatana-Shiva's visit to the Deodar Forest to humble and enlighten

15660-458: The sages' wives, and the sages' resulting curse. However, the curse proves fruitless in this version. The confused sages ask Brahma for guidance, who tells them the truth about the beggar and informs them of the proper way to propitiate Shiva. Returning to the forest, they please Shiva, who had returned to beg for alms. Finally, he enlightens the sages, revealing his true form. In the Padma Purana ,

15795-491: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had

15930-551: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes

16065-464: The sin of accidentally killing a Brahmin. The expiatory wandering punishment of 12 years is also given to a Bhrunaghna sinner—a learned Brahmin who kills another of great learning and good conduct. The vow is prescribed in the Dharmashastra s, a text corpus detailing ethics and conduct. The sinner should live in an isolated place and beg in only seven houses with the skull of the slain. He must use as

16200-516: The sin of killing Brahma, the most learned Brahmin – Brahmahatya or Brahminicide. To expiate the sin of brahmahatya, Shiva had to perform the vow of a Kapali: wandering the world as a naked beggar with the skull of the slain as his begging bowl. In the Kurma and Vamana Puranas, Shiva's sin takes corporeal form, becoming a ghoulish woman called Brahmahatya who follows Bhikshatana everywhere he goes. The Kurma Purana further narrates that Bhikshatana wandered

16335-594: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it

16470-609: The temple walls of every other South Indian temple, images of Bhikshatana are also cast in bronze as processional icons. In South Indian temples, Bhikshatana is prescribed to be enshrined as an avarana-devata (a deity depicted on the circumambulatory path encircling the central shrine). Similarly in Orissan temples, Bhikshatana may be worshipped and depicted as parshva-devata (an attendant deity) or avarana-devata . The iconography and mythology of Bhikshatana developed mostly in South India, as did that of another form of Shiva, Nataraja, who

16605-535: The temple. Tamil works transform the terrible Kapali form of Shiva to a more lovable form. South Indian devotional literature portrays Bhikshatana in the Deodar Forest of the sages, but the Tevaram by the Nayanar poet-saints also describes rural women following him and calling out to him. Several poet-saints describe the sensuous nature of Bhikshatana and the love-sick emotions of the women who came to give him alms. However,

16740-545: The three worlds (heaven, earth, and netherworld) begging from door to door with a host of bhutas (goblins). The women of the houses who came to grant him food became enamoured by his appearance and followed him, singing and dancing. Wandering, Bhikshatana reached the Deodar Forest (also called Daruka forest, Daruka-vana or Daru-vana), where he shocked the sages with his "lewdness and nudity" and tempted their wives. Bhikshatana-Shiva made them realise his greatness after their confrontation. However, in some other Puranas this encounter

16875-641: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but

17010-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines

17145-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit

17280-504: The worship of the Linga , his aniconic symbol. A variant of the legend narrates how Bhikshatana transforms into Nataraja —Shiva as the Cosmic Dancer. Bhikshatana is a popular icon in South India , in contrast to North India , where it is of lesser importance. Though Bhikshatana does not have any temples dedicated to him as the primary deity, he is sculpted in stone temple walls, worshipped as

17415-497: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times

17550-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit

17685-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in

17820-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have

17955-722: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in

18090-505: Was restored by Shiva, he was crowned as the leader of the ganas by the gods. The Cilappatikaram of Ilango Adigal , one of the Five Great Epics in Tamil , describes the prescribed offering for eighteen kind of ganas. The Buddhaghosa mentions the palaces of the ganadeva-puttas ("Ganadevaputtānañ ca vimānāni") among those seen by King Nemi as Mātali led him through the world of

18225-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as

#379620