144-526: Traditional A kosha (also kosa ; Sanskrit कोश , IAST : kośa ), usually rendered "sheath", is a covering of the Atman , or Self according to Vedantic philosophy. The five sheaths, summarised with the term Panchakosha , are described in the Taittiriya Upanishad (2.1-5), and they are often visualised as the layers of an onion. From gross to fine they are: The five sheaths summarised with
288-468: A bad karma to injure plants and minor life forms with negative impact on a soul's saṃsāra . However, some texts in Buddhism and Hinduism do caution a person from injuring all life forms, including plants and seeds. Saṃsāra in Buddhism, states Jeff Wilson, is the "suffering-laden cycle of life, death, and rebirth, without beginning or end". Also referred to as the wheel of existence ( Bhavacakra ), it
432-527: A class of souls that can never attain moksha (liberation). The Ābhāvya state of soul is entered after an intentional and shockingly evil act. Jainism considers souls as pluralistic each in a karma- saṃsāra cycle, and does not subscribe to Advaita style nondualism of Hinduism, or Advaya style nondualism of Buddhism. The Jaina theosophy, like ancient Ajivika , but unlike Hindu and Buddhist theosophies, asserts that each soul passes through 8,400,000 birth-situations, as they circle through saṃsāra . As
576-534: 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
720-449: A fundamental concept in all Indian religions , is linked to the karma theory and refers to the belief that all living beings cyclically go through births and rebirths. The term is related to phrases such as "the cycle of successive existence", "transmigration", "karmic cycle", "the wheel of life", and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence". Many scholarly texts spell saṃsāra as samsara . According to Monier-Williams, saṃsāra
864-581: 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
1008-408: A list of six realms of rebirth, adding demi-gods ( asuras ), which were included in gods realm in earlier traditions. The "hungry ghost, heavenly, hellish realms" respectively formulate the ritual, literary and moral spheres of many contemporary Buddhist traditions. The saṃsāra concept, in Buddhism, envisions that these six realms are interconnected, and everyone cycles life after life, and death
1152-522: 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,
1296-469: A means of liberation from saṃsāra it calls bondage. The various sub-traditions of Hinduism, and of Buddhism, accepted free will, avoided asceticism, accepted renunciation and monastic life, and developed their own ideas on liberation through realization of the true nature of existence. In Hinduism , saṃsāra is a journey of the Ātman . The body dies but not the Ātman , which is eternal reality, indestructible, and bliss. Everything and all existence
1440-454: 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
1584-479: 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
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#17330853151731728-596: 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
1872-453: A partial manifestation. The blissful sheath ( anandamaya kosha ) is a reflection of the Atman which is truth, beauty, bliss absolute. Anandamaya kosha is the last layer and it is the closest layer to the Atman. It is a modification of avidya and appears as a reflection of the atman compacted of absolute bliss. It is fully manifested in the dreamless deep sleep. It is not the atman because it
2016-573: 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
2160-636: A reflection of the power of the cit , is a modification of prakrti . It is endowed with the function of knowledge and identifies itself with the body, organs etc. Vijnanamaya kosha also belongs to the Suksma sarira and pervades the Manomayakosha that pervades the Pranamayakosha which pervades the Annamayakosha . Buddhi with its organs of knowledge and its actions having the characteristics of an agent
2304-534: 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
2448-439: 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
2592-510: A state which is considered synonymous with Nirvāṇa . Sikhism incorporates the concepts of saṃsāra (sometimes spelled as Saṅsāra in Sikh texts), karma and cyclical nature of time and existence. Founded in the 15th century, its founder Guru Nanak incorporated the cyclical concept of ancient Indian religions and the cyclical concept of time, state Cole and Sambhi. However, states Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair, there are important differences between
2736-479: Is a Sanskrit word that means "wandering" as well as "world," wherein the term connotes "cyclic change" or, less formally, "running around in circles." Saṃsāra is referred to with terms or phrases such as transmigration/reincarnation , karmic cycle , or Punarjanman , and "cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence". When related to the theory of karma it is the cycle of death and rebirth . The "cyclicity of all life, matter, and existence"
2880-487: Is a fundamental belief of most Indian religions . The concept of saṃsāra has roots in the post- Vedic literature ; the theory is not discussed in the Vedas themselves. It appears in developed form, but without mechanistic details, in the early Upanishads . The full exposition of the saṃsāra doctrine is found in early Buddhism and Jainism , as well as in various schools of Hindu philosophy . The saṃsāra doctrine
3024-508: 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
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#17330853151733168-433: Is born and dies, to be reborn elsewhere in accordance with the completely impersonal causal nature of one's own karma; This endless cycle of birth, rebirth, and redeath is saṃsāra ". The Four Noble Truths , accepted by all Buddhist traditions, are aimed at ending this saṃsāra-related re-becoming (rebirth) and associated cycles of suffering. Like Jainism, Buddhism developed its own saṃsāra theory, that evolved over time
3312-521: Is closely associated with the belief that the person continues to be born and reborn in various realms and forms. The earliest layers of Vedic text incorporate the concept of life, followed by an afterlife in heaven and hell based on cumulative virtues (merit) or vices (demerit). However, the ancient Vedic Rishis challenged this idea of afterlife as simplistic, because people do not live an equally moral or immoral life. Between generally virtuous lives, some are more virtuous; while evil too has degrees, and
3456-409: Is connected with upadhis ("limitations") and a modification of Prakrti as an effect of good deeds. Ātman can be identified only by negation of the anatman . The Panchkoshas are anatman that hide the atman , these koshas or sheaths are required to be systematically removed. Their removal brings to fore a void which void is also required to be removed. After removal of the five sheaths and
3600-605: Is connected, cyclical, and composed of two things: the Self, or Ātman , and the body, or matter . This eternal Self called Ātman never reincarnates, it does not change and cannot change in the Hindu belief. In contrast, the body and personality, can change, constantly changes, is born and dies. Current karma impacts the future circumstances in this life, as well as the future forms and realms of lives. Good intent and actions lead to good future, bad intent and actions lead to bad future, in
3744-525: Is considered a sin in Jainism, with negative karmic effects. A liberated soul in Jainism is one who has gone beyond saṃsāra , is at the apex, is omniscient, remains there eternally, and is known as a Siddha . A male human being is considered closest to the apex with the potential to achieve liberation, particularly through asceticism. Women must gain karmic merit, to be reborn as man, and only then can they achieve spiritual liberation in Jainism, particularly in
3888-400: Is defined as that which never changes or Sat (eternal truth, reality), and moksha as the realization of Brahman and freedom from saṃsāra . The dualistic devotional traditions such as Madhvacharya 's Dvaita Vedanta tradition of Hinduism champion a theistic premise, assert the individual human Self and Brahman ( Vishnu , Krishna ) are two different realities, loving devotion to Vishnu
4032-435: Is derived from the verbal root sṛ with the prefix saṃ , Saṃsṛ (संसृ), meaning "to go round, revolve, pass through a succession of states, to go towards or obtain, moving in a circuit". A nominal derivative formed from this root appears in ancient texts as saṃsaraṇa , which means "going around through a succession of states, birth, rebirth of living beings and the world", without obstruction. Another nominal derivative from
4176-452: 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
4320-492: Is just a state for an afterlife, through these realms, because of a combination of ignorance, desires and purposeful karma, or ethical and unethical actions. Nirvāṇa is typically described as the freedom from rebirth and the only alternative to suffering of saṃsāra , in Buddhism. However, the Buddhist texts developed a more comprehensive theory of rebirth, states Steven Collins, from fears of redeath, called amata (death-free),
4464-418: Is not in the beginning and at the end, is non-existent also in the present. It does not know itself. The deluded mind that does not inquire considers his atman to be this body or kosha . Such a person cannot enjoy bliss. Pranamaya means composed of prana , the vital principle, the force that vitalizes and holds together the body and the mind. It pervades the whole organism, its one physical manifestation
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4608-433: Is often mentioned in Buddhist texts with the term punarbhava (rebirth, re-becoming); the liberation from this cycle of existence, Nirvāṇa , is the foundation and the most important purpose of Buddhism. Saṃsāra is considered permanent in Buddhism, just like other Indian religions. Karma drives this permanent saṃsāra in Buddhist thought, states Paul Williams, and "short of attaining enlightenment, in each rebirth one
4752-524: 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
4896-674: Is repeatedly said - Brahman is the Blissful (Anandamaya) Self. Sanskrit Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] ) 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
5040-503: Is self-liberation (moksha) from saṃsāra . The Upanishads , part of the scriptures of the Hindu traditions, primarily focus on self-liberation from saṃsāra . The Bhagavad Gita discusses various paths to liberation. The Upanishads, states Harold Coward, offer a "very optimistic view regarding the perfectibility of human nature", and the goal of human effort in these texts is a continuous journey to self-perfection and self-knowledge so as to end saṃsāra . The aim of spiritual quest in
5184-415: Is somehow connected to the ultimate unchanging immortal reality and bliss called Brahman , and that the rest is the always-changing subject (body) in a phenomenal world ( Maya ). Redeath, in the Vedic theosophical speculations, reflected the end of "blissful years spent in svarga or heaven", and it was followed by rebirth back in the phenomenal world. Saṃsāra developed into a foundational theory of
5328-572: Is suffering with each cycle of rebirth. These features of Sikhism, along with its belief in Saṅsāra and the grace of God, are similar to some bhakti-oriented sub-traditions within Hinduism such as those found in Vaishnavism . Sikhism does not believe that ascetic life, as recommended in Jainism, is the path to liberation. Rather, it cherishes social engagement and householder's life combined with devotion to
5472-479: 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,
5616-469: Is the Vigyanakosha , the cause of samsara . It has the power of reflection of the chaitanya which it accompanies as a modification of Prakrti ( avidya ) and characterised by knowledge and action and always identified with the body, organs etc. This kosha is endowed with jnana and to it belong the waking and dream states and the experiences of joy and sorrow. Being very luminous in close proximity of
5760-537: Is the breath. As long as this vital principle exists in the organisms, life continues. Coupled with the five organs of action it forms the vital sheath. In the Vivekachudamani it is a modification of vayu or air, it enters into and comes out of the body. Pranamayakosha , separate from and subtler than Annamayakosha , pertains to the Sukshma sarira , it is the sheath of the vital airs completely enclosing and filling
5904-412: Is the cause of diversity, of I and mine . Adi Shankara links it to clouds that are brought in by the wind and again driven away by the same agency. Similarly, man's bondage is caused by the mind, and liberation, too, is caused by that alone. Manomayakosha belongs to the Suksma sarira . It is the "self" having Pranamayakosha as its body. The organs of knowledge and the mind form this kosha which
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6048-449: Is the cause of the sense of the "I" and of the "mine" and of the varying conceptions. It creates difference of names etc., because organs of knowledge are dependent on and determined by the mind which is of the nature of determination and doubt. It is powerful because bondage and liberation depend on the mind which producing attachment binds a person and which by creating aversion for them liberates them from that self-made bondage. It pervades
6192-501: Is the means to release from saṃsāra , it is the grace of Vishnu which leads to moksha, and spiritual liberation is achievable only in after-life ( videhamukti ). The nondualistic traditions such as Adi Shankara 's Advaita Vedanta tradition of Hinduism champion a monistic premise, asserting that the individual Atman and Brahman are identical, and only ignorance, impulsiveness and inertia leads to suffering through saṃsāra . In reality they are no dualities, meditation and self-knowledge
6336-416: Is the path to liberation, the realization that one's Ātman is identical to Brahman is moksha , and spiritual liberation is achievable in this life ( jivanmukti ). In Jainism , the saṃsāra and karma doctrine are central to its theological foundations, as evidenced by the extensive literature on it in the major sects of Jainism, and their pioneering ideas on karma and saṃsāra from the earliest times of
6480-437: 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
6624-489: Is the subtlest of the five koshas . In the Upanishads the sheath is known also as the causal body . In deep sleep, when the mind and senses cease functioning, it still stands between the finite world and the self. Anandamaya , or that which is composed of supreme bliss, is regarded as the innermost of all. The bliss sheath normally has its fullest play during deep sleep : while in the dreaming and wakeful states, it has only
6768-404: Is tied to the karma theory of Hinduism , and the liberation from saṃsāra has been at the core of the spiritual quest of Indian traditions, as well as their internal disagreements. The liberation from saṃsāra is called Moksha , Nirvāṇa , Mukti, or Kaivalya . Saṃsāra ( Devanagari : संसार) means "wandering", as well as "world" wherein the term connotes "cyclic change". S aṃsāra ,
6912-482: Is usually described as rebirth and reincarnation ( Punarjanman ) of living beings ( Jiva ), the chronological development of the idea over its history began with the questions on what is the true nature of human existence and whether people die only once. This led first to the concepts of Punarmṛtyu ("redeath") and Punaravṛtti ("return"). These early theories asserted that the nature of human existence involves two realities, one unchanging absolute Atman (Self) which
7056-526: 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
7200-520: The Paramatman deluded by which upadhi it is subject to samsara , this atman which is compacted of vigyanana and shining in the heart near the pranas being immutable becomes a doer and enjoyer in the midst of the upadhis . Its "jivabhava-existential-character" i.e. Jivahood, persists so long as there is delusion as it is born of mithyajnana . Though avidya is beginningless it is not eternal. Anandamaya means composed of ananda , or bliss ; it
7344-502: The Annamayakosha . The Prana in combination with the five organs of action constitutes the Pranamayakosha . The Annamayakosha is an effect of the Pranamayakosha . The Annamayakosha gets life by the Prana entering into it and engages in all kinds of action. Prana is the life of beings and the Universal life. Whatever happens in the Annamayakosha is wrongly identified as belonging to
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#17330853151737488-568: 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
7632-531: The Digambara sect of Jainism; however, this view has been historically debated within Jainism and different Jaina sects have expressed different views, particularly the Shvetambara sect that believes that women too can achieve liberation from saṃsāra . In contrast to Buddhist texts which do not expressly or unambiguously condemn injuring or killing plants and minor life forms, Jaina texts do. Jainism considers it
7776-613: 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
7920-615: The Katha Upanishad , verse 6.16 of the Shvetashvatara Upanishad , verses 1.4 and 6.34 of the Maitri Upanishad . The word saṃsāra is related to Saṃsṛti , the latter referring to the "course of mundane existence, transmigration, flow, circuit or stream". The word literally means "wandering through, flowing on", states Stephen J. Laumakis, in the sense of "aimless and directionless wandering". The concept of saṃsāra
8064-573: The Mahabharata and section 6.10 of the Devi Bhagavata Purana . The historical origins of the concept of reincarnation , or Punarjanman , are obscure but, the idea appears in texts of both India and ancient Greece during the first millennium BC. The idea of saṃsāra is hinted in the late Vedic texts such as the Rigveda , but the theory is absent. According to Sayers, the earliest layers of
8208-538: The Pranamayakosha . It is the sacrificial fire, the five organs are the priests who pour into this fire the oblations of sense-objects, which fire fuelled by various vasanas burns out the world created and expanded by the mind that when fouled by rajas ("projection") and tamas ("concealment") superimposes the samsara but when free of rajas and tamas can bring about the state of being established in Brahman . Vijñānamaya means composed of vijñāna , or intellect,
8352-695: 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
8496-526: 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
8640-455: The Saṅsāra concept in Sikhism from the saṃsāra concept in many traditions within Hinduism. The difference is that Sikhism firmly believes in the grace of God as the means to salvation, and its precepts encourage the bhakti of One Lord for mukti (salvation). Sikhism, like the three ancient Indian traditions, believes that body is perishable, that there is a cycle of rebirth, and that there
8784-403: The atman by reason of its being pervaded by the Pranamayakosha which is effect of Vayu , and totally unaware and dependent. Manomaya means composed of manas or mind . The mind, along with the five sensory organs, is said to constitute the manomaya kosa . The manomaya kosa , or "mind-sheath" is said more truly to approximate to personhood than annamaya kosa and pranamaya kosha . It
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#17330853151738928-406: 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
9072-414: The saṃsāra theories evolved in respective Indian traditions. For example, in their saṃsāra theories, states Obeyesekere, the Hindu traditions accepted Ātman or Self exists and asserted it to be the unchanging essence of each living being, while Buddhist traditions denied such a soul exists and developed the concept of Anattā . Salvation ( moksha , mukti) in the Hindu traditions was described using
9216-500: 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
9360-414: 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
9504-560: 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
9648-521: 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
9792-427: The Buddhist traditions. However, saṃsāra or the cycle of rebirths, has a definite beginning and end in Jainism. Souls begin their journey in a primordial state, and exist in a state of consciousness continuum that is constantly evolving through saṃsāra . Some evolve to a higher state, while some regress, a movement that is driven by karma. Further, Jaina traditions believe that there exist Ābhāvya (incapable), or
9936-521: 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
10080-513: 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
10224-480: 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
10368-484: The Hindu view of life. The journey of samsara allows the atman the opportunity to perform positive or negative karmas throughout each birth and make spiritual efforts to attain moksha . A virtuous life, actions consistent with dharma, are believed by Hindus to contribute to a better future, whether in this life or future lives. The aim of spiritual pursuits, whether it be through the path of bhakti (devotion), karma (work), jñāna (knowledge), or raja (meditation)
10512-469: 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
10656-507: 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
10800-454: The Jaina tradition. Saṃsāra in Jainism represents the worldly life characterized by continuous rebirths and suffering in various realms of existence. The conceptual framework of the saṃsāra doctrine differs between the Jainism traditions and other Indian religions. For instance, in Jaina traditions, soul ( jiva ) is accepted as a truth, as is assumed in the Hindu traditions, but not assumed in
10944-521: 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
11088-489: 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
11232-488: 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
11376-616: 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
11520-497: The Upanishadic traditions is to find the true self within and to know one's Self, a state that it believes leads to blissful state of freedom, moksha . All Hindu traditions share the concept of saṃsāra , but they differ in details and what they describe the state of liberation from saṃsāra to be. The saṃsāra is viewed as the cycle of rebirth in a temporal world of always changing reality or Maya (appearance, illusive), Brahman
11664-447: 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
11808-451: 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
11952-518: The Vedic literature show ancestor worship and rites such as sraddha (offering food to the ancestors). The later Vedic texts such as the Aranyakas and the Upanishads show a different soteriology based on reincarnation, they show little concern with ancestor rites, and they begin to philosophically interpret the earlier rituals, although the idea is not fully developed yet. It is in the early Upanishads where these ideas are more fully developed, but there too
12096-455: 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
12240-440: 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
12384-517: 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
12528-482: The cloud of Maya covering the face of Brahman to Sthula bhutas or gross matter with all its multifarious aspect including gross energy. Badarayana , drawing attention to Pāṇini ’s grammar (V.iv.21), explains that the suffix mayat as in Annamaya (made of food), Pranamaya (made of vital air) etc., besides conveying the meaning "made of" has also the sense of abundance and plenitude as well for which reason it
12672-432: The concepts of Ātman (self) and Brahman (universal reality), while in Buddhism it (nirvāṇa, nibbāna) was described through the concept of Anattā (no self) and Śūnyatā (emptiness). The Ajivika tradition combined saṃsāra with the premise that there is no free will, while the Jainism tradition accepted the concept of soul (calling it "jiva" ) with free will, but emphasized asceticism and cessation of action as
12816-609: 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
12960-639: 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
13104-711: The cycle of birth and death. The concept of saṃsāra developed in the post- Vedic times, and is traceable in the Samhita layers such as in sections 1.164, 4.55, 6.70 and 10.14 of the Rigveda . While the idea is mentioned in the Samhita layers of the Vedas, there is lack of clear exposition there, and the idea fully develops in the early Upanishads . Damien Keown states that the notion of "cyclic birth and death" appears around 800 BC. The word saṃsāra appears, along with Moksha , in several Principal Upanishads such as in verse 1.3.7 of
13248-467: 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
13392-467: 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
13536-533: The discussion does not provide specific mechanistic details. The detailed doctrines flower with unique characteristics, starting around the mid 1st millennium BC, in diverse traditions such as in Buddhism, Jainism and various schools of Hindu philosophy . The evidence for who influenced whom in the ancient times, is slim and speculative, and the odds are the historic development of the Saṃsāra theories likely happened in parallel with mutual influences. While saṃsāra
13680-456: 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
13824-451: 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
13968-459: The fact that it is nourished by food. Living through this layer humans identify themselves with a mass of skin , flesh , fat , bones , and feces , while the human of discrimination knows oneself, the only reality that there is, as distinct from the body. The physical body is formed of the essence of food. Birth and death are the attributes of the Annamaya kosha . Anna means matter, annam literally means food; Taittiriya Upanishad calls food
14112-431: The faculty which discriminates, determines or wills . Chattampi Swamikal defines vijñānamaya as the combination of intellect and the five sense organs . It is the sheath composed of more intellection, associated with the organs of perception. Sankara holds that the buddhi , with its modifications and the organs of knowledge, form the cause of man's transmigration . This knowledge sheath, which seems to be followed by
14256-543: 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
14400-412: 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
14544-476: 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
14688-431: 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
14832-478: 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
14976-518: The larger context, placing rebirth, redeath and truth of pain at the center and the start of religious life. Sramanas view s aṃsāra as a beginningless cyclical process with each birth and death as punctuations in that process, and spiritual liberation as freedom from rebirth and redeath. The saṃsāric rebirth and redeath ideas are discussed in these religions with various terms, such as Āgatigati in many early Pali Suttas of Buddhism. Across different religions, different soteriology were emphasized as
15120-459: 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
15264-412: 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
15408-503: 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 ,
15552-408: The mechanistic details on how the wheel of mundane existence works over the endless cycles of rebirth and redeath. In early Buddhist traditions, saṃsāra cosmology consisted of five realms through which wheel of existence recycled. This included hells ( niraya ), hungry ghosts ( pretas ), animals ( tiryak ), humans ( manushya ), and gods ( devas , heavenly). In latter traditions, this list grew to
15696-420: The medicament of all. The gross body which is matter-born and matter sustained and transient and subject to perception is the Annamayakosha whose origin is food eaten by parents. It is visible, dependent and impure. It is not the atman because it did not exist before its origination and ceases to exist once it is destroyed. It is subject to origination and destruction every moment. It is the anatman because it
15840-501: 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
15984-429: 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
16128-401: 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
16272-593: 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
16416-409: 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 ,
16560-433: The nature of existence, shared by all Indian religions. Rebirth as a human being, states John Bowker, was then presented as a "rare opportunity to break the sequence of rebirth, thus attaining Moksha, release". Each Indian spiritual tradition developed its own assumptions and paths ( marga or yoga ) for this spiritual release, with some developing the ideas of Jivanmukti (liberation and freedom in this life), while
16704-435: 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 the early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of
16848-535: 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,
16992-403: 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
17136-431: 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
17280-405: The others content with Videhamukti (liberation and freedom in after-life). The First Truth The first truth, suffering (Pali: dukkha; Sanskrit: duhkha), is characteristic of existence in the realm of rebirth, called samsara (literally “wandering”). The Sramanas traditions (Buddhism and Jainism) added novel ideas, starting about the 6th century BC. They emphasized human suffering in
17424-522: 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 the Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from
17568-414: 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
17712-439: 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
17856-480: 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
18000-546: 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
18144-490: 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,
18288-461: The resultant void through the process of negation, what remains is the Atman ; and then the non-existence of all the modifications beginning with the ahamkara is self-witnessed, the self that witnesses is itself the supreme Self. These five sheaths envelop the atman or "Self". The Vedanta conceives the expression of the gross universe possible by traversing through all these stages of emanation from
18432-471: 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. Samsara Saṃsāra ( Devanagari : संसार)
18576-491: 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
18720-455: The same root is saṃsāra , referring to the same concept: a "passage through successive states of mundane existence", transmigration, metempsychosis , a circuit of living where one repeats previous states, from one body to another, a worldly life of constant change, that is rebirth, growth, decay and redeath. Saṃsāra is understood as opposite of moksha , also known as mukti , nirvāṇa , nibbāna or kaivalya , which refers to liberation from
18864-551: 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
19008-594: 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
19152-466: The soul cycles, states Padmanabh Jaini, Jainism traditions believe that it goes through five types of bodies: earth bodies, water bodies, fire bodies, air bodies and vegetable lives. With all human and non-human activities, such as rainfall, agriculture, eating and even breathing, minuscule living beings are taking birth or dying, their souls are believed to be constantly changing bodies. Perturbing, harming or killing any life form, including any human being,
19296-526: The term Panchakosha are described in the Taittiriya Upanishad (2.1-5). Panchakoshas are divided in three bodies: The atman is behind the Panchakoshas . According to Vedanta the wise person, being aware of the subtle influences of the five elements within each kosha , ever discerns the Self amidst appearances. This is the sheath of the physical (body) self, the grossest of the five koshas , named from
19440-440: The texts assert that it would be unfair for god Yama to judge and reward people with varying degrees of virtue or vices, in an "either or,” and disproportionate manner. They introduced the idea of an afterlife in heaven or hell in proportion to one's merit, and when this runs out, one returns and is reborn. This idea appears in ancient and medieval texts, as the cycle of life, death, rebirth and redeath, such as section 6:31 of
19584-641: 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
19728-408: 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
19872-564: 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
20016-497: 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
20160-408: 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
20304-427: 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
20448-472: 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
20592-722: 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
20736-442: 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
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