149-453: Traditional Saiddhantika Non - Saiddhantika Nataraja ( Sanskrit : नटराज , IAST : Naṭarāja ; Tamil : நடராஜர் , Naṭarājar ), also known as Adalvallan ( ஆடல்வல்லான் , Ādalvallāṉ ), is a depiction of Shiva , one of the main deities in Hinduism , as the divine cosmic dancer. His dance is called the tandava . The pose and artwork are described in many Hindu texts such as
298-434: A dharmic life while constantly remembering, deeply loving Ishvara . Acintya bhedābheda is a sub-school of Vedanta representing the philosophy of inconceivable one-ness and difference , in relation to the creation, Prakriti, and the creator, Ishvara ( Krishna ). In Sanskrit achintya means 'inconceivable', bheda translates as 'difference', and abheda translates as 'one-ness'. Self (their English phrase for
447-445: A "transformative catalyst or guide for aiding the yogin on the path to spiritual emancipation". Patanjali defines Isvara (Sanskrit: ईश्वर) in verse 24 of Book 1, as "a special Self (पुरुषविशेष, puruṣa -viśeṣa )", Sanskrit: [क्लेश कर्म विपाकाशयैरपरामृष्टः पुरुषविशेष ईश्वरः ॥२४॥] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 1) ( help ) – Yoga Sutras I.24 This sutra of Yoga philosophy of Hinduism adds
596-514: A Self that is "pure, enlightened, liberated". Having accepted and established Ishvara, Advaita Vedanta proclaims that the real nature of Ishvara (existence, consciousness and bliss) is non different from the real nature of an individual. This gives room in Advaita Vedanta to show the nature of Ishvara as both the material and instrumental cause of this universe and the individual who is limited in his own capacities as unreal and declare that there
745-469: A consistent philosophy and moksha (soteriology). The Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism proclaims that at the empirical level Ishvara is the cause of the universe and the one who awards the fruits of every action. He is defined as the one without likes and dislikes, as well embodied with compassion (vaiṣamya Nairgghṛṇya doṣa vihīnaḥ). Ishvara is that which is "free from avidyā (ignorance), free from ahaṃkṛti (ego-sense), free from bandhana (bondage)",
894-534: 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
1043-498: A fearless celebration of the joys of dance while being surrounded by fire, untouched by forces of ignorance and evil, signifying a spirituality that transcends all duality . Furthermore, Carole and Pasquale note that the deity showcases the eternal cycle of life ( Jiva ) from death to rebirth , and how a human being should conquer spiritual ignorance and attain self-realization . In the hymn of Manikkavacakar 's Thiruvasagam , he testifies that at Nataraja Temple, Chidambaram had, by
1192-537: A girl in marriage". The composite word, Ishvara literally means "owner of best, beautiful", "ruler of choices, blessings, boons", or "chief of suitor, lover". As a concept, Ishvara in ancient and medieval Sanskrit texts variously means God, Supreme Being, Supreme Self, Shiva, a king or a ruler, a husband, the god of love, one of the Rudras and the number ' eleven '. The word Īśvara does not appear in Rigveda . However,
1341-581: 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
1490-522: 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,
1639-454: 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
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#17330855853211788-479: 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
1937-596: 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
2086-618: A particular order and proportions. These later-age ancient Vaiśeṣika scholars retained their belief that substances are eternal, and added Ishvara as another eternal who is also omniscient and omnipresent (not omnipotent). Ishvara did not create the world, according to this school of Hindu scholars, but He only created invisible laws that operate the world and then He becomes passive and lets those hidden universal laws do their thing. Thus, Vaisheshika's Ishvara mirrors Deus otiosus of Deism . Vaisheshika school's Ishvara , states Klaus Klostermaier , can be understood as an eternal God who co-exists in
2235-1082: A red Nataraja sandstone statue, from 9th to 10th century from Ujjain , Madhya Pradesh , now held at the Gwalior Archaeological Museum. Similarly, Nataraja artwork has been found in archaeological sites in the Himalayan region such as Kashmir , albeit in with somewhat different dance pose and iconography, such as just two arms or with eight arms. Around the 10th century, it emerged in Tamil Nadu in its mature and best-known expression in Chola bronzes , of various heights typically less than four feet. Nataraja reliefs are found in historic settings in many parts of South East Asia such as Ankor Wat , and in Bali , Cambodia , and central Asia. The oldest free-standing stone sculptures of Nataraja were built by Chola queen Sembiyan Mahadevi . Nataraja gained special significance and became
2384-573: 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
2533-534: 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
2682-610: A savior-God. Zimmer in his 1951 Indian philosophies book noted that the Bhakti sub-schools refer to Isvara as a Divine Lord, or the deity of specific Bhakti sub-school. Modern sectarian movements have emphasized Ishvara as Supreme Lord; for example, Hare Krishna movement considers Krishna as the Lord. In traditional theistic sub-schools of Hinduism, such as the Vishishtadvaita Vedanta of Ramanuja and Dvaita Vedanta of Madhva, Ishvara
2831-439: 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
2980-490: A supreme being, relevant. Yoga , Vaisheshika , Vedanta and Nyaya schools of Hinduism discuss Ishvara, but assign different meanings. Desmarais states that Isvara is a metaphysical concept in Yogasutras. It does not mention deity anywhere, nor does it mention any devotional practices ( Bhakti ), nor does it give Ishvara characteristics typically associated with a deity. In Yoga school of Hinduism, states Whicher, Isvara
3129-448: A symbol of royalty in Tamil Nadu . The dancing Shiva became a part of Chola era processions and religious festivals, a practice that continued thereafter. The depiction was informed of cosmic or metaphysical connotations is also argued on the basis of the testimony of the hymns of Tamil saints. In medieval era artworks and texts on dancing Shiva found in Nepal , Assam and Bengal , he
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#17330855853213278-432: Is a Sanskrit term, from नट Nata meaning "act, drama, dance" and राज Raja meaning "king, lord"; it can be roughly translated as Lord of the dance or King of the dance . According to Ananda Coomaraswamy , the name is related to Shiva's fame as the "Lord of Dancers" or "King of Actors". The form is known as Nataraja and as Narteśvara (also written Nateshwar) or Nṛityeśvara , with all three terms meaning "Lord of
3427-407: Is a concept in Hinduism , with a wide range of meanings that depend on the era and the school of Hinduism. In ancient texts of Hindu philosophy, depending on the context, Ishvara can mean supreme Self, ruler, lord, king, queen or husband. In medieval era Hindu texts, depending on the school of Hinduism, Ishvara means God, Supreme Being, personal God, or special Self . In Shaivism , Ishvara
3576-508: 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
3725-403: Is an epithet of Shiva . In Vaishnavism it is synonymous with Vishnu , like in his epithet of Venkateswara . In traditional Bhakti movements, Ishvara is one or more deities of an individual's preference ( Iṣṭa-devatā ) from Hinduism's polytheistic canon of deities. In modern-day sectarian movements such as Arya Samaj and Brahmoism , Ishvara takes the form of a monotheistic God. In
3874-512: Is both the material and efficient cause, transcendent and immanent. Ishvara manifests in five forms, believe Vishishtadvaitins: para (transcendent), vyuha (emanations), vibhava (incarnations), antaryamin (dwells inside), and arca (icons). According to this sub-school, states John Grimes, Ishvara possesses six divine qualities: jnana (knowledge), bala (strength), aisvarya (lordship), sakti (power), virya (virility) and tejas (splendor). Ramanuja's Vishishtadvaita concepts provided
4023-546: Is considered one of the highest forms of Shiva in Tamil Nadu, and the sculpture or the bronze idol of Nataraja is worshipped in almost all Shiva temples across Tamil Nadu. It typically shows Shiva dancing in one of the Natya Shastra poses, holding various symbols which vary with historic period and region, trampling upon a demon shown as a dwarf ( Apasmara or Muyalaka ) who symbolizes spiritual ignorance. The classical form of
4172-452: 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
4321-453: Is held as the divine will of Ishvara. Jiva suffers, experiences misery and bondage, state Dvaitins, because of "ignorance and incorrect knowledge" ( ajnana ). Liberation occurs with the correct knowledge and attainment unto Lord Narayana. It is His grace that gives salvation according to Dvaita sub-school, which is achievable by predominance of sattva guna (moral, constructive, simple, kindness-filled life), and therefore Dvaitins must live
4470-565: Is identified as Lord Vishnu/Narayana, that is distinct from the prakriti (material world) and purusha (Self). Radhakrishnan and Moore state that these variations in Ishvara concept is consistent with Hinduism's notion of "personal God" where the "ideals or manifestation of individual's highest Self values that are esteemed". Riepe, and others, state that schools of Hinduism leave the individual with freedom and choice of conceptualizing Ishvara in any meaningful manner he or she wishes, either in
4619-546: Is influenced by him. Centuries later, the 5th century CE Nyaya school scholar Prastapada revisited the premise of Ishvara. He was followed by Udayana , who in his text Nyayakusumanjali , interpreted "it" in verse 4.1.21 of Nyaya Sutra above, as "human action" and "him" as "Ishvara", then he developed counter arguments to prove the existence of Ishvara. In developing his arguments, he inherently defined Ishvara as efficient cause, omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, giver of gifts, ability and meaning to humanity, divine creator of
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4768-513: Is neither a creator God nor the universal Absolute of Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism. Whicher also notes that some theistic sub-schools of Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism, inspired by the Yoga school, explain the term Ishvara as the "Supreme Being that rules over the cosmos and the individuated beings". Malinar states that in Samkhya-Yoga schools of Hinduism, Isvara is neither a creator-God, nor
4917-622: Is occasionally affirmed but most often denied in the Samkhya school of Hinduism; for example, arguments are advanced in the Samkhya Pravachana Sutra and its commentaries against the existence of Isvara, chiefly that a being that is both a creator and free cannot exist. The Yogasutras of Patanjali, the foundational text of the Yoga school of Hinduism, uses the term Ishvara in 11 verses: I.23 through I.29, II.1, II.2, II.32 and II.45. Ever since
5066-473: Is one only, but he had disagreed by affirming individual variety within that oneness. Madhva had underscored the eternal duality of the Supreme and the jiva : he had maintained that this duality endures even after liberation. Caitanya, in turn, specified that the Supreme and the jīvas are "inconceivably, simultaneously one and different" (acintya-bheda-abheda). Cārvāka , another atheist tradition in sramana ,
5215-445: Is oneness between the two having negated the qualities. This establishes Ishvara as 'saguṇa' or with attributes from the empirical existence and 'nirguṇa' from the absolute sense. This oneness is accepted only at the level of 'mukti' or ultimate realization and not at the 'vyavahara' or empirical level. At the absolute level there is no otherness nor distinction between Jiva (living being) and Ishvara , and any attempts to distinguish
5364-527: Is proved by the presence of creatures, just like human work proves human existence, Mimamsa scholars asked, why does this God create the world, for what reason? Further, they added, it cannot be because of Ishvara's love to human beings because this world – if Ishvara created it – is imperfect and human Selfs are suffering in it. Mimamsa scholars of Hinduism raised numerous objections to any definition of Ishvara along with its premises, deconstructed justifications offered, and considered Ishvara concept unnecessary for
5513-524: 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
5662-610: Is sometimes shown as dancing on his vahana (animal vehicle) Nandi , the bull; further, he is regionally known as Narteshvara . Nataraja artwork have also been discovered in Gujarat , Kerala and Andhra Pradesh .In the contemporary Hindu culture of Bali in Indonesia, Siwa (Shiva) Nataraja is the god who created dance. Siwa and his dance as Nataraja was also celebrated in the art of Java Indonesia when Hinduism thrived there, while in Cambodia he
5811-510: Is surrounded by a ring of flames, standing on a lotus pedestal, lifting his left leg (or in rare cases, the right leg) and balancing / trampling upon a demon shown as a dwarf ( Apasmara or Muyalaka ) who symbolizes spiritual ignorance. The dynamism of the energetic dance is depicted with the whirling hair which spread out in thin strands as a fan behind his head. The details in the Nataraja artwork have been variously interpreted by Indian scholars since
5960-472: Is symbolic of Shiva as the lord of dance and dramatic arts, with its style and proportions made according to Hindu texts on arts. Tamil devotional texts such as the Tirumurai (The twelve books of Southern Shaivism) state that Nataraja is the form of Shiva in which he performs his functions of creation, destruction, preservation, and is also attributed with maya and the act of blessing his devotees. Thus, Nataraja
6109-536: Is symbolic of Shiva as the lord of dance and dramatic arts, with its style and proportions made according to Hindu texts on arts. The two most common forms of Shiva's dance are the Lasya (the gentle form of dance), associated with the creation of the world, and the Ananda Tandava (dance of bliss, the vigorous form of dance), associated with the destruction of weary worldviews—weary perspectives and lifestyles. In essence,
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6258-479: 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,
6407-437: 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
6556-545: Is thus a necessary condition for the existence of the universe. Ishvara , in Vishishtadvaita Vedanta sub-school of Hinduism, is a composite concept of dualism and non-dualism, or "non-dualism with differentiation". Ishvara, Vishishtadvaitin scholars such as the 11th century Ramanuja state, is the supreme creator and synonymous with Brahman . Equated with Vishnu in Vishishtadvaita or one of his avatar , he
6705-526: 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
6854-514: The Natya Shastra poses, holding Agni (fire) in his left back hand, the front hand in gajahasta (elephant hand) or dandahasta (stick hand) mudra , the front right hand with a wrapped snake that is in abhaya (fear not) mudra while pointing to a Sutra text, and the back hand holding a musical instrument, usually a Udukai ( Tamil : உடுக்கை ). His body, fingers, ankles, neck, face, head, ear lobes and dress are shown decorated with symbolic items, which vary with historic period and region. He
7003-857: The Tevaram and Thiruvasagam in Tamil and the Amshumadagama and Uttarakamika agama in Sanskrit and the Grantha texts. The dance murti is featured in all major Hindu temples of Shaivism , and is a well-known sculptural symbol in India and popularly used as a symbol of Indian culture, as one of the finest illustrations of Hindu art . This form is also referred to as Kuththan ( கூத்தன் , Kūththaṉ ), Sabesan ( சபேசன் , Sabēsaṉ ), and Ambalavanan ( அம்பலவாணன் , Ambalavāṇaṉ ) in various Tamil texts. The sculpture
7152-568: 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
7301-693: The Ellora Caves (Maharashtra), the Elephanta Caves , and the Badami Caves (Karnataka), by around the 6th century. One of the earliest known Nataraja artworks has been found in the archaeological site at Asanapat village in Odisha , which includes an inscription, and is dated to about the 6th century CE. The Asanapat inscription also mentions a Shiva temple in the Saivacaryas kingdom. Literary evidences shows that
7450-668: 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
7599-579: The Lasya and the Tandava are just two aspects of Shiva’s nature; for he destroys in order to create, tearing down to build again. According to Alice Boner , the historic Nataraja artworks found in different parts of India are set in geometric patterns and along symmetric lines, particularly the satkona mandala ( hexagram ) that in the Indian tradition means the interdependence and fusion of masculine and feminine principles. It typically shows Shiva dancing in one of
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#17330855853217748-695: 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
7897-526: 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
8046-453: The Vaishnavism movement arose on the foundation developed by Dvaita Vedanta sub-school. Ishvara (God) is a complete, perfect and the highest reality to Dvaitins, and simultaneously the world is a separate reality for them, unlike competing thoughts in other sub-schools of Vedanta. In Dvaita sub-school, Jiva (individual Self) is different, yet dependent on Ishvara (God). Both possess
8195-452: The Yoga school of Hinduism, it is any "personal deity" or "spiritual inspiration". In Advaita Vedanta , Ishvara is the manifested form of Brahman . The root of the word Ishvara comes from īś- (ईश्, Ish) meaning "capable of" and "owner, ruler, chief of". The second part of the word Ishvara is vara which means depending on context, "best, excellent, beautiful", "choice, wish, blessing, boon, gift", and "suitor, lover, one who solicits
8344-638: The dais ”. This form is present in most Shiva temples, and is the prime deity in the Nataraja Temple at Chidambaram (Tillai). The dance of Shiva in Chidambaram forms the motif for all the depictions of Shiva as Nataraja. Koothan(ta: கூத்தன் , romanized: Kūththaṉ ), Sabesan(ta: சபேசன் , romanized: Sabēsaṉ ), Ambalavanan (ta: அம்பலவாணன் , romanized: Ambalavāṇaṉ ) are other common names of Nataraja in Tamil texts. The sculpture
8493-406: 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
8642-500: 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
8791-408: The 12th century CE ( Chola empire ) and later, and include: Padma Kaimal questions some of these interpretations by referring to a 10th-century text and Nataraja icons, suggesting that the Nataraja statue may have symbolized different things to different people or in different contexts, such as Shiva being the lord of cremation or as an emblem of Chola dynasty. In contrast, Sharada Srinivasan questions
8940-554: The 12th century for its symbolic meaning and theological essence. Nataraja is a well known sculptural symbol in India and popularly used as a symbol of Indian culture, in particular as one of the finest illustrations of Hindu art . The dance of Nataraja is revealed in a story mentioned in the Koyil Puranam . The symbolism has been interpreted in classical Indian Shaiva Siddhanta texts such as Unmai Vilakkam , Mummani Kovai , Tirukuttu Darshana and Tiruvatavurar Puranam , dating from
9089-414: 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
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#17330855853219238-464: The 1st millennium BC, neither required nor relied on Ishvara for its atomistic naturalism philosophy. To it, substances and paramāṇu (atoms) were eternal; they moved and interacted based on impersonal, eternal adrsta (अदृष्ट, invisible) laws of nature. The concept of Ishvara , among others, entered into Vaisheshika school many centuries later in the 1st millennium AD. This evolution in ideas aimed to explain how and why its so-called "atoms" have
9387-560: 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
9536-604: The 20th century. A similar pose appears in the classical Indian dance form Bharatanatyam . Sanskrit language 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
9685-521: 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
9834-573: The Chola Nataraja artworks are mostly in copper, and a few are in brass, typically cast by the cire-perdue ( lost-wax casting ) process. Nataraja is celebrated in 108 poses of Bharatanatyam , with Sanskrit inscriptions from Natya Shastra , at the Nataraja temple in Chidambaram , Tamil Nadu , India. In modern yoga as exercise , Natarajasana is a posture resembling Nataraja and named for him in
9983-521: 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
10132-513: 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
10281-480: 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
10430-469: 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
10579-507: 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
10728-521: 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
10877-489: 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
11026-457: The Sanskrit word: jiva ) are considered parts of God, and thus one with Him in quality, and yet at the same time different from Him in quantity. This is called acintya-bheda-abheda-tattva, inconceivable, simultaneous oneness and difference. Caitanya's philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva completed the progression to devotional theism . Rāmānuja had agreed with Śaṅkara that the Absolute
11175-488: 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
11324-616: 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
11473-463: The Sutra's release, Hindu scholars have debated and commented on who or what is Isvara ? These commentaries range from defining Isvara from a "personal god" to "special self" to "anything that has spiritual significance to the individual". Whicher explains that while Patanjali's terse verses can be interpreted both as theistic or non-theistic, Patanjali's concept of Isvara in Yoga philosophy functions as
11622-497: The Universal Timeless Absolute, to the state of moksha in this life, Dvaita Vedantins hold that moksha is possible only in after-life if God so wills (if not, then one's Self is reborn). Further, Madhva highlights that God creates individual Self, but the individual Self never was and never will become one with God; the best it can do is to experience bliss by getting infinitely close to God. The world, called Maya ,
11771-447: 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
11920-451: 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
12069-407: 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
12218-670: The attributes of consciousness, bliss and existence, but the individual Self is considered atomic, while God is all encompassing. The attributes of Jiva struggle to manifest, while of God it is fully manifested. Madhva states there are five permutations of differences between Jiva (individual Self) and Ishvara (God): between God and Self, between God and matter, between Self and matter, between one Self and another Self, and between one material thing and another material thing. The differences are both qualitative and quantitative. Unlike Advaita Vedantins who hold that knowledge can lead to Oneness with everyone and everything as well as fusion with
12367-455: The bronze representation of Shiva's ananda- tandava appeared first in the Pallava period between 7th century and mid-9th centuries CE. Nataraja was worshipped at Chidambaram during the Pallava period with underlying philosophical concepts of cosmic cycles of creation and destruction, which is also found in Tamil saint Manikkavacakar 's Thiruvasagam . Archaeological discoveries have yielded
12516-440: 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
12665-517: The characteristics of Isvara as that special Self which is unaffected (अपरामृष्ट, aparamrsta ) by one's obstacles/hardships (क्लेश, klesha ), one's circumstances created by past or one's current actions (कर्म, karma ), one's life fruits (विपाक, vipâka ), and one's psychological dispositions/intentions (आशय, ashaya). Patanjali's concept of Isvara is neither a creator God nor the universal Absolute of Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism. The Vaiśeṣika school of Hinduism, as founded by Kanada in
12814-517: 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
12963-493: The context literally asserting that the Dharmasutras are as important as Ishvara (the king) on matters of public importance". The term is used as part of the compounds Maheshvara ("The Great Lord") and Parameshvara ("The Supreme Lord") as the names of Vishnu and Shiva . In Mahayana Buddhism it is used as part of the compound " Avalokiteśvara " ("lord who hears the cries of the world", but see etymology section there),
13112-609: 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
13261-639: 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
13410-528: The dance". However, Nataraja and Nateshwar represent different forms of Shiva. Narteśvara stems from Nṛtta same as Nata which means "act, drama, dance" and Ishvara meaning "lord". Natesa (IAST: Naṭeśa ) is another alternate equivalent term for Nataraja found in 1st-millennium sculptures and archeological sites across the Indian subcontinent. In Tamil, he is also known as “ Sabesan ” ( Tamil : சபேசன் ) which splits as “ Sabayil adum eesan ” ( Tamil : சபையில் ஆடும் ஈசன் ) which means “The Lord who dances on
13559-420: The depiction appears in a pillar of rock cut temple at Seeyamangalam – Avanibhajana Pallaveshwaram Temple constructed by a Pallava King Mahendravarman I in 6th century CE, which is known by Archeological Survey of India and Archeological Survey of Tamil Nadu as the oldest known Nataraja sculpture in India. The stone reliefs at the Ellora Caves and the Badami Caves , by around the 6th century, are also among
13708-467: 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
13857-467: 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
14006-456: 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
14155-451: 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
14304-543: 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
14453-415: The form of "deity of one's choice" or "formless Brahman (Absolute Reality, Universal Principle, true special Self)". Samkhya is called one of the major atheistic schools of Hindu philososphy by some scholars. Others, such as Jacobsen , believe Samkhya is more accurately described as non-theistic. Yet others argue that Samkhya has been theistic from its very beginnings until medieval times. Isvara
14602-403: The foundation for several Bhakti movements of Hinduism, such as those by Sri Aurobindo and has been suggested as having influenced Basava's Lingayatism . The Dvaita ( dualism ) sub-school of Vedanta Hinduism, founded by 13th century Madhva, defines Ishvara as creator God that is distinct from Jiva (individual Selfs in living beings). Narayana (Vishnu) is considered to be Ishvara , and
14751-412: 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
14900-476: 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
15049-431: 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
15198-478: 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
15347-459: 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
15496-412: 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
15645-414: The link to Chola, and has presented archaeological evidence suggesting that Nataraja bronzes and dancing Shiva artwork in South India was a Pallava innovation, tracing back to 7th to 9th-centuries, and its symbolism should be pushed back by a few centuries. Coomaraswamy summarizes the significance of Shiva's entire dance as an image of his rhythmic or musical play which is the source of all movement within
15794-503: 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 ,
15943-517: The medieval era. Srinivasan notes that Nataraja is described as Satcitananda or "Being, Consciousness and Bliss" in the Shaiva Siddhanta text Kunchitangrim Bhaje , resembling the Advaita doctrine, or "abstract monism" of Adi Shankara , which holds the individual Self ( Jīvātman ) and supreme Self ( Paramātmā ) to be one, while "an earlier hymn to Nataraja by Manikkavachakar ... identifies him with
16092-513: The metaphor of Shiva's cosmic dance with quotations from physicist Fritjof Capra : Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics. Though named "Nataraja bronzes" in Western literature,
16241-501: 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
16390-429: 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
16539-401: 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
16688-593: 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
16837-447: The most important defenders of theism in Hindu philosophy. In Nyayasutra's Book 4, Chapter 1 examines what causes production and destruction of entities (life, matter) in universe. It considers many hypotheses, including Ishvara . Verses 19–21, postulates Ishvara exists and is the cause, states a consequence of postulate, then presents contrary evidence, and from contradiction concludes that
16986-409: 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 ,
17135-516: The name of a bodhisattva revered for his compassion. When referring to divine as female, particularly in Shaktism , the feminine Ishvari is sometimes used. In Advaita Vedanta school, Ishvara is a monistic Universal Absolute that connects and is the Oneness in everyone and everything. Among the six systems of Hindu philosophy , Samkhya and Mimamsa do not consider the concept of Ishvara , i.e.,
17284-435: 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
17433-535: 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,
17582-776: The oldest Nataraja sculptures in India. Ancient Tamil songs during the Bhakti movement written by the four Shaivite saints of Sambandar , Appar , Manikkavacakar , and Sundarar , popularly known as "Nalvar" (The four) extol Nataraja and describes the Nataraja Temple, Chidambaram as the home of Nataraja as the main deity , dating Nataraja worship way before the 7th century CE. Around the 8th to 10th century, statues emerged in Tamil Nadu in its mature and best-known expression in Chola bronzes , of various heights typically less than four feet, some over. Nataraja reliefs have been found in many parts of South East Asia such as Angkor Wat and in Bali , Cambodia , and Central Asia. The word Nataraja
17731-403: 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
17880-431: 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
18029-522: 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
18178-414: 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
18327-460: The postulate must be invalid. सिद्धान्तसूत्र : ईश्वरः कारणम्, पुरुषकर्माफल्यदर्शनात् पूर्वपक्षसूत्र : न, पुरुषकर्माभावे फ्लानिष्पत्तेः सिद्धान्तसूत्र : तत्कारितत्वादहेतुः Proposition sutra: Ishvara is the cause, since we see sometimes human action lacks fruits (results). Prima facie objection sutra: This is not so since, as a matter of fact, no fruit is accomplished without human action. Conclusion sutra: Not so, since it
18476-410: The pre- Chola period, an abstract or 'cosmic' symbolism linked to five elements (Pancha Bhoota) . Nataraja is a significant visual interpretation of Brahman and a dance posture of Shiva. The details in the Nataraja artwork have attracted commentaries and secondary literature such as poems detailing its theological significance. It is one of the widely studied and supreme illustrations of Hindu art from
18625-439: 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
18774-480: 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
18923-596: 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
19072-490: 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,
19221-519: 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. Ishvara Traditional Ishvara ( Sanskrit : ईश्वर , romanized : Īśvara )
19370-491: 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
19519-551: 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
19668-594: 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
19817-641: 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
19966-620: The two is a false idea, one based on wrong knowledge, according to Advaita Vedanta. ईश्वरः अहम् Ishvara, I am. Other Advaitin Hindu texts resonate with the monist views of Adi Shankara. For example, Isa Upanishad, in hymn 1.5-7, states Ishvara is "above everything, outside everything, beyond everything, yet also within everything"; he who knows himself as all beings and all beings as himself – he never becomes alarmed before anyone. He becomes free from fears, from delusions, from root cause of evil. He becomes pure, invulnerable, unified, free from evil, true to truth, liberated like Ishvara. When
20115-483: The unitary supreme consciousness, by using Tamil word ' Or Unarve ', rather than Sanskrit ' chit '." This may point to an "osmosis" of ideas in medieval India. According to Ian Crawford , professor of planetary science at University of London , the cosmic dance of Shiva as Nataraja represents particle physics , entropy and the dissolution of the universe. Stone reliefs depicting the classical form of Nataraja are found in numerous cave temples of India, such as at
20264-477: The universe is not manifest, Shankara conceives of Ishvara as abiding in a state of dreamless sleep. The universe's manifestation occurs when Ishvara is in a dreaming state, wherein Ishvara is visualizing the universe owing to its memory of previous creations. Just as the state of dreaming is dependent on memory (not separate from the mind), the universe does not have an existence separate from Ishvara. Ishvara's knowledge
20413-459: The universe with eternal substances and atoms, but He "winds up the clock, and lets it run its course". Early Nyaya school scholars considered the hypothesis of Ishvara as a creator God with the power to grant blessings, boons and fruits. However, the early Nyaya scholars rejected this hypothesis, though not the existence of God itself, and were non-theistic. Over time, the Nyaya school became one of
20562-544: The universe, represented by the arch surrounding Shiva. Secondly, the purpose of his dance is to release the souls of all men from illusion. And third, the place of the dance, Chidambaram , which is portrayed as the center of the universe, is actually within the heart. James Lochtefeld states that Nataraja symbolizes "the connection between religion and the arts", and it represents Shiva as the lord of dance, encompassing all "creation, destruction and all things in between". The Nataraja iconography incorporates contrasting elements,
20711-408: 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
20860-680: The verb īś- does appear in Rigveda, where the context suggests that the meaning of it is "capable of, able to". It is absent in Samaveda , is rare in Atharvaveda , but it appears in Samhitas of Yajurveda . The contextual meaning, however as the ancient Indian grammarian Pāṇini explains, is neither god nor supreme being. The word Ishvara appears in numerous ancient Dharmasutras . However, Patrick Olivelle states that there Ishvara does not mean God, but means Vedas . Deshpande states that Ishvara in Dharmasutras could alternatively mean king, with
21009-564: 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
21158-409: The world as well as the moral principles, and the unseen power that makes the karma doctrine work. Mīmāṃsā scholars of Hinduism questioned what is Ishvara (God)? They used their pramana tools to cross-examine answers offered by other schools of Hinduism. For example, when Nyaya scholars stated God is omnipotent, omniscient and infallible, that the world is the result of God's creation which
21307-497: 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
21456-408: 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
21605-427: 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
21754-472: 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
21903-722: 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
22052-616: Was referred to as Nrittesvara . In 2004, a 2 meter statue of the dancing Shiva was unveiled at CERN , the European Center for Research in Particle Physics in Geneva . The statue, symbolizing Shiva's cosmic dance of creation and destruction, was given to CERN by the Indian government to celebrate the research center's long association with India. A special plaque next to the Shiva statue explains
22201-442: 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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