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146-450: The Pudgalavāda ( Sanskrit ; English: "Personalism"; Pali: Puggalavāda; Chinese : 補特伽羅論者 ; pinyin : Bǔtèjiāluō Lùnzhě ) was a Buddhist philosophical view and also refers to a group of Nikaya Buddhist schools (mainly known as Vātsīputrīyas) that arose from the Sthavira nikāya . The school is believed to have been founded by the elder Vātsīputra in the third century BCE. They were
292-648: A Sanskrit work in 1600 verses to refute this text, called The Destruction of Heresy . 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
438-534: 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
584-492: A duality of five kinds, the most fundamental of which is that between jivas and Ishvara . A soul or jiva is differentiated from God or Ishvara due to the jiva’s dependence on Ishvara ; this state is an indication of eternal, ontological distinction. Unique to this school is the idea of a hierarchy of souls, evocative of predestination . Within the system, some souls are inherently and eternally destined for liberation, others for hell and still others for migration through
730-406: A fault in the order of the questions to be avoided . That expression is not justified. Why? If one affirms that no pudgala exists, that is a fake view (mithyadrsti). If (on the contrary), one affirms that the pudgala exists (conditionally), that is a right view (samyagdrsti). That is why it is possible to say that the pudgala exists. Because they felt that Vātsīputrīya views were close to the view of
876-400: A label for them. Vasubandhu first argues that we can either perceive the pudgala directly or perceive it by perceiving the aggregates. If the latter, then its just a label for aggregates. If we perceive it directly, then the aggregates would be based on the pudgala, not the other way around. Vasubandhu also attacks the view that we can perceive the pudgala by all six senses. If this is true, then
1022-581: 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
1168-522: 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,
1314-454: 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
1460-479: 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
1606-596: 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
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#17330849260111752-530: A pudgala (person) or sattva (being) which is neither a conditioned dharma nor an unconditioned dharma. This doctrine of the person was their method of accounting for karma , rebirth , and nirvana . For the Pudgalavādins, the pudgala was what underwent rebirth through successive lives in samsara and what experiences nirvana. They defended this view through philosophical argument as well as scriptural citation. According to Thiện Châu and Richard Gombrich , they used
1898-573: 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
2044-534: 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
2190-744: A self or atman , they were sharply criticized by the Vibhajjavadins (a record of this is found in the Theravadin Kathavatthu ), as well as by the Sarvastivadins (In the Vijñanakaya ), Sautrantikas (most famously in the Abhidharmakosha ), and the Madhyamaka school ( Candrakirti's Madhyamakavatara ). The earliest source for the pudgala doctrinal controversy is the puggalakatha of
2336-439: 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
2482-545: A state of supreme bliss, or as Thiện Châu notes, they saw nirvana as "a transcendental domain" and an "existence in the beyond". According to the Pudgalavādin text known as the Traidharmakasastra , the pudgala can be designated in three ways, called the three prajñaptis : Regarding the first form of designation, Dan Lusthaus adds that: If the appropriator is something different from the skandhas themselves, then there
2628-447: A widely influential school in India and became particularly popular during the reign of emperor Harshavadana (606–647 CE). Harsha's sister Rajyasri was said to have joined the school as a nun. According to Dan Lusthaus, they were "one of the most popular mainstream Buddhist sects in India for more than a thousand years." The Pudgalavādins asserted that while there is no ātman , there exists
2774-600: Is a different self in each body, each one an inherent part of the Lord". The Akshar-Purushottam Darshan , the teachings of Swaminarayan as interpreted by the BAPS , centers around the existence of five eternal realities, as stated in two of Swaminarayan’s sermons documented in the Vachanamrut , Gadhada 1.7 and Gadhada 3.10: Puruṣottama Bhagavān , Akṣarabrahman , māyā , īśvara and jīva – these five entities are eternal. From all
2920-678: Is a living being or any entity imbued with a life force in Hinduism and Jainism . The word itself originates from the Sanskrit verb-root jīv , which translates as 'to breathe' or 'to live'. The jiva , as a metaphysical entity, has been described in various scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads . Each subschool of Vedanta describes the role of the jiva with the other metaphysical entities in varying capacities. The closest translation into English and abrahamic philosophies would be
3066-670: Is a similar dualism between the jiva and ajiva in Jainism. Both the jiva and puruṣa are also said to be numerous. The Samkhyakarika states: Since birth, death, and the instruments of life are allotted severally; since occupations are not at once universal; and since qualities affect variously; multitude of souls (puruṣa) is demonstrated Relatedly, each jiva is, just like a puruṣa in Samkhya, qualitatively distinct from another jiva so that each can be termed their "own self". The Nyaya school of philosophy also shares similarities to
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#17330849260113212-644: Is a sixth skandha, which is doctrinally impermissible. If the skandhas appropriate themselves, that leads to a vicious cycle of infinite regress. Hence, the Vātsīputrīya argue, the nominal person (pudgala) is neither the same as nor different from the skandhas. It is a heuristic fiction that avoids these unwarranted consequences and lends coherence by also corresponding to how actual persons experience themselves—that is, as distinct individuals continuous with, but not absolutely identical to or reducible to, their own pasts and futures. Lusthaus also explains their reasoning for
3358-508: 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
3504-461: Is an inherent part of indwelling Lord. The philosophy proposed by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepts that the jiva is aware and possesses distinct qualities. It is neither god, human or animal, and is separate from the senses and mind. It is unchanging, possessing consciousness and bliss, and pervades the body. Whilst the body and mind require a jiva to function, the jiva's awareness and existence is not dependant on anything. Goswami also describes that "there
3650-458: Is commonly depicted through an analogy: just as rays originate from the sun but are spatio-temporally distinct from it, so too jivas are parts of the whole that is Brahman. Another analogy given is that of sparks emitted from a fire. The sparks, composed of same substance as fire, are non-different ( abheda ) from the fire. They are also different ( bheda ), located in different place from the fire from which they originated. Yet another analogy given
3796-530: Is divine, pure, and spiritual. The jiva's ultimate purpose is to engage in a loving devotion to Krishna (Supreme Brahman), and liberation is attained through divine grace and the acceptance of the jiva's loving surrender to Krishna. Vallabhacharya uses an analogy between fire and its sparks, where jivas are sparks emerging from God's fire, tiny yet sharing the same essence. The Acintya Bheda Abheda , proposed by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, maintains that jiva and Brahman are same ( abheda ) and different ( bheda ) and
3942-452: 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
4088-426: Is incoherent without it. Karma means that an action done at one time has subsequent consequences for the same individual at a later time, or even a later life. If the positive and negative consequences of an action don't accrue to the self-same individual, then it would make no sense to speak of things like progress (who is progressing?), and Buddhist practice itself becomes incoherent. If there are no persons, then there
4234-441: Is incoherent. If the same, then their real discontinuities are ignored, leading to a form of eternalism, another impermissible view for Buddhists. Hence, they are neither the same nor different, but linked by a fictional pudgala. Finally, Buddhist practice leads to nirvana; but who attains this? If there is an integral individual that ceases on attaining nirvana, then this would entail the unwarranted view of annihilationalism. If there
4380-465: Is neither identical to the aggregates nor different from them. They sought to refute the view of other Buddhists that the aggregates and the person were the same. They held that, at death when the aggregates are destroyed, the person would then also be destroyed, thus not be reborn. They also believed it contradicted the Buddha's words i.e. "the bearer of the burden" exists. The Kathavatthu also mentions that
4526-532: Is no cessation of the karmic individual, then there is no nirvana. Both extremes, though implicit in standard Buddhist formulations, render Buddhism itself incoherent, a problem only solved, the Vātsīputrīyas argue, if one admits the fictional pudgala implicit in standard Buddhist doctrine. With this system, Pudgalavādins held that they could explain karmic moral retribution and personal identity by positing an ineffable ( avaktavya ) dharma that avoids falling into
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4672-468: Is no one who suffers, no one who performs and reaps the consequences of his or her own karma, no Buddha, no Buddhists, and no Buddhism. Obviously, those are not acceptable consequences for a Buddhist. Lusthaus notes that for the Vātsīputrīyas, their theory is simply an attempt to explain what other Buddhist traditions leave unsaid and assumed, mainly what it is that undergoes rebirth, has moral responsibility and attains enlightenment. According to Lusthaus, for
4818-434: Is not just the end of transmigrations of the jiva (re-births), but also a sense of bliss and joy found in the contemplation of god and living a life of devotion. This involves singing his praise and dwelling on his characteristics. The Shuddadvaita Darshan , proposed by Vallabhacharya , has a concept of "nitya-sambandha" which means eternal relationship between jiva and Brahman (Parabrahman). The jiva's inherent nature
4964-511: Is of ocean and its waves, which shows that even though the bhedabheda darshan entails that Brahman has parts and jivas are part of Brahman, this does not mean jivas lessen its perfection, just as the waves of the ocean do not lessen the amount of water present in the ocean. Founded by Madhva , the Dvaita (dualist) Darshan rejects the Advaita (non-dualist) notion of one ultimate reality. It propounds
5110-524: 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
5256-489: Is suffering in the world, Laying the burden down is blissful. The Kathavatthu also mentions that the Pudgalavādins relied on the following statements by the Buddha: "there is a person who exerts for his own good" and "there appears a person who is reborn for the good and happiness of many, for showing compassion to the world of beings". The Pudgalavādins held that this person was "inexpressible" and indeterminate in its relation to
5402-479: 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,
5548-534: Is that between jivas , or souls, and Brahman. Understood through the paradigm of relative reality, jivas are cloaked by maya—avidya , or ignorance—a state in which they are not able to realize their oneness with Brahman. Within Advaita philosophy, the nature of the Jiva is described using three theories or metaphors: Pratibimba - vāda (theory of reflection) , Avaccheda-vāda (theory of limitation) , and Ābhāsa-vāda (theory of appearance). According to Pratibimba-vāda ,
5694-518: Is the Traidharmakasastra (Taisho no. 1506 pp. 15c-30a) , an Abhidharma work which was translated twice into Chinese. The text mentions that lack of knowledge also includes lack of knowledge of the indefinable ( avaktavya ), which refers to the pudgala. Another Pudgalavada text, the Sammatiyanikayasastra, put forth various arguments for and against the following propositions: All of these views are ultimately rejected. The text claims that
5840-437: 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
5986-498: Is unborn and eternal, everlasting and primeval. It is not slain by the slaying of the body." बालाग्रशतभागस्य शतधा कल्पितस्य च । भागो जीवः स विज्ञेयः स चानन्त्याय कल्पते ॥ ९ ॥ [1] The Shvetashvatara Upanishad compares the jiva and the Paramatma to two friendly birds sitting on the same tree: समाने वृक्षे पुरुषो निमग्नोऽनीशया शोचति मुह्यमानः । जुष्टं यदा पश्यत्यन्यमीशमस्य महिमानमिति वीतशोकः ॥ ७ ॥ [2] Swaminarayan has described
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6132-447: Is when a jiva acquires a new body, and death is when it departs from its body. Just as one abandons one's old clothes and wears new ones, the jiva renounces its old body and acquires a new one. There are important similarities between the jiva and the puruṣa of Samkhya - Yoga . The most visible similarity is that both the jiva and puruṣa are part of a dualism. Just like Samkhya's dualism between puruṣa and prakriti , there
6278-526: 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
6424-558: The soul . A common metaphysical entity discussed in the scriptures (such as the Bhagavad Gita, Upanishad and Vachanamrut) in the seven schools of Vedanta is the jiva or atman : the soul or self. Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita contains verses describing the jiva . For example, the jiva is described as eternal and indestructible in chapter 2, verse 20: न जायते म्रियते वा कदाचिन् नायं भूत्वा भविता वा न भूयः । अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं पुराणो न हन्यते हन्यमाने शरीरे "The soul
6570-568: 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
6716-613: 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
6862-461: The Kathavatthu , attributed to Moggaliputtatissa (c. third century BCE). The Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu argued against the pudgala theory in his Abhidharmakosha . Vasubandhu begins by stating that the Vātsīputrīya hold that the pudgala 'is based' on the five aggregates, and that this could mean one of two things: Vasubandhu argues then that 'pudgala' is identical to the aggregates and just
7008-540: The Prasthantrayi . The Advaita (non-dualist) Darshan posits the existence of only one entity, Brahman . It considers all distinctions ultimately false since differentiation requires more than one entity. Those distinctions empirically perceived, along with those expounded in the Prasthanatrayi , are accounted for within this school by the recognition of a relative reality ( vyavaharik satta). One such distinction
7154-744: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
7300-526: 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
7446-676: The Saṃmitīyas, a school which quickly eclipsed them in popularity. The most prominent of the Pudgalavādin schools were certainly the Saṃmitīyas ( Sanskrit ; Chinese : 正量部 ; pinyin : Zhèngliàng Bù ) who were especially prominent in Sindh and in Gujarat during the Maitraka dynasty (470-788 CE). Inscriptions have also established the existence of Saṃmitīya communities in Mathura and Sarnath between
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#17330849260117592-478: The five aggregates and could not be said to be neither the same as the aggregates nor different. However, the person could not be denied entirely, for if this were so, nothing would get reborn and nothing would be the object of loving-kindness meditation. Thus, according to L.S. Cousins: The difference is that for the Voidist the person is a label for the aggregates experiences as objects of consciousness whereas for
7738-401: The jiva as a limitation ( upadhi ) of the atman . It is limited and appears to be separated from other selves because of ignorance. The Bhedhabheda Darshan , founded by Nimbark, maintains that jivas are at once distinct and part of Brahman, a middle ground of sorts between the extremes of Advaita, utter oneness, and Dvaita, utter distinctness. This notion of difference yet non-difference
7884-422: The jiva consists of a reflection of the atman , and the mirror on which the reflection occurs is ignorance ( avidya ). This metaphor clarifies that the atman and jiva are not distinct, even though they appear to be so, just as one's reflection in the mirror appears to be distinct from oneself but is actually identical with one. Avaccheda-vāda denies that consciousness can be reflected, and instead understands
8030-403: The same as the aggregates (the reductionist Buddhist view of other schools), this is like saying fire and fuel are the same thing, which is one mistake. On the other hand, if one says that fire and fuel are totally different, this is like saying fire does not depend on fuel, a second mistake (related to non-Buddhist views). Thus they took a middle road between these and argued for a person which
8176-406: 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
8322-500: 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
8468-414: 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
8614-560: 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
8760-588: The 2nd and 4th centuries CE. The Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub noted that the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa as their main language. By the fourth century CE, this school had become so influential that they replaced the Sarvastivadins in Sarnath as the most prominent school. By the time of king Harsha in the seventh century, they were the largest Nikaya Buddhist school in India. Due to their geographic spread, this led to them being divided into two further sub-schools,
8906-521: 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
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#17330849260119052-659: The Avantakas centered in Avanti and the Kurukulas centered around Kuru on the upper Ganges. Their most influential center of learning was at Valabhi University in Gujarat, which remained an important place for the study of Nikaya Buddhism until the 8th century CE. I-tsing, who visited Gujarat in 670 CE, noted that the Sammitiyas had the greatest number of followers in western India and that
9198-459: The Bharaharasutta as a major reference for their view. This text states that the person (pudgala) is the bearer of the five aggregates, and that the taking up of them is craving and suffering: Bhārā have pañcakkhandhā, bhārahāro ca puggalo ; Bhārādānaṁ dukhaṁ loke, bhāranikkhepanaṁ sukhaṁ. The five aggregates are truly burdens, and the burden-carrier is the person . Taking up the burden
9344-521: 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
9490-513: 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
9636-480: 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
9782-469: 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
9928-507: 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
10074-521: 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
10220-489: 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
10366-671: The Saṃmitīyas were staunch opponents of Mahāyāna . According to Tāranātha , Saṃmitīya monks from the Sindh burned tantric scriptures and destroyed a silver image of Hevajra at Vajrāsana monastery in Bodh Gaya . In the biography of Xuanzang, it is recounted that an elderly brahmin and follower of the Saṃmitīya sect named Prajñāgupta composed a treatise in 700 verses which opposed the Mahāyāna teachings. In response, while living at Nālandā , Xuanzang wrote
10512-488: 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
10658-447: The Sindh, where one scholar estimates 350 Buddhist monasteries were Saṃmitīya of a total of 450. This area was rapidly Islamized in the wake of the Arab conquest. They continued to be a presence in India until the end of Indian Buddhism, but, never having gained a foothold elsewhere, did not continue thereafter. Ancient sources such as Xuanzang and Tibetan historian Tāranātha reported that
10804-616: 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
10950-540: The Vedanta schools, in that there is the belief that the jiva is eternal, experiences the fruits of its good and bad deeds ( karma ), and undergoes reincarnation . However unlike other schools where the jiva is the source of consciousness, in the Nyaya school, consciousness is an attribute that only occurs when a jiva associates with a mind. Furthermore, Nyaya schools believe liberation to be a complete absence of suffering, rather than
11096-560: The Vedas, Purāṇas, Itihāsa and Smṛti scriptures, I have gleaned the principle that jīva , māyā , īśvara , Brahman and Parameśvara are all eternal. The jiva is defined as a distinct, individual soul, i.e., a finite sentient being. Jivas are bound by maya , which hides their true self, which is characterized by eternal existence, consciousness and bliss. There are an infinite number of jivas . They are extremely subtle, indivisible, unpierceable, ageless and immortal. While residing within
11242-447: 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
11388-451: 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
11534-605: The Vātsīputrīyas, "while other Buddhists might leave the word "pudgala" unsaid, the narratives presupposed in their doctrines require it." According to Thiện Châu, the Vātsīputrīyas were the initial parent school out of which branched off four sub-schools (sometime between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE); mainly the Saṃmitīyas, Dhammuttariyas, Bhadrayanikas, and the Sandagarikas . The Vātsīputrīya communities were established in Kosambi and Sarnath , living side by side with
11680-417: The abhidharmika tradition. The Pudgalavadins, on the other hand, tried to preserve the essence of the doctrine of substancelessness ( anatmavada ). The theory of the pudgala has been misinterpreted by the polemical literature; nevertheless, it offers much of doctrinal interest to Buddhist thinkers. Furthermore, Thiện Châu in his analysis of their doctrine adds: The Pudgalavadins were probably not satisfied with
11826-407: 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
11972-455: The analogy of fire and fuel. The five aggregates are the fuel and the pudgala the fire. The fire exists as long as there is fuel, but it is not the same as the fuel and has properties that the fuel does not. They are co-existent and the fuel (aggregates) are the support for the fire (pudgala), and thus are not the same nor wholly different. For the Pudgalavadins, If one says that the person is
12118-440: 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
12264-517: 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
12410-609: 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
12556-639: 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
12702-550: The cycle of birth and death. It is in this cycle where jivas have the opportunity to perform positive or negative deeds ( karmas ), and make spiritual efforts to break free of it, known as liberation ( moksha ). The Vishishtadvaita Darshan , proposed by Ramanuja , maintains an ontological distinction between jivas and God. However, unlike in the Dvaita Darshan, the distinction is qualified. The jiva still remains dependent on God for its qualities and volition. Ramanuja uses
12848-467: 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
12994-467: 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
13140-456: 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
13286-411: The doctrine of the body and the soul ( sarira and sariri ) to explain the relationship between God and the jivas . The jivas constitutes the body of God, and God is the soul of the jivas . Using this doctrine, Ramanuja is able to maintain an ontological distinction between God and the jivas , while still demonstrating their qualified non-duality. Vishishtadvaita holds, like other darshanas , that
13432-451: 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
13578-404: The ears; it smells all types of smells through the nose; it tastes through the tongue; and through the skin, it experiences the pleasures of all sensations. In addition, it thinks through the mind, contemplates through the citta [one of the inner faculties] and forms convictions through the intelligence [buddhi]. In this manner, through the ten senses and the four inner faculties, it perceives all of
13724-412: The extremes of annihilation ( ucceda ) and eternity ( sasvata ). One Pudgalavada text affirms that this doctrine is a middle way thus: If the pudgala could be described in terms of existence or non-existence, one would fall into nihilism (ucchedadristi) or eternalism (sasvatadrsti), but the Buddha does not allow us to uphold there two opinions. If one says that the pudgala does not exist, that is committing
13870-543: 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
14016-412: 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
14162-476: 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
14308-401: The heart, a jiva pervades the entire body by its capacity to know ( gnānshakti ), making it animate. It is the form of knowledge ( gnānswarūp ) as well as the knower ( gnātā ). The jiva is the performer of virtuous and immoral actions ( karmas ) and experiences the fruits of these actions. It has been eternally bound by maya ; as a result, it roams within the cycle of birth and death . Birth
14454-431: 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
14600-478: 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
14746-524: The interpretation according to which a man is merely the result of a combination of psych~physical factors. For a man is something different from a chariot; the latter is only an assemblage of parts and separate pieces whereas the former is essentially a being with its totality of which the psycho-physical parts develop after conception and birth. According to Dan Lusthaus , "no Buddhist school has been more vilified by its Buddhist peers or misunderstood by modern scholars". Lusthaus argues that, far from promoting
14892-485: The jiva, as an atman, to the relationship between a lamp and the light it emits: The one luminous substance exists as light and as the possessor of light....possesses luminosity, because it illuminates both its own form and that of others. But it behaves as a quality of that luminous substance....In this same way, the self has the form of consciousness but also has the quality of consciousness Unlike other schools, Vishishtadvaita philosophy proposes that moksha (liberation)
15038-459: 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
15184-522: The learning center at Valabhi rivaled that of Nalanda . Étienne Lamotte , using the writings of the Chinese traveler Xuanzang , asserted that the Saṃmitīya were in all likelihood the most populous non-Mahāyāna sect in India, comprising double the number of the next largest sect, although scholar L. S. Cousins revised his estimate down to a quarter of all non-Mahāyāna monks, still the largest overall. The Saṃmitīya sect seems to have been particularly strong in
15330-412: 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
15476-503: 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 ,
15622-501: 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
15768-429: 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
15914-401: 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
16060-593: 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
16206-409: 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 ,
16352-497: The nature of the jiva in his discourse in Vachanamrut Jetalpur 2: The jiva is uncuttable, unpiercable, immortal, formed of consciousness, and the size of an atom. You may also ask, 'Where does the jiva reside?' Well, it resides within the space of the heart, and while staying there, it performs different functions. From there, when it wants to see, it does so through the eyes; when it wants to hear sounds, it does so through
16498-435: 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
16644-583: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
16790-403: 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
16936-431: 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
17082-411: The personalist the relationship between the person and those objects cannot be described as either the same nor different. Thus this pudgala was the subject of experiences, the doer of wholesome and unwholesome actions, and the experiencer of karma, transmigration and nirvana. Yet it was also "indefinable" ( avaktavya ), neither a conditioned (samskrta) nor an unconditioned dharma ( nirvana ) and neither
17228-522: 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
17374-414: 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
17520-415: The present and is composed of the aggregates (skandha), elements (dhatu) and domains ( ayatana ); that is to say that the phenomena of appropriation concerning the internal life in the present, which is formed by compounded things - ( samskara ) and the fetters is what is called the designation of appropriation. The Pudgalavādins also seem to have held that the liberated person exists even after paranirvana in
17666-439: 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
17812-480: 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
17958-433: The pudgala can be likened to what is called a being (sattva) and also to what is called jiva (life force), but that it is neither identical nor different from the body (kaya). One Pudgalavadin text explains the nature of this relationship as being based on clinging or appropriation (upadana): The designation of appropriation (upadana-prajñapti) is the designation of life (jiva) (which is) internal appropriation ( upadana ) in
18104-468: The pudgala is neither an existent nor a purely conceptual construct. Peter Harvey agrees with criticisms leveled against the Pudgalavadins by Moggaliputta-Tissa and Vasubandhu , and finds that there is no support in the Pali Nikayas for their pudgala concept. However, according to Bhiksu Thiện Châu : The creation of the theory of the pudgala represents a reaction against the "depersonalization" of
18250-476: The pudgala is nothing but the five aggregates since all that the senses perceive is their direct sense impressions and nothing more. According to Thich Thien Chau, other secondary theses of the personalist Vātsīputrīya- Saṃmitīyas include: The school had a Tripitaka , with Sutra Pitaka (in four Agamas), Vinaya Pitaka and Abhidharma Pitakas, like other early Buddhist schools. Only four of their texts survive in Chinese translation: One surviving Pudgalavada text
18396-546: 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
18542-490: 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,
18688-586: The relationship is inconceivable in thought ( acintya ). Jiva Goswami , one of the main scholars in the Caitanya Vaisnava school, offers a definition of the self that shares many characteristics of other schools but is distinctly aligned with the Bhedhabhedha position that the jiva is a part of Brahman: Furthermore, it has the intrinsic characteristics of being an apprehender, agent and qualitative experiencer, and by its own nature and at all times it
18834-519: 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. Jiva Jiva ( Sanskrit : जीव , IAST : jīva ), also referred as Jivātman ,
18980-407: The same as nor different from the five aggregates. However, as Thiện Châu notes in his survey of their literature, the Pudgalavādins carefully developed this theory especially to be compatible with anatman and the middle way and thus the pudgala is "not an absolute reality totally separated from compounded things." The Abhidharmakosha shows how the Pudgalavadins explained their theory by using
19126-491: 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
19272-423: The second and third designations as follows: But what remains constant or continuous between such [past and future] lives? If it is a self-same invariant identity, then this would indeed be a case of atmavada, a view the Vātsīputrīyas, like all Buddhists, reject. In what sense would someone be the same or different from the person in one's previous life? If completely different, then to posit a continuity between them
19418-409: The self is chetan , a conscious being that is made up of consciousness. The school offers many rebuttals against the Advaita conception, one of which addresses the way in which Advaita's jiva , Brahman, may be in a state of ignorance. The Vishishtadvaita Darshan argues that if ignorance is not a quality of Brahman, then the notion of non-duality is contradicted. Ramanuja compares the consciousness of
19564-551: 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
19710-531: The sense-objects [i.e objects of sensorial perception'. It pervades the entire body from head to toe, yet is distinct from it. Such is the nature of the jiva. Vedanta is one of the six schools ( darshanam ) of Hindu philosophy, and it contains subschools that have derived their beliefs from the Upanishads , the Brahma Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita . The aforementioned three scriptures are commonly referred to as
19856-594: 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
20002-641: 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
20148-408: 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
20294-564: 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
20440-478: The view of a self ( atmavada ), the Vātsīputrīya position which can be seen in their surviving texts is that the pudgala is "a prajñapti (only a nominal existent) that is neither identical to nor different from the skandhas." Furthermore: The Vātsīputrīya argument is that the pudgala is a necessary prajñapti since any theory of karma, or any theory that posits that individuals can make spiritual progress for themselves or can assist other individuals to do likewise,
20586-497: 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
20732-408: 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
20878-427: 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
21024-472: 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
21170-722: 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
21316-442: 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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