Swami ( [sʋaːmiː] ; Sanskrit : स्वामी , romanized : svāmī ; sometimes abbreviated sw. ) in Hinduism is an honorific title given to an ascetic who has chosen the path of renunciation ( sanyāsa ), or has been initiated into a religious monastic order of Vaishnavas . It is used either before or after the subject's name (usually an adopted religious name). An alternative form, swamini ( svāmini ), is sometimes used by female renunciates.
4-495: Swamiji , swami-ji , or swami ji is a variant of swami that is used as a direct form of address toward, or as a stand-in for the name of, a Hindu religious leader (and usually capitalized in such usage). It may more specifically refer to: Swami The meaning of the Sanskrit root of the word swami is "[he who is] one with his self " ( swa stands for "self"), and can roughly be translated as "he/she who knows and
8-403: Is master of himself/herself". The term is often attributed to someone who has achieved mastery of a particular yogic system or demonstrated profound devotion ( bhakti ) to one or more Hindu gods . The Oxford English Dictionary gives the etymology as: Hindi svāmī 'master, lord, prince', used by Hindus as a term of respectful address, < Sanskrit svāmin in same senses, also
12-467: The idol or temple of a god. As a direct form of address, or as a stand-in for a swami's name, it is often rendered Swamiji (also Swami-ji or Swami Ji ). In modern Gaudiya Vaishnavism , Swami is also one of the 108 names for a sannyasi given in Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati 's Gaudiya Kanthahara , along with Goswami , also traditionally used as an honorific title. Swami is also
16-618: The surname of the Bairagi caste in Haryana , Uttar Pradesh , and Rajasthan . In Bengali , the word (pronounced [ˈʃami] ), while carrying its original meaning, also has the meaning of " husband " in another context. The word also means "husband" in Malay , in which it is spelled suami , and in Khmer , Assamese and Odia . The Thai word for "husband", sami ( สามี ) or swami ( สวามี )
#981018