Sanskrit

[Guest]

Nachiketa,

Thanks. Sorry for a late reply too.

3x8 tables are called the "shabda-rupa" tables. Each noun/pronoun can take different forms depending upon number (vachana), and case (vibhakti) . Sanskrit has three vachanas and eight vibhaktis

Ekavachana: singular number, as in raamah
Dvivachana : two (not found in english), as in raamau
Bahuvachana: plural number as in raamaah

Sanskrita has 8 cases (vibhaktis) : kartaa, karma, karana, sampradaana, upaadana, sambandha, adhikarana, sambodhana. They are also called prtahmaa, dvitiyaa, tritiyaa, chaturthi, panchami etc.

The question that bothers many people is why have all these modifications in the first place. Present day English, Hindi etc don't use such deformations in the noun and pronoun and seem to work ok.

The reason is quite significant. If you do not include the case information attached to the word then you have to infer the case information by the presence of other words. These other words "must" have a certain order and location with respect to the original word.

In english when you say " book of Rama" Here the Sambandha case "of" is a separate word. In Sanskrit the same phrase will be written as "Ramasya pustakaM". In english the loactiona and order of the word "of" and Rama is important. "Rama of book" means very different from "book of Rama". But in Sanskrit, due to vibhakti being attached to the word, you can move around the words wherever without changing the meaning. So, "Ramasya PustakaM" means same as "PustakaM Ramasya". etc.

This property of words carrying their case with themselves, is very significant for poetry. You can appreciate it that it would be much easier to write poetry in Sanskrit where you can move around the words without changing the meaning! <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

It turns out this property is also very significant from linguistic point of view. For example if you are developing a computer programming language, which style is going to give more flexibility and lack of ambiguity etc. Sanskrit approach is closer to the spirit of the object oriented programming.

Other tables that bug people who want to learn Sanskrit are the Dhatu-Rupa (verb tables of tenses (Lakaara)). Sanskrit officially has 10 Lakaaras although 5 are most often used! (Lat Lakaara is present tense etc.) Each Lakaara has three numbers (Vachana) and three Purushas (person). Purussa(person) can be prathama-purusha first person (I), dvitiya-purusha second person (you)and anya-purusha third person (he). Trying to keep track of each verb's form through 10 possible Lakaaras each of which has 3 vachanas and 3 purushas becomes a tedious task.

Shabda-Rupas and Dhatu-Rupa (Lakaara) tables are some of the most tedious parts of Sanskrit learning. You have to memorize them. Although after learning a few of them you start seeing some patterns which makes memorizing other ones easier.

[Guest]

is that the corret spelling for "rhytha" in sanskrit

[Guest]

Rytha,

I think your name has the same Ri/Ru that is in Rishi/Rushi etc. and "tha" is the dental ta.

If this is correct then in ITRANS transliteration it will be written as R^ita and in CSX as "rta" with a dot under the r.

The form that you have posted could be another transliteration scheme which writes Ri/Ru as a tilda over r.

rta means "truth" or the "universal order" or "correct"

eg a shantipaatha has: "Satyam vadishyami, rtam vadishyami" ( I will speak the truth I will speak the correct)

[Guest]

oh i pronunce it like "rtam"/rtha and not like rishi/rusi or ri-thaa.

I all along thought rtha meant ominpresent( shiva is ominpresent, i thnk he has one name which resembles that meaning in his 108 names, iam a shiva/natarj lover <!--emo&:guitar--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/guitar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='guitar.gif' /><!--endemo-->)

In hindi it means shunya or zero, i thnk(read it in some dict.) Graduate

[Guest]

Rytha,

It seems you were pronouncing your name correctly!

Also isn't Shiva the "divine truth" and the "divine law"! <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

MonierWilliams gives the following meanings:
Proper, right, fit, apt, suitable, luminous, fixed or settled order, law, rule, divine law, faith, divine truth, truth in general, righteousness, truth personified,

[Guest]

Rytha,

I think the hindi word you are referring to is "reetaa" . That word indeed means empty, shunya etc. But that word is not a Sanskrit word and is not same as rta. I think your name is the sanskrit word rta and not same as the hindi word reetaa.

[Guest]

yes mine is this the sanskrit one.

Seems rta has lots of meaning, hell, seems to have all meaning one can think of <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->


Entry Rta

Meaning mf(%{A})n. met with , afflicted by (with instr.) TS. v ; proper , right , fit , apt , suitable , able , brave , honest RV. VS. xvii , 82 ; true MBh. BhP. Mn. viii , 82 ; 87 Bhag. &c. ; worshipped , respected L. ; enlightened , luminous L. ; m. N. of a Rudra MBh. ; of a son of Manu Ca1kshusha BhP. iv , 13 , 16 ; of a son of Vijaya VP. ; (%{am}) n. fixed or settled order , law , rule (esp. in religion) ; sacred or pious action or custom , divine law , faith , divine truth (these meanings are given by BRD. and are generally more to be accepted than those of native authorities and marked L. below) RV. AV. VS. S3Br. &c. [223,3] ; truth in general , righteousness , right RV. AV. MBh. Mn. viii , 61 ; 104 Pan5cat. &c. ; figuratively said of gleaning (as the right means of a Bra1hman's obtaining a livelihood as opposed to agriculture , which is %{anRta}) Mn. iv , 4 ff. ; promise , oath , vow Ta1n2d2yaBr. La1t2y. ; truth personified (as an object of worship , and hence enumerated among the sacred objects in the Nir.) ; water L. ; sacrifice L. ; a particular sacrifice L. ; the sun L. ; wealth L. ; (%{a4m}) ind. right , duly , properly , expressly , very RV. BhP. ; (%{Rtam} %{i} , to go the right way , be pious or virtuous RV.) ; (%{e4na}) ind. right , duly , properly , regularly , lawfully , according to usage or right RV. AV. ; truly , sincerely , indeed RV. MBh. i.




http://www.uni-koeln.de/cgi-bin/SFgate?lan.../mwd.txt;7=%00;

[Guest]

Yes, if you look at MonierWilliams or Apte's sanskrit dictionary you get a bewildering array of meanings for each word. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

But the primary meaning of rta is "truth", "correct" etc.

[Sunder]

<!--QuoteBegin-Ashok Kumar+Mar 29 2004, 12:50 AM-->QUOTE(Ashok Kumar @ Mar 29 2004, 12:50 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Yes, if you look at MonierWilliams or Apte's sanskrit dictionary you get a bewildering array of meanings for each word. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> 

But the primary meaning of rta is "truth", "correct" etc.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Partially true... Rtham is RELATIVE truth, while Sathyam is Absolute truth.

Rthae'api thwaam na bhavishyanthi sarvae, yae'avasthitha prathyaneekeshu yoddha. (BG 11:32)

[Sunder]

Here's something exciting I stumbled upon when trolling after brahmi script..

Rg Veda Bhasha Bhashya
Yajur Veda Bhasha Bhashya
Sama Veda Samhitha
Atharva Veda Bhasha Bhashya

Not to forget Brahmi Script that I originally intended to learn. There's miles before I go to sleep.

[Guest]

Sunder,

Those are nice links! They have scanned pages of Sanskrit with Vedic accents as well as Hindi Commentary by Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Swami Dayananda's commentary's are one of the best commentaries around. I like them much more than Sayana's commentaries. Sayana is too much larma-kanda oriented. Samaveda link has Archika part with the Rgvedic accents udatta, svarita, anudatta replaced by numbers 1,2,3. But I couln't see anything more than first 10 mantras. Maybe they will add rest of the pages later.

I am looking for Samaveda with samika part (Gramageyagana, Aranyakagana etc) with stobhas and all notes 1,2,3,4,5 etc marked. If you come across those on the internet please let me know.

I am trying hard to understand Samavedic music system. I have access to Naradiya Siksha, Pushpasutram, couple of books by Tarlekar, book by Hoogt, and books by Wayne Howard. Tarlekar's books have left me pretty confused. Naradiya siksha is also not very clear. Hoogt's book has a good discussion on stobhas. I am yet to dwell deeply into Wayne Howard's books but it seems he has done some great work on Samavedic music.

In comparison to Samavedic music, Bharata's music system seems abundantly clear to comprehend.

P.S. Why are you interested in Brahmi? Long ago I had tried to make a truetype font for Brahmi. I may be able to find that incomplete font if you are interested.

Ashok.

[Sunder]

Ashok, it's refreshing to know you have the brahmi TTF, It would definitely be nice to have one. My interest in Brahmi is purely quest of knowledge. I usually go for the original interpretations instead of relying on translations as it just does not do for me to read someone else's versions.


<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I like them much more than Sayana's commentaries.  Sayana is too much larma-kanda oriented.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I haven't read sayana's works yet, though I have heard quite a lot about it. Is there a good source with samskrit bhashya/karika available online/offline ?

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Samaveda link  has Archika part with the Rgvedic accents udatta, svarita, anudatta replaced by numbers 1,2,3.  But I couln't see anything more than first 10 mantras.  Maybe they will add rest of the pages later.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I can see upto 139 mantras. Use the bottom navigation. It's still being updated.

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->I am looking for Samaveda with samika part  (Gramageyagana, Aranyakagana etc) with stobhas and all notes 1,2,3,4,5 etc marked.  If you come across those on the internet please let me know.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<b>
Vedamu.org is one excellent resource I go to... Hope you can find your fill here <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--></b>
listen to audio (asx format) Here..

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Sunder+Mar 29 2004, 10:09 AM-->QUOTE(Sunder @ Mar 29 2004, 10:09 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Ashok Kumar+Mar 29 2004, 12:50 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ashok Kumar @ Mar 29 2004, 12:50 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Yes, if you look at MonierWilliams or Apte's sanskrit dictionary you get a bewildering array of meanings for each word. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> 

But the primary meaning of rta is "truth", "correct" etc.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Partially true... Rtham is RELATIVE truth, while Sathyam is Absolute truth.

Rthae'api thwaam na bhavishyanthi sarvae, yae'avasthitha prathyaneekeshu yoddha. (BG 11:32) <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now what is "relative truth" or what is the definition of "relative truth"?? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Anyway my name seems intresting Graduate (to me atleast) and really rocks hehehe <!--emo&:devil--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devilsmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='devilsmiley.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Sunder]

<!--QuoteBegin-rhytha+Mar 29 2004, 09:42 PM-->QUOTE(rhytha @ Mar 29 2004, 09:42 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Now what is "relative truth" or what is the definition of "relative truth"?? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Anyway my name seems intresting  Graduate (to me atleast) and really rocks hehehe <!--emo&:devil--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/devilsmiley.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='devilsmiley.gif' /><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Relative truth :</b> Somthing that seems apparantly real, but on closer inspection is of a different nature.
(*) I am typing this message, and you are reading it.
(*) There's cricket match going on between India & Pak.
(*) The world is beautiful. Bees are humming, Birds are chirping.

<b>Absolute Truth:</b> Never changes with time, space or reasoning. Unchangable, Immutable, Undeniable.

(*) Atman alone exists as all these.

[Amber G.]

My son is taking a linguistics course in Sanskrit this semester and he e-mailed me one of his term-paper. (Word format). (The fonts used are Arial Unicode ms) When I looked at it, I found that all “i” matra’s were showing wrong, eg instead of going to left they were going to right (and getting attached to the next letter). On his computer the words were showing correctly.

This is very strange… Has anyone seen this .. I mean a same file should look the same on two standard computers with a fairly standard (MS word) software..


Another question - for someone who has access to dictinary: He used the word "gir" for song .. I thought "gir" means mountain ..Can it mean song also?
Thanks in advance..

[Sunder]

<!--QuoteBegin-Amber G.+Apr 2 2004, 08:51 PM-->QUOTE(Amber G. @ Apr 2 2004, 08:51 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->This is very strange… Has anyone seen this .. I mean a same file should look the same on two standard computers with  a fairly standard  (MS word) software..<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not necessarily so. Please check if the TTF (True type font) is installed correctly on both machines. If I create a document using XDVNG, or Sanskrit98 on my machine, and send it to you, it will not show up correctly on your machine if you do not have these fonts available. MS Word will default the font to the first available one on the list (perhaps Arial Unicode.)

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another question - for someone who has access to dictinary: He used the word "gir" for song .. I thought "gir" means mountain ..Can it mean song also? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Samskritha ShabdhaKosham (Dictionary) gives the following meanings:

<b>gir.h = language
giraH = words
giraaM = of vibrations</b>
giri = mountain
girikandara = (neut) ravine
girijaa = paarvati
girish = God of mountain attributed to Lord Shiva
gilati = to swallow
<b>giita = (n) song
giitaM = described
giitaa = Shrimad.h Bhagavad.h gItA</b>

[Guest]

According to my Sanskrit refernce dictionary

<b>gir</b> <i>f</i> - speech, language; praise, invocation; name of Sarasvati, the goddess of speech and learning.

<b>gira </b><i>f</i> - speech, language, voice

<b>gitam</b> <i>n</i> - a song; singing

[Guest]

Amber,

You have hit upon a common problem with Unicode for Indian scripts.

Old non-unicode TrueType fonts had custom encoding. So each font had its own mapping. You couldn't view one file written in one Sanskrit font with another Sanskrit font because they will have different mapping for the glyphs and ASCII characters.

Unicode standard is supposed to remove such problems. As compared to ASCII (8 bit characters) standard unicode employs characters that are 16 bit in size. This means that instead of just 256 possible characters you can now have 65536 (or 64K) characters.

So each script of the world can be assigned a unique range of Unicode characters. So a true Unicode font can represent all the scripts of the world simultaneously. Devanagari has such a unique Unicode range of characters assigned to it.

But here comes a new problem. ISCII was developed in India as an Indian version of ASCII. And unicode standard followed ISCII standard. It says that characters be assigned to each syllabic phoneme rather than to a particular glyph. This was held necessary as Devanagari glyphs are not static. They don't follow each other without modification as in Roman script. They change shape and form when attached to others. A syllable that is pronounced the same way can have actual glyphs appear differently depending upon the context.

But if you asisigned a unique character (8 bit) to a syllabic phoneme then that is not going to change. Its display glyphs may change, but the characters themselves won't change. This is useful if you want to any machine processing of Indian language texts.

This was all fine and advanced but this has created a unique problem. You need an extra layer of software which looks at the Unicod characters and decides which glyphs to employ. A Unicode text file in Sanskrit is just a string of Unicode characters. It doesn't have the display information about glyphs or how they modify when combined with others. That task is left to actual display software, e.g. your word processor.

So if you open a unicode Sanskrit text in Wordpad, you will see the syllable "ki" with the "i" matra being applied after the consonant rather than before it. This is because Wordpad is simply replacing Unicode character with its default glyph. It is not doing the extra processing that is required.

Unicode has thousands of characters assigned for Chinese. I think it would have been easier for everyone if Devanagari and other Indian scripts were assigned larger ranges to also include all possible glyphs. So that no further processing is required to display a Sanskrit text.

But it is not so. ISCII drove Unicode character assignment for Indian scripts. Linguistically speaking there are good reasons to beleieve that this is a better choice. Although this causes the irritating experiences that you described.

[Guest]

Some ISCII vs Unicode links for Indian scripts

http://www.tamil.net/people/sivaraj/unicode.html
http://acharya.iitm.ac.in/multi_sys/uni_iscii.html
http://tdil.mit.gov.in/uni.htm

[Guest]

Amber,

Try this link
http://www.lborosu.org.uk/staff/manuals/Of...hree/inte03.htm

And see whether your Indic fonts are installed correctly in Office XP.