Sanskrit mottos: Kerala Police

[Nityānanda Miśra]

namo vaḥ

The motto of Kerala Police is the Sanskrit phrase मृदु भावे दृढ़ः कृत्ये [sic], often translated as “soft in temperament, firm in action”. The motto is written in the Devanagari script and not in the Malayalam script. A Devanagari-only motto of a state government agency would be unimaginable in Karnataka or Tamil Nadu (where some even equate Devanagari script with Hindi), but not in Kerala which seems much more open to Devanagari and Sanskrit (and also Hindi).

The motto is well-thought of, but it has two mistakes which Sanskrit scholars can easily spot. Firstly the motto uses ढ़ with a dot below, which is wrong as this represents the aspirated retroflex flap, present in Hindi and several other modern Indian languages but not in Sanskrit. Sanskrit has ढ, the aspirated voiced retroflex stop written without the dot below. The second mistake is grammatical. The word मृदु, as used in the motto, is the neuter gender form, whereas दृढः (the correct spelling), as used in the motto, is the masculine gender form. As both the adjectives qualify the same agency (police), they both need to be in the same gender. The state police can be thought of as a बल (“a force”), which is neuter in Sanskrit. Or it may be thought of as a सेना (“a body of [police]men”, the word also means “an army”), which is feminine in Sanskrit. Or it may be thought of as विभाग (“a department”), which is masculine in Sanskrit. In either case, the gender of the adjectives मृदु and दृढ should match. So the correct version of the motto would be—

1) मृदुः भावे दृढः कृत्ये (with a ‘visarga’ after मृदु, or with ‘sandhi’ as मृदुर्भावे दृढः कृत्ये) in the masculine gender

2) मृद्वी भावे दृढा कृत्ये or मृदुः भावे दृढा कृत्ये (with with ‘sandhi’ as मृदुर्भावे दृढा कृत्ये) in the feminine gender. Both मृदुः and मृद्वी are valid feminine forms.

3) मृदु भावे दृढं कृत्ये in the neuter gender, with an ‘anusvāra’ and not ‘visarga’ after दृढ

For any student or lover of Sanskrit, such mistakes in mottos of government institutions are unacceptable. It is surprising that this happened in Kerala, home to many Vedic and Sanskrit scholars. Makes me quite sad.

[Sri Raghava Kiran Mukku]

Namah Śrī Nityānanda,

This reminds me of the motto of IIM Ranchi which was "बहिर्मुखी विकास् गन्तव्यम्" before I got it changed to "बहुमुखविकासो गन्तव्यः".

Warm regards

Raghava

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[Shrikant Jamadagni]

During Modi 1.0 a TV advt. of tourism dept. used to show their motto as 

अतिथि: देवो भव:

Many days later it changed to 

अतिथि: देवो भव

Many more days later it changed finally to

अतिथिदेवो भव

Shrikant Jamadagni
Bengaluru

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[Shrikant Jamadagni]

How about a certain long-distance train having the same दुरन्त: एक्स्प्रेस् !!

Shrikant Jamadagni
Bengaluru

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[Vichitra Thandava]

We can't expect the maid we use to hand wash our clothes to know how to care for specific types of clothing we may know about and wear but the maid has no clue about.

Vijaender 

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[Janardana Hegde]

’दुरन्त’पदस्य ’दुर्ज्ञेयः अन्तः यस्य सः” इति भगवत्परः अर्थः  अपि  अस्ति ।

- जनार्दन हेगडे

[G S S Murthy]

"turant" I think means "quick" in quite some languages. Perhaps durant originates from that word.

Regards,

Murthy

On Tue, 31 May 2022 at 08:46, Janardana Hegde <janarda...@gmail.com> wrote:

’दुरन्त’पदस्य ’दुर्ज्ञेयः अन्तः यस्य सः” इति भगवत्परः अर्थः  अपि  अस्ति ।

- जनार्दन हेगडे

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[Vichitra Thandava]

Or Dur-anth. Meaning end of distance. 

Vijaender 

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[Shashi Joshi]

Maybe they meant

 दूरान्त - far away end - long distance

Thank you,
Shashi

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

The pelling and the pronunciation it suggests is Bengali. 

Apparently that is what they have in mind. 

""Duronto" means "the one that ends the distance" in Bengali."

from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duronto_Express 

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Nagaraj Paturi

 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Senior Director, IndicA

BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra

BoS Kavikulaguru Kalidasa Sanskrit University, Ramtek, Maharashtra

BoS Veda Vijnana Gurukula, Bengaluru.

Member, Advisory Council, Veda Vijnana Shodha Samsthanam, Bengaluru

BoS Rashtram School of Public Leadership

Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Studies in Public Leadership

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies, 

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education, 

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

 

 

 

[Abirlal Gangopadhyay]

Respected scholars,

In Bengali, দুরন্ত (duranta) has different means in different contexts. In general usage, this word is used to adjectivise children who are very naughty.

In the context of a train, one could translate this word (in Sanskrit) as प्रबल (prabala) - powerful (∴ प्रबलरेलयानम्, however, a saṃñjā could not be used in a translated form).

A snapshot of the Samsad ben-eng dictionary is also attached.

I hope this email could help you all to solve this problem.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Abirlal Gangopadhyay

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Abirlal Gangopadhyay 

Doctoral Research Fellow, ICSSR
PhD Research Scholar 
Department of Sanskrit Studies
University of Hyderabad

[Prabhu]

sarvebhyo namaH

Abirlal-ji,

To your point, this might help..please see "दुरन्तविक्रम" as in :

अवैहि दूतमागतं दुरन्तविक्रमस्य माम्‌ । 

रघूत्तमस्य मारुतिं कुलक्षये तवेश्वरम्‌ ॥ ३८ ॥  

Footnote:

"दुष्टानां दुरन्तो विक्रमो यस्य । नञर्थं च रिष्यत इत्यक्तम्‌ । तेन दुरन्तविक्रम इत्यनन्तविक्रमः"

From: MahabharataTatparyaNirnaya-Vol1 Commentary By BannanjeGovindacharya

Regards

Prabhu

[Prabhu]

... A typo fixed:

On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 7:34:55 PM UTC-7 Prabhu wrote:

sarvebhyo namaH

Abirlal-ji,

To your point, this might help..please see "दुरन्तविक्रम" as in :

अवैहि दूतमागतं दुरन्तविक्रमस्य माम्‌ । 

रघूत्तमस्य मारुतिं कुलक्षये तवेश्वरम्‌ ॥ ३८ ॥  

Footnote:

"दुष्टानं दुरन्तो विक्रमो यस्य ।  नञर्थे च दुरिष्यत इत्युक्तम्‌ ।"

[Shashi Joshi]

That word is दुर्दान्त  durdAnta - hard to be tamed, naughty.

Thank you,
Shashi

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[Shashi Joshi]

From Apte:

-अन्त a. 1 whose end is difficult to be reached, endless, infinite; संकर्षणाय सूक्ष्माय दुरन्तायान्तकाय च Bhāg. -2 ending ill or in misery, unhappy; अहो दुरन्ता बलवद्विरोधिता Ki.1.23; नृत्यति युवति- जनेन समं सखि विरहिजनस्य दुरन्ते (वसन्ते) Gīt.1; इयमुदरदरी- दुरन्तधारा यदि न भवेदभिमानभङ्गभूमिः Udb. -3 hard to be understood or known. -4 insurmountable.

The train name maybe for endless distance it travels

Thank you,
Shashi

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[Radhakrishna Warrier]

In Malayalam, durantam (ദുരന്തം) can mean tragedy, calamity, tragic end, or disaster. It is that which has a bad (duH-) ending (antam).  Newspapers refer to train accidents as teevandi durantam.  (teevandi = "fire vehicle" = train). So, a Malayali might have some hesitation in travelling in a train called "duranto". 🙂

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From: bvpar...@googlegroups.com <bvpar...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Shashi Joshi <shas...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2022 9:34 PM
To: bvpar...@googlegroups.com <bvpar...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: {भारतीयविद्वत्परिषत्} Sanskrit mottos: Kerala Police

 

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[Nagaraj Paturi]

One of the fastest trains in India, Duronto was introduced in 2009-2010. The first train of this series ran between Sealdah in Kolkata and New Delhi and was flagged off by Mamata Banerjee, the then Railway Minister. 

The spelling is Duronto , with two 'o' s , indicating a Bengali pronunciation. 

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[govindapoduval kg]

Sir,

My enquiries reveal that according to records there is no dot below the word dh and the word mridu is in masculine. The mistake occurred at the hands of the artistes who did the painting work. Thanks for pointing out the mistake and initiating the discussion. K. G. Poduval. Kannur.

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