Sanskrit antonyms

[Sunder Hattangadi]

Namaste,        Is there a dictionary of antonyms in Sanskrit?   Regards,   sunder

[hnbhat B.R.]

I am afraid there is not. I have not heard any such name. There are only specialized dictionaries, Ekakshara, dvyakshara, nannartha etc. Generally polynyms are included in the General lexicons of synonyms.

It is too difficult to have such one exactly antonyms. Even the negative formation with the particle "na" yields six types of meanings.

"तत्सादृश्यमभावश्च तदन्यत्वं तदल्पता। अप्राशस्त्यं विरोधश्च नञर्थाः षट् प्रकीर्तिताः। "

and some have both the meanings inside the word. Like,

"आराद् दूरसमीपयोः"(Amara 3.3.242c) "सव्यं दक्षिणे वामे च" (हैमः) "सव्यं दक्षिणवामयोः" (वैजयन्ती) etc.

Well, if somebody has compiled such one, might have been better.

With regards

-- 
Dr. Hari Narayana Bhat B.R.
EFEO,
PONDICHERRY

[Arvind_Kolhatkar]

I do not think that such a dictionary was created by anyone. Even the
शब्दकोषs that are extant are actually thesauri and not alphabetical
dictionaries of the modern type.

I would say that, looking at it from the modern perspective, our old
scholars were not very good at organizing and presenting information.
For example, arranging words alphabetically now appears to us to be
the easiest way of reaching a word we want to know the meaning of.
Somehow this simplest of ideas did not occur to anyone in hundreds of
years of learning. What could be the reason for this?

Occasionally we do see alphabetical arrangements as, for example, in
विष्णुसहस्रनाम but even there it is not very consistent.

Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, March 03, 2011.

[naresh keerthi]

Could this be because the alphabetic order didn't exist in the Indian tradition.

The roman script in which we write English has a totally arbitrary arrangement of alphabets, which we are made to memorise for no particular reason. What pray is the logical scheme underlying the alphabetic 'order' ? It isn't an order, it is a prescription.

The SanskRt letters were clustered according to the site of origin or site of articulation - kaNTa, tAlU, mUrdhA etc, and this is at least as old as the prAtishAkhya-s. Phonologists and linguists have been unanimous in praising this arrangement.

The Indian lexicons with a topic-based arrangement of lexical  entries reflect the mind better than our dictionaries that are alphabetical.We don't think alphabetically, we think in clusters of allied thoughts and the words corresponding to them.

Also the Indian Lexicons weren't meant for weak memories like ours', which need the lexicons as reference books and ready reckoners, they were learnt by rote, in the rigourous course of shIksha, that every student underwent.

Those who have seen scholars list out synonyms, will see that they effortlessly remember the entries from a half-dozen kosha-s; and testify the merit of that scheme.


Best,

Naresh Keerthi

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "samskrita" group.
To post to this group, send email to sams...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to samskrita+...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/samskrita?hl=en.

[Vidya R]

namassarvebhyaH | 

"Somehow this simplest of ideas did not occur to anyone in hundreds of years of learning.  What could be the reason for this?"

DISCLAIMER:  My comment is purely from a logical point of view.  I am not rising to the defense of members of the learned community of yore.

Let us not lose sight of the forest in looking at the trees!  In today's system of learning, starting from letters of the alphabet and building words and then sentences, this (alphabetic sequencing of words in a dictionary) of seems to be a good approach.  But this is in-fact, reverse-engineering. 

Language (natural) does not evolve that way.  You start with sounds, and concepts.  Words are formed around those.  Also, look at the learning process - today, we learn from a dictionary.  Earlier, knowledge was gained from listening and repeating.  You learnt (memorized, rather) a whole lot by this method, starting at a young age.  Later, as the student got older, he started learning the mechanics of the language, and by this time, he had a huge database in his mind that he could resort to for examples, illustrations ....  The koshas collated that knowledge in a modular manner.

Regards

Vidya

P.S.:  Recently, at work, I was handed a (printed) year-end sales report of customers' transactions sorted in alphabetic order of their customer code.  Customer code had itself been created chronologically (without any reference to the alphabet in the customer's name).  You can imagine my sense of disbelief at the thought process of the person who generated that report!   (Blind alphabetic sequence of something which did not make any sense!)

---

From: Arvind_Kolhatkar <kolhat...@gmail.com>
To: samskrita <sams...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thu, March 3, 2011 9:33:45 AM
Subject: [Samskrita] Re: Sanskrit antonyms

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "samskrita" group.
To post to this group, send email to sams...@googlegroups.com.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to samskrita+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[hnbhat B.R.]

There is one strange "sahasranama" starting with the 24 letters in order ending with the names beginning with "hi". Gayatri Sahasranama.

In naanaarthavarga, the words are arranged not in topic wise, but in alphabetical order or the endings of the stem in the Naanarthavarga, or special dictionaries for naanaarthakosha-s. But not arranged in the order of the words beginning with. Their purpose was different as in the case of Amarakosha. Almost every text was to be memorized, including the Amarakosha, which is one of the source of building vocabulary. Not used as a reference book for meaning to be looked into in the alphabetical order and composed in verses rather to facilitate memorize them. The advantage is that when you read the text you need not refer to any dictionary, if you are equipped with Kosha and VyakaraNa. Accordingly they were composed not in metrical structure, and not in their objective was give an alphabetical index or dictionary as in the present time, when the learning system has changed drastically. 

Most of the learning was done from a teacher and only after completion of the course, further reading would be acquired in different steps:

आचार्यात् पादमादत्ते पादं शिष्यः स्वमेधया।
पादं सब्रह्मचारिभ्यः पादम् कालक्रमेण च॥
ācāryāt pādamādatte pādaṁ śiṣyaḥ svamedhayā|
 pādaṁ sabrahmacāribhyaḥ pādam kālakrameṇa ca||

 A student gets a quarter (knowledge) from his teacher,a quarter by his own intelligence.
 A quarter from his fellow students and a quarter in due course of time.

Only 1/4th of his learning is to be completed from outside his gurukula.  There too, another system was prevalent:

गुरुशुश्रूषया विद्या पुष्कलेन धनेन वा । अथवा विद्यया विद्या चतुर्थी नोपलभ्यते ॥

Serving the teacher, or in exchange for massive wealth (as fees to the tutor) or (in exchange) with the knowledge (already acquired) for acquiring a new learning/topic/subject can be found. There is not a fourth way of learning.

While they set out of the gurukula, each will be well-equipped with vyakaraNa and KoSha. Jagaddhara, the commentator of Bhavabhuti's works, calls himself as Kosha-vallabha, who quotes profusely synonyms from different Kosha-s in support of his interpretation. And this was the method of teaching too. Commentator Mallinatha, declares that:

नामूलं लिख्यते किंचित् नानपेक्षितमुच्यते॥

Without supporting his interpretation, nothing will be said without testimony to support which mainly depend on the resources Kosha 

and VyakaraNa.

I can see many responding to this answer. Hence I am not elongating this reply. Keerthi Naresh is quite right in the response.

Thanks for raising the issue and the responses there to.

[Sunder Hattangadi]

What is the translation of the word 'antonym'? (?arthAntara-shabda?)     Regards,   sunder     --- On Thu, 3/3/11, hnbhat B.R. <hnbh...@gmail.com> wrote:

[hnbhat B.R.]

On Thu, Mar 3, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Sunder Hattangadi <sun...@yahoo.com> wrote:

What is the translation of the word 'antonym'? (?arthAntara-shabda?)

Antonym can be translated by विरुद्धार्थशब्दः or. विपरीतार्थशब्दः generally. अर्थान्तरशब्दः is नानार्थकशब्दः, अन्यो ऽर्थः अर्थान्तरं यस्य शब्दस्य = अर्थान्तरशब्दः, नानार्थकः शब्दः can be translated by polysemy.  

 

[kaliprasadvs vangara]

I found this in आकार kramah

kaliprasad

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "samskrita" group.
To post to this group, send email to sams...@googlegroups.com.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to samskrita+...@googlegroups.com.

[hnbhat B.R.]

Thank you for the rare Sahasranama in the alphabetical order. Very interesting. Seems to be the objective to represent him as Akshara-svarupa, and the thousand names comprising the letters of the alphabet obviously mentioned in the beginning verse in the same order of the alphabet:

"mAt RukAmAlikAyuktam"  

Very much interesting.

[manda...@gmail.com]

четверг, 3 марта 2011 г., 21:12:37 UTC+5:30 пользователь hnbhat:

There is one strange "sahasranama" starting with the 24 letters in order ending with the names beginning with "hi". Gayatri Sahasranama.

आचार्यात् पादमादत्ते पादं शिष्यः स्वमेधया।

पादं सब्रह्मचारिभ्यः पादम् कालक्रमेण च॥
ācāryāt pādamādatte pādaṁ śiṣyaḥ svamedhayā|
 pādaṁ sabrahmacāribhyaḥ pādam kālakrameṇa ca||

 A student gets a quarter (knowledge) from his teacher,a quarter by his own intelligence.
 A quarter from his fellow students and a quarter in due course of time.

Only 1/4th of his learning is to be completed from outside his gurukula.  There too, another system was prevalent:

Could anyone give me exact refference (original source) for this śloka?

 

[Hnbhat B.R.]

Please go through this thread:

On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 3:21 PM, <manda...@gmail.com> wrote:

четверг, 3 марта 2011 г., 21:12:37 UTC+5:30 пользователь hnbhat:

There is one strange "sahasranama" starting with the 24 letters in order ending with the names beginning with "hi". Gayatri Sahasranama.

आचार्यात् पादमादत्ते पादं शिष्यः स्वमेधया।
पादं सब्रह्मचारिभ्यः पादम् कालक्रमेण च॥
ācāryāt pādamādatte pādaṁ śiṣyaḥ svamedhayā|
 pādaṁ sabrahmacāribhyaḥ pādam kālakrameṇa ca||

 A student gets a quarter (knowledge) from his teacher,a quarter by his own intelligence.

and not exactly the the quarter of a verse. 

Please go through the discussion in this thread:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/samskrita/-czhLVoF21g/RqvkUIMit50J

and

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/bvparishat/Repa7LdHJp4/-jzCwiekfwIJ

[knr]

Sri.Bhat Mahodaya,

Just wanted to share these.

I found Gayathri sahasranamas which you have mentioned here:

http://www.ambaa.org/pdf/gAyatrI_Worship.pdf

The one from devi bhagavatham - Pages 27 to 40 are in alphabetical order and the one from Rudra Yamala from pages 59 to 72 are in 24 alphabet sequence of Gayathri mantra.

Suvarnamala stuti by Bhagavat pada is another one which came to my mind.

namaskarams

Ramesh

[kamalesh pathak]

excellent details given by you sir !

i was knowing only 24 type of gayatri mantras this book refers various gayatri mantras for all dieties. 

thanks a lot again,

regards, 

kamalesh  pathak

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "samskrita" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to samskrita+...@googlegroups.com.

To post to this group, send email to sams...@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/samskrita.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
Kamlesh Pathak