The Thriving Mint Of Sanskrit

On the genius of the language for inventing new words

Now the great cloud cat,
darting out his lightning tongue,
licks the creamy moonlight
from the saucepan of the sky (1)

पिबति व्योम-कटाहे सं सक्त-चलत्-तडिल्लता-रसनः |
मेघ-महा-मार्जारस् सम्प्रति चन्द्रातप-क्षीरम् ||

In less than 40 syllables, Poet Yogīshvara has whisked us away from the mundane scene of the family cat lapping up its milk and dropped us off in the heavens where moonlight and lightning play out their magic. This kind of vibrant imagery is the very soul of poetry. The word skyscraper, however, does not quite conjure the same effect. There is no arresting image of a behemoth so tall that it literally scrapes the top of the big sky-bowl.

This once-vivid picture, has now become faded with overexposure. After all, overuse devalues the currency of language. Even the most beautifully woven phrases, when overworked, are reduced to mere flourishes of rhetoric. But, Sanskrit has a wonderful way around this — its word generation machinery. You can feed it words; it will combine them in many different ways, and roll out out fresh new words, ready for use. With the help of this machine, the same idea can be cast in a thousand different ways.

Of all the things this machine can make, perhaps the most unique is the bahuvrīhi compound. Let me illustrate with some English examples. A Potterhead for instance, is neither a potter, nor a head; it is a person who has (Harry) Potter in his head. Also, a scarecrow is neither a scary nor a crow; it is something that scares a crow.

Similarly, chandra-mauli is a person who has chandra (moon) on his mauli (head), i.e. Shiva. I suppose you get the drift. Bahuvrīhi compounds are rather rare in other languages, but they can be whipped up at will in Sanskrit. This is one of the secrets behind the brevity and crispness of Sanskrit.

Now that you know what the bahuvrīhi is, let us now turn our attention to India’s favourite Sanskrit quotation:

मातृदेवो भव
पितृदेवो भव
आचार्यदेवो भव
अतिथिदेवो भव

Translations generally run along the lines of:

The mother is equivalent to God.
The father is equivalent to God.
The teacher is equivalent to God.
The guest is equivalent to God.

But this is not what it actually means! Clichés often don’t mean what we think they mean. For instance, consider the phrase head over heels in love. Surely it should be heels over head ! Head over heels is the standard orientation! In this case, we need to recognize that mātṛdevo is actually a bahuvrīhi compound meaning he-to-whom-mother-is-god. Now we can piece together the actual meaning:

You become one-to-whom-mother-is-God.
You become one-to-whom-father-is-God.
You become one-to-whom-the-teacher-is-God.
You become one-to-whom-the-guest-is-God.

What a wonderful form the meaning now takes! The Taittiriya Upanishad is not bringing down the judge’s gavel and pronouncing mother as God. There is no injunction here. It is only asserting a Zen-like idea that, change must ultimately come from within. The feeling that one’s mother is God, is more important than her literal godliness. We can only marvel that these ancient words still ring relevant in the modern world, even when taken outside the context of religion. Of course, we must marvel at the magic of the bahuvrīhi, which enables such compaction and brevity.

Let us now go to a different verse from the subhāṣita-ratna-kośa; a strikingly modern thought from an ancient poet.

अयं काणः शुक्रो विषम-चरणः सूर्यतनयः
क्षताक्षोऽयं राहुः विकल-महिमा शीतकिरणः |
अजानानः तेषाम् अपि नियत-कर्म-स्वकफलं
ग्रह-ग्राम-ग्रस्ता वयमिति जनोऽयं प्रलपति ||

Poor Śukra is half-blind, the sun has a crippled child.
Rāhu has lost his limbs, and the moon is ever-waning.
But here are men, not knowing that these too but suffer the results of their own deeds,
they blame their own misfortunes on the planets. (2)

What a wonderfully progressive message from such an ancient verse! Shukra, who confers wealth, luxury and luxury— he himself is one-eyed! And Shani, who wards off evil and obstacles, limps around around the sun. What has the much feared Rāhu done about his own dismembered existence? One is reminded of that amusing anecdote in which an astrologer falls into a well while trying to divine the future from the stars! Nīlakaṇṭha too takes a nice dig at Astrologers in his kaliviḍambanam—

When asked about a pregnancy, the astrologer wins,
if he tells the father: “A son!” and the mother: “A daughter!”.

When asked about the length of life,the astrologer predicts a long life.
Those who survive will be in awe of him. Who will the dead call to account? (3)

The heavens might not hold sway over humans, but they certainly have had sufficient sway over language. Saturn is so far away from the Sun that it takes 30 long years to make one circuit of the sky (No wonder Shani is depicted as a limping cripple!). This slow, ponderous motion of Saturn gave birth to an English adjective— saturnine— for somebody who is sluggish and morose. Someone born under the swift mercury would be expected to be mercurial — unpredictable and wayward. The war god Mars makes one martial. Jupiter’s sway causes one to be jovial. A crazy man is a lunatic— from Luna, the Roman moon goddess. A dis-aster is just bad-stars! (Compare with Sanskrit dus-tārā).

Let me end with a little tidbit:

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s name comes from the Russian word for bear, medved. (Which is also the reason he’s referred to as Putin’s Teddy bear). But medved has not always been the Russian word for bear. Russians lived so much in the fear of bears, that the original word for bear became a taboo; they replaced it with a euphemism medved, literally meaning “honey-eater”. Interestingly, the same word is used in the Rig-Veda, madhvad “madhu-ad” “honey-eater”. Now, who would have imagined that the Russian Prime Minister has a connection with the Rig-Veda!

1. An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry, Daniel H. H. Ingalls
2. An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry, Daniel H. H. Ingalls
3. Three Satires, Somadeva Vasudeva