Kalahamsa, Kala-hamsa, Kalahaṃsa, Kalahaṃsā, Kāḷahaṃsa, Kalia-hamsa: 20 definitions
Introduction:
Kalahamsa means something in Hinduism, Sanskrit, Buddhism, Pali, Marathi. If you want to know the exact meaning, history, etymology or English translation of this term then check out the descriptions on this page. Add your comment or reference to a book if you want to contribute to this summary article.
The Sanskrit term Kāḷahaṃsa can be transliterated into English as Kalahamsa or Kaliahamsa, using the IAST transliteration scheme (?).
In Hinduism
Purana and Itihasa (epic history)
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—Sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭri and Garuḍa.*
- * Brahmāṇḍa-purāṇa III. 7. 457.
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस) is a name mentioned in the Mahābhārata (cf. I.60.56) and represents one of the many proper names used for people and places. Note: The Mahābhārata (mentioning Kalahaṃsa) is a Sanskrit epic poem consisting of 100,000 ślokas (metrical verses) and is over 2000 years old.
The Purana (पुराण, purāṇas) refers to Sanskrit literature preserving ancient India’s vast cultural history, including historical legends, religious ceremonies, various arts and sciences. The eighteen mahapuranas total over 400,000 shlokas (metrical couplets) and date to at least several centuries BCE.
Shaktism (Shakta philosophy)
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—The swans (haṃsa) in Mahā-kailāsa represent purified mind and hence they are known as kalahaṃsas. Kalahaṃsa means Brahman without any attributes or Nirguṇa Brahman.
Shakta (शाक्त, śākta) or Shaktism (śāktism) represents a tradition of Hinduism where the Goddess (Devi) is revered and worshipped. Shakta literature includes a range of scriptures, including various Agamas and Tantras, although its roots may be traced back to the Vedas.
Chandas (prosody, study of Sanskrit metres)
1) Kalahaṃsā (कलहंसा) is the alternative name of a Sanskrit metre (chandas) mentioned by Hemacandra (1088-1173 C.E.) in his auto-commentary on the second chapter of the Chandonuśāsana. Kalahaṃsā corresponds to Drutapadā, Mukhara. Hemacandra gives these alternative names for the metres by other authorities (like Bharata), even though the number of gaṇas or letters do not differ.
2) Kalahaṃsā (कलहंसा) refers to one of the 135 metres (chandas) mentioned by Nañjuṇḍa (1794-1868 C.E.) in his Vṛttaratnāvalī. Nañjuṇḍa was a poet of both Kannada and Sanskrit literature flourished in the court of the famous Kṛṣṇarāja Woḍeyar of Mysore. He introduces the names of these metres (e.g., Kalahaṃsā) in 20 verses.
Chandas (छन्दस्) refers to Sanskrit prosody and represents one of the six Vedangas (auxiliary disciplines belonging to the study of the Vedas). The science of prosody (chandas-shastra) focusses on the study of the poetic meters such as the commonly known twenty-six metres mentioned by Pingalas.
Ayurveda (science of life)
Veterinary Medicine (The study and treatment of Animals)
1) Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस) (lit. “one who goves out sweet calls like ‘kal’”) is a synonym (another name) for Swan (Haṃsa), according to scientific texts such as the Mṛgapakṣiśāstra (Mriga-pakshi-shastra) or “the ancient Indian science of animals and birds” by Hamsadeva, containing the varieties and descriptions of the animals and birds seen in the Sanskrit Epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata.
2) Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस) refers to the Graylag Goose (Anser anser).
Āyurveda (आयुर्वेद, ayurveda) is a branch of Indian science dealing with medicine, herbalism, taxology, anatomy, surgery, alchemy and related topics. Traditional practice of Āyurveda in ancient India dates back to at least the first millenium BC. Literature is commonly written in Sanskrit using various poetic metres.
Shaivism (Shaiva philosophy)
Kālahaṃsa (कालहंस) is the name of a mantra, according to the Svacchanda-tantra.—Accordingly, [verse 7.210-211, while describing the meditation on the kālahaṃsa]—“Either by reciting or meditating on the kālahaṃsa, O Goddess, [the practitioner] becomes Śiva [who] has the form of kāla and acts freely (or as Svacchanda) like kāla. Death has been destroyed, [the Yogin] has abandoned old age, is free from all danger [caused by] disease, [he] knows, learns, and day-dreams. [He] gains the all supreme siddhis, [which] arise constantly as a result of conquering kāla”.
Note: The kālahaṃsa-mantra, which can be translates as “time” or “death” haṃsa, allows its user to become Śiva. Kāla spans time and death: to become Śiva is to be time and death, i.e., to create and to destroy. Through time (or death, kāla) the world continues to flourish. Without the breath nothing is created or destroyed, and nothing at all exists. When the devotee becomes kāla, he creates and destroys through the haṃsa-mantra.
Shaiva (शैव, śaiva) or Shaivism (śaivism) represents a tradition of Hinduism worshiping Shiva as the supreme being. Closely related to Shaktism, Shaiva literature includes a range of scriptures, including Tantras, while the root of this tradition may be traced back to the ancient Vedas.
Languages of India and abroad
Pali-English dictionary
kāḷahaṃsa : (m.) black swan.
1) kālahaṃsa (ကာလဟံသ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[kāḷa+haṃsa．kāḷavaṇṇo haṃso kāḷahaṃso,kālahaṃsopi．,ṭī．644．]
[ကာဠ+ဟံသ။ ကာဠဝဏ္ဏော ဟံသော ကာဠဟံသော၊ ကာလဟံသောပိ။ ဓာန်၊ ဋီ။ ၆၄၄။]
2) kāḷahaṃsa (ကာဠဟံသ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[kāḷa+haṃsa．kāḷavaṇṇo haṃso kāḷahaṃso,kālahaṃsopi．,ṭī．644．]
[ကာဠ+ဟံသ။ ကာဠဝဏ္ဏော ဟံသော ကာဠဟံသော၊ ကာလဟံသောပိ။ ဓာန်၊ ဋီ။ ၆၄၄။]
[Pali to Burmese]
1) kālahaṃsa—
(Burmese text): မည်းနက်သော အဆင်းရှိသော ဟင်္သာ၊ ဟင်္သာနက်။ (ဓာန်သျ၌ တီးတုတ်,ဓာန်သျသစ်၌ ဝမ်းဘဲ,တောင်ပေါက်ဓာန်၊ သျ၊ ၌ ဝမ်းဘဲဟင်္သာဟု အသီးအသီးပြန်ဆိုကြသည်)။
(Auto-Translation): Black and dark, a type of hen. (In the language of the spirits, it is referred to as 'hinsa', in the dialect of the spirits it is called 'wambay', and in the mountain spirit language, it is called 'hinsa wambay').
2) kāḷahaṃsa—
(Burmese text): မည်းနက်သော အဆင်းရှိသော ဟင်္သာ၊ ဟင်္သာနက်။ (ဓာန်သျ၌ တီးတုတ်,ဓာန်သျသစ်၌ ဝမ်းဘဲ,တောင်ပေါက်ဓာန်၊ သျ၊ ၌ ဝမ်းဘဲဟင်္သာဟု အသီးအသီးပြန်ဆိုကြသည်)။
(Auto-Translation): Black and dark-hued Hinthar, dark Hinthar. (In the mineral world, it's called "teetut," in the botanical world, "wan beha," and in the highland mineral, "wan beha Hinthar" is referred to as each category.)
Pali is the language of the Tipiṭaka, which is the sacred canon of Theravāda Buddhism and contains much of the Buddha’s speech. Closeley related to Sanskrit, both languages are used interchangeably between religions.
Marathi-English dictionary
kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—m S A drake or a gander; or, according to some, a teal. 2 A name of Brahma.
kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—m A drake or a gander, a teal.
Marathi is an Indo-European language having over 70 million native speakers people in (predominantly) Maharashtra India. Marathi, like many other Indo-Aryan languages, evolved from early forms of Prakrit, which itself is a subset of Sanskrit, one of the most ancient languages of the world.
Sanskrit dictionary
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—
1) a gander, a swan; वधूदुकूलं कलहंस- लक्षणम् (vadhūdukūlaṃ kalahaṃsa- lakṣaṇam) Kumārasambhava 5.67.
2) a duck, drake; Bhaṭṭikāvya 2.18; कलमन्य- भृतासु भाषितं कलहंसीषु मदालसं गतम् (kalamanya- bhṛtāsu bhāṣitaṃ kalahaṃsīṣu madālasaṃ gatam) R.8.59.
3) the supreme soul.
4) an excellent king.
Derivable forms: kalahaṃsaḥ (कलहंसः).
Kalahaṃsa is a Sanskrit compound consisting of the terms kala and haṃsa (हंस).
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—m.
(-saḥ) 1. A drake, or according to some, a teal. 2. A gander. 3. Another bird, (Gallinula porphyria.) 4. Brahma or the Supreme Being. 5. An emperor. 6. A species of the Atijagati metre. E. kala pleasing sound, and hasa a goose.
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—[kala-haṃsa], m., f. sī, A kind of duck or goose, [Rāmāyaṇa] 2, 82, 9; [Kirātārjunīya] 5, 13; [Raghuvaṃśa, (ed. Stenzler.)] 8, 58.
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस).—[masculine] a kind of duck, goose, or swan ([feminine] ī); [Name] of a man. — Abstr. tā [feminine]
1) Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस):—[=kala-haṃsa] [from kala] m. Name of several species of the Haṃsa bird or goose, [Mahābhārata; Rāmāyaṇa; Pañcatantra] etc.
2) [v.s. ...] an excellent king, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
3) [v.s. ...] Brahma or the Supreme Spirit, [cf. Lexicographers, esp. such as amarasiṃha, halāyudha, hemacandra, etc.]
4) [v.s. ...] a particular metre (consisting of four lines of thirteen syllables each)
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस):—[kala-haṃsa] (saḥ) 1. m. A drake; a gander; Brahm; a king.
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस):—(kala + haṃsa) m.
1) eine Art Ente oder Gans, = kādamba [Amarakoṣa 2, 5, 23.] kādambāstu kalahaṃsāḥ pakṣaiḥ syuratidhūsaraiḥ [Hemacandra’s Abhidhānacintāmaṇi 1327.] [Anekārthasaṃgraha 4, 325.] [Medinīkoṣa s. 49.] = rājahaṃsa [Hemacandra’s Anekārthasaṃgraha] [Medinīkoṣa] [Mahābhārata 1, 2622.] [Rāmāyaṇa 2, 82, 9. 4, 29, 17. 50,] [?14.Pañcatantra I, 335. Kumārasaṃbhava 5, 67. Bhāgavatapurāṇa 1, 11, 2.] vimānaiḥ kalahaṃsapāṇḍubhiḥ [4, 3, 12.] kalahaṃsī das Weibchen [Raghuvaṃśa 8, 58.] —
2) ein vorzüglicher König (nṛpottama) [Hemacandra’s Anekārthasaṃgraha] [Medinīkoṣa] [VIŚVA im Śabdakalpadruma] —
3) der höchste Geist, das Brahman (vgl. haṃsa) [Śabdaratnāvalī im Śabdakalpadruma] —
4) Name eines Metrums (4 Mal ˘ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ˘ ˘ ¯ ˘ ˘ ¯ ¯) [Colebrooke II, 161 (VIII, 7).]
Kalahaṃsa (कलहंस):——
1) m. — a) eine Art Ente , Gans oder Schwan. Nom.abstr. tā f. [Indische sprüche 7851.] — b) *ein vorzüglicher König. — c) *der höchste Geist , das Brahman. — d) ein best. Metrum. —
2) f. ī das Weibchen von 1)a).
Sanskrit, also spelled संस्कृतम् (saṃskṛtam), is an ancient language of India commonly seen as the grandmother of the Indo-European language family (even English!). Closely allied with Prakrit and Pali, Sanskrit is more exhaustive in both grammar and terms and has the most extensive collection of literature in the world, greatly surpassing its sister-languages Greek and Latin.
Kannada-English dictionary
Kalahaṃsa (ಕಲಹಂಸ):—
1) [noun] = ಕಲಹಂಸೆ [kalahamse].
2) [noun] (Mus.) one of the 108 rhythmic measures in Karnāṭaka system.
3) [noun] (mus.) a mode, in Karnāṭaka system, derived from the main mode Yāgapriya.
--- OR ---
Kaḷahaṃsa (ಕಳಹಂಸ):—[noun] any of an order (Phoenicopteriformes) of large, tropical birds with long, red legs, webbed feet, long necks, downward-curving red beaks, and bright pink or red feathers; a kind of flamingo.
Kannada is a Dravidian language (as opposed to the Indo-European language family) mainly spoken in the southwestern region of India.
See also (Relevant definitions)
Partial matches (+0): Kalia, Hamsa, Kala.
Starts with (+0): Kalahamsagamini, Kalahamsaka, Kalahamsakanjika.
Full-text (+67): Kalahamsagamini, Sakalahamsagana, Kalahamsi, Kalanada, Kalahamsaka, Cakravaka, Maralaka, Kadamba, Kalahamse, Pralalita, Dhritarashtrii, Sarvabhaya, Ujjhita, Vijnana, Shravana, Avapti, Duravalokana, Kalavat, Sarvaishvarya, Hatamrityu.
Relevant text
Search found 31 books and stories containing Kalahamsa, Kala-hamsa, Kāla-haṃsa, Kala-haṃsa, Kāḷa-haṃsa, Kalahaṃsa, Kālahaṃsa, Kalahaṃsā, Kaḷahaṃsa, Kaḷahamsa, Kāḷahaṃsa, Kalahamsas, Kalia-hamsa; (plurals include: Kalahamsas, hamsas, haṃsas, Kalahaṃsas, Kālahaṃsas, Kalahaṃsās, Kaḷahaṃsas, Kaḷahamsas, Kāḷahaṃsas, Kalahamsases). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Sanskrit dramas by Kerala authors (Study) (by S. Subramania Iyer)
2. Plot (summary) of the Kamalinikalahamsa < [Chapter 12: Kamalinikalahamsa (Kamalini-Kalahamsa)]
4. The sentiment (rasa) of the Kamalinikalahamsa < [Chapter 12: Kamalinikalahamsa (Kamalini-Kalahamsa)]
7. Technique of the Kamalini-Kalahamsa < [Chapter 12: Kamalinikalahamsa (Kamalini-Kalahamsa)]
Harsha-charita (by E. B. Cowell)
Chapter I - The description of the Vatsyayana race
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts, Madras (by M. Seshagiri Sastri)
Garga Samhita (English) (by Danavir Goswami)
Verse 5.21.42 < [Chapter 21 - The Story of Śrī Nārada]
Verse 2.22.4 < [Chapter 22 - The Rāsa-dance Pastime]
The Ratnavali-natika and the Chandrakala-natika (study) (by Jewti Boruah)
Part 3 - Nāṭikās in the Sanskrit literature < [Chapter 1 - General Introduction]
Dictionaries of Indian languages (Kosha)
Page 281 < [Gujarati-Hindi-English, Volume 1]