Maga: 18 definitions
Introduction:
Maga means something in Hinduism, Sanskrit, Buddhism, Pali, the history of ancient India, Marathi, Hindi. 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.
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In Hinduism
Purana and Itihasa (epic history)
Maga (मग).—The brahmins residing in the island of Śāka are generally called Magas. The Brahmaparva of Bhaviṣya Purāṇa and the Sāmba Purāṇa speak about the Magas thus:
Sāmba, son of Kṛṣṇa, did severe penance to please Sūryadeva and pleased with the unwavering devotion of Sāmba, Sūrya gave him a luminous replica of himself for worship. Sāmba constructed a beautiful temple by the side of the Candrabhāgā river and installed the idol there. He then brought from Śākadvīpa the brahmins called Magas for conducting the ceremonies of the temple. All the eighteen families of Maga brahmins came and stayed near the temple at the request of Sāmba.

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.
India history and geography
Maga or Maka: We can accurately identify the area of the Indo-Greek King Maga or Maka because the area of western Bactria, western Tajikistan, eastern Tukmenistan and eastern Uzbekistan was well-known as the country of Maka. Most probably, the first Indo-Greek King of this area had a title of Soter Megas (ΣΩΤΗΡ ΜΕΓΑΣ) which is evident from the numismatic evidence. The descendants of Indo-Greek King Soter Megas also had the same title. Therefore, they were generally referred to as Maga or Maka kings. Gradually, the country of Maga kings also came be known as Maga. Since Zoroaster was born in this Maka kingdom, Zoroastrianism also came to be known as Maghism.
Maga.—(EI 9; BL), the same as Śākadvīpīya; a community of Brāhmaṇas; name of the members of the Persian priestly community (Magi) settled in India and absorbed in the Brāh- maṇa class. Note: maga is defined in the “Indian epigraphical glossary” as it can be found on ancient inscriptions commonly written in Sanskrit, Prakrit or Dravidian languages.
Maga (मग) or Maka is another name for Magas ( king of Cyrene in North Africa), with whom Asoka maintained a friendly relation.—Asoka maintained friendly relations not only with Ceylon and the Tāmil powers of the South but also with kings of countries outside India. They were Antiochus Theos, King of Syria and western India (Aṃtiyako Yonarājā), and even with the kings and neighbours to the north of the kingdom of Antiochus where dwelt four kings named severally Ptolemy (Turamayo), Antigonos (Aṃtikini), Magas (Maga or Maka), and Alexander (Alikasudara). Ptolemy Philadelphos was King of Egypt, Magas was King of Cyrene in North Africa, Antigonos Gonatas was King of Macedonia, and Alexander was King of Epirus (Rock Edict XIII).

The history of India traces the identification of countries, villages, towns and other regions of India, as well as mythology, zoology, royal dynasties, rulers, tribes, local festivities and traditions and regional languages. Ancient India enjoyed religious freedom and encourages the path of Dharma, a concept common to Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism.
Languages of India and abroad
Pali-English dictionary
maga : (m.) a quadruped.
Maga, (another form of miga=Sk. mṛga, cp. Geiger, P. Gr. 124) 1. animal for hunting, deer, antelope M. I, 173 (in simile); S. I, 199 (id.); A. I, 70; II, 23; Th. 1, 958, 989; Sn. 275, 763, 880; J. V, 267.—2. a stupid person J. VI, 206, 371. (Page 512)
maga (မဂ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[mara+a.,ṭī.617.(miga+ka.maga-saṃ)]
[မရ+အ။ ဓာန်၊ဋီ။၆၁၇။ (မိဂ+က။ မဂ-သံ)]
[Pali to Burmese]
maga—
(Burmese text): (၁) သမင်။ (၂) သားကောင်။ (၃) မြေခွေးနက်။ (တိ) (၄) သားကောင်နှင့်တူသော (လူမိုက်စသည်)။ ထောမ-၌ (၁) သားကောင်။ (၂) သမင်။ (၃) ဆင်အထူး။ (၄) တောလိုက်ခြင်း။ (၅) မိဂနီနက္ခတ်။ (၆) ရှာဖွေခြင်း။ (၇) တောင်းပန်ခြင်း။ (၈) ယစ်အထူး။ (၉) ကတိုးကောင်။ (၁ဝ) မကာရရာသီဟု ဆိုသည်။ ပီအက်စအီးဒီ ၌ကား လပေါ်ရှိ ဒရယ်ပြောက်ကဲ့သို့သော အစက်အပြောက်။ ထူးခြားသော လူယောက်ကျား အမျိုးအစား။ ၁၂-ရာသီစက်ဝန်း၌ပါသော တိုးနယားရုပ် အမှတ်အသား စသည်တို့ကိုလည်း ဟော၏ဟုဆိုသည်။
(Auto-Translation): (1) Stag. (2) Buck. (3) Black turtle. (4) Similar to a buck (wild man, etc.). In the forest: (1) Buck. (2) Stag. (3) Special elephant. (4) Going into the forest. (5) Miganik (possibly a term for a star or celestial body). (6) Searching. (7) Apologizing. (8) Special signature. (9) Kato kaung. (10) Refers to the Makaryar season. In the P.A.C.D., it is like a flash on the car. A unique type of man. Also referred to as "Ho," related to the unique identifying marks of the Tonaiah figures in the 12 zodiac signs.

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
maga (मग).—ad (māgēṃ) Then, upon that, afterwards. 2 By and by; a little while hence; presently. 3 Then; that being the case; that standing as a ground or reason. Ex. tō gēlā maga tulā jāyāsa kāya jhālēṃ? pāūsa tara puṣkaḷa paḍalā maga pikēṃ kāṃ nāhīṃ ālīṃ? 4 It is often used as a mere expletive.
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māga (माग).—m A loom. 2 The pit made for the descent of the pedal in weaving. 3 (mārga S) Trace, track, vestige. v lāva, lāga, kāḍha. 4 R A channel to conduct water (through a plantation or garden). 5 The row or number of plants watered by one portion of the channel. 6 f C A large fishing net. māga kāḍhaṇēṃ or lāvaṇēṃ g. of o. To track, trace, follow out, bring to light.
maga (मग).—ad Then, afterwards. By and by.
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māga (माग).—m A loom. Trace. māga kāḍhaṇēṃ-lāvaṇēṃ Track, trace. f A large fishing net.
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
Maga (मग).—
1) A magian.
2) A priest of the sun; B. P.
Derivable forms: magaḥ (मगः).
See also (synonyms): magu.
Maga (मग).—[masculine] a magian; [plural] [Name] of a people.
1) Maga (मग):—m. a magian, a priest of the sun, [Varāha-mihira; Bhaviṣya-purāṇa, khaṇḍa 1 & 2: bhaviṣya-purāṇa & bhaviṣyottara-purāṇa]
2) [plural] Name of a country in Śākadvīpa inhabited chiefly by Brāhmans, [Catalogue(s)]
Maga (मग):—m. ein Magier, ein Priester der Sonne [Varāhamihira’s Bṛhajjātaka S. 60,19.] [Bhaviṣyapurāna] in [Oxforder Handschriften 31,b. fgg.] [Mémoire géographique 392. fgg.] [WEBER], Indische Skizzen [104. fgg.] pl. auch Bez. eines zum grössten Theil aus Brahmanen bestehenden Landes in Śākadvīpa [Oxforder Handschriften 33,a,14. 15.] [WEBER] vermuthet a. a. O., dass auch [Mahābhārata 6, 436. fg.] magāḥ st. mṛgāḥ zu lesen sei; die ed. Bomb. hat aber maṅgāḥ .
Maga (मग):—m. —
1) ein Magier , ein Priester der Sonne. —
2) Pl. Bez. eines zum grössten Theil aus Brahmanen bestehenden Volkes in Śakadvipa.
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.
Hindi dictionary
Maga (मग) [Also spelled mag]:—(nm) way, path, path-way; a mug.
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Kannada-English dictionary
Maga (ಮಗ):—
1) [noun] a boy or man as he is related to either or both of his parents; a son.
2) [noun] a term of endearment used by elders in addressing boys.
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Māga (ಮಾಗ):—
1) [noun] (rightly, ಮಾಘ [magha]) the coldest season (usu. the last two months of Hindu lunar calendar); the winter season.
2) [noun] Māgha, the eleventh month in the Hindu lunar calendar year.
Kannada is a Dravidian language (as opposed to the Indo-European language family) mainly spoken in the southwestern region of India.
Nepali dictionary
Māga (माग):—n. 1. begging; 2. demand; 3. need; necessity;
Nepali is the primary language of the Nepalese people counting almost 20 million native speakers. The country of Nepal is situated in the Himalaya mountain range to the north of India.
See also (Relevant definitions)
Partial matches (+0): A, Mara.
Starts with (+28): Maga beera, Maka saka, Maka-canacurottiriyam, Maka-catikal, Maka-civarattiri, Maka-cuvacarokam, Makacaivam, Makacaivan, Makacakai, Makacakaram, Makacalam, Makacamantan, Makacammokanam, Makacampu, Makacamuttiram, Makacanam, Makacankai, Makacankam, Makacankaram, Makacantam.
Full-text (+641): Mara, Magadha, Amara, Marati, Miyi, Marama, Maranti, Magavika, Maramana, Marami, Magu, Magasira, Nikshubha, Bandharulhamaga, Maga-dhola, Locadara-maga, Magagana, Magasinga, Magavisana, Maga-pharama.
Relevant text
Search found 74 books and stories containing Maga, Māga, Magas, Mara-a; (plurals include: Magas, Māgas, Magases, as). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
The Sun-Worshipping Sakadvipiya Brahmanas (by Martina Palladino)
2. The Magas in Buddhist Sources < [Chapter 4 - Some Reflections on the Śākadvīpīya Presence in India]
3. The Historical Problem < [Chapter 4 - Some Reflections on the Śākadvīpīya Presence in India]
3. The Other Purāṇas and the Mahābhārata < [Chapter 1 - The Purāṇic Sections]
The Puranic Records on the Sun-worship < [Purana, Volume 11, Part 2 (1969)]
Worship of the Sun < [Purana, Volume 12, Part 2 (1970)]
Three Ancient Famous Temples of the Sun < [Purana, Volume 8, Part 1 (1966)]
Tirumantiram by Tirumular (English translation)
Verse 1041: Hold Sacrificial Fire As Guru < [Tantra Four (nankam tantiram) (verses 884-1418)]
Verse 919: The Five Letters Manifest (Sthula) and Subtle (Sukshma) < [Tantra Four (nankam tantiram) (verses 884-1418)]
Verse 1229: Sakti is Mistress of Sanmarga < [Tantra Four (nankam tantiram) (verses 884-1418)]
Studies in the Upapuranas (by R. C. Hazra)
Chapter 2.1 - The Samba-purana (study)
Chapter 2.1 - The Saura Upapuranas—Introduction
Chaitanya Bhagavata (by Bhumipati Dāsa)
Verse 2.22.17 < [Chapter 22 - Delivering Śacīdevī from Offense and Descriptions of Nityānanda’s Qualities]
Verse 2.6.159 < [Chapter 6 - The Lord’s Meeting with Advaita Ācārya]
Verse 2.6.158 < [Chapter 6 - The Lord’s Meeting with Advaita Ācārya]
Settlement in Early Historic Ganga Plain (by Chirantani Das)
Part 16 - Vārāṇasī from proto historic to historic context < [Chapter VI - Vārāṇasī: Emergence of the Urban Centre and Seat of Administration]





