Mahanta, Mahānta, Mahamta, Maha-anta: 19 definitions
Introduction:
Mahanta means something in Buddhism, Pali, Hinduism, Sanskrit, 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)
Mahānta (महान्त).—A son of Dhīman.*
- * Viṣṇu-purāṇa II. 1. 39.
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.
Shaivism
Mahānta (महान्त) or Mahāntāgama refers to one of upāgamas (supplementary scriptures) of the Candrajñānāgama which is one of the twenty-eight Siddhāntāgama: a classification of the Śaiva division of Śaivāgamas. The Śaivāgamas represent the wisdom that has come down from lord Śiva, received by Pārvatī and accepted by Viṣṇu. The purpose of revealing upāgamas (e.g., Mahānta Āgama) is to explain more elaborately than that of mūlāgamas (e.g., Candrajñāna-āgama) and to include any new idea if not dealt in mūlāgamas.
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.
In Buddhism
Theravada (major branch of Buddhism)
A stone image of the Buddha set up in the Patima vihara in Kanagama by Aggabodhi, son of Mahatissa and ruler of Rohana. Cv.xlv.44.
Theravāda is a major branch of Buddhism having the the Pali canon (tipitaka) as their canonical literature, which includes the vinaya-pitaka (monastic rules), the sutta-pitaka (Buddhist sermons) and the abhidhamma-pitaka (philosophy and psychology).
India history and geography
Mahanta is the name of a locality situated in Koṇḍaguḍi, according to the “Grants from Galavalli” (893 A.D.). As indicated above, the endorsement engraved on the first side of the first plate consists of two stanzas. The first of these, which has been repeated, says that the illustrious Devendravarman, lord of Kaliṅga, received blessings from the god Śiva and that he granted two localities called Yegū or Egu and Mahanta, collectively known as Giṇṭi and situated in Koṇḍaguḍi, in favour of Yogātman.
These plates (mentioning Mahanta) were dug up from the fields of a village in the Bobbili Taluk of the Srikakulam District, Andhra. It records the grant of three villages and is dated Gaṅga year 397 (of the Gāṅgeya dynasty), corresponding to 893-95 A.D. The grant was made in favour of the deity Kauṇḍuka-Guṇḍeśvara.
Mahanta.—(EI 8; BL), head of a monastery; title of a pontiff. (ML), Prakrit form of Sanskrit mahat; ‘the great’; a title. Note: mahanta is defined in the “Indian epigraphical glossary” as it can be found on ancient inscriptions commonly written in Sanskrit, Prakrit or Dravidian languages.
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
mahanta : (adj.) great; big; extensive.
1) mahanta (မဟန္တ) [(ti) (တိ)]—
[mahā+anta．maha+anta]
[မဟာ+အန္တ။ မဟ+အန္တ]
2) mahanta (မဟန္တ) [(ti) (တိ)]—
[mahanta+ṇa]
[မဟန္တ+ဏ]
3) mahanta (မဟန္တ) [(ti) (တိ)]—
[maha+anta．thī-nitea mahatī．,ṭī．7vava．]
[မဟ+အန္တ။ ထီ-၌ မဟတီ။ ဓာန်၊ ဋီ။ ၇ဝဝ။]
[Pali to Burmese]
1) mahanta—
(Burmese text): (၁) မြတ်သော။ (၂) များသော၊ ပြန့်ပြောသော။ (၃) ပူဇော်-အပ်-သင့်-ထိုက်-သော။ (၄) ကြီးသော။ (၅) အစိုးရသော သူ၏အဖြစ်၊ အစိုးရခြင်း၊ အစိုးရသော။ (၆) ပြည့်စုံသော။
(Auto-Translation): (1) Holy. (2) Numerous, widespread. (3) Honorable, worthy of praise. (4) Great. (5) Of a government, governing, governmental. (6) Complete.
2) mahanta—
(Burmese text): မြတ်သော (သီလသမာဒိစသော) ဂုဏ်ရှိသော၊ သူ။
(Auto-Translation): Noble (Virtuous and Wise) is he.
3) mahanta—
(Burmese text): (၁) မြတ်သော (ပရိနိဗ္ဗာန်ပြုခြင်း) အဆုံးရှိသော၊ သူ။ (၂) ပူဇော်အပ်သော နိဗ္ဗာန်ဟူသော အဆုံးရှိသော၊ သူ။ မဟာ-လည်းကြည့်။
(Auto-Translation): (1) The one who has attained the ultimate liberation (Nirvana). (2) The one who is reverently honored as having attained the ultimate Nirvana. Look, it is great.
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
mahanta (महंत).—m (mahat S through H) The chief or head of an order of Gosavis, Byragis &c.; a religious superior. Ex. vivēkēṅkarūni bahuta || kāma krōdha āvariti mahanta || Hence 2 Applied to the head or leading-man among Panḍits, devotees &c.
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mahantā (महंता).—f (Corruptly formed from mahat) Greatness, grandeur, dignity.
mahanta (महंत).—m The chief of an order of Gesâvis, &c. Headman among Pandits.
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mahantā (महंता).—f Greatness, grandeur.
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
Mahanta (महन्त).—The superior of a monastery.
Derivable forms: mahantaḥ (महन्तः).
Mahanta (महन्त).—m.
(-ntaḥ) The head of a monastery.
Mahānta (महान्त).—[adjective] great; [masculine] [Name] of a king.
1) Mahanta (महन्त):—[from mah] m. the superior of a monastery, [Inscriptions]
2) Mahānta (महान्त):—[from mah] 1. mahānta mfn. great, [Suparṇādhyāya]
3) [v.s. ...] m. Name of a prince, [Viṣṇu-purāṇa]
4) [v.s. ...] 2. mahānta mfn. (for mahar-anta) ending with mahar, [Mahābhārata]
Mahanta (महन्त):—m. Vorsteher eines Klosters Inschr. in Journ. of the Am. Or. [S. 6, 543, 9.] — Vgl. mahant 3,a.
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Mahānta (महान्त):—(von mahant)
1) adj. gross [Weber’s Indische Studien 2, 80,] [Nalopākhyāna 3.] —
2) m. Nomen proprium eines Fürsten [Viṣṇupurāṇa 165.]
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Mahānta (महान्त):—st. maharanta mit Mahar endigend [Mahābhārata 13, 802.] — Vgl. auch oben u. mahant .
Mahanta (महन्त):—m. Vorsteher eines Klosters.
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Mahānta (महान्त):—1. —
1) Adj. gross [Suparṇādhya 13,1.] —
2) m. Nomen proprium eines Fürsten.
--- OR ---
Mahānta (महान्त):—2. Adj. mit mahara endigend.
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
Mahaṃta (महंत) [Also spelled mahant]:—(nm) head priest of a temple, a monk; self-willed leader; ~[tāī/tī] the function or job of a [mahaṃta; ~tī] office or status of a [mahaṃta].
...
Kannada-English dictionary
Mahaṃta (ಮಹಂತ):—
1) [noun] an excellent superior man.
2) [noun] the superior of a monastery, temple, etc.
--- OR ---
Mahāṃta (ಮಹಾಂತ):—
1) [adjective] existing or occurring in a high or extreme degree; intense.
2) [adjective] of great horizontal extent; extensive; vast; spacious; wide.
--- OR ---
Mahāṃta (ಮಹಾಂತ):—
1) [noun] an extensive, vast thing.
2) [noun] the condition of being available in plenty; plentifulness; abundance.
3) [noun] a respectable, honourable man.
Kannada is a Dravidian language (as opposed to the Indo-European language family) mainly spoken in the southwestern region of India.
Nepali dictionary
Mahanta (महन्त):—n. head of a temple or monastery; an abbot;
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): Maha, Mahanta, Anta, Na.
Starts with (+35): Mahaabadha, Mahaabhinihara, Mahaacchariya, Mahaadhikara, Mahaadhitthana, Mahaaggi, Mahaaggikkhandha, Mahaaggisantapa, Mahaajagara, Mahaajjhasaya, Mahaakappiya, Mahaamacca, Mahaanathapindika, Mahaandhakara, Mahaanganatthana, Mahaanisada, Mahaapadesa, Mahaappamadasutta, Mahaapphotana, Mahaaranna.
Full-text (+846): Mahakala, Mahavira, Maha, Maharaja, Mahabhuta, Mahabbala, Mahadeva, Mahakaya, Mahanada, Mahavana, Mahodara, Mahanasa, Mahoraga, Mahattara, Mahabahu, Mahati, Mahanubhava, Mahayashas, Mahapatha, Mahanila.
Relevant text
Search found 119 books and stories containing Mahanta, Mahānta, Mahantā, Mahamta, Mahaṃta, Mahāṃta, Maha-anta, Mahā-anta, Mahanta-na, Mahanta-ṇa, Mahantas; (plurals include: Mahantas, Mahāntas, Mahantās, Mahamtas, Mahaṃtas, Mahāṃtas, antas, nas, ṇas, Mahantases). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Digha Nikaya (Long Discourses) (by Bhikkhu Sujato)
1. The First Recitation Section < [Discourse 32: The Āṭānāṭiya Protection]
2. The Second Recitation Section < [Discourse 32: The Āṭānāṭiya Protection]
4.2. The Second Fruit of the Ascetic Life < [Discourse 2: The Fruits of the Ascetic Life]
Maha Buddhavamsa—The Great Chronicle of Buddhas (by Ven. Mingun Sayadaw)
Part 1 - The Āṭānāṭiya Paritta < [Chapter 39 - How the Āṭānāṭiya Paritta came to be Taught]
(9) Ninth Pāramī: The Perfection of Loving-kindness (mettā-pāramī) < [Chapter 6 - On Pāramitā]
The Treatise on the Marks of a Great Man < [Chapter 1 - The Jewel of the Buddha]
Rig Veda (translation and commentary) (by H. H. Wilson)
Krishna Sandarbha of Jiva Goswami (by Kusakratha Prabhu)
Chaitanya Bhagavata (by Bhumipati Dāsa)
Verse 1.11.22 < [Chapter 11 - Meeting with Śrī Īśvara Purī]
Verse 2.13.241 < [Chapter 13 - The Deliverance of Jagāi and Mādhāi]
Verse 2.25.46 < [Chapter 25 - The Discourse on Spiritual Knowledge by Śrīvāsa’s Dead Son]