Napumsaka, Napuṃsaka, Nāpuṃsaka: 29 definitions
Introduction:
Napumsaka means something in Hinduism, Sanskrit, Jainism, Prakrit, Buddhism, Pali, 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.
Alternative spellings of this word include Napunsak.
In Hinduism
Vyakarana (Sanskrit grammar)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—1it. a word which is neither in the masculine nor in the feminine gender; a word in the neuter gender; cf. R.Pr.XIII.7,V. Pr. II. 32; III.138; cf. P. VI.3.75, on which the Siddhanta Kaumudi observes न स्त्री पुमान् नपुंसकम् । स्त्रीपुंसयोः पुंसकभावो निपातनात् । (na strī pumān napuṃsakam | strīpuṃsayoḥ puṃsakabhāvo nipātanāt |)
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Nāpuṃsaka (नापुंसक).—The same as नपुंसुकलिङ्ग (napuṃsukaliṅga) or neuter gender; cf. नापुंसकं भवेत्तस्मिन् । नपुंसके भवं नापुसकम् (nāpuṃsakaṃ bhavettasmin | napuṃsake bhavaṃ nāpusakam) M. Bh. on IV. 1.3.
Vyakarana (व्याकरण, vyākaraṇa) refers to Sanskrit grammar and represents one of the six additional sciences (vedanga) to be studied along with the Vedas. Vyakarana concerns itself with the rules of Sanskrit grammar and linguistic analysis in order to establish the correct context of words and sentences.
Natyashastra (theatrics and dramaturgy)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) refers to a character (prakṛti) of mixed nature (hermaphrodite) according to the Nāṭyaśāstra chapter 34. Accordingly, “Maid servants and the like are characters of mixed nature. A hermaphrodite is also a mixed character, but of the inferior kind. O the best of Brahmins, the Śakāra and the Viṭa and others like them in a drama, are also to be known as characters of mixed nature”.
Natyashastra (नाट्यशास्त्र, nāṭyaśāstra) refers to both the ancient Indian tradition (shastra) of performing arts, (natya—theatrics, drama, dance, music), as well as the name of a Sanskrit work dealing with these subjects. It also teaches the rules for composing Dramatic plays (nataka), construction and performance of Theater, and Poetic works (kavya).
Purana and Itihasa (epic history)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—(eunuch) Mention is made in Brahmāṇḍa Purāṇa, Chapter 48, that the semen introduced into the womb of the woman by the man at the time of coition, will get mixed with the blood in the womb, and that the issue will be male, female or eunuch according to the proportion of the mixture. In the mixture of semen and blood, if blood exceeds semen the issue will be female and if semen exceeds, it will be male child and if both are equal the child will be a eunuch.
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.
Ayurveda (science of life)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) refers to “hermaphrodite (snakes)”, according to the 20th century Prayogasamuccaya (one of the most popular and widely practised book in toxicology in Malayalam).—Snakes conceive in the three months beginning with the karkiḍaka month. [...] After 4 months of gestation, they lay eggs, 21 in all, seven each in three different places. According to the colour of eggs, red will hatch into females, yellow into males and mixed colour will be napuṃsaka (hermaphrodite). [...]
1) Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक):—Hermophrodite.
2) Impotent.
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.
Shaktism (Shakta philosophy)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) refers to “neuter” (i.e., the divine liṅga within which the Goddess resides), according to the Manthānabhairavatantra, a vast sprawling work that belongs to a corpus of Tantric texts concerned with the worship of the goddess Kubjikā.—The normal neuter gender of the word ‘liṅga’ itself reflects the pure, indeterminate nature of the transcendent Absolute which, devoid of all possible phenomenal characterizations, is neither male nor female. But this Absolute is not the Brahman (also a neuter word) of the Upaniṣads. It is, as in all theistic Sanskritic traditions, the godhead, the absolute ground of deity—its essential, unqualified nature, to which the Kubjikā Tantras refer as the Neuter (napuṃsaka). The Neuter is the Divine Liṅga [i.e., divyaliṅga] within which the goddess resides. It is the deity’s essentially blissful nature, beyond the opposites. [...]
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.
Jyotisha (astronomy and astrology)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) refers to “eunuchs”, according to the Bṛhatsaṃhitā (chapter 16) (“On the planets—graha-bhaktiyoga”), an encyclopedic Sanskrit work written by Varāhamihira mainly focusing on the science of ancient Indian astronomy astronomy (Jyotiṣa).—Accordingly, “[...] Mercury also presides over painters, grammarians, mathematicians, physicians, sculptors, spies, jugglers, infants, poets, rogues, tale-bearers, black-magicians, messengers, eunuchs (napuṃsaka), buffoons, sorcerers and conjurers; over sentinels, dancers and dancing masters; over ghee, gingelly and other oils; over seeds, over bitter flavour, over observers of religious ceremonies, over chemists and mules”.
Jyotisha (ज्योतिष, jyotiṣa or jyotish) refers to ‘astronomy’ or “Vedic astrology” and represents the fifth of the six Vedangas (additional sciences to be studied along with the Vedas). Jyotisha concerns itself with the study and prediction of the movements of celestial bodies, in order to calculate the auspicious time for rituals and ceremonies.
Vastushastra (architecture)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) refers to “temples made of mixed stone, brick and wood”, as discussed in chapter 34 of the Viṣvaksenasaṃhitā: a Pāñcarātra text comprising 2800 Sanskrit verses dealing with theological matters, image-worship, iconography (relating to pratimā-icons) and the construction of temples.—Description of the chapter [prāsāda-lakṣaṇa]: Viṣvaksena thereupon names and briefly describes five types of vimāna-structures—mandara, nividha, nāgara, drāvila, vesara (22-30). A further , different classification is according to materials used—a pauruṣa-type being of mixed brick and stone; a napuṃsaka type being a mixture of stone, brick and wood; and an aṅganā-type being simply a wooden structure (31-32).
Vastushastra (वास्तुशास्त्र, vāstuśāstra) refers to the ancient Indian science (shastra) of architecture (vastu), dealing with topics such architecture, sculpture, town-building, fort building and various other constructions. Vastu also deals with the philosophy of the architectural relation with the cosmic universe.
Gitashastra (science of music)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) or Napuṃsakarāga refers to a variety of Rāgas (associated with the bhayānaka, bhībhatsa, śānta-rasas), according to the Kohalamatam, one of the works ascribed to Kohala—a celebrated authority of the ancient period along with others such as Bharata, Yāṣṭika, Śārdūla, Kāśyapa etc.—The section on rāga begins with an excerpt from Mataṅga’s Bṛhaddesi regarding the definition of rāga. [...] The appropriate variety of rāga to be chosen in order to represent particular sentiments has been listed. For example, Napuṃsaka-rāga is associated with Bhayānaka-rasa, Bhībhatsa-rasa, Śānta-rasa. Such descriptions are also found in the Kohalarahasyam (with negligible variances).
Gitashastra (गीतशास्त्र, gītaśāstra) refers to the ancient Indian science of Music (gita or samgita), which is traditionally divided in Vocal music, Instrumental music and Dance (under the jurisdiction of music). The different elements and technical terms are explained in a wide range of (often Sanskrit) literature.
General definition (in Hinduism)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) is na +puṃ+saka : na = not or no + puṃ = male being + saka ='he that man , she that woman ' Hence napuṃsaka means not male being or woman. It seems for economy this word could just be nasaka ( my contrived word) - not man or woman.
In Jainism
General definition (in Jainism)
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—What is the cause of the ‘neutral gender inclinations’ (napuṃsaka) karmas? Great or intense passion, extending injury to concealed parts/ organs, going for pleasure to other’s women etc are the causes of the neutral gender inclinations karmas.
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—according to the 2nd-century Tattvārthasūtra 2.50, “the infernal beings (naraka) and the spontaneously-generated (sammūrcchana) are hermaphroditic of the neuter sex (napuṃsaka)”. How many types of sense organs can spontaneously generated subhuman beings with neutral gender have? They can have from two to five types of sense organs.
according to the 2nd-century Tattvārthasūtra 2.51, “the celestial beings (deva) are not of neuter sex (napuṃsaka)”. The heavenly beings (deva) have either masculine or feminine sex only. All the three genders i.e. male, female and neutral occur in human (manuṣya) and sub human beings (tiryañca).
Jainism is an Indian religion of Dharma whose doctrine revolves around harmlessness (ahimsa) towards every living being. The two major branches (Digambara and Svetambara) of Jainism stimulate self-control (or, shramana, ‘self-reliance’) and spiritual development through a path of peace for the soul to progess to the ultimate goal.
Languages of India and abroad
Pali-English dictionary
napuṃsaka : (m.) 1. eunuch; 2. the neuter gender.
napuṃsaka (နပုံသက) [(pu,na) (ပု၊န)]—
[န+ပုံသ+ဏွု။ န+သ္တြီ+န+ပု မာန်။ ထောမ။ န+ပုမာန်+န+သ္တြီ။ ပုရိသော ဝိယ သာတိသယံ ပစ္စာမိတ္တေနပုံသေတိ အဘိမဒ္ဒနံ ကာတုံ နသက္ကောတီတိ နပုံသကောတိ ဝုစ္စတိ။ ဓာတ်၏ န-ကို နိဂ္ဂဟိတ် ပြု။ ပါစိတ်၊ ယော။၂၅၈။ နီတိ၊ဓာ။၃၄၅။ န+ဣတ္ထီ+ပုမ။ ဣတ္ထီနှင့် ပုမကို ပုံသကပြု။ ဓာန်၊ဋီ။၂၄၂။ နီတိ၊ဓာ။၃၄၆။ န+ထီ+ပုမ။ ထီ-နှင့် ပုမ-ကို ပုံသက-ပြု။ န+ပုံသက။ မောဂ်၊သျ၊၁။၄၉၈။ န+ပုံသ+က။ ကင်္ခါ၊ယော၊မဟာဋီ။၂၅၈။ န+ပုမ+န+ဣတ္ထီ။ နပုမ နဣတ္ထီ ကို နပုံသက ပြု။ ပါစိတ်၊ ယော။၂၅၈။ (နပုံသက-သံ၊ ဏပုံသ-က,ဏပုံသဂ,ဏပုံသယ-ပြာ၊ နပုံသအ,နပုံသက,နပုံသဂ-အဒ္ဓမာဂဓီ၊ နပုံသကယာသီဟိုဠ်)]
[Pali to Burmese]
napuṃsaka—
(Burmese text): (ပု) (၁) နပုံ၊ ယောက်ကျားကဲ့သို့ရန်သူကို မနှိမ်နင်းနိုင်သူ၊ မိန်းမ မဟုတ်,ယောက်ကျား မဟုတ်သူ။ (န) (၂) နပုလ္လိင်၊ နပုလ္လိင်ကို ဟောသောသဒ္ဒါ။
(Auto-Translation): (1) A person who cannot defeat an enemy like a male, neither a female nor a male. (2) A term associated with a person who identifies as non-binary.
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
napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—n m (S) A human or other creature without organs of generation; one neither male nor female. 2 An impotent person, one without the power of procreation.
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napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—a S In grammar. Neuter.
napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—n m A human or other creature without organs of generation; one neither male nor female. An impotent person, one without the power of procreation.
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napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—a In grammar. Neuter.
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
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—[na pumān na strī]
1) A hermaphrodite (neither man, nor woman).
2) An impotent man, a eunuch.
3) A coward.
-kam 1 A word in the neuter gender.
2) The neuter gender.
Derivable forms: napuṃsakaḥ (नपुंसकः), napuṃsakam (नपुंसकम्).
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—mn.
(-kaḥ-kaṃ) 1. A eunuch. 2. An impotent or imbecile man. 3. The neuter gender. E. na not. puṃsaka male.
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—[napuṃsa + ka], I. adj. 1. Neither man nor woman. 2. Of neuter gender. Ii. m. 1. An eunuch, Mahābhārata 4, 1190. 2. A coward, [Pañcatantra] i. [distich] 364.
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक).—[masculine] [neuter] neither male nor female, i.e. a eunuch or hermaphrodite; [neuter] a word in the neuter gender, the neuter gender.
1) Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक):—[=na-puṃsaka] [from na] mf(ā)n. (na-) neither male nor female
2) [v.s. ...] a hermaphrodite
3) [v.s. ...] a eunuch
4) [v.s. ...] a weakling, coward, [Maitrāyaṇī-saṃhitā; Brāhmaṇa; Upaniṣad; Mahābhārata] etc.
5) [v.s. ...] n. neuter a word in the n° gender or the n° g° itself, [Śatapatha-brāhmaṇa; Prātiśākhya; Pāṇini] etc.
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक):—[(kaḥ-kaṃ)] 1. m. n. A eunuch; an impotent man; neuter gender.
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक):—(wie eben)
1) adj. subst. (m. n.) weder Mann noch Weib, hermaphroditisch, Hermaphrodit; entmannt, Eunuch [Pāṇini’s acht Bücher 6, 3, 75.] [Amarakoṣa 2, 6, 1, 39.] [Hemacandra’s Abhidhānacintāmaṇi 562.] napuṃsako gauḥ [The Śatapathabrāhmaṇa 5, 5, 4, 35.] [Kātyāyana’s Śrautasūtrāṇi 15, 10, 20.] naiva strī na pumāneṣa na caivāyaṃ napuṃsakaḥ [ŚVETĀŚV. Upakośā 5, 10.] [Mahābhārata 4, 1190.] [Suśruta 2, 266, 10.] [Varāhamihira’s Bṛhajjātaka S. 17, 23. 85, 6.] [Pañcatantra I, 364.] n. [Mahābhārata 5, 5634. 12, 3181. 5451.] [Suśruta 1, 321, 1. 322, 8. 325, 11.] [Varāhamihira’s Bṛhajjātaka S. 75, 1. 77, 28. 85, 9. - 16, 19. 19, 12.] [Suśruta 1, 109, 4.] —
2) gramm. adj. sächlichen Geschlechts, n. ein Wort sächlichen Geschlechts; das sächliche Geschlecht [The Śatapathabrāhmaṇa 10, 5, 1, 2. 3.] [Prātiśākhya zum Ṛgveda 13, 7.] [Prātiśākhya zur Vājasaneyisaṃhitā 2, 32. 3, 137.] [Prātiśākha zum Atharvaveda 2, 50.] [Pāṇini’s acht Bücher 1, 1, 43. 2, 4, 17. 7, 1, 19.] [Amarakoṣa 3, 4, 27, 215.] [Varāhamihira’s Bṛhajjātaka S. 50, 10.] [Vopadeva’s Grammatik 3, 5.] tatpuruṣo napuṃsakaḥ syāt [Pāṇini’s acht Bücher 2, 4, 19,] [Scholiast] liṅga adj. [Weber’s Verzeichniss No. 737.]
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Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक):—
1) [Kathāsaritsāgara 56, 98. 100.] napuṃsakībhūta [104.] —
1) und zugleich
2) [Spr. 1417.]
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Nāpuṃsaka (नापुंसक):—(von napuṃsaka) adj. neutral: liṅga [Patañjali] [?a. a. O.4,7,b.]
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक):——
1) Adj. (f. ā [Agnipurāṇa 43,15]) und Subst. m. n. weder Mann noch Weib , hermaphroditisch , Hermaphrodit ; entmannt , Eunuch. —
2) Adj. sächlichen Geschlechts ; n. ein Wort s. G. , das sächliche Geschlecht.
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Nāpuṃsaka (नापुंसक):—Adj. neutral (Geschlecht).
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) in the Sanskrit language is related to the Prakrit words: Ṇapuṃsa, Ṇapusaṃga, Ṇapuṃsaya.
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
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक) [Also spelled napunsak]:—(nm) a eunuch; an impotent person; a coward; (a) impotant; cowardly, unmanly; ~[tā/tva] impotence; unmanliness; cowardice; —[liṃga] neuter gender.
...
Kannada-English dictionary
Napuṃsaka (ನಪುಂಸಕ):—[adjective] designating, of or belonging to a third gender, consisting of words that have neither masculine nor feminine grammatical gender; neuter.
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Napuṃsaka (ನಪುಂಸಕ):—
1) [noun] a person having undeveloped or imperfect sexual organs.
2) [noun] a castrated man; an eunuch.
3) [noun] the quality or condition of being an eunuch.
4) [noun] (fig.) a man low in physical strength, courage or vitality; a weakling.
5) [noun] (gram.) the neuter gender; a word or form in this gender.
Kannada is a Dravidian language (as opposed to the Indo-European language family) mainly spoken in the southwestern region of India.
Nepali dictionary
Napuṃsaka (नपुंसक):—n. 1. hermaphrodite; 2. an impotent man; adj. unmanly; cowardly;
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): Pumsaka, Na.
Starts with (+6): Napumsaka-pandaka, Napumsakabhavapatilabha, Napumsakacya Hatim Padmina, Napumsakalinga, Napumsakalingadassana, Napumsakalingasamgraha, Napumsakalingasammandhadassana, Napumsakalingatavibhavana, Napumsakalingavacana, Napumsakalingavipariyaya, Napumsakalingayutta, Napumsakam, Napumsakaniddesa, Napumsakaniddesaraha, Napumsakapada, Napumsakapatisandhi, Napumsakapayoga, Napumsakaraga, Napumsakashile, Napumsakasvara.
Full-text (+38): Napumsakalinga, Pumnapumsaka, Napumsakaveda, Napumsakapayoga, Napumsakavacana, Napumsakapatisandhi, Napumsaka-pandaka, Jatinapumsaka, Napumsakaniddesaraha, Anapumsaka, Napumsakaniddesa, Bhavanapumsaka, Napumsakapada, Stripumnapumsaka, Napumsa, Astripumnapumsaka, Napunsak, Napumsakam, Napumsakalingasamgraha, Napumsakavajra.
Relevant text
Search found 49 books and stories containing Napumsaka, Na-pumsaka, Na-puṃsaka, Napuṃsaka, Nāpuṃsaka; (plurals include: Napumsakas, pumsakas, puṃsakas, Napuṃsakas, Nāpuṃsakas). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Yavanajataka by Sphujidhvaja [Sanskrit/English] (by Michael D Neely)
Verse 5.28 < [Chapter 5 - Rules of Impregnation]
Verse 2.20 < [Chapter 2 - One’s Own Form of the Horās]
Verse 5.27 < [Chapter 5 - Rules of Impregnation]
Dictionaries of Indian languages (Kosha)
Page 445 < [Kannada-English-Malayalam (1 volume)]
Page 556 < [Malayalam-English-Kannada (1 volume)]
Page 227 < [Telugu-English-Malayalam (1 volume)]
Tattvartha Sutra (with commentary) (by Vijay K. Jain)
Verse 2.50 - Neuter-sex (napuṃsaka) < [Chapter 2 - Category of the Living]
Verse 2.51 - The celestial beings are not neuter-sex < [Chapter 2 - Category of the Living]
Verse 2.52 - The three sexes (signs–veda) < [Chapter 2 - Category of the Living]
Vasudevavijaya of Vasudeva (Study) (by Sajitha. A)
Tatpuruṣa-samāsa (Compound) < [Chapter 3 - Vāsudevavijaya—A Grammatical Study]
Surūparāghava of Ilattūr Rāmasvāmiśāstri < [Chapter 1 - Śāstrakāvyas—A Brief Survey]
Minerals and Metals in Sanskrit literature (by Sulekha Biswas)
4.1. Description of Diamonds (Vajra) < [Chapter 7 - A millennium of Ratnashastra (gemmology) literature in India]
Mayamata and Building Construction (study) (by Ripan Ghosh)
Part 7.5.6 - Īṣṭakā-saṃgrahaṇa (collecting of bricks) < [Chapter 4 - Pre-arrangement of Building Construction]