3. Indian Culture in the light of Sanskrit Language

For the study of ancient Indian culture, we have at our disposal a vast lierature consisting of the Epics, the Puranas, the Arthasastra and other allied treatises. The memoirs of Buddhist pilgrims, the memoranda of foreign visitors, the inscriptions, the coins and the works of the court-poets are an additional source. All this is useful evidence , but never beyond question. Recorded history cannot claim to represent objective reality. The subjective element may vitiate the whole thing. There are not a few facts in history which are differently described by contemporary authorities and by actual observers. In the fight between Mahmud Khilji of Malwa and Rana Kumbha Karna of Mewar, each claimed a victory for himself. Mahmud raised a pillar of victory at Mandu near Dhar and the Rana commemorated it by a pillar at Chittor. Badauni describes the outcome of the battle at Haldighat as a victory for Akbar, but the writings on the walls of the temples of Udaipur speak of a victory for Pratap. Similarly the result of a battle at Mudki (Ferozepore) between the English and the Sikhs is differently told. The truth, therefore, lies obscured and buried under a thick crust of prejudice. The impressions of foreign visitors regarding the ways and manners of the ancient Indians may also be biased. A visitor may not have duly appreciated what he saw, may have partly or wholly misunderstood the life and thought of the people or wilfully misrepresented it. He may have an innate aversion for certain things and may have, therefore,

Indian Culture in the light of Sanskrit Language 69 overlooked them. Or, he may have a strong liking for certain other things and may have, therefore, overdone the picture. Even an intelligent, vigilant and dispassionate observer may give us a version of things and happenings which may not be perfectly true. But facts gleaned from linguistics are unchallengeable. They stand out with an unobscurable perspicuity. The process of gleaning them is highly interesting. We, therefore, attempt to present a view of the Indian Culture as the study of the Sanskrit language affords us. It is well-known that the ancient Indians dubbed non-Indians, men of other races, as impure. They gave them the name 'mlechha'. Let us see if this was a mere conceit or well-grounded, legitimate pride. Unless we assume that the Indians of yore lived close to water, making full and free use of it like acquatic birds, we cannot satisfactorily explain words like snataka. In good old days, a young boy was entrusted to the care of a 'guru' with whom he lived a life of self-restraint for a number of years. During this period he developed his mind and body under the direction of his teacher, applying himself without distraction, to the various lores, sacred and secular. He always sought opportunities of service to the 'guru' to pay off, at least partly, the deep debt of gratitude he owed to him for the knowledge imparted so disinterestedly, ungrudgingly and devotedly. On the termination of his career as a student, he was given a sacred bath accompanied with mantras and then permitted to go back home. He was then designated vidya-snataka, vrata-snataka or vidya-vrata-snataka, according as he had completed his course of studies, or his vow of celibacy or both. This designation attached to him all his life, before and after he had settled as a householder. This one act of bathing at a particular time and with a particular ceremony gave him a name for life, and his multifarious activities during his long stay at the Gurukula could not. What an association with water! When they installed a prince on the royal throne, the ancients made him perform sacred ablutions with the water of the sacred rivers, poured out of golden vases, to the accompaniment of

chanting of Vedic mantras. To this process they gave the name abhiseka which literally means 'a bath'. The English have the word coronation 'for the king-making ceremony'. Literally the word means 'putting a crown on'. The ancients too put a king-designate on the throne, adorned his head with a crown and invested him, likewise, with powers to administer the State. Then why this disparity in usage? It must have something to do with their mode of living. May we not say that it signifies that water predominated over other things so much so that it gave name and form to their ceremonies? Physical purity must have been an outstanding feature of the life of an Indian. In Sanskrit we have nisnata and nadisna, words for proficient, skilled, etc. Now these are derived from Vsna, to bathe, with the initial consonant cerebralized in the given sense. The underlying meaning is, doubtless, 'thoroughly bathed' which is conveyed by nisnata and nadisna. The expression nisnata, therefore, means proficient in the sastra'. Now there is nothing to correspond to it in English. It would do violence to English idiom to say 'bathed' or'thoroughly bathed' in knowledge or literature. We do hear of drinking and drinking deep at the fountain-head of knowledge. This may have a bearing on the prevalence of drinking amongst the English. Even to this day, they are a people more in love with drinking than with bathing. The expressions such as paraga (lit. one who has crossed over to the other side) and parina are evidence of the fact that the Indians lived by the side of water. Here the sastra, examination and query are all streams metaphorically. Words such as anukula, pratipa which mean 'agreeable to', 'opposed to', mean literally no more than 'along the bank', 'opposite to the bank of water'. The people deriving their idioms and metaphors from water were surely fond of it and, therefore, rightly proud of their physical purity. The Sanskrit word for a teacher is upadhyaya. The word has been derived as upetyadhiyate smat 'by approaching whom knowledge is acquired'. This, therefore, is quite significant inasmuch as it shows that it were the students who approached teachers for study and there was nothing analogous to the present

Indian Culture in the light of Sanskrit Language 71 day tuition system where teachers go about knocking at the doors of their wards to teach them in return for a mere pittance. There was again no question of the students disobeying their teachers or disrespecting them. Many ancient texts proclaim that the relations between the teachers and the taught were the most cordial. Well, the same thing the bi-syllabic word chatra has to say. It has been explained as chadayati dosan guroh, 'one who covers the faults of the teacher'. The conception of a student in ancient times was that of an umbrella over the head of the teacher protecting him from the onslaughts of detractors. When such was the conception of a student, where could arise then the necessity of students taking up positions against their teachers? We now proceed to show the moral aspect of the ancient Indians' life. Morally, too, they were equally advanced. The name avadya which they gave to sin is significant. It literally means 'unspeakable'. The Indians of yore not only abhorred the commission of sin but also a reference to it. They did not afford to contaminate their tongue by speaking of sin. They believed, as the ancient writings tell us, that even a talk of sin was enough to condemn a man to hell. History tells us that theft was not known in ancient India. This is exactly what a single word taskara has to say. Taskara is a Sanskrit word for 'thief'. It connotes one who does 'that', viz., something which must not be named, it being so reprehensible. Expressions such as saptapadina, 'friendship formed by speaking seven words or walking seven steps together' point to their genuine sincerity and amiability. Surely it redounds to the credit of the people then that they could make friends so soon, while we moderns, with our much vaunted culture and civilization, do not, is spite of repeated contacts. Miserliness is condemned with one voice both by the revealed literature and the written lawbooks. Even today the sight of a miser in the morning is considered inauspicious by the Hindus. Now the very word krpana (miser) reveals all this. Literally it means 'pitiable'. That this is its primary sense is amply shown by usage. The Manusmrti (IV. 185) and the Gita (2.49) read krpana in this sense in the passages duhita krpanam param, krpanah phalahetavah. Another equivalent of

krpana is kadarya which, when broken up, means a 'contemptible owner', kutsito'ryah . That a miser was given this name is enough condemnation. He was cried down as an unhappy man who, though rich enough, could not spend to make his life comfortable. Other synonyms of krpana are nakhampaca and mitampaca which, when broken up, mean cooking limited or nail-much of food. These words have their origin in the quantity of food cooked in the miser's household for his own consumption. This is well against the social ethics of the ancient Indians. Food is not only meant for oneself, it is to be shared with many, the guests, the Brahmanas, the servants, the birds or the insects. If a person eats his food alone, he eats sin alone (kevalagho bhavati kevaladi). Arati, a word for enemy, is also a pointer in the same direction. Arati signifies a person who gives nothing in charity. Rati is a gift. A person, who did not contribute a part of his income to improve the society as a whole, was looked upon as an enemy. What condemnation of miserliness could be more contemptuous and caustic! In Islam usury is strictly prohibited. Ancient Indians, too, looked down upon it. The word for interest in Sanskrit is kusida which is itself more eloquent than any indictment of it. It means kutsitam sidanty atra where people come to occupy a contemptible state. It is this that leads to the debasement of the people. The word kausidya formed from kusida means indolence, laziness. This is typical of the profession of usury where the money-lender has nothing else to do than to earn his living by exploiting the needy. He being a parasite makes no effort for earning his livelihood. He passes his time in a leisurely way. So the word kausidya meaning originally the profession of usury has come to mean, ironically enough, laziness or indolence. The ancient Indians believed in bird-omens, auspicious or inauspicious marks , etc., as other ancient people did. The word for omen is sakuna which is also a word for a bird. It, therefore, needs not much of imagination to see that they believed in the cries and movements of birds as communications of the future. As for the belief in marks, words like jayaghna (in jayaghnas

Indian Culture in the light of Sanskrit Language 73 tilakalakah) formed by Pan III. 2.52.53 may be instanced. That they believed in the power of spells to win one's heart, is indicated by the phrase hrdyo mantrah where hrdya is derived by the rule bandhane carsau (Pan. IV. 4.96 We may here deal with a few other aspects of ancient Indians who had a very simple dress, consisting of two clothes, the upper, uttariya and the lower, upasamvyana garments. The word for dress is always used in the dual even for a royal personage. Cp. manorame na vyavasista vastre said of king Dasaratha (Bhatti, III. 26). At the marriage ceremony, the bridegroom was presented with an udgamaniya which was nothing but a pair of washed 5 clothes. Now/the fact that the people of old did not use much of cloth or were not heavily clad, as the moderns are, is revealed by the word kuvinda, a weaver. Formed by the Vartika gavadisu vindeh samjnayam the word means one who gets a scanty living. Now, if the people would have used a plenty of clothing, the weaver could not be called kuvinda with any justification. It would be also interesting to know if the ancients had the shaving saloons as in the west. We say no. Janangama is one of the words for a barber. It means one who approaches people (to do a shave). If the people approached the barber for the purpose, as they do now, the word would lose all propriety. The sastras interdict shaving by night. This is what divakirti, another name for barber, says. A barber was so called for he was a subject of talk by day only and never by night. The plain meaning is that he was not thought of at night, for his services were not required at the time. That the ancient Indians were people of aesthetic taste, can be known from the well-known word pravina which means originally prakrsto vinayam 'one who is an expert in playing on the lyre'. The word developed a secondary meaning of clever, or expert later. An expert in lyre is the real expert, so the ancients thought. Let us consider what constituted the staple food of the people. At present wheat is the normal food of the Indians of the North and rice of those of the South. In ages gone by rice was the staple food of the Indians even of the North. This is evidenced by the

fact that lexicographers read anna and andhas amongst the words for food. Bhakta and andhas are not synonymous at all with anna (food). Then why are they listed along with anna, bhojya, etc.? The conclusion is irresistibly forced on us that rice was the principal article of food. If it were otherwise, bhakta and andhas, the particular forms of food, would not be read along with words for food in general. Panini's term bahuvrihi for the attributive compound is also illuminating. It means 'one in possession of plentry of rice'. It is remarkable since Panini belonged to the NorthWest, being a native of Salatura. Rice must be the staple food even of the Northerners in the days of Panini. Besides rice, the other food with which the people of old were most familiar was the seasamum seeds, the tilas. The forehead mark is called tilaka 'tila-pratikrtih tilakah'. This is the meaning of tilaka. It is on account of its similarity with tila that it is so called. A mole is also called tila. This, too, is on the analogy of tila, the sesamum seed. It is human psychology that whenever we come upon a thing similar to those already known, we name it after the thing with which we are most familiar. This is further evidenced by the word taila which means 'oil'. Primarily it means oil extracted out of the tilas. Secondarily it comes to signify oil in general. We can say sarsapataila, inguditaila. The word tila in the words noted above is certainly not without significance. Let us now see what attitude the ancient Indians had towards worldly possessions. It is generally held that they very early turned their back upon the world and its possessions, being deeply impressed with their transitoriness. This is far from the truth. Linguistic evidence refutes such a view. The Sanskrit word dhanya is eloquent. It is a word for 'blessed'. It is derived from dhana with the suffix ya in the sense of 'one who grows rich'. (Vide Panini, dhanaganam labdha, IV. 4.84). Later it developed a secondary sense, 'blessed', and was exended to denote a person equally happy or devoted to the practice of virtue. This develoment must be traced back to the time when the people looked upon a rich man as a happy man. If it were not so, the application of the word to happy or blessed persons would be void of sense.

Indian Culture in the light of Sanskrit Language 75 The same information is yielded by words sresthin and sadhu. Sresthin means srestham asyasti. Here we have the matvarthiya ini suffix in the sense of praise or acclamation, prasamsa. 'One who is blessed with the best' is then the meaning of sresthin. Now, what is the best? Why is it not named? Well, it is so well-known. It is money. Similarly, sadhu means originally good, righteous. It later develops a secondary meaning. In Hindi it is still in vogue in the form of sahu. The word, sadhu is a pointer to the times when moneyed people were regarded good, good for economic activity so essential for the healthy living of society. But here it must be understood that whereas merchants and the traders were the good people, the sadhus, the persons hoarding wealth for the sake of it were heavily at a discount. The Indians in ancient times had very early foreseen the dangers of concentration of wealth in a few hands. When any hoards of coins come to be deposited in the safevaults of a handful of capitalists, there arises a danger to society. The leaders of society look at this development with suspicion and alarm. In Sanskrit the god of wealth is given the name of Kubera which, when dissolved, means kutsitam beram asya. The word bera means 'body'. One whose body is contemptible is Kubera. In the Hindu pantheon the Lord of wealth is regarded as a leper. Again, one of the names of Kubera is Naravahana which means one who has a man as his conveyance. A man riding a man! Well, this is what a capitalist does. He can amass huge wealth only by depriving others of their rightful share. A man himself, he crushes other men. The Mahabharata (I. 140.77) says:nacchitva paramarmani, nakrtva karma darunam! nahatva matsyaghativa prapnoti mahatim sriyamil Now a word about metaphysics. The Sankhya philosophers postulate that the soul is unrelated (asango vai purusah). The same view is accepted in the Gita. This, however, can be known without a study of the Sankhya Sutras or the Gita. The word duhkha alone is informative enough. This tiny little word is a compound made up of duh, 'bad', 'defective' and kha, the senses. It therefore literally means a state in which the senses are undermined, overwhelmed

or defective. This is exactly how suffering reacts on the senses. This in plain English means that the ancient Indians who spoke Sanskrit, believed in the Sankhya doctrine that all suffering (duhkha) was confind to the senses, leaving the soul quite unaffected. Throughout our literature, we are called upon to divert our minds from the objects of the senses, the visayas. The objects hold men in their grip and it is emphasised times without number that we should strive hard to keep off them, which is undoubtedly the most difficult task. That the attraction of the objects of the senses is irresistible can be known not only from the scriptures but also from the word visaya tself. Visaya is a compound of vi and saya from the √sin 'to bind' visesena-sinvanti (=badhnanti) iti visayah. Visayas are so called because they bind one tightly. The ancient Indians could not have given a better word to the objects of the senses. itself