For whom the feeling tolls

From a simple series of drawings to sophisticated and precise motion of objects following physics laws, animation has come a long way in just a few decades. Companies like Pixar have raised the bar with every movie release. Eventually all animations look sophisticated, beautiful and stunning, yet they fail to hold us unless there is a compelling story. Illustration is for the mind. Story is for generations. This is a key point for creating good slides/presentations - it is good to have appropriate visuals, but you need to have a compelling story.

In the Inside Out movie, the story of a girl depicted through personifaction of emotions is a brilliant way to capture the psychology of a child. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that 'depression emotion' is going to have some kind of impact, but the script manages it very well until the end. The fact that depression is an important emotion for human beings (perhaps animals too) is a neat little knot. But after watching the movie, I felt something was eluding me and I wasn't able to quite capture it. I have heard a similar story-line before? But where?

Many people read the bhagavad-gita in original, translated or original with translations and are awed by its philosophy. Lectures after lectures have eloquently captured its essence expounded through a variety of experiences. Its so easy to quote 'karmaNi eva adhikAraH te', 'yogaH karmasu kausalam', yet it is near impossible to put them in practice. Or get a thrill reminiscing Robert Oppenheimer quoting the destruction verse (divisUrya sahasrasya) during the nuclear bomb.

Whenever I get hold of a book, I tend to read the Introduction/Foreward section fully. Understanding why the author write the book, provides a context for the content. In that sense, one of the most brilliant and under-rated chapters is the first chapter of the gIta. In fact both rAmAyaNa and mahAbhArata are fantastic human psychology guides. Many characters of these two epics are diluted in our day-to-day versions and are put in black-white, so the real shades don't come out as vyAsa had put it. I feel sorry for psychology students who quote Jung and Freud at the drop of a hat, yet cannot explain the confusions of yudhiShThira or the anxiety of dasharatha.

From author's view, follow how the context is being brilliantly set. If the content was important, he could have directly skipped to the preaching section. Yet vyAsa devotes an entire chapter to set the mood. In the first chapter "arjuna vishAda yoga", there is a brilliant contrast of two feelings: duryodhana's and arjuna's. Both are driven by ego and are ready to annhiliate the other side. Duryodhana cautions droNa of his nemesis, followed by provoking that he is not a kShatriya (implying not fit for a battle) and then implying a soft corner for his favorite student. He has more strength in numbers than the pANdava-s, yet is doubtful of victory. And arjuna begins with ordering krishNa to take 'his' chariot in front of the army and proclaims that he is ready to take them on.

At no point duryodhana exibhits a feeling of remorse that what he is doing is wrong. Though enveloped in doubt, there is no sadness in him on what happens to anyone as he clearly declares that others are willing to die for him. In complete contrast, arjuna after being cleverly put between bhIShma and droNa, breaks down because of 'depression'. (A trivia: Many think that the first words spoken by kRShNa are in the 2nd chapter. But here kRShNa says, "Arjuna, see the assembled Kurus"). This vishAda is the reason arjuna is ready to lay down his life in the battle-field and hoping he would get mokSha without any incurred pApa or effort.

Just as in Riley's triggering of her fondest memories, 'depression' played a key role for arjuna to bring out the best in him. Without 'depression' we would all be like duryodhana, not even feeling what is wrong.

For the Samskritam lovers, the verbs used in arjuna's lamentation are like leaving a kid in candy shop. The dhAtu of many words are deep in meaning that translating them does not do justice. (kRupayA parayA AviShTaH, sIdanti gAtrANi, mukham pariSuShyati, gANDIvam sravate, tvak paridahyate, sreyaH na anupaSyAmi).

I've heard people give various reasons to learn (or not to learn) Samskritam. From a cliched 'I read in 5th grade' to a proud 'My grandfather knows it' to 'I simply don't have time' to 'Its complicated'. A few among them stay on to continue to learn the language, in addition to just admiring. For them, the depression has already set in.

When is yours ?

(Some ideas inspired by Sri Dr. Padmakumar's bhagavad-gIta series on youtube).

Wisdom by numbers

In the late 1980's there was a superhit Hindi song with simple lyrics and catchy tunes. It become very popular even in the anti-Hindi belts of India and catapulted Madhuri Dixit to instant fame. Yeah, for those from that era, I dont have to give a clue anymore. So it goes ek, do, teen ... barah, terah - counting from 1 to 13, the lyric pauses to make a pun-ny link between terah (13) and tera (you) - tera karoon intazaar (im waiting for you, come out, the Spring has arrived). Language of lyrics and tunes are made for each other, I guess. Setting that tune to translated lyrics just doesn't feel quite right. It goes on to describe other numbers and events, but frankly who remembers the rest of the lyrics?

But long before Madhuri danced to the tunes of counting 1,2,3 to wait for her boyfriend, this technique was used to put a distressed King to bed. Not by counting sheeps, but by shedding an enormous amount of wisdom on observations of human behavior. Set in a form of dialog, the context of it is as fascinating as the content. Sanjaya has just returned from a mission to pANdava-s to "accept terms" of duryodhana, but dhRtarAShtra does not know about the result yet. The King asks Sanjaya to spell out, but Sanjaya says, its late in the night and he would disclose the details only in the court in front of everyone, the next day morning. This makes the king uncomfortable and cannot sleep at night. And so when the king is in distress, he promptly calls for his brother for advice. And thus the chapter is named "Unable to sleep at night chapter (prajAgara parva - part of udyoga parva)" - more popularly known by its content - vidura nIti (Laws/Sayings of vidura). Yes, we are talking about Vidura, yet another fascinating character of the epic. Etymologically viduraH could be vigrahavAkya-ed in two ways - vidyAyAm rate iti viduraH - (one who revels in knowledge is vidura) or vidyA rate yasmin saH viduraH (one, in whom knowledge shines, is vidura). The whole vidura nIti is a dialog between completely distressed dhRtarAShTra and the wise Vidura, that goes on for the whole night.

Unlike the pancatantra or hitopadeSa, where a story ends with one profound subhAShita that serves as a morale summary, the whole vidura nIti is chock full of quotes, sayings, proverbs and subhAShita-s, that would make any quoter look like an "Instant Jnani".  Its literally an encyclopedia of taxonomy of human behavior, a critique of human tendencies and a book of law for a ruler and advice to common man. Many popular quotes are from this chapter -

"ekaH svAdu na bhunjIta" - do not eat alone (always share food with others)
"satyam svargasya sopAnam" - truth is the step to svargaH
"kshamA guNo hi aSaktAnAm, SaktAnAm bhUShaNam" - Forgiveness is a virtue for weak, and an ornament for brave.
"mUrkheShu paNditAH jIvanti" - Because fools are around, wise are recognized (lit. wise survive in fools, ie in foolishness of other people)

and many many more. The last one, especially can be related easily in IT project environments. If you got a performance reward, its not because you worked hard, but others around you worked less harder than you! In some sloka-s, vidura's perspective and straight-forwardness is stunning.

But there is always one thing most profound than others. In the first section of the dialog Vidura explains the dos and donts of a king just using numbers. Vidura delivers a summary of his advice to the king in a single quote.

ekayA dve viniScitya trImScaturbhiH vaSe kuru |
panca jitvA viditvA ShaT sapta hitvA sukhI bhava ||

By 1 determine (discriminate/divide) 2, using 4 overpower 3, conquer 5, know 6, shed 7 ane be happy.

If we take liberty to write this down mathematically, here is the formula for happiness:

happiness = 1/2 + 3^4 * 5 + 6 - 7.

The rounded answer seems to be 404 (as you type in a calculator), and Im pretty sure Vidura secretly encoded that happiness is not to be found without these - astonishingly predating the Http API.

Ok just kidding. Philosophically, this is explained as - Using 1 intellect (ekayA buddhyA), determine 2 - whats right and whats wrong. Using the 4 sAma, dAna, bheda, danda technique subdue the 3 types of people - friends, enemies and the confused. Conquer 5 indriyAs (senses of perception), know 6 (adhibhUta [material science], adhyAtma [spiritual science], adhidaiva [science of natural forces], adhiyajna [inquisition about one fundamental kartA], sarvagata [omnipresence of the kartA] and karma [that kartA is the real doer of everything]) and shed the 7 vices (striyA, mRgayA, pAnam, vAkpAruSham, mahat-daNda-pAruSham, artha-dUShaNam: respectively - indulgence in amorous activities, hunting, addictions like alcohol, harsh speech, excessive punishment, misusing wealth).

Then he goes after each number upto 10 and classifying various laws, rules, systems and observations by numbers. There may be some observations that are not relatable to modern society, but in many cases he seems to be spot on. The taxonomy of Vidura reflects a very deep knowledge of things around him. A deeper inference from this - to make such a classification, the person should not only know the properties of the subject, but also know what NOT belongs to that classification and why. To say that there are three primary colors (RGB model) takes observation. But to say only 3 colors are required, not more not less, requires deeper understanding of the nature of colors.

And finally, a word about the Samskritam behind it. Just like yakSha praSna is a great material on gender of nouns, vidura nIti is a fantastic source of using linga-s for cardinals. The slight variations of cardinals in Samskritam may distract a beginner learner (dve, dvau, trayaH, tisraH, catvAri, catasraH etc.) but these sloka-s will help to understand them with context.

The cost of price

Yet another Thanksgiving Day and a mad rush to get the best deals went by. In thee recent years, Black Friday has started arriving a few Mondays earlier, and if we apply mathematical induction, in a few years Black Friday deals may start by New Year. The tradition of having a nice family dinner and rushing off to retail stores at 12 mid night with friends and cousins may vanish soon. I hope such moments will make a great adventure story for our grandkids, er... only if they will ever sit down to listen to us, instead of playing PS10.

One of the things that surprised me in Russia (Soviet Union) was the "Price of Things". Obviously, consumerism hadn't gotten there yet (before 1991), so the prices were always fixed by the government. For any produce you pick up from store, there were only three price ranges - 1) moscow region 2) siberia region 3) vladivostok region. And each was about 10 kopeks (think 10 cents) dearer, to cover the transport cost! That's it! Any city I go, any shop I go, whether its Moskva, Kiev or Minsk, the price of kilo of butter, a litre of milk or loaf of bread is same price. With inflation hardly a notion under socialism, the prices remained stable for a long time. And with government controlling produces, there were not 10 brands of milk, 6 gradation of fat %, with or without lactose, with or without Vitamin D, with or without DHA, organic and non-organic, quality of grass and food consumed by the cows, amount of hormones injected, pasteurized or homogenized, and a stamp of shelf life of 10 days for milk! And there were just two varities of bread (white and black - if you are curious).

And guess what? When friends and relatives gathered around for weekends or holidays they did not talk about varieties of milk or whether the basic human consumable food like bread has any harmful ingredients like HFCS or who gives the best deal. No one regretted paying more for something and go back to stand in line to return it only to spend more money on something else than what they originally spent. Many conversations were around literature, music, culture, science, math and of course vodka.

Constrast this in US (for sake of this comparison) many conversations are invariably intruded with some sort of "where what is on sale, now?". Pretty much every information media is always providing some kind of deal - email, mail ads, billboards, store coupons, online coupons, bulk coupons and so on. In general, the common public seem to spend more time trying to "get a better deal" out of anything. Imagine a person spends about 15 minutes on average a day (including spending time to return, talk to customer service etc.) to find a deal. Assume that about 100m buy stuff every day after comparing prices from various online stores, deal sites and retail outlets. So conservatively about 100 million x 15 minutes of time is "non-productive" every single day in US. All this is inessential non-productivity.

(Note: I'm not against choice, choice is needed for creativity. Just saying that that major part of our life could be productively spent elsewhere).

How does this all relate to Sanskrit? I am currently teaching Sanskrit to children (of ages 5 to 15) and I am realizing that the lack of phonetic knowledge is causing them a great difficulty. I then started looking into how the English language is being taught and it was very intriguing to see the amount of time and effort put into "giving a phonetic twist" to a script in which phonetics simply does not exist. As a child, I somehow learnt English as a foreign language, but I dont remember how I learnt it. Now when I try to feel how English is taught, I realize it must be one of the hardest things to do. I watched a kid trying to learn different pronunciations of letter "A" for about two weeks. She was very confused with the sound 'A' and how it ends up differently in bat, boat, far, near, that and so on. Nearly every other new word contained an exception to how a previous word was learnt. God forbid when it comes to consonants - who knows when what is silent - the point is there is no logical relation between the letters, script and the language. Children are merely forced into a prevailing structure, with every institution claiming their method is better than another. A whole industry of private schools, expensive curriculums, tutorial institutions, spelling-bee competitions and reading programs thrive just to "fill in the gap" of something fundamentally missing in the English script/language. Children at their early ages (1-5) are in the absolute prime time of absorbing languages. And guess what? Most of their prime time is lost in inessential non-productivity.

Constrast this with a fully phonetic language like Sanskritam, which has a very strong "shIkShA-shAstra" (phonetic-science). There is a clear separation of vowels and consonants, a clear notion of what parts of mouth is used to pronounce a sound, and what the amount of stress of each sound requires. There are even more attributes, but this suffices to make the point. The day a child learns the "sounds", she is productive immediately with the words. The real challenge for the kids then is to find relationships between words within compound-words (samAsa) or in a sentence and that builds a strong analytical skill. This, at least should be one of the reasons why Sanskritam should be taught at a very early age.

(Note: I am not saying English shouldn't be learnt or taught. Just saying that there is a major part of brain that gets exercised better when learning Sanskritam at an early age).

It may be sometimes like this

हिम ऋतुः आयमानः अस्ति । अस्मिन् नगरे तु सर्वदा मेघावृतः । पौलेन उक्तम् आसीत् ७ वादने एव अत्र भवति इति । सद्यः १५ निमेषात् अनन्तरम् अपि सः न आगतः । कुतोऽयम् विलम्बः । इतोपि किञ्चित् प्रतीक्षाम् करोमि । आगच्छति चेत् वरं नोचेत् अहमेव विद्यालयं गच्छामि । प्रातःकाले सुहृद्भिः विद्यालयं गन्तुम् मार्गकोणे प्रतिक्ष्यमाने मम चिन्तनयानम् निरोद्धुम् स्कन्धे लघूष्णहस्तम् स्पृष्टम् । प्रतिक्रम्य तत्र जार्जम् दृष्टवान् । ’जार्ज! नमस्कारः । आगतवान् वा ! समयः एव ।’

जार्जः मौनेन मां दृष्ट्वा नेत्रोन्मीलनं कृतवान् । सः अधिकतया न वदति । परन्तु सुहृदाम् मनश्चालनम् सम्यक् अवगन्तुम् समर्थः । योगाभ्यासम् वा ध्यानम् वा किमपि करोति । प्रायः तस्मात् बलम् । तदा एव ’सुहृदो’ इत्युक्तं शब्दं श्रुत्वा एव अवगतवन्तौ पौलः आगतः इति । यतोऽपि तस्य विलम्बनम् मह्यम् न रोचते, तस्य ध्वनिः मधुरा अस्ति । प्रसिद्धः गायकः भविष्यति सः इति मम न संशयः ।

’अस्तु तर्हि । गच्छामः । अद्यतन पठनं सुन्दरं स्यात् । महकवेः अनुसन्धानम् करोति इत्युक्तवान् आस्सीत् आचार्यः ।’

’अस्तु । गच्छामः’ । तावप्युक्तवन्तौ ।

किमपि परस्परमनुक्त्वा किञ्चित् दुरम् चलितवन्तः वयम् । पौलः एव प्रथमं पृष्टवान् ’अद्य प्रात:काले गणितम् खलु?’ । ’आआम्म्म्म्’ इति अति मन्द-स्वरेन किमपि विचिन्तयन्निव जार्जः प्रत्यवदत् । ’मह्यम् तादृशम् गणितम् न रोचते यादृशम् भाषाज्ञानम्’ इति पौलः अवदत् । ’न केवलम् भवते, मह्यम् अपि’ इत्यहमपि समावदत् । ’अद्य ब्रह्मगुप्तस्य चक्रवालम् पाठयति । किमपि न अवगतम् मया गत वर्गे । चक्रवालम् व विचक्रवालम् वा कस्य को लाभः । किमपि भवेत् ।’ इति किञ्चित् उच्चस्थाय्याम् एव अवदम् । अग्रे वयम् मौनेन गत्वा विद्यालयम् प्राप्तवन्तः ।

’आर्यभट्ट-भवनम्’ आगतम् । अत्रैव हि गणितवर्गप्रकोष्टः । आचार्यः पाठम् आरब्धवान् । मम मनः तत्र नासीत् । यथेष्टम् नवोड्डयनकौशल्यः प्राप्तः विहङ्गरिव उड्डयनम् कृतः । न केवलम् आकशे अपि काले च । Keats वर्येन सह प्रातराशः । माध्याह्ने Wordsworth-कविना सह भोजनम् । रात्रौ तथा हि बृहत् कविसम्मेलने मधुरकाव्यपानम् ।

घण्टानादे गणितवर्गः समाप्तः । शीघ्रमेव समयः यापितः । उत्तममेव । यथापूर्वम् किमपि न अवगतम् । त्रयः वयम् मिलित्वा यास्क-नाम्ना भाषाभवनम् प्रति गतन्वन्तः । तत्र दूरम् गच्छन्तम् अन्यतमम् छात्रम् दृष्ट्वा जार्जः माम् सूचितवान् ’नूतनः सः । नाम तस्य रिच्’ ।

’एवम् वा । उत्तमम्’ । कदाचित् नाम श्रुत्वैव केषाञ्चित् जनानाम् आत्मसम्बन्धः निर्दिश्यते स्यात् । सः अपि तत्रैव गच्छन्नस्ति यत्र वयम् । अस्तु अनन्तरम् तेन परिचयम् करोमि इति चिन्तयित्वा प्रकोष्टम् मित्रैः सह प्रविष्टवान् ।

अस्माकम् आचार्यः अशिथिल: इति अन्ये छात्राः वदन्ति । तन्न मम मते । मह्यम् तु सः कारुण्यः इव भाति । तस्य भाषाज्ञानम् दृष्ट्वा अनेकवारम् विस्मितो आसमहम् । सर्वेषाम् आचर्याणाम् प्रियतमः सः शिष्यः यः विषये स्वाभाविकज्ञानम् च आसक्तिम् प्रदर्शयति खलु । द्रोणार्जुन न्याय्यरिव ।

Good morning, sir |

Good morning |

आचार्यः अपि कुतूहलेन प्रणम्यत् । ’उपविशन्ताम् ।’ एतस्य वर्गे मया तु सर्वदा प्रथमे मञ्चे एव उपवेष्टव्यः ।

’अस्तु । अद्य किञ्चित् सिंहावलोकनम् कुर्मः । विभक्त्यः स्मर्यन्ते वा?’

इतस्ततः लघुशब्दम् श्रुतम् । न कुत्रचित् उत्सुकम् । तृतीये मञ्चे उपविष्टम् जेम्सम् दृष्ट्वा आचार्यः पृष्टवान् ।

'He' इत्यस्य पदस्य सप्त-विभक्तिम् उभयोर्वचनयोः प्रदर्शयतु कृपया ।


He, They
Him, Them
By Him, By Them
.....


मौनम् । अनिर्वृतम् मौनम् वर्गे । 'Pin-drop silence' इति न्याय्यम् भवन्तः श्रुतवन्तः खलु । तथैव । मम मनसि क्षणे एव अनेके विषयाः विचाराः विमानम् इव प्रचलन्तः आसन् । विभक्त्यः । अहो सुन्दरम् सरलम् च । भाषाज्ञानस्य मूलभूतमेतदेव ननु । तदज्ञात्वा कथम् उत्तीर्णम् प्राप्स्यन्ति एते बालाः । अस्माकम् पूर्वजानां भाषां ज्ञातव्यम् इति लवनमात्रमपि अभिरुचिः नास्ति एतेषाम् ।

आचार्यः माम् प्रति वीक्षितवान् । भवान् जानात्येव, प्रतनोतु इति संज्ञया आदेशितवान् । अहम् बहु उत्सुकेन उत्थाय


to him/for him, to them/for them
Of him, of them
In him, in them

इति संपूरितवान् । अपि सर्वान् छात्रान् एक वारम् चक्षुषौ सारयितवान् ।

’धन्यवादाः । उपविश्येताम् । पश्यन्ताम् छात्राः । इयं भाषा सुलभम् अस्ति ननु । पद द्वयम् एव - Him/Them. केवलम् उपसर्गान् प्रयुजुय वाक्यार्थाः निर्णेयिताः । अपि च वचनद्वयम् एव - एकम् च बहु वचनम् च’ । अत्र कः क्लेशः ।’

पाठः अग्रे गतः । कुतुहलेन श्रुतः मया । यदा यदा Keats अथवा Wordsworth प्रति आचार्यः वदति, अहम् पौलं प्रति पश्यामि । तस्य मुखेऽपि प्रसन्नता दृश्यते ।

वर्गे समाप्ते, सर्वे गतवन्तः । मम एकः प्रश्नः स्फुरितः, पुनः आचार्यम् प्रति गच्छामि स्म । तस्मिन्नेव समये तत्र अन्यः आचार्यः आगतवान् । अतः तयोः सम्भाषणं श्रोतुम् अवकाशः अभवत् । आद्यौ तयोः सम्भाषणम् सम्यक् न श्रुतम् । किञ्चित् तीक्ष्न-कर्णाभ्यां श्रोतुम् यतितवान् ।

’आम् भॊः’ इति मम आचार्यः अवदत् । ’उदर निमित्तमेव जीवनम् । किं करवाणि । मनः तु षेक्स्पियर् वाञ्छति । मुखेन कालिदसस्य प्रशंसाः । भाषाम् तु पाठयामि । परन्तु छात्राणाम् आसक्तिः न अस्ति । तेषाम् अङ्कान्यैव लक्ष्याणि । विभक्तिम् पाठयामि । व्याकरणम् पाठयामि । परन्तु "What is your name?" इति पृष्टे प्रत्युत्तरम् दातुम् अपि असमर्थः आधुनिकाः बाला: ।’ इत्युक्त्व किञ्चित् मौनम् साधितवान् । पुनः ’अस्माकम् आधुनिक स्थित्याः कारणम् भारतम् एव । तैः अस्माकम् भाषाक्षीणम् अभवत् । तैः महती हानिः कृता । अयर्देशः हस्तात् गतः । स्काट्-देशः अपि गतः । अखण्ड-आङ्ग्ल-साम्राज्यस्य लक्ष्यम् अधो पतितम् । धिक् भारतानाम् ।’

अन्यः आचार्यः अपि किञ्चित् मौनेन स्थित्वा तदनन्तरम् अङ्गीकृतवान् । ’सत्यम् उक्तम् विन्स्टन्-वर्य । परन्तु अयम् शापः स्यात् । इदानीम् छात्राः षेक्स्पियर् न इच्छन्ति । कालिदासम् वा भारविम् वा पठितुम् इच्छन्ति । इदानीं तु किञ्चित् वा पठन्ति । भविष्ये तदपि न बोधितुम् अवकाशः अस्माभिः न लभ्यते । एतैरेव सन्तुष्यामः ।’

’कथं भॊः । कथं सन्तुष्यामहे ।’ इति दु:खेन समावृतम् वाक्यमेव मया अन्त्या श्रुतम् । व्याकुलितोऽहम् आचार्यं पृष्टव्यम् प्रश्नम् विस्मृत्य गृहमागतवान् । वेगेन आगत्य मातरमपि अनवद्य मम प्रकोष्टद्वारम् पिधानम् कृत्वा किञ्चित् कालम् मौनेन भित्तिकं उपरि गभीरतया स्थास्यमानम् षेक्स्पियर्वर्यस्य चित्रं द्ष्टवान् । ’इयम् मम प्रतिज्ञा अस्ति । न केवलम् व्याकरणम् परन्तु भाषायाः सर्वज्ञानम् प्राप्य जनाकर्षनोन्मत्थनकविताः रचयित्वा आग्ङ्ल-भाषायाः महोन्नतम् प्रापयिष्यामि । कदाचित् एवमपि स्यात् ।’

१९४८-तमे भारतात् स्वातन्त्र्यम् प्राप्य वर्षैके समाप्ते ।
- जान्

The News Cook

One main hindrance for students of Samskritam is the "gender" of the word. Is it "aascharyam" or "aascharyaH"? Is it "pAtram" or "pAtraH"? The main problem is only with akaArAnta puMlinga and napumsakalinga. The strIlinga and non-akAranta can usually guessed with our background knowledge of our mother tongues. The problem happens since our Samskritam learning is based on knowledge apriori. It used to be the practice to learn the nAmalinga-anushAsana, ie the amarakosha - the thesaurus of Samskritam words committed to memory before learning much of grammar. The amarakosha pretty much provides a guidance on gender of words, which becomes easier to grasp later on. We do not learn amarakosha now, instead we straight-way try to reason out why a word is in what gender. Add to this our knowlege of other Indian languages, where the words may have morphed. For example, kriShNaH, yogaH - all have become almost feminine-like AkArAnta in Tamil (kriShnA, yogA) or in Hindi, where the akArAnta has disappeared. The improper learning technique yields to misunderstanding the language for its difficulty.

No matter how much comfort you get buying books online and reading reviews, there is nothing like visiting the local brick and mortar bookshop, drinking coffee and reading some books, which you might never want to buy. The world history or reference books come under this category for me. Reading through the history books, we repeatedly come across the term "dark ages". But it was only Europe, unlike Southeast Asia, who was in dark ages for about 12 centuries. She started tasting intellectualness around 15th century and the period after that produced several European philosophers - Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Hegel, Voltaire, Nietzche, Kant, Schopenhauer - each describing their world view with their own new found logic. A few agreed with each other, but many mostly disagreed. Many philosophic context words were invented or redefined, almost a new vocabulary was required by the end of it all. But nobody was as direct as Schopenhauer put it. Kant, despite his brilliant work, beat around the bush a lot, what could have been said in a few words. Unlike Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer in his "World as will and representation" starts off with a sutram-like definition - "The world is my view". He goes on to declare in his introduction that if the reader is not acquainted with Vedanta, he/she would hardly understand his own work. After many definitions and redefinitions of logic, it is interesting to observe that logic is, in fact, illogical.

That's how yudhiShTra responds to a question by yakSha, in the world's first Jeopardy! The yakSha prashna episode is a collection of questions where the gender of a word can be quickly glanced upon. While the questions are simple, the answers are quite extra-ordinary. Just like the modern Jeopardy, yakSha hurls questions from an extremely wide range of categories - physics, cosmology, material sciences, spirituality, dharma, psychology, behaviour, sobriquets, abstracts, concepts, geography and what not! yudhiShTra's responses are equally varying and astonishing: material things are compared against concepts, hypothetical questions are answered with technical acumen, abstract questions are put into context with solid references. It is impossible for a non-advanced civilization to come up with answers like "Mother is heavier than Earth" or "Dharma protects the one who protects it". Many answers seem anti-modern-science in a casual reading, but a thorough understanding of words, etymology and context are necessary to correctly interpret them.

Towards the end yakSha asks two very simple questions. yudhiShTra's responses to these stretches the mind beyond imagination, takes it to exosphere and suddenly drops off like a hot potato in astonishment and disbelief, only not to parachute-land but crash back into senses. You kind of get the feeling of a jolt at halting suddenly after a wild thrill ride.

कः पन्थाः ? asks yakSha. "What is the road?" I would have just asked back "To where?".

तर्क: अप्रतिष्ट: श्रुतयो विभिन्ना: न एको ऋषि: यस्य मतम् प्रमाणम् ।
धर्मस्य तत्त्वं निहितम् गुहायाम् महाजनो येन गतः स पन्थाः ॥

Yudhishtra's first utterance is "tarkaH apratiShTaH". A quote on which vyAkhyAna can be done for hours I guess. "Logic is baseless". Logic has been the considered the greatest employment of human intellect since Aristotle, Plato down to the European philosophers, who have spent their lifetime only in logic. But Yudhishtra dismisses it curtly - Logic is limited, baseless and cannot be relied upon.

"srutayo vibhinnAH" - vedA-s say different things! "na eko rShiH yasya matam pramANam" - There is not a single rishi whose word is an authority! Its just a poetic way of expressing that vedA-s are interpreted differently and every rishi worth his beard has an opinion. "dharmasya tattvam nihitam guhAyAm". The truth about dharma is hidden in a deep cave! What the Huh? Where did dharma come from? What does it have to do with logic or vedas or roads? Each rishi is attempting to explain what is "dharma", but nobody has a single opinion about it and nobody really knows what dharma is. And then he finally ties them all beautifully - "mahAjano yena gataH saH panThaH" - the road travelled by great people is the one to follow (for mokSha)! The great ones have already figured it out, you just follow the road paved by them. yakSha was not even asking about a physical road! That is the fault of translation or misunderstanding of contexts. Even in English we use the term "Road to the future" or "Path to the future", but that is not what striked us first!

Then comes a final punch, a seemingly innocuous question, the one that we ask everyday and get mind numbing answers from TV, media, google, facebook and so many leaking outlets of information bombarding us from all around. Ironically, thats the last question yakSha asks -  का वार्ता ? - "What is the news?"

And next time when you turn on the Weather channel, remember yudhiShTra's answer, it will make you cringe like an invisible spec of dust in a massive tornado:

अस्मिन् महामोहमये कटाहे सूर्याग्निना रात्रिदिव इन्धनेन ।
मास ऋतु दर्वी परिघट्टनेन भूतानि काल: पचति इति वार्ता ॥

asmin mahaa-moha-maye kaTaahe - In the frying pan of ignorance of this world, using the Sun as fire (sUrya agninA), day and night as fuels (ratri diva indhanena - the word "Indane" - the Indian lpg/oil/gas company comes from the word indhana "fuel"), with seasons as the ladle (mAsa-rtu-darvI-parighattanena), kAlaH (the time), pacati (cooks) bhuTAni - the living beings.

Yes. Time puts us all in ignorance-coated non-stick tawa and keeps cooking us like papad - when done, takes us and tosses aside, puts the new papad in.

This is the news.

Strike three and you are in

One of the most difficult performances of Tom Hanks must have been the movie Cast Away. Imagine a lush island, turquoise sea, heavenly beach, fine sand, a noisy crew and good food all around you. And yet he has to act like a lonely man for the best part of 2 hours of the movie. The movie was pretty boring, except for one poignant scene, where the protagonist after returning back to civilization, looks unbelievably at a lighter. Hanks' expressions in that scene are brilliant yet subdued. (I wonder what Shivaji Ganesan would have done in that scene). Anyway, in the island, he discovered "fire" on his own after several attempts and kept the fire going. But here, a simple lighter did the job.

Have you paused to think when you tried to strike a light with a match-stick a few times, but it does not light up? You know it will. There is no loss of heart, frustration or despondency when a simple match stick does not light up the first few times. But then, you re-adjust the match box, the stick, your fingers gripping slightly a bit tighter, your mind focusing on it a little  more intently, strike hard once more, only this time, the stick lights up.

When the Yamunotrii 2013 campaign was going on, several people subtly wondered the need for a residential camp, when the regular classes and weekend workshops are happening, which gives a better time management than a "whole weekend" camp. When the registrations only trickled, at one point of time even I was questioning myself the need for a residential camp. Are we thrusting an event into minds of people? Is there a false sense of achievement of learning Samskritam over a weekend? Can Samskritam be appreciated in one day, which has enough literature for a jIva to go through in multiple janma-s? Is Samskritam really important for a jIva, whose ultimate sAdhanA is mokSha? Can the flip of the switch happen just like that?

The last question is the easiest to answer. We have heard from the biographies of great achievers that that flip of the switch or what I call the strike of the match does happen. For some like Pattinathar, Purandhara Dasa, Tulasidas, Ramana Maharishi such a strike happened in a single moment. But for some, like Swami Vivekananda, whose 150th birth anniversary is being celebrated this year, the light happened after a few strikes.

For the rest of the questions, I searched for the answers in the camp itself. The camp is not exactly about learning Samskritam. It is not possible to learn a language in one weekend. It is about an immersive experience, that people all around you are talking, thinking and arguing about Samskritam. I have been to several technical conferences, but almost always have come back with none wiser than before. May be a few contacts, a few made in China gifts and a good amount of advertisers spamming my email after the event. But conferences are really about an experience of being there and hearing and listening only about the subject matter all the time. We often use the word "mandiram" for temple. I like the word "aalayam" better, because the word implies the "coming together of all minds". The similarity in thought all around you makes the neurons spike the voltages more frequent to excite that first strike.

Learning Samskritam is just like learning any other subject. Books can provide information, but they cannot explain the abstractness of knowledge. Books can provide a structure, but they not communicate a thought process. One of the classes was about sup vibhakti-s. The word was मित्रम् (friend) and question put to students was why मित्रेण सह is in तृतीया-विभक्तिः. Note that the question is not what is the तृतीया-विभक्तिः एक वचनम् of मित्रम्, but why मित्रेण सह  itself is in तृतीया-विभक्तिः. Why not मित्रम् सह or मित्रस्य सह? After various guesses, one of the students quizzically said "otherwise, it doesnt sound right?". Yes. That's the closest answer one can get. Grammar does not drive a language. Grammar is derived from a language and then it provides a scaffold to the language. That experience of abstractness of knowledge is the second strike.

Pretty much all the interpretations of the vaidika dharma accept that mokSha is the ultimate goal. How mokSha is defined is a different question. But to attain mokSha, sAdhana is important and for sAdhana, the tool is equally important. How much ever you try to light up holding that matchstick inversely, you are not going to succeed. For those who think that gIta, stotram-s and other Samskritam texts are a tool, the realization that the tool must be understood correctly without usage of any other monkey-spanner, is the third strike.

When we were campaigning about the event, I remarked a bit pessimistically to my fellow kArya-kartA Srini Raghavan that those who decided would have already registered and those who are undecided most likely wont. But he replied quite enthusiastically, "Im not worried about people who are not into learning Samskritam. Im looking for people who want to speak Samskritam, but who may regret that they missed an opportunity by not knowing about a way to learn it".

Indeed. In fact, I would have counted myself one among them. I'm in. Are you?.

Yamunotrii 2013 v3.0

So its Spring time again in Austin! Well there was practically no winter this time. Its been Spring weather all January and all jiva-raashin's around here seem to be thoroughly confused about the weather pattern. We, humans blame the global warming. And the animals and trees are blaming the humans.

But the Texas Samskrita Bharati folks couldn't be bothered. Yamunotrii is releasing its 3rd version in the end of first quarter of 2013 (Mar 29, 2013) and we hope, like software releases, could make a much bigger impact than our previous releases. We have learnt a lot, both in and from the previous camps. Whether it is the pressure of organizing a non-profit event, joy of sharing knowledge, learning from some of the best teachers, pride of getting back to one's roots via Samskritam, enjoying timely spicy food and filtered coffee,  poking fun in the creative skits, wondering at the stars of the dark night skies  or simply hanging out with friends and families than doing anything better - it has been part of the memory now.

Come monday, most of us in the office face one question from anybody around - "How was your weekend?" and the replies are pretty much standard "Twas ok", "Twas fun", "Nothing much" or "Crazy". Well, how about this one Monday, Apr 1st 2013, you could say "I did something I never ever did in my life! I spoke in Samskritam for one whole weekend". Sounds Fun and Crazy? It is possible.

Version 3.0 promises to be fresher with volunteers coming up with creating ways of engaging people and making understand the importance of Samskritam in our day-to-day life. Its really a hard question to answer and at the end of it all, there is only word: passion.

Learning Samskritam is two-edged benefit. You learn for your own benefit and Samskritam benefits from you learning it and enriching it in turn. That's how languages develop and survive.

There have been students who accidentally sat in my beginner's class, or just curious to come and watch what's going on - and went on to complete the correspondence courses and become familiar with Siddhanta Kaumudi or see a different face of Patanjali.

Well one thing is for sure. There is no better time than now to learn Samskritam. There is no proper time than now, that Samskritam needs you.

Your support to Samskritam will make a difference. To YOU. To your Family. To Samskritam.

For more details visit http://www.samskritabharatiusa.org and follow links to Yamunotrii 2013.

Here is a very thought-provoking writeup by my friend and fellow volunteer Srini Raghavan, straight from the heart.

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by Srini Raghavan, Austin, Feb 2013

Sometimes, by accident or by design, opportunity strikes that can enrich your life and strengthen your wish. The wish can be transformed in to a meaningful journey with a reachable destination- provided you have support and education. When you get both in a fun-filled, joyous and a friendly environment, it can become a savoring moment to share with your friends and family. If it is taken to a higher level, it can be a life changing experience altogether.

With the Spring coming soon, we are having a Samskritam Family weekend camp coming soon.

This is a rare chance be a character in the revival story of your own language "Samskritam" ; and have a good time along the way without shedding a drop of sweat ! Please do not miss the fun and regret.  Reward yourself by trying something different from the mundane activities of visiting malls, shopping for groceries, watching TV ,attending potlucks or parties.

Let us make an attempt to answer a few questions that some of you might have now.

It is quite common to see many people living far-away from their homeland feel the need of a strong cultural support system - which they can call their own. Language is the path that provides an access to cultural heritage- be it material, intellectual or spiritual. Samskritam is the path that makes the  journey safe and enjoyable.

Any language that is more than a mere collection of sound symbols has the power to give an individual- his own identity. Come and join us to become aware of what is yours.  Speak in  Samskritam,  a language where each word is packed with knowledge, beauty, precision and represents the finest aspect of a glorious civilization.  When you speak, think, play and embrace your own language as yours, it is like a lost child returning to one's own mother. Give her a hug, who is waiting for you with hope. She has been yours forever. Come back and take your mother with you, without abandoning her.

That is when identity fuels honorable and happy existence.

We are sure that even a glimpse of such experience is of significant value to those living in a diversified or in a melting-pot environment. There is a risk of losing oneself; or just be that one amorphous foggy entity who goes unnoticed ; or be lost in the multitude of differences and become just another unidentifiable particle of huge melting pot.

Samskritam is a uniting force against disintegration and a binding glue for integration. Use it to be who you want to be.

All of you are cordially invited.

Some of  you have attended the camp before. You know how good it is and we welcome you again to offer you even better experience.

The linguistic creamed milk

There are sweets and there are sweets. It is the envy of every NRI, whose friend returns from India after attending sumptuous weddings or festivities, and enumerates the different sweets that were devoured. How many different milk-based sweets and flavors! So much so that, the states are known based on the milk-sweet based identity - whether it is doodh-peda from gujarat or rasagolla from bengal or a simple paayasam from the south.

Amongst all, I would say the poor-man's-king-of-sweet is the "thiratti-paal", literally "condensed milk". Usually it is called "khoa", but the process of preparing them are different. Probably every Indian mom has made this at home. With just 2 to 3 ingredients (milk, curd and sugar or ghee), but a relatively elaborate process of making it, thiratti-paal was sometimes more sought after in our family, matched only by Venky's laddu. Even though all it requires is just to boil the milk and carefully adding curd, getting the right amount of sweetness is an art form. Hasty adding of the curd or letting the cream stick to the bottom of the vessel can quickly spoil the taste. And the best sweets are those that can be savored for a long time without feeling the excessiveness of sugar.

Human mind is remarkably capable of remembering information in summaries and at the same time processing and expounding a piece of information into elaborate details. Honestly speaking, we really do not know how the mind does it. Many of you may remember such exercises from your high school literature classes: analyze and write a detailed essay on the character of Macbeth OR write a short summary of what you learnt from the "crow took the vada from the daadi-ma" story.

The fact that mind can zip information to remember and also unzip information by "filling-in" the gaps, is by itself quite a remarkable talent. No better it is seen than in children, especially toddlers, when they light up to summarize what they learnt, capturing the most interesting and vocal sound-bits. What you also notice is that the larger the information, the less-juicy details tend to quickly get lost and only the meaty and essential stuff reflect in the brains.

Lets take an example: If I mention the words - crow, vada and fox, you can pretty much make up a whole story based on that. Obviously you know the story already, but even if you dont, you can make up a story based on related information that you already know. Another example: "West side story". You might not immediately know the story, but if I just throw in the words "like Romeo and Juliet", a story unfolds in your mind pretty much immediately.

So how small can the information be, in order to not lose its purpose, yet be meaningful enough to expound ?

This was the question that likely tormented our ancient rishis, who were at ease versifying the known and the unknown into musical chandas. Thus came into existence - the "sutram" format that carried the smallest possible information, without losing its context and meaning. It is one of the most remarkable linguistic inventions ever to assist humans remember and retain information with the highest fidelity, that has shaped hinduism and the culture of India. This format has been thoroughly analyzed, distilled, nurtured and turned into an art form by its exponents. It is like several gallons of milk boiled to a handful of cream, carefully adding words only when its imperative. Just like the thiratti-paal, condensing the material unto itself, to extract the sweetness out of it.

For some reason, we are suckers for who those end up in the top. Top 5 songs of the week, top 10 beaches, top 10 smartphones, top 10 poisonous animals, top 20 most powerful people - the list of "tops" are endlessly written and forgotten. Even Samskrita Literature is not spared of this - we do have a "Top 5" in the Sanskrit literature - the pancha-mahA-kAvya: abhijnaana-sakuntalam, raghu-vamsa, kiraataarjuniyam, naishadhiya-caritam and shishupala-vadham. Well, it has been in top 5 for the last 1500 years.

But why stop with just the kavya-literature? I'm partially pained that no one has come up with the "Top 5 sutrams". But whats stopping us, lets come up with our own list!

#5: इको यण् अचि | iko yaN aci | 

This sutram is in our 5th place in the list for two reasons: a) the amount of specific information conveyed in about 5 syllables is equivalent to creating an 8x13 sandhi matrix b) the sutram consists entirely of pratyAhAra-s - which in turn is an encoding of about 25 aksharas.

Panini has come up with several such sutrams, but due to the massive popularity amongst vayyakaraNa-s for quoting this sutram at the drop of the hat, this is our 5th best sutram of the .. err.. last three thousand years.

#4: वृद्धिरादैच् | vriddhiraadaic | 

Yet another gem from Panini, who attempts a technical sutram and managala-sutram at the same time, keeping his promise to be as short as possible. vriddhiH-aat-aic, though technically defining the word "vriddhiH" to be equivalent to aa, ai and au, also conveys that "let there be a vriddhi of this work".

A rare clever pun on both technical and business purposes at the same time, Panini's first sutram of aShTAdhyAyI gets our 4th best.

#3: अथातो ब्रह्म जिज्ञासा | athāto brahma jijñāsā | 

Coming in at number 3, is "the time to enquire about truth". So starts bAdarAyaNa vyAsa in his weaving of formidably cryptic brahma-sutram. The sutrams that have at least given rise to three widely different "matha-s" - from "all is brahman" to "jiva and brahman are fundamentally different", it occupies the foremost place in the "prasthAna-trayI" triplet of intellectual expositions. Similar to the technology world, where no one is an architect unless he/she has a few white papers to his/her credit, no one is a philosopher unless he has written a bhAShyam on brahma-sutram, upanishad-s and bhagavad-gita. The brahma-sutram has fundamentally shaped the philosophy of the Hindus in a very subtle, yet deep way.

#2: योगश्चित्त वृत्ति निरोध: | yogashchitta-vritti-nirodhaH | 

The West have taken over Yoga. Or so it seems. Though yoga is not "owned" by the East, there is a disconcerting wave of misinterpretation about yoga. Fancily-named or self-named yoga techniques have flooded the markets in the last few decades. In the United States alone, yoga is conservatively estimated to be a $6 billion dollar industry. The only ever prop I ever had, when I learnt yoga in India, was an old blanket. Compared to the props available in the modern market, it is very clear that yoga has been stretched for its popularity. I wonder why no one has yet come up with the pricing model of "pay-per-pranayama" - you know, just like the cloud-based models, where you pay per GB or CPU cycle. I'm sure the pricing models like "25 prANAyAma-s per dollar", "two free breath-ins for every breath-out" or "early bird sign ups will get an extra arm twist" will be a run-away hit.

So much ignorance is perpetuated that the original definition of yoga is completely sidelined. Yoga is translated into "union", which is probably the farthest explanation from being anything meaningful.

For giving a mind-blowingly precise definition of yoga, which is the exact opposite of yoga-marketing, namely "Yoga is the cessation of mind-activity" - the patanjali's yoga-sutram occupies the second best sutram in our list. Patanjali has given precise definitions of several other psychological terms, which the modern academia is quietly accumulating into their own curriculum, but we will take his first as the best.

#1: धर्मार्थकामेभ्यो नमः | dharma-artha-kamebhyo namaH | 

Our top most sutram is not from diwali-sounding grammar rules or nuclear-fission like brahma-sutram. It is from a sage who condensed the human feelings of love into sutram format - by far the most innovative application of sutrams and challenging the traditions of his times. No kick-off mangala-sutram or slokam for this guy, and yet he dares to miss a leg of one of the "four pillars" of sanAtana dharma. He could have included the word "mokSha" in his sutram, no one would have cared, but his work is about human emotions and mokSha does not have a definite place.

For being practical, realistic, brazenly bold, innovative and perhaps a path-breaker of his times, Vatsyayana's sutram is the top most in our list of sutrams of the last 3 millenia.

Things may change soon in the next 3000 years, keep watching this space, and until then, dhanyavaadaH !

The varnas of frameworks

In one of the Samskritam classes, I threw a few words to the students and asked them to tell what the word means:

# Solution
Answers: a final result to a math problem; some kind of liquid; an answer to a puzzle;

# Angle
Answers: a math number in geometry; point of view; projection of a building;

# Direction
Answers: north, south etc; a guideline

If meaning of single word can change within a few years, think about works that separate the modern reader by thousands of years. For eg the word "awful" originally meant "full of awe", now it means exactly the opposite. "Nice" originally meant "ignorant", now its about being pretty. Without a context or without a domain knowledge, one cannot interpret a word correctly. If a single word could mean many things without a proper context, think about complete works. This is especially true of scientific works like yoga sutras, nyayas, tarka shastra etc.

Say when we are studying a thousand year old work, it is imperative to realize what we are not readily exposed to: cultural context, language, intended meaning of words or sentences, idioms prevelant in those times, technical terms peculiar to that domain and finally the thought process itself. Given already the gap, translation only makes it worse. Any translation passes through the bias faculty of the translator, however objective it be. The difference between truly understanding a translated work versus the original is like "you breathing" vs "some one else breathing for you".

Language translation, unfortunately is not a mathematical equation, where x = f-inverse(f(x))

Many words from Samskritam has been translated to English and accepted, yet when they are translated back to Samskritam, they yield a different result. For eg, chitta is translated to mind. manas also is translated to mind. But how will you translate "mind" back to Samskritam -> chitta or manas? Yoga has been translated to union, but is union translated back to Samskritam as Yoga?

One of the most misunderstood concepts of Hinduism is "caste". Obviously it has had a long history and there has been so many interpretations. Now what are the words used for caste in Samskritam? In Bhagavad-gita there is a reference, caaturvarNyam mayaa sRuShTam (The four *varNa*-s are created by me). There is also another word "jAti". Both of these words are translated to "caste" which immediately gives the context of societal caste hierarchy. In puruSha sUktam also we find the four categories mentioned, without mentioning the word varNa or jAti. But what is the context?

varNa is a concept of functioning of any non-homogenous group: data, control, presentation and implementation.

Computers: PC, Laptop, iPad: OS (Brahman), CPU (Kshatriya), Screen (Vaishya), Software (Shudra).
Operating System: Boot (Brahman), Kernel (Kshatriya), I/O (Vaishya), Services (Shudra)
Ethernet network: Data (Brahman), DNS controller (Kshatriya), Protocols (Vaishya), Mechanism to transfer data or Endpoints (Shudra).
Corporation: Advisory committee (Brahman), Executive committe (Kshatriya), Marketing (Vaishya), Employees (Shudra).
Government: Ministers (Brahman), Ruler/PM/President (Kshatriya), Departments (Vaisya), Employees (Shudra)
Even Socialism/communism, where all are perceived equal: Manifesto (Brahman), Politburo (Kshatriya), Propaganda (Vaishya), People (Shudra).

In a sense its like a fractal. You zoom in, as long as its non-homogenous the four core function groups are reflected.

And as you write your next web application using Model View Controller framework, remember it directly reflects the principles of the four varNa-s.

Model (Brahman), Controller (Kshatriya), View (Vaishya), Service (Shudra)

All the four should function per its own rules for the whole application to work. If one throws an exception, the user is angry.

So next time you write a controller code in model, or use controller in the service layer, remember: your code reviewer is waiting to reject it with the reason "Separation of Concerns principle is not followed". Now, now, don't you accuse her of casteism.

The Phonetic Bee

So there is a lot of news about how Indians excel in spelling-bee contests, remembering and recollecting words that will be used exactly once in every yuga. While I am all for the hardwork put by the kids and really appreciate their dedication, I feel there is something fundamentally missed.

The arbitrary phonetics of English is its weakest link and that has been exploited by every culture that speaks English, giving their own twists to the phonetics, which on the whole entails that all pronunciations are correct by their own standards. If the judge were from Arab country, he would ask to spell 'guedabans', if the judge were from Bengal, all a-s would be o-s and if he were from south india, you would have to spell his 'madam' as 'mmadamm'. And we could argue until the next solar eclipse who is correct. .

Meanwhile, a lot of American/British prime-time game shows are faithfully aped by Indian TV media, with a bit of cultural twist and a phenomenally generous dose of local accent. American Idol? There is an Indian idol (and even a Carnatic Idol!). Who wants to be millionaire? There is KBC. Daily show? Several desi versions exist. Stand-up comedies have become so popular which weren't a rage 20 years ago.

So here we imagine a group of game show producers discussing about 'inventing' the next big game show program for the fortunate Indian TV viewers.

(All conversations happen in desi accent)

Producer #1: Why don't we do a game show for spelling-bee?
Producer #2: Holy Eagle! That is a cool idea!
Producer #3: (critic voice) Really? And so what spelling we will use? British or American?
Producer #1: Why British, of course!
Producer #3: Are you sure? Actually, we are more like Americans. Shouldn't we use American spelling?
Producer #2: Basically, we can give both options - students can spell either American or British spelling.
Producer #1: What about Indian English spelling? That will give a desi twist to the game...
Producer #3: (thinking)... Yeah! thats a good idea too...

A waiter-boy enters.

Producer #2: Hey waiter boy, bring chai for all of us...

Waiter-boy goes to bring chai. Producers keep discussing various ideas from whom to cast to who will be the sponsors. Waiter-boy enters with chai.

Producer #1: I have an idea.. How about we do spelling bee in Sanskrit? That will give an uniqueness to our show and increase our TRP ratings...
Producer #3: But people would not understand...
Producer #1: That is not a real problem, people just want to sit in front of tv, no matter what... do you mean to say you understand all those English movies?
Producer #2: I agree that is a really cool idea, we should do spelling-bee in Sanskrit
Producer #3: Ok I give in, Sanskrit spelling-bee it is....

Waiter-boy: Sirs, if you dont mind me saying something, spelling-bee contests does not make sense in Sanskrit, because the announcer would have already spelled the word by uttering it. D-uh!

All producers blink at each other for a few moments. Uneasiness in the room.

Producer #1: What do you suggest?
Waiter-boy: I suggest instead of spelling bee, do a samAsa contest in Sanskrit.
Producer #3: What is a samAsa contest?
Waiter-boy: Instead of remembering words as-is, students would be challenged to analyze the relationship between the words. This is not just about memorizing anymore, but to develop analytical thinking during the contest.

They tip the waiter-boy, he goes away.

And so here is presenting you samAsa-bhramari, a unique TV show from the futuristic Indian TV!

Rules of the Game

• Amitabh Bacchan (or Rajinikanth for the South version) provides a samAsa and the student will break the word into constituent words, analyzing the relationship between the words.
• Vibhakti must be mentioned for answer acceptance.
• Bonus points for figuring out the dhaatu/ganaa, if any
• Extra bonus points for quoting the relevant Paninian sutra.
• If samasa-s have multiple answers, student can ask for a usage and the announcer will provide it.

So here goes the samAsA-s

maasapUrvaH - maasaat pUrvaH (a month before, 5th vibhakti)
chorabhayam - choraat bhayam (fear from thieves, 5th vibhakti)
vRukShamUlam - vRukShasya mUlam (root of the tree, 6th vibhakti)
rameshvaraH - multiple answers: (rAmasya IshvaraH, ramaH iva IshvaraH, ramaH yasya IshvaraH saH)
dIpaavalI - dIpaanaam aavaLIH (row of lights, 6th vibhakti, plural)

So as the students progress to higher levels, the complexity of samAsa increases too. The student is tested with the word sarasijanavadalavikasitanayanaH.

sarasi jaataa - sarasijA (lotus)
sarasijaayaaH nava dalaH - sarasijanavadala (new leaf of the lotus born in pond)
sarasijanavadalavikasita - vikasitA sarasijA (new leaf of the lotus that has just flowered in the pond)
sarasijanavadalavikasita iva nayana (the eyes which resemble the leaf of the flowered lotus in the pond)
sarasijanavadalavikasitanayanaH - (one who has the eyes which resemble the leaf of the newly bloomed lotus in the pond)

Answer: Krishna

Mr. Bacchan: Is that your final answer?

(Curtains)

Exaggeration by numbers

Crazy Mohan is one of the pioneers of modern Tamil comedy theater. A superb master of pun, his punch lines are remembered and oft quoted even after several years. Obviously puns and situtatioinal jokes do not appeal when translated, but here is a classic take on a hero vs villain encounter:

Villain: I will count till 10, if you dont do what I say...
Hero:    What will you do ?
Villain: I will count till 20 !

One of his best scripts however, is "Tenant commandments", also titled as "An own house becomes a rental house".

A middle-aged guy who is looking for a rental house asks the landlord's son for his name. The young son replies "Patthu". [Patthu has two meanings in tamil - a colloquial short form of the name Padmanabhan and the number 10]. The guy understands it to be "number 10" and says "Why name somebody as just '10'? Your parents could have named you as 110, 1010 or 1,00,010..."

Comedy happens by simply exaggerating a situation. In the train the other day, I overheard a mom and her daughter talking. Mom was mentioning some toy that costs about $20 and the lil girl exclaimed "$20 bucks, wow thats like a million dollars". Quite surely, every one must have heard this dialog or one might even remember saying that in childhood. The trend nowadays seems to be to say "a googol dollars", as my son realized that googol is 10 followed by 63 zeroes and 'infinity' is an overused word used by his friends for everything. Again, exaggeration comes as an element of surprise.

The vast difference between the take off of Greek/Roman and Indian science can be clearly perceived with the invention of zero. While the former could count all the way upto M, the Indians were simply adding zeroes to numbers at will. Once the art of power of zero was figured out by the Mathematicians, it was only an inevitable consequence that the Sanskrit kavi-s realized very early on, if one could get some puNya in one 'namaskara' to bhagavaan, they could easily get a factor of that puNya-namaskara by simply adding a sahasra, laksha or koti to it. So when they realized that was effective, another poet wondered why restrict to "koti" and does a "koti koti" namaskaram. Yet another poet totally unsatisfied with koti of a koti, lifts off the numerical upper limit and simply says "aneka koti" namaskaram.

Very interesting word, "aneka" that is. na + eka = aneka (not one -> implying many). Technically "not one". Contextually "several".

Exaggeration of numbers seems to have been built in Indian culture. It has been used to great effect for several different emotions - laughter, consolation, intimidation, surprise, frustration and so on.

In Ramayana, Hanuman seeks to console Sita by mentioning that there are crores of vAnara-s, the sheer number is enough to defeat Ravana. But you dont have to take Hanuman's word for it. There is a very interesting scene in Ramayana's yuddha kANDa. Ravana, a little perturbed at the arrival of Rama's army in Lanka, sends two of his spies - Sarana and Shuka to Rama's camp to find out the real number of monkeys. But Vibhishana captures them and takes them to Rama for punishment. But Rama, being an ideal king, cautions them and let them go. With that, Rama deals a psychological blow to Ravana. Killing them or capturing them would not only be adharma, but would have also enraged Ravana even more. Sarana and Shuka reach Ravana and start describing the sheer number and power of the vAnara-s.

After describing the powers of the major vAnara-s, Shuka concludes with this:

शतं शतसहस्राणाम् कोटिमाहु: मनीषिण: । शतं कोटिसहस्राणाम् शङ्कु: इति अभिधीयते ॥
शतं शङ्कुसहस्राणाम् महाशङ्कु: इति स्मृत: । महाशङ्कुसहस्राणाम् शतं वृन्दम् इह उच्यते ॥
शतं वृन्दसहस्राणाम् महावृन्दम् इति स्मृतम् । महावृन्दसहस्राणाम् शतम् पद्मम् इह उच्यते ॥
शतं पद्मसहस्राणाम् महापद्मम् इति स्मृतम् । महापद्मसहस्राणाम् शतं खर्वम् इह उच्यते ॥
शतं खर्वसहस्राणाम् महाखर्वम् इति स्मृतम् । महाखर्वसहस्राणाम् समुद्रम् अभिधीयते ॥
शतं समुद्रसहस्रम् ओघ इति अभिधीयते । शतं ओघसहस्राणाम् मह-ओघ इति विश्रुतः ॥
एवम् कोटिसहस्रेण शङ्कूनाम् च शतेन च । महशङ्कुसहस्रेण तथा वृन्दशतेन च ॥
महावृन्दसहस्रेण तथा पद्मशतेन च । महापद्मसहस्रेण तथा खर्वशतेन च ॥
समुद्रेन च तेनैव महौघेन तथैव च । एष कोटिमहौघेन समुद्रसदृशेन च ॥

"100 x 100,000 = 1 crore; 100 x 1000 crore = 1 shanku; 100 x 1000 shanku = 1 mahashanku; 100 x 1000 mahashanku =  1 vrunda; 100 x 1000 vrunda = mahavrunda; 100 x 1000 mahavrunda = 1 padmam; 100 x 1000 padmam = 1 mahapadmam; 100 x 1000 mahapadmam = 1 kharvam; 100 x 1000 kharvam = 1 mahakharvam; 100 x 1000 mahakharvam = 1 samudram; 100 x 1000 samudram = 1 ogha; 100 x 1000 ogha = maha-ogha. Thus surrounded by a thousand crore and a hundred shanku and a thousand mahashanku and a hundred vRunda and a thousand mahavRunda and a hundred padmam and a thousand mahapadmam and a hundred kharva and hundred samudra and a hundred mahaugha of monkey warriors, Sugriva is ready to wage the war with you. Knowing your enemy thus, may your effort be accordingly, O Ravana!"

So you see the power of numbers. Thats why when two people meet often they just say "namaskaram", but when they don't meet often, they simply add a factor to fill the gap and say "aneka koti namaskaram" (several crores of namaskaram). Although, you can get away with this usage in Indian vernaculars, attempting to greet somebody in English "One million hellos to you...", rather sounds embarassing.

Thats yet another point to drive, how translations only translate words and not the cultural quotient.

Yamunotrii 2012

One of the fascinating systems of Indian philosophy, too literally, is the cArvAka nyayya (cAru -> beautiful, fascinating). The followers of the system do not believe in no God, no rituals, no temples, but have a simple subhAShitam as their beacon of light: ऋणम् कृत्वा घृतम् पिबेत् यावत् जीवेत् सुखम् जीवेत् । भस्मी भूतस्य देहस्य पुनरागमनम् कुतः ॥ RuNam kRutvA ghRutam pibet yaavat jeevet sukham jeevet | bhasmI bhUtasya dehasya punaraagamanam kutaH || "Borrow money, drink ghee. Live happily as long as you live. The body once gone does not return back."

Despite strong vaidika and reincarnation foundations, the system thrived in India. For now lets forget about drinking ghee (or perhaps alcohol, in modern context) or rebirth. There is still this question of RuNam. RuNam is debt, "the payback that has to be made, no matter what".

Sri vishvarUpa-varya, in his concluding speech in Samskrita Bharati Yamunotrii 2012 residential family camp talked about the three RuNam-s we are all born with - pitRu RuNam, guru-RuNam and deva-RuNam. pitRu-RuNam is one's debt to his/her ancestors paid back via progeny. Guru-RuNam is the payback to teacher. This is not in form of money or Valentine day gifts but is made by teaching others what is learnt from one's guru. We somehow escape from these two debts citing various reasons. But you know, this deva RuNam - that is something that will come and haunt till "mokSha". pitru and guru are guides in aatman-s journey, but deva is a dependence.

The Yamunotrii 2012 camp preparations started early January. For the first time an half-a-page ad was published in the Austin South Asian monthly, Sulekha and Eknazar, but it didn't get the expected impact. The registration graph was pretty simple - there was a spate of registrations on the day when early-bird discount ends. And a spike of calls to cancel on the last day of penalty-free-cancellation. In other words, most people only respond to deadlines.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous over the weekend, with the highs around 80s and the lows around 67. The bluebonnets and Indian paint-brushes thickly annotated the landscape leading up to the stream, giving a glimpse of the serene and wild hill-country. Students started tricking in and quickly settled down to their rooms and gathered around the halls later, mostly talking in English. Little did they know, they will be mostly talking in Samskritam the next day! The bookstore was setup, there were a lot more books this time. The dinner was done, followed by a short orientation about the event.

As expected, the first day was crazy, students running from one corner to another in search of their rooms. "Aryabhatta kutra asti?" asked one. It was funny, because I wanted to say Aryabhatta lived 1500 years ago. The class names were chosen in the chronological order of Indian mathematicians: Aryabhatta for the beginner levels, Bhaskara for the Intermediate Level 1 (those who are already attending regular classes or those who attended last year), Madhava for Intermediate Level 2 and Nilakantha for the Advanced class. Madhava was a Kerala-born philosopher who had conceived what's known as Taylor-series now. Nilakantha has described foundations of Calculus, much of which were later known to the world via Newton and Leibnitz. In the Nilakantha class, students studied parts of bhoja-rAjA's campu-rAmayaNa and nAgAnanda by harShavardhana.

One of the things I realized in my college days is that the knowledge gained from lecture halls is little compared to the knowledge that is gained by hanging around with the professors after-the-classes, or with smart students in the streets, or studying non-class materials in the library that gives an immense edge later on. I sneaked out around 1 am in the morning and heard Govinda and Avinash-varyau sitting on a bench and discussing Samskrita-kAvya. I joined them and Avinash was talking something about "Kalidasa-overload". It looks that the emphasis on Kalidasa has been a lot while there have been equally great poets in Samskrita kAvya-vaangmaya. Funny enough, I had similar opinions too, the only difference is while Avinash has read all of Kalidasa, I haven't read any. I learnt an important thing that time - two people can have exactly same opinions and one of them could base it without having a clue.

This is what happened: In the early 1700's, some Britishers and learned Sanskrit pundits were sitting in a udupi-style hotel. One English gentleman asked with puff and pomp "Do you have anyone like William Shakespeare in India?". The pundits looked at each other, one said maagha, another said bhaaravi, some said daNDin, some other said varakavi. A mini-quarrel broke out between the pundits. But one Bengali paNdita was busy ordering food and due to the simmering quarrel, the waiter was hard of hearing. So the paNdita shouted "I want kAli-dosa". All the pundits gasped, stopped for a moment and murmured "Yeah, yeah, kAlidasa" and the matter was settled. Kalidasa become Shakespeare of India. (For those who didnt get it, kAli-dosa is also called set-dosa with a bit of butter on top of it, that is served in Darshani-styled restaurants).

Again, Avinash-varya's point was not to take away anything from the wonder that is kAlidAsa. Its just that there are other equally great poets too and we are just wasting our time over superlatives, instead of actually reading them.

The highlight of the camp was Sri Padmakumar's speech of which I wont write about much. Feel free to watch it here and I challenge you to tell me if you did not understand what he said.

Another highlight of the camp, was something a little beyond Samskritam, for everyone to remember about. Given the dark skies it was inevitable we wanted to do something about it. We brought out our 8-inch Orion telescope and set it up though the skies were not very forgiving. Still we caught a glimpse of crescent Venus (Yes! Crescent Venus!), the rising moon and Mars. A faint realization of how vast and deep are both Sky and Samskritam.

Yet another highlight was how quickly we adapted to the needs of the students. It was observed that the teen age kids are not having much of a great time - as they were in either adults or younger kids classes. We quickly arranged for a special youth class and that was a runaway hit.

A final rush for group photo and sponsored lunch ended the camp. Almost. But back to the RuNam, what Sri vishvarUpa talked about. I could not attend any of the classes as I was taking care of an younger one. I tell "nAsikA..." and she touches her nose; "shiras" - she touches her head; "lalATam - she touches her forehead"; "jihvA" - she puts her tongue out and touches it; "dantAH" - she opens her mouth with a broad smile and touches her teeth. As I was watching her, I was also paying back my guru-RuNam.

The feet dilemma

"Chappal se maroongi", says the girl to the boy who teases her.

"Aapkaa paaon pakad ke maang rahin hoon, mere bechaara bete ko chod de", says the poor mom to the villain who is about to punish her son.

The feet, just like light, exhibhits dual nature. It is used for disrespective gestures and at the same time an object of worship.

Growing up, I remember there were so many restrictions with the usage of one's feet. Putting one foot over the other thigh is considered egoistic. Pointing feet towards elders is disrepectful. Pointing feet towards the puja room will incur paapam. Sleeping with feet pointing towards South will bring bad luck. Shaking feet or legs in front of elders is disrespectful. Jumping with both legs over somebody is bad. Stepping over someone, even accidentally, calls for an apology to Shiva. The amount of sinful acts you can do with feet is endless, so much so that, a Tamil poet Karaikkal Ammaiyar is said to have climbed the Kailasha with her head, in order not to disrespect Shiva touching Kailasha with her feet.

Yet, when it comes to obtain blessings, feet are the ultimate saviours. Whether its touching elders feet or completely surrendering to bhagavAn's feet, there are no two better sought. After all, you do not touch an elder's head and ask for blessing.

There are so many words in Samskritam to denote feet: caraNa - from the root car (to move) -> that which is reason for moving (feet); pAda - foot - from root pad (that which measures a foot); anghri and so on. Often bhagavAn's feet are identified with lotus - pAda-kamala, pAda-pankaja, pAdAdmbuja etc. Interestingly, the lotus is also identified with eyes, kamala-nayana, pankaja-netra etc. Realistically, lotus has nothing in common with feet or eyes, but it immediately brings a sense of bhagavAn's guNa !

About 13th century, a scholar came to shrIrangam. There was a duel between the scholar and shrI vedAnta desika. Oriental duels were mostly about knowledge, not about guns. The hall of shame exclusively belonged to the people who lost verbal duels. The scholar wrote a poem about shrI ranganAtha's feet and challenged the latter to better that. shrI vedAnta desika, goes one step "below" the "feet" and overnight composes a magnum opus on just the sandals of ranganAtha called "pAdukA sahasram" - one thousand verses on shrI ranganAtha's feet alone! It is a marvelous piece of poetry in Samskritam.

vAlmIki's description of ahalyA's episode is a very simple narrative. In fact vAlmIki mentions that ahalyA knew that the fake Gautama was actually Indra himself, before getting cursed by the real rShi gautama to turn into a stone. But kamban, in his kambarAmayaNam treats ahalyA as innocent and ends the act with one of the most memorable quotes through rShi vishvAmitra:

"kaivaNNam angu kanden, kAlvaNNam ingu kanden"

Kamban uses the word "vaNNam" with several meanings in that verse: in such a way, happening, route, quantity, color, shade of color, prowess/valor and skill ! After turning stone into ahalyA, the rShi recalls rAma's hand prowess in the fight against tArakA and now appreciates the skill of rAma's feet!

But thats all alankAra, poetic license, poetic liberty, call what you may. What about the common man's perception?

That dilemma is so beautifully presented in this verse, of an unknown author:

kShAlayAmi tava pAdapa~gkajam pashya dArudRuShadoH kimantaram |
mAnuShIkaraNa cUrNamasti te pAdayoH iti kathA prathIyasI ||

क्षालयामि तव पादपङ्कजम् पश्य दारुदृषदोः किमन्तरम् ।
मानुषीकरण चूर्णमस्ति ते पादयोः इति कथा प्रथीयसी ॥

tava pAdapa~gkajam kShAlayAmi | pashya dAru-dRuShadoH kimantaram ? tava/te pAdayoH mAnuShIkaraNa cUrNam asti | iti kathA prathIyasI ||

तव पादपङ्कजम् क्षालयामि । पश्य दारु-दृषदोः किमन्तरम् ? तव/ते पादयोः मानुषीकरण चूर्णम् अस्ति । इति कथा प्रथीयसी ॥



shrI rAma is about to get into guha's boat. One of the boatmen says "O rAma, I want to wash the dirt from your lotus-feet. What's the difference after all between wood and stone? The dust of your feet has the power to turn stone into people, so its heard!"

If shrI rAMa's (dust) feet can turn stone into woman, the boatman is worried what will happen to his wooden boat, that is his livelihood after all!

na

Have you ever noticed that children learn first to say "No" than to say "Yes"? Rebel is the first sign of intelligence, so they say. And intelligence begins with learning to say 'No', rather than 'Yes'.

Why is it that some people take more delight in denying than agreeing? Be it elder sibling vs younger, manager vs employee, mother-in-law vs daughter-in-law or wife vs husband - the emphatic "no" factor of the former seem to be the driving goal of their lives. May be we are all genetically wired to derive pleasure in negations and denials, than agreements and acceptances. May be its just easy to deny first than to accept. May be there is an inherent satisfaction in denying space to somebody else.

One of the early lessons you learn in the consulting industry (rather any) is, never propose your boss a single solution. Managers, who mostly have little to technically contribute towards a problem, needing to fill the gap, take delight in shooting down solutions. A majority of Dilbert strips play on this fundamental psychology of managers. So the right way to get your stuff done is offer multiple solutions, including a few lousy and impossible ones, and let the manager feel satisifed that they indeed contributed towards the solution by shooting some of them down. In the IT world, this is called "Ducking" - ie propose "sitting duck solutions" that would be shot down, so that your critical features remain intact. If they shoot the good ones down ... hey, you are going to blame them anyways, right?

"na". We learn history is created just by this word. We could cite several examples from recent history or contemporary classics, but let us peek into the itihasa-s and purana-s. The story of Mahabharata meanders, as-if, from one "no" to another "no". Dhritarashtra says "no" to his counsels who advice to kill the new born (Duryodhana) since the omens were really bad. Drupada says "no" to Drona to help him as promised, upon which the latter gets his revenge via Arjuna and humiliating Drupada. Arjuna refuses to accept Karna's bravery and mocks him that he is not a king, which aligns Karna with Duryodhana. Duryodhana said "na" to paandavas for even an inch of land, which led to the complete annhilation of his generation. All of these refusals are pivotal points in the story.

This Duryodhana's "na" is very poignantly expressed in the following sloka. When Duryodhana was in death bed and was asked "Why are you behaving like this?" he replies:

jaanaami dharmam na ca me pravRuttiH |
jaanaami adharmam na ca me nivRuttiH ||

जानामि धर्मम् न च मे प्रवृत्तिः ।
जानामि अधर्मम् न च मे निवृत्तिः ॥

"I know Dharma, but cannot practice it. I know adharma, I cannot stop practicing it."

In Ramayana too, Ravana says "na" to return Sita back to Rama, which was followed by his own destruction and most of his kins. King Harischandra tells "na" to Vishwamitra Rshi to tell a lie, and goes through innumerable hardships, including charging for the burial of his son from his own estranged wife, as a guardian of the cemetary.

Once Birbal's adversary Sultan Khan, who was waiting for an opportunity to put his son Rahim Khan as the treasurer, complains to Akbar "O Emperor, Birbal has been very late coming to the palace these days. You should punish him". Akbar asks him "What punishment do you think I should give him?". Sultan Khan says "Today, you should refuse whatever he asks for". Akbar agrees. So Birbal happens to be late again and enters the darbar. Akbar asks Birbal "Why are you late?" to which Birbal replies "My wife was not feeling well, so I had a doctor appointment". Akbar replies rather indignantly "I refuse to believe you". Birbal, a bit perplexed asks "Ok, shall we get on with the financial matters?". Akbar says loudly "No". Meanwhile, Sultan Khan gets up and approaches Akbar to ask for the post of treasurer for his son. Birbal quickly senses Sultan Khan has set him up this time and requests Akbar "O Emperor, can you make Sultan Khan's son Rahim Khan the treasurer". Akbar replies with a resounding "No". And Sultan Khan had been played at his own game by the quick-witted Birbal.

So remember - next time you want to create a powerful impression on the reader of your story - "No" should be an important element. "No" is the real-hero. "No" is the villain. "No" is the Force.

No. Na. Naa. Ne. Non. Nao. Nahi. Nyet. Nes si pas. Nicht.

Several cultures associate some form of "na" to be a denial. What else can you do with the letter "na"? From the Sanskritam alphabets point of view, by "na" we mean the 'ta' varga (ta, tha, da, dha, na) and na's variations (na, naa, ni, nii etc). Turns out there are entire slokas just using varga "na". Obviously it is great tongue-twister and aint gonna be intelligible at first read and needs commentaries to do a padacCheda correctly. As I was searching around, so there isn't one, but four slokas using only the akshara na. This type of slokas are called "ekAkShara pada sloka". In the same mould there are slokas with only two akShara-s, three akShara-s and so forth with different patterns. Sanskritam poets have indulged in complicated combinatorial akShara gymnastics to a remarkable extent and imagination. Word-play would be an understatement.

1. kiraataarjunIya - bhAravi

The first known instance is from bhAravi's kiraataarjunIya. The explanation of this can be found in wikipedia.

न नोननुन्नो नुन्नोनो नाना नानानना ननु ।
नुन्नोऽनुन्नो ननुन्नेनो नानेना नुन्ननुन्ननुत् ॥

na nonanunno nunnono nānā nānānanā nanu ।
nunno'nunno nanunneno nānenā nunnanunnanut ॥

2. sumadhva vijaya - naaraayaNa paNDitaacaarya

Next instance is from Sumadhva vijaya mahakAvya - a biography of  Sri Madhvacarya, written by Sri Narayana Panditacarya

नानेनानेनेनानेनो नूनेननननुन्नाः ।
नानाना नो नूनं नानेनानूननाऽनुन्नः ।

पदच्छेदः

न अनेनेन अनेन अनेनो नूनेन नननुन्नाः ।
नानानाः नो नूनम् नाने नानूनना अनुन्नः ।

अनेनोनूनेन अनेनेन अनेन नानाना: ननुन्नाः नोननु । नानेनानूनना नूनम् अनुन्नः ।

naanenaanenenaaneno nUnenanananunnaaH |
naanaanaa no nUnaM naanenaanUnanaa&nunnaH || (10.6)


3. rukmiNIsha vijaya - shrI vaadiraja

The third is by Sri Vadiraja, one of the greatest Sanskrit poets, in my humble opinion, whom the world knows for his religious work, but not for his unparallelled versatility in Samskritam. The verse from rukmiNIsha vijaya:

नानाननाननुन्नूनं नैनोऽनन्नेऽन्निनां नु नौ: ।
नानान्ननुन्नेनानेन नोनो नेन न नो ननु ॥

पदच्छेदः

नानाननाननुत् नूनम् न एन: अनन्ने अन्निनाम् नु नौ: ।
नानान्ननुन्नेन अनेन न ऊन: ना इन न न: ननु ॥

naanaananaananunnUnaM naino&nanne&nninaaM nu nau: |
naanaannanunnenaanena nono nena na no nanu || (8.3)

You can see the versatility in the verse. While narayana panditaacaarya's verse was  straight-forward, in Vadiraja's work there are several vowel sandhi-s (a+a, a+e, a+i, a+u, purva rupa sandhi and visarga sandhi).

4. rUpa gosvaami

The last is by Sri Rupa Gosvami, who lived around the same time as of Sri Vadiraja. In the work "stava mAla" (Garland of stotra-s), a section is devoted to citra-kAvya ("pattern based poems").

निनुन्नानेनोननं नूनं नानुनोन्नानननोऽनुनी: ।
नानेनानां निनुन्नेनं नानौन्नानाननो ननु ॥४॥

ninunnaanenonanaM nUnaM naanunonnaananano&nunI: |
naanenaanaaM ninunnenaM naanaunnaanaanano nanu ||4||

Yamunotrii 2012 comes to town

I almost feel like a circus manager when I say something comes to town. Surely you all must have been excited when you were kids and heard 'Barney Circus' or 'Russian Circus' comes to town. The very thought of clowns would derive a big laugh and joy. Well, this time, its not a funny clown who will be in town, but atleast the fun part will be there.

Here is a very succinct write-up of my friend Sudhee Subrahmanya about learning Samskritam.

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Have you ever wondered what makes an individual special? It is generally the person's character, wealth or it could be the person's unique contributions to the world.  But, what makes a culture special? Or what about a civilization ? – The answer then, is much more complex.  While everyone works towards for the betterment of one's own self-interest and family, there is also the issue of cultural capital that gets associated with a person based on the person's background and tradition.  This is where Indians have a unique civilizational capital – Samskritam (Sanskrit is the anglicized term). 

Samskritam is the ingredient that changes India from being yet another country on the globe to a Civilization and forms the ‘cultural capital' that Indians can be proud of.
Samskritam is unique in that it is the language in which much of the ancient intellectual tradition of Hindus, Buddhists & Jains are preserved. According to the mathematician Seidenberg, India's samskritam tradition has the origins of geometry in a text called Baudhyana Srauta-Sutra, (which contains what is now wrongly named as Pythagoras theorem) for the design of vedic-yajna altars. The great  mathematician from Kerala,  Nilakantha was the author of a mathematical work called Tantrasangraha  in the year 1501 CE. Prof George Gheverghese in his book “Crest of the Peacock” states that the work of Kerala mathematicians like Madhava and Nilakantha was the foundational source which influenced Newton & Leibniz in their development of calculus. 

There are also linguistic works in Samskritam, such as Panini's Ashtadhyayi, a compact text of four thousand rules that defines all of Samskritam.  The technique used in these rules is very similar to what is used in compilers for modern day computer languages. The great epics Mahabharata and Ramayana are in Samskritam. There are also the wonderful poetry and dramas of Kalidasa, Bharavi, Magha, Banabhatta and many others.   The various classical dance traditions of India like Bharatanatyam, Mohiniattam, Odissi, Kuchipudi, Kathak etc all are based on the Samskritam work by Sage Bharata called Naatyashaastra. 

Samskritam has a unique technique of using verb-roots for various actions, noun forms, along with additional sounds called pratyaya. This standardized technique makes it very easy to create new contemporary words.  This has proven very valuable for all Indian languages to leverage and almost all Indian languages now adopt this technique for preserving and enriching India's own languages and also creating a unifying factor among various Indic languages and culture.

Is Samskritam hard to learn?

There is a great misconception that Samskritam is a tough language to learn. This misconception is because in the 19th century under British rule, the method of teaching Samskritam was changed and it was directed mostly towards translation of existing works.  So the focus was shifted to teaching mainly grammar.  If one were to start teaching English, starting with grammar and Shakespearean texts then no one would learn English.  There may be more exceptions in words usage in English than other languages, making it more difficult to learn.  

Fortunately, due to extensive work over the past 30 years by a non-profit organization called Samskrita Bharati, the technique of teaching Samskritam has changed in many places.  Samskritam is now taught in ‘conversational manner', adding a ‘fun' aspect and making it very accessible to people of all backgrounds.

Any speaker of an Indian language, ranging from Tamil to Kashmiri or Gujarati to Assamese, probably knows about 70% of the basic vocabulary and basic sentence formation.  The teaching method of Samskrita Bharati, allows a person to leverage this latent knowledge of vocabulary and sentence structure to learn Samskritam.
Many people who know some basic shlokas already know many terms making it easier to learn. 

Opportunity to learn Samskritam in Austin

Texans have a unique opportunity to learn Samskritam this April.  Samskrita Bharati is conducting a weekend Samskritam camp at Radha Madhav Dham from April 6th-8th. 2012. More than 110 participants attended last year's camp and this year about 130 participants are expected. The classes are conducted using games and conversational techniques that are fun.  The beautiful hill country of Central Texas and comfortable accommodation makes the location a perfect place to immerse oneself in Samskritam.
There are multiple levels ranging from beginner to advanced. At the end of the camp, even a raw beginner will be able to understand speak simple conversational sentences in Samskritam.  There are special classes for kids as well.  This camp will be a great, family oriented fun filled opportunity for families in Texas.

For more information visit Samskrita Bharati USA.

Art of complexity

In the Journal of Indian Mathematical Society, Srinivasa Ramanujan posed a few very interesting puzzles. One of the first problems he posed and a very intriguing one belongs to  recursive category.

Upon persuasion, Ramanujan himself gave the answer: 3

Most beginner students are put off by the complexity of Sanskritam language. The way Sanskrit is taught in schools and the text books that start off with all conjugation combinatorics are mostly to blame. Complexity probably does not daunt them when the students opt for French, German or Spanish as their "second" language. When studying these languages, the students start out with a tabula-rasa, if I may borrow from Immanuel Kant. They are not exposed to the literature there of right away. But in Sanskritam, in our everyday life we are already exposed to several subhashitam-s, sloka-s and stotram-s. There are literally tens of thousands them, not to mention the maha kavyas and other works. Obviously one cannot know them all. But the sheer volume can intimidate the students right away. Apart from that, there are the pre-concieved notions and biases about Samskritam. Every Indian state, region and individual have an opinion on Samskritam.

During the Austin Yamunotrii 2011 Samskritam Family camp , Smt Sharada Varadarajan mahodayaa gave an interesting speech about how a same idea can be represented in simple or complex language.

"Boy eats food"

can be translated as "baala: annam khaadati", which is simple enough to understand. (a-karanta: + a pan-Indian shabda 'annam' + a parasmaipada verb)

Or it can be translated as "shishu: odanam ashnute" (u-kaaranta + rice-food + a non-inituitive aatmanepada verb).

Coming to think of expressing ideas in complex terms, why was complexity deliberatey favored by Sanskritam poets? The Darwinian evolution of intellect does not seem to apply to the Indian experience. In the Indian lore, the ancients were always considered people of vastly superior intellect. I am not talking about the divine beings, but the maharshis, muni-s, siddha-s, poets - ordinary people who elevated themselves to a much higher level of consciousness. If evolution means man becomes more intellectual, how could the ancient Indians think in complex terms, thousands of years earlier? What was the need for creating complex tongue-twisting shlokas, stotram-s, stuti-s or those that would read meaningfully back-to-front, while a simple "namami", "vande", "nama:" would suffice? Does the "phala" of shloka depend on the complexity of the recited ?

The reason is the same as George Mallory gives on why would somebody go through a difficulty of climbing a mountain: "Because its there."

Why would the ancient poets conjure up some of the most complex and intricate shlokas, chandas and poetry? Just because Sanskritam allowed them to.

The structure of the language let them run amok, at times wildly, in the forest of intellectualness. The fluidity of the language let them soar their imaginations in all directions without compromising the school-teacher like strictness of the grammar. The richness of the language yielded the fruit of satisfaction, that in turn enriched the language like a feedback amplifier.

Complexity can also be humorous: Harshavardhana's Naishadiyacaritam is supposed to be so complex, that Harsha himself rewrote it a few times to make it simpler.

A poet asks Harsha: kim cikIrShasi ? [What do you want to eat?]
Harsha: shemuShImuShimAShamUShe [I want to eat urad dal to become dull]

Harsha's mind was probably genetically wired to think in complex terms. He wanted to eat urad dal to make him dull, to think in simpler terms. But he could not express his wish in a simple way! Urad dal is supposed to make one dull of intellect. Harsha wanted that to make him dull to think in simpler terms!

Like it or not, the Ramanujan's formula is beautiful and the recursiveness mesmerizing. We may dislike complexity, run away from it or curse it, but it is out there. If we learn to appreciate complexity, it may not daunt us no more.