Refreshingly simplified and readable explanations of deeply esoteric philosophical and mystical terms, devoid of professorial obscurantism.

 

“There’s glory for you,” said Humpty-Dumpty.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

Humpty-Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you.

“I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you,” said Humpty-Dumpty.

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty-Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” *

 

And alas, this seems to be the case with so many gurus and writers of spiritual texts in India.

It is for this reason that this compilation is written by way of encouragement for spiritual aspirants either new to the teachings or even for those deeply into the philosophy of yoga. (And also because I always desperately wanted such a book myself, when I was a young seeker wrestling with the badly written and excruciatingly inexplicable texts of so many gurus and pundits in India). Students can often get completely lost, confused and discouraged by the welter of unfamiliarand unexplained Sanskrit words that are so liberally sprinkled throughout the Indian philosophical & spiritual writings.

My idea is not to compile a dictionary for scholars. This is not a dictionary, so you won’t find every Sanskrit word in it. It is a comprehensive Working Glossary for the ordinary seeker.

(The full Indian Sanskrit Dictionary is called the Nighanthu).

Most of us only want to understand the spiritual concepts with which we are trying to grapple. Unfortunately, the great majority of writers of spiritual booklets in India automatically pepper their texts with Sanskrit terminology without any explanation or qualification, on the assumption that they are self-evident household words to every Hindu. But even in India this is not the case. The majority of Indians are totally unfamiliar even with many of the Sanskrit terms known to every yoga student in the West. And very few have any understanding of the deeper meaning of spiritual and philosophical terms. Even erudite Indian writers who believe they are writing clearly and simply for anyone to understand, often have the habit of making their writings incomprehensible to the layman, by tossing in Sanskrit words at every opportunity in order to show off their scholarship. For example, here is an example of a typical text you might encounter:

“The prana, by nature, is rajasika because its vritti in the form of karma is present in chitta and so in the sattvika state of chitta God should be repeatedly invoked by making pranava mantra the means of knowledge.” ¹ 

Now that should be clear enough for anybody, right? And this kind of writing is typical of the average type of text you might pick up in India. Even the prolific Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, who generally made his writings as simple as possible, often falls into the same habit, as in the following example:

“When your Advaita-nishtha is accompanied by the utterance of Aham Brahma Asmi, you get Sabdanuvida Savikalpa Samadhi. When the repetition drops down, you enter into the pure Nirvikalpa Avastha. Para-vairagya is Antaranga Sadhana for entering into Nirvikalpa Samadhi. All the objects appear as Atyanta Mithya like mirage in the sand. Even all subtle desires vanish, when you develop this type of highest Vairagya.” ²

To most of us non-scholarly beings this kind of thing is as clear as mud. And if this is the case with writers such as Sivananda, who are earnestly attempting to get their message across to readers, what to say of the books written by academics? The professorial texts are even more obscure. Here follows an ‘explanation’ for the general reader from a well-meaning Sanskrit scholar:

So I am glad at least that confusion is cleared up for you. Thus it is that so many Sanskrit words appear without any elucidation—or even a glossary—(as ‘everybody-in-the-field-knows-the-meaning’). Such assumptions cause academic writings to be virtually incomprehensible to the layman. It is an unfortunate habit of professors to write mainly for the eyes of other specialists. And their delight seems to be to write as obscurely as possible—the more obscure the better—which makes their work appear more erudite. But for we lesser mortals who only want to understand the meaning, reading their texts can be a torture and an exercise in futility.

Even the much-vaunted Vedas are mostly incomprehensible, even to academics. Metaphors in the poetical fancy of the Vedic seers, which were current in the Vedic period of antiquity, are no longer accessible to us for the most part. For example, in the Rg Veda,⁴ a hymn to the dawn states: ‘The rising sun lets out his cows.’  No amount of learning Sanskrit words or breaking the syllables down into root meanings, will give us the remotest clue that the metaphorical meaning here is intended to say that ‘the sun pours down its beams.’

And similarly, in another such verse, which calls dawn ‘the mother of kine’ meaning ‘the originator of beams of light’ is incomprehensible without knowing the idea behind the allusion. So unless one is steeped in the metaphysical understanding and obscure metaphorical and poetical fancies of the ancient seers, not to mention the intentional cryptic obfustications of the sages, the reading of these ancient texts bears little fruit.

Alas, that is not the only problem. In countless books by various gurus, swamis and backyard ‘professors’ (who are less poetic but no less obscure) the implied meanings of the same terms are so disparate (as used by each school of thought), that it is difficult to believe it is the same word being used in the different instances.

Another problem is that Sanskrit terms are also subject to widely diverse transliterated spellings. So when a seeker thinks he has come to understand or remember a certain term, the next time he finds the word spelled in a totally different fashion in another text, he has doubts if it is the same word after all. And often it appears to have a completely different meaning or sense in the context.

For example, even a familiar word such as ‘swami’ may also be seen written as swamy, ‘svami,’ ‘svamin,’‘s’aami’ or even ‘samy.’  So when it comes to more complicated philosophical terms the confusion can be considerable.

In this volume I present the results of over 45 years of collecting these quirks and anomalies, which will hopefully prevent the bemused seeker from giving up the attempt to read the spiritual texts altogether. Even gurus and swamis do not always utilise synonymous terms with the same correct meaning. However, as I came across them, whether writtenin an obscurely spelled or obscurely interpreted fashion, I have added them to the list, beside the sub-heading Var: for Variations.Where the usage is evidently incorrect, doubtful, or of abnormal spelling, the word is placed in parenthesis. For example (s’aami or samy) which are the south Indian pronunciations of swami in Tamil Nadu.

I may not always adhere to the expected ‘classical’ or literal interpretations of a concept, which often convey little or nothing to the uninitiated, but I attempt rather a comprehensible and intelligent understanding of the spiritual meaning of the word or phrase, by simplifying the sense of it, after deep contemplation and mystical insight, having pored over the texts for most of my life.

Even the supposedly inviolable and ‘immutable’ Vedic scriptures have come down to us in innumerable versions, their obscurities interpreted in many different ways by both scholars and gurus. So it is not a matter of finding the best ‘translation’ of a word, but of grasping the essence of its meaning and rendering it as well as possible in modern language. Let the purists scream.

This work is an ongoing labour of love.

 References:

 * Alice Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll.

 ¹ Science of Divine Sound (Divya Shabad Vijnana), Sri Yogeswaranand Paramahans (Yog Niketan Trust, Delhi. 1984/1997)

² Mediation on OM, Swami Sivananda (Divine Life Society, 1941/1997)

³Self: the Truth Absolute—A Review of Advaita Vedanta— G. Subramanian (Giri Trading Agency, Madras. 1995) 

⁴ Rg Veda, Chap. 3, Diva duhita, v. 81

This Glossary is constantly being updated and developed, as and when time allows. Some words with only a brief description you may find with a fuller explanation at a later date. Occasionally, you may find words with no description at all, which indicates that they will be explained later. Also please remember, that if you don’t find the word you are looking for now, it may appear in the Glossary in the future: keep on checking.

N.B. At Deccan College in Pune (Poona) a team of scholars have been working on a massive Sanskrit-English dictionary since 1948 — and they are still only on the letter A!  So please forgive any shortcomings, as between many other commitments, this is one-man’s dedicated lifetime’s work.