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The meaning of the word Sanskrit

Sanskrit in the crossword dictionary

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. D.N. Ushakov

Sanskrit

Sanskrit, m. (Sanskrit. samskrta, lit. processed) (philol.). The literary language of the ancient Hindus, the monuments of which date back to ancient times, the Sanskrit language.

Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova.

Sanskrit

A, m. Literary language of Ancient India.

adj. Sanskrit, -th, -th.

New explanatory and derivational dictionary of the Russian language, T. F. Efremova.

Sanskrit

m. Literary language of ancient and medieval Indian religious, philosophical, artistic and scientific literature.

Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1998

Sanskrit

SANSCRIT (from Sanskrit samskrta, lit. - processed) is a literary processed variety of the ancient Indian language of the Indo-European language family. Monuments of the 1st c. BC e. Differs in strictly normalized grammar. Works of artistic, religious, philosophical, legal and scientific literature are written in Sanskrit, which influenced the culture of the South-East., Center. Asia and Europe. In India, Sanskrit is used as the language of the humanities and cult, in a narrow circle as a spoken language. Sanskrit uses different types of writing, dating back to Brahmi.

Sanskrit

one of the main ancient Indian languages ​​of the Indo-European language family, which received literary processing. Distributed in Northern India from the 1st century BC. BC e. Differs in strictly normalized grammar, unified system of rules. S. opposes the Prakrits as a language brought to formal perfection (samskrta, literally processed), the Vedic language, which is archaic and poorly unified, and also other ancient Indian dialects that gave rise to the Prakrits. Works of artistic, religious, philosophical, legal, and scientific literature that influenced the culture of Southeast and Central Asia and Western Europe were written in S. (see Sanskrit literature). S. influenced the development of the languages ​​​​of India (mainly in vocabulary) and some other languages ​​\u200b\u200bthat ended up in the sphere of Sanskrit or Buddhist culture (the Kawi language, the Tibetan language). In India, S. is used as the language of the humanities and cult, in a narrow circle - as a spoken language.

There are epic S. (the language of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, archaic and less normalized), classical S. (a unified language of extensive literature, described by ancient Indian grammarians and occupying a central place among other types of S.), Vedic S. (the language of the late Vedic texts influenced by contemporary S.), Buddhist hybrid S., and Jain S. (Middle Indian languages ​​of Buddhist, respectively, Jain texts). S. uses different types of writing, dating back to the Brahmi: Kharoshthi, Kushan script, Gupta, Nagari, Devanagari, etc. Phonetics and phonology are characterized by three pure vowels (“a”, “e”, “o”), two phonemes that have vowels and consonant allophones (i/y, u/v), and two smooth ones (r, l), which could act as a syllabic function. The system of consonants is highly ordered (5 blocks - labial, anterior lingual, cerebral, posterior lingual and palatal phonemes; each of the blocks is formed by contrasting voiced / deaf and aspirated / non-aspirated). Prosodic features are characterized by differences in the place of stress, the pitch of the stressed syllable, and the longitude ≈ brevity. Numerous sandhi rules determine the behavior of phonemes at the junctions of morphemes and words. Morphonological feature - the presence of 3 types of root, depending on the number of vowels. The morphology is characterized by an eight-case system of the name, 3 genders and 3 numbers. The verb has a developed system of tenses and moods. The syntax depends on the nature of the texts: in some there is a wealth of inflectional forms, in others compound words, analytical forms of tense and voice predominate. The vocabulary is rich and stylistically diverse. The study of S. in Europe began at the end of the 18th century. Acquaintance with S. played at the beginning of the 19th century. decisive role in the creation of comparative-historical linguistics.

Lit .: Ivanov V. V., Toporov V. N., Sanskrit, M., 1960; Wackernagel J., Debrunner A., ​​Altindische Grammatik, Bd 1≈3, Gött., 1930≈1957; Renou L., Grammaire sanscrite, t. 1≈2, P., 1930: Whitney W. D., A Sanscrit Grammar, 2 ed., Camb. (Mass.), 1960; Edgerton F., Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit grammar and dictionary, t. 1≈2, New-Haven, 1953: Böhtlingk O., Sanskrit Worterbuch, t. 1≈7, St. Petersburg, 1855≈1875; Mayrhofer M., Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Worterbuch des Altindischen, Bd 1, Hdlb., 1956.

V. N. Toporov.

Wikipedia

Sanskrit

Sanskrit(Devanagari: संस्कृता वाच्, "literary language") is an ancient literary language of India with complex synthetic grammar. The very word "Sanskrit" means "processed, perfected." The age of early monuments reaches 3.5 thousand years (mid-2nd millennium BC).

Examples of the use of the word Sanskrit in literature.

If one of his companions turned out to be an expert in afforestation, Sanskrit or bimetallism, he wouldn't be surprised either.

This new interest in India testifies to its high receptivity to changes in the scientific world: Franz Bopp and Max Müller have just emphasized the great importance Sanskrit as a basis for the comparative study of the so-called Aryan languages.

Sanskrit uses different types of writing, dating back to the Brahmi: Kharoshthi, Kushan script, Gupta, Nagari, Devanagari and others.

The sculptor from antiquity to the Middle Ages changed his names: sadhak, mantrin, yogi, which, translating from Sanskrit, means creator, magician and seer.

They say that the oldest language, the parent language, was the Indo-Germanic, Indo-European language, Sanskrit.

When the brilliant Cimmerian came across hieroglyphs, all sorts of Sanskrit, the Hittite script, the alphabets of Byblos, and so on and so forth, which is not suitable for the Proto-Phoenicians, who, as everyone knows, calling themselves Kummers, came from the island of Bahrain, which lies in the middle of Russian seas and lands, and therefore there are the purest Russes !

His anachronism was not in this, but in the fact that Morelli seemed much more radical and younger in his spiritual inquiries than those California youths who were equally drunk on words in Sanskrit and canned beer.

I knew Martian Prakrit, now I have to deal with Martian Sanskrit.

The music of India can be divided into four periods: Sanskrit, Prakrit period, Mughal period and modern period.

Mahatma Gandhi, Ramakrishna, Mother Teresa, sacred cows wandering thoughtfully through the streets of Delhi and Calcutta and incense smoke smoking on the altars of temples, Jains in gauze bandages so as not to inadvertently take the life of a mosquito by inhaling it with air, reflecting on the divine secrets of being a sadhu and mysterious eternal hermits in high mountain caves at the source of the Ganges, ancient books on Sanskrit- all this exotic, head-turning mixture has an irresistible effect on the exalted Western man in the street, suffering from the boring well-being of his life.

marvelous rumble Sanskrit was replaced by high nasal singing, followed by a litany - the congregation responded to the exclamations of the priest.

On the basis of his first impression, the Sanskritist may even come to the conclusion that Attic and modern English have one common tendency, which is absent in Sanskrit.

One of the main scientific confirmations of this fact is the striking similarity Sanskrit Vedic Aryans with Slavic, especially East Slavic languages, according to the main lexical fund, grammatical structure, the role of formants and many other particulars.

Only Professor Gaushofer, theorist, brilliant Japanese scholar, professor Sanskrit, who took a mysterious vow in Asia, listened attentively to Hess, and then said to him: - Rudolph, you will perish if I disappear, like all those with whom you met.

Some of them turned southeast to India and brought with them one of the dialects of the Aryan language, which later turned into Sanskrit.

It has long been established and generally recognized that Sanskrit is a distant relative of all the languages ​​of Europe, excluding Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Turkish and Basque. The rest of the European languages ​​go back to a common source - a group of dialects spoken by the tribes that lived in the steppes of southern Russia around 2000 BC. e. The kinship of Sanskrit with Western languages ​​can be found in some apparently similar words, such as pitr - "father" (cf. Latin pater) and matr - "mother", and in many other examples that are not always so obvious. So, Sanskrit svan - "dog" is related to Greek k "ioov, Latin canis, German Hund, English hound (German h corresponds to the original k). Sanskrit cakra - "wheel" is related to English wheel; both come from a word pronounced approximately "kvekulo", which is also the ancestor of the Greek kukXos and the Old English hweogol, from the latter wheel is derived.
The reader, even a little familiar with Latin or ancient Greek, will immediately see the relationship between the verb systems in these languages ​​and in Sanskrit.

So, the Sanskrit verb as - "to be" is conjugated in the present tense in the singular and in the plural as follows:

as mi - I am asi - you are asti - he is
smas - we are stha - you are santi - they are

Vedic Sanskrit is in many respects closer to the proto-language (or proto-languages) than other Indo-European languages; it was the discovery of Sanskrit that allowed Bopp, Rusk and other scientists of the first half of the last century to establish a clear relationship between the languages ​​​​of the Indo-European group and initiate the development of a new science - comparative linguistics. The oldest known form of Sanskrit - the language of the Rigveda - refers to classical Sanskrit in approximately the same way as Homer's language - to classical Greek. At all stages of its history, Sanskrit remains a language with developed inflexion, but the Vedas contain many forms that subsequently fell into disuse. The verb structure in its complexity competes with the Greek; the intricate system of his pledges and inclinations was subsequently greatly simplified. The name in Vedic, as in late Sanskrit, has eight cases; both the verb and the noun are dual.
An important feature of Vedic Sanskrit is musical stress. Every significant word has a stressed syllable, which is not necessarily pronounced with a heavy accent, but on which the tone rises, as in classical Greek. Except in cases where there are special rules in both languages, the musical stress in a Sanskrit word is the same as in the related Greek word.
Sanskrit and most of the languages ​​derived from it are characterized by the presence of aspirated consonants. So, k, pronounced without an audible exhalation, for an Indian is a completely different sound than aspirata kh, pronounced with strong aspiration. For a European, this difference is difficult to discern. The distinction between aspirated and non-aspirated consonants dates back to the Indo-European proto-language and exists in ancient Greek, although in Greek aspirated has lost its original pronunciation before the beginning of our era. Another phonetic feature of Vedic Sanskrit, also preserved in the Indian languages ​​to our time, is a series of "retroflex" or "cerebral" consonants t, th, d, dh and n. For the Indian they are completely different from the "tooth" t, th and etc., although a European who does not have special practice distinguishes them with difficulty. Retroflex sounds are not Indo-European and were borrowed very early from the original inhabitants of India - either the proto-Australoids or the Dravidians. Another feature of Sanskrit phonetics is the predominance of the vowels a and a. Vedic Sanskrit is a sonorous language capable of reaching a vivid and sublime expressiveness.

After the era of the creation of the Rigveda, Sanskrit has gone through a significant path of development. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. the old inflections disappeared, and the grammar became somewhat simpler, though still very complex.

New words entered the language, mostly borrowed from non-Aryan sources, while the old words were forgotten or lost their original meaning. Under these circumstances, doubts arose about the correct pronunciation and interpretation of the ancient Vedic texts, although it was believed that if they were not read with absolute accuracy, they would not have a magical effect, but would bring disaster to the reader. The need to preserve the purity of the Vedas led to the development of phonetic and grammatical science in India. The oldest Indian linguistic text, the Nirukta of Yaska, which explains obsolete Vedic words, dates from the 5th century BC. BC e.; he continues much earlier work in this area. The famous grammar of Panini "Ashtadhyayi" (Eight chapters) was probably created by the end of the 4th century. BC e. With its creation, the language really took on its classical form and has hardly changed since then, except for the vocabulary.
By this time, sounds had been analyzed with such precision that linguistic research achieved again only in the 19th century. One of the greatest achievements of ancient India was its wonderful alphabet; it begins with vowels, followed by consonants, and all of them are strictly scientifically arranged according to the way they are formed, in contrast to the imperfect and chaotically constructed Latin alphabet that has developed over three millennia. Only after the West discovered Sanskrit did phonetics as a science begin to develop in Europe.
Panini's great grammatical work, which stabilized the Sanskrit language, suggests the work of many previous grammarians. They developed a definition of the root as the main element of the word, and they classified about 2 thousand monosyllabic roots, which - with the addition of prefixes, suffixes and inflections - exhausted, as expected, all the words of the language. Although the ancient etymologists were right in principle, they made many mistakes, formed many false etymologies, and set a precedent that had important consequences in the development of certain branches of Indian philosophy.
Although, due to its special nature, Panini's grammar was not widely known outside India, there is no doubt that it is one of the greatest achievements of human thought in the era of ancient civilizations and represents the most detailed and scientific grammar of all compiled before the 19th century. This work contains more than 4 thousand grammatical rules, set out in a kind of shorthand form using individual letters and syllables to designate cases, moods, persons, tenses, etc. Using these conventions, linguistic phenomena are classified. The extraordinary conciseness of this system makes Panini's work very difficult to understand without prior study and appropriate commentary. The later Indian works on grammar are for the most part commentaries on Panini's work; the main ones are the Great Commentary (Mahabhashya) of Patanjali (2nd century BC) and the Benares Commentary (Kashika-vritti) of Jayaditya and Vamana (7th century AD).
Some later grammarians disagree with Panini in minor details, but his grammar was so widely accepted that no one who wrote or spoke Sanskrit in court or Brahminical circles dared to significantly violate its rules. After Panini, the language acquired an established form and could develop further only within the framework of the system fixed by him. It was from the time of Panini that this language began to be called "Sanskrit" ("perfect", "finished"), as opposed to "Prakrita" ("natural") - folk languages ​​that developed naturally.
Panini's Sanskrit, although simpler than Vedic, is still a very complex language. Everyone who begins to study it is forced to overcome significant difficulties in mastering the rules of the euphonic combination of sounds (sandhi). These rules develop trends that have existed in the language since Vedic times. Each word in a sentence is influenced by neighboring words. So “na-avadat” (“he did not say”) turns into “navadat”, and “na-uvacha” (same meaning) into “no-vacha”; "Ramas-uvacha" ("Rama said") becomes "Rama-uvacha" and "Ramas-avadat" - "Ramo vadat", but "Haris-avadat" ("Hari said") - "Harir avadat". There are many rules of this kind which are artificially applied even to the language of the Rig Veda, so that the reader is often forced to isolate the original words in order to find the correct meter.
In developing the standard form of Sanskrit, Panini seems to have based himself on the language spoken in the northwest. Even after Sanskrit became the lingua franca of the priestly class, it gradually began to play the same role for the entire ruling class. The Mauryas and most of the Indian dynasties before the Guptas used Prakrit for their official announcements. The first significant dynasty to adopt Sanskrit was the Shaka dynasty of Ujjain, and the Girnar inscription of Rudradaman is the earliest Sanskrit written document we have, apart from a few short and insignificant inscriptions.
As long as the language is spoken and written, it tends to develop, which takes place in the direction of its simplification. Due to the authority of Panini, Sanskrit could not develop freely in this direction. Some of his minor rules, such as the use of tenses expressing action in the past, were tacitly ignored, and writers got used to using the imperfect, perfect, and aorist without semantic distinction; but Paniniev's rules for the formation of inflections were necessarily observed.

The only way in which Sanskrit could have evolved away from inflection was through the formation of compound names to replace case forms in a sentence.

In Vedic and epic literature, compound words are quite common, but usually they consist of two or three members. In classical Sanskrit they may have up to 20 or 30 members. The early classical poets (Kalidasa, for example) show comparative restraint in their use of compound words, although they often have six-element compound words; but early Sanskrit court panegyrics contain composites of enormous dimensions. For example, an epithet is attached to the emperor Samudragupta: “He who gathered together the Earth by the manifestation of his power and thanks to the worship (of vassal rulers, which consisted in) paying (him) personal honors, bestowing slaves and asking (from him) decrees, (fastened) with a seal (with the image ) Garuda (and confirming the rights of these rulers to) use their possessions. One word consisted of 20 components. This characteristic use of long compound words may have taken root under Dravidian influence; The Old Tamil language has few inflections, and its words are combined in combinations without a definite indication of their syntactic relations. If we think of the components of a Sanskrit compound word as separate words, the new grammatical constructions of the classical period become understandable.
With the increase in the use of long compound words in Sanskrit, there also develops a desire for long sentences. In the prose of Bana and Subandhu, who wrote in the 7th century, and in the works of many later authors, there are separate sentences occupying two or three printed pages. In addition, the authors resort to all sorts of verbal tricks, as a result of which Sanskrit literature becomes one of the most pretentious and artificial literatures in the world.

The interest in language, which manifested itself in India from the earliest times, continued into the medieval period.

From that time a number of valuable "dictionaries" have come down to us; they are not comparable to alphabetized Western dictionaries. They contain lists of words of approximately the same meaning or used in similar contexts, sometimes with brief definitions, set out in simple verses. The most famous lexicographer, and the earliest whose writings survive, was Amarasinha; tradition considers him a contemporary of Kalidasa. Another form of vocabulary, more similar to ours, was the homonym list, classifying words with more than one meaning.
The interest of the Indians in language extended to philosophy, and questions of the relationship between the word and the object it denoted were seriously developed. The Mimamsa school, reviving the verbal mysticism of the late Vedic period, maintained that every word is a reflection of an eternal prototype and that its meaning is eternal and inalienable. Its opponents, especially adherents of the Nyaya school of logic, defended the opinion that between a word and its meaning is a purely conditional relationship. This dispute was similar to the controversy between realists and nominalists in medieval Europe.
Classical Sanskrit was obviously never the spoken language of the people, but it was not a completely dead language either. It, as the official language of church and state, was spoken and read by the upper classes, and apparently understood to a certain extent by many of the lower classes. It served as the lingua franca for all of India, and even today learned Brahmins from different parts of the country, meeting at places of pilgrimage, can speak Sanskpit and fully understand each other, although there are local differences in pronunciation.

Prakrits and Pali

The language of the Rigveda by the time the collection of hymns was compiled was already quite archaic, and an ordinary member of the Aryan tribe spoke a simpler language, which was closer to classical Sanskrit. In the Vedas themselves there is evidence of dialectal differences. By the time of the Buddha, the masses were speaking languages ​​much simpler than Sanskrit. These were the Prakrits attested in the forms of various dialects.
The everyday speech of ancient India has been preserved for us in a large measure by unorthodox religions; their sacred books were written in languages ​​close to those spoken by the people. Most of the pre-Gupta inscriptions, among which the extensive cycle of Ashoka's edicts stands out, are in Prakrit; in Sanskrit drama, both women and commoners speak different dialects of formalized Prakrit. Some works of secular literature are written in Prakrit. Thus, there is a lot of material for the reconstruction of vernacular languages.
Prakrits are much simpler than Sanskrit both in terms of sound system and grammar. These languages ​​greatly abbreviate consonant clusters, with the exception of certain pronounced combinations, such as doubled consonants or combinations that begin with a nasal sound. End-of-word consonants disappear, and some dialects even omit individual consonants between mid-word vowels. In one of the dialects (Magadhi), r is usually replaced; instead of raja - laja
The rules of euphonic combination are practically ignored, the dual number disappears, and the inflections of the name and the verb are greatly reduced.
Among the significant and ancient Prakrits is Pali, which became the language of the Buddhists of the Sthaviravadin sect. The Buddha probably preached in Magadhi, but his sermon, spreading throughout India, was translated into local dialects. The chosen language, Sthaviravadinamp, belonged to the Western group and was apparently spoken in the area of ​​Sanchi and Ujjain. Pali, which is still the language of religion among the Buddhists of Sri Lanka, Burma, and Southeast Asia, apparently goes back to Vedic rather than classical Sanskrit.
Magadhi was the official language of the Maurya state, and Ashoka's edicts were written in it, although the language of these inscriptions in various parts of India testifies to the influence of local vernacular dialects. The later hybrid Magadhi, somewhat influenced by the Western Prakrits and commonly referred to as Ard-Hamagadhi (half-Magadhi), became the sacred language of the Jains and a rich literature was created in it.
Other significant Prakrits include Shauraeeni, which was originally spoken in the western part of present-day Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtri, which was spoken in the northwestern regions of the Deccan. Shauraseni is especially used in drama as the language of women and respectable representatives of the lower classes. Maharashtri was the literary language predominantly chosen for lyric song. There were various other less significant prakrits. By the time of the Guptas, prak-ritas had acquired a standard form and had lost their local character. Along with them, new vernacular languages ​​were already developing. What Panini did for Sanskrit, other grammarians did for Prakrits, and the latter bore little resemblance to really living languages. Dramatists, who customarily used Prakrit, thought first in Sanskrit, and then translated their thoughts into Prakrit, guided mechanically by the rules of transition from one language to another.
Another stage in the development of the Indo-Aryan language was represented by apabhrama ("falling away"), the vernacular language of Western India, which acquired a literary form in the Middle Ages and was used in verse by the Jain writers of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Its main feature is the further reduction of inflections, partially replaced by postpositions, as in modern Indian languages. A similar degenerate Prakrit was used in Bengal by some later Buddhist writers; he was the ancestor of modern Bengali.
The next stage, which was marked by the development of the modern languages ​​of North India, is beyond the scope of our review, although the earliest of the New Indian literatures came into being not much later than the end of the period under consideration. But one of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars already had a long history by this time, namely Sinhala, whose development can be traced in inscriptions and literature from the 2nd century BC. BC e. and up to the present. The Prakrit dialect spoken by the first settlers of Sri Lanka had already departed far from Sanskrit. Influenced by local dialects as well as Tamil, the Sinhalese language developed rapidly and independently. The aspirated consonants characteristic of most Indo-Aryan languages ​​were forgotten very early. The vowels lost length, short vowels e and o, absent in most Indo-Aryan languages, appeared, as well as a completely new vowel a, most similar to the English a in the word hat. Many words have been borrowed from the natives and Tamils. By the beginning of our era, Sinhala was no longer Prakrit, but an independent language. Sinhala literature that has survived to this day dates from the 9th century. n. e., but there is no doubt that there were many earlier monuments of her, now lost.

Dravidian languages

While the modern Indo-Aryan languages, with the exception of Sinhala, had not received a literary development by the time of the Muslim invasion, the Dravidian languages ​​already had a rich history, spanning many centuries.
Of these languages, four had independent alphabets and written literature: Tamil, Kannara, Telugu and Malayalam. Tamil was spoken in the south from Cape Comorin to Madras, Kannara in Mysore and part of Andhra Pradesh, Telugu north of Madras to the borders of Orissa, Malayalam in Kerala. Tamil is undoubtedly the oldest of these languages, and its literature dates back to the first centuries of our era.
Some researchers believe that the Dravidian languages ​​are distantly related to the Finno-Ugric group, which includes Finnish and Hungarian2. If this is true, then curious conclusions arise regarding the prehistoric movement of peoples; but this hypothesis cannot be considered proven. The Dravidian languages ​​actually constitute an independent group with their own characteristics. Their sound system is rich in retroflex consonants, which give some of the harshness of Dravidian speech, and the diversity of vowels (including e and o, absent in Sanskrit) distinguishes them from northern languages, where the vowels a and a predominate. Like Sanskrit, they have a complex system of euphonic combinations. They do not recognize the aspirated consonants of the Indo-Aryan languages ​​- according to the peculiar phonetic laws of the Tamil language, the Sanskrit "bhuta" ("ghost") turns into "pood" in Tamil.
Tamil does not know inflections in the sense that Sanskrit has them, but the connections between words, as well as the number, person and tense of verbs, are expressed by suffixes that can be piled one on top of another ad infinitum. Sanskrit very early began to influence this language, and in the Middle Ages, scholars, by analogy with Sanskrit, considered Tamil suffixes as nominal and verbal endings. In the earliest texts, however, suffixes are used sparingly, and related syntactic words are grouped together with little indication of their relationship. This system, reminiscent of the polynomial compound words of Sanskrit, presents great difficulties to the inexperienced reader.
The oldest Tamil literature contains comparatively few borrowings from Sanskrit, and those that occur in it are usually converted to the Tamil phonetic system. Due to the gradual growth of Aryan influence, significantly more words were borrowed during the Middle Ages, and often they were borrowed in their correct Sanskrit form. Telugu and Kannara, which spread further north, naturally became even more influenced by Sanskrit. The Kannar language first appears in inscriptions from the end of the 6th century, and the oldest surviving literature in it dates back to the 9th century. Telugu becomes a literary language no earlier than the 12th century. and acquires a certain significance only in the era of the Vijayanagara empire, when it becomes the language of the court. Malayalam, closely related to Tamil, has developed as an independent language since the 11th century.

Sanskrit. Writing

It has already been said above that the civilization of the Indus Valley had a written language, which at present has not been deciphered. From the time of the fall of Harappa (perhaps around 1550 BC) until the middle of the 3rd century. BC e. not a single monument of Indian writing has been preserved. There are references to writing in the Pali Buddhist canon and in the literature of the sutras, but there is no definite evidence of the existence of writing in the Vedas, Brahmanas and Upanishads. The fact of silence is not, however, decisive evidence, and it is possible that the merchants used some form of writing. The Ashoka inscriptions, which are the oldest significant written documents of India, are carved on the rocks in a script almost perfectly adapted to the sounds of the Indian language. It is believed that this writing dates back many years (and perhaps centuries) of the development of the Ashoka era.

• Ashoka's inscriptions use two alphabets. More significant is the brahmi, which was used throughout India, except for the northwestern regions.

There are two theories about its origin. Most Indian scholars now hold the theory that this alphabet is derived from the Harappan script, but many European and some Indian scholars believe that it is derived from the Semitic script. The first theory was put forward for the first time as an assumption by Alexander Cunningham and developed by the Assyriologist Prof. S. Langdon; its convincing substantiation, however, is fraught with many difficulties. Until we know the pronunciation of the 270 characters of the Harappan script, we cannot be sure that the ten letters of the Brahmi alphabet that show some similarity to them actually came from them, and with so many characters in the Harappan script, it is unlikely that there would be any some similarity between the individual letters. The resemblance between the Brahmi and some of the early North Semitic inscriptions is perhaps more obvious, especially since the latter provide only 22 letters of the alphabet to choose from, but this resemblance is not sufficiently definite to convince us, and the problem as a whole has not yet been resolved.
Brahmi is usually read from left to right, like European scripts, while Semitic texts are read from right to left. In several very poorly preserved inscriptions of Ashoka in Er-ragudi, in Raghugarh, some parts are "boost-rophedon" (read alternately from left to right and rim to left). Moreover, one very early Sinhalese inscription and an ancient coin from Eran in Madhya Pradesh read from right to left. This suggests that this was the original direction of the Brahmi writing, although there is insufficient evidence to prove this. But this does not say anything about the origin of the Brahmi, since it is believed that the Harappan inscriptions were read from right to left.
Whatever the origin of the Brahmi, after all, this alphabet is so skillfully adapted to the sounds of the Indian languages ​​that its development - to some extent at any rate - must have been the result of conscious activity. In the form in which it has come down to us, it was created not by merchants, but by Brghmans or other scholars familiar to a certain extent with Vedic scientific phonetics. It may have originated as pi(m) among merchants, influenced by Semitic letterforms or vague memories of the Harappan script, but by the time of Ashoka it was already the most scientific alphabet in the world.
The words of the Semitic languages, descending mainly from roots of three consonants, and modified by changes in internal vowels, do not require sequential indication of vowels to prevent ambiguity, and until relatively late times vowels were noted only at the beginning of words, and then not with perfect accuracy. When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, they adapted it to represent vowels other than a by introducing new letters. On the other hand, the Indians designated their vowels by a modification of the base letter, which was seen as containing a short a. Words in a sentence were usually not separated, the final letter of the previous one was combined with the initial letter of the next one. With some modifications, this principle has been preserved in Sanskrit (although it has been forgotten in the vernacular languages), which increases the difficulty for a beginner to read in this language.

Local versions of the Brahmi alphabet appear already in the time of Ashoka. In the following centuries, the differences between them continue to increase until separate independent alphabets are formed.

Before the beginning of our era, the engravers of northern India, who carved letters on hard material, began to add small signs to the letters (called serifs in European printing terminology), following, no doubt, the practice of scribes, and use various decorating curls. The trend towards embellished writing increased over the centuries until, in the late Middle Ages, the serifs on the tops of the letters merged into an almost continuous line; Nagari (“city script”) was formed, also called “Devanagari” (“font of the city of the gods”), which is still used by Sanskrit, Prakrit, Hindi and Marathi. Local variants led to the development of independent alphabets of Punjab, Bengal, Gujarat, etc.
Meanwhile, in the Dean, writing was becoming more and more pretentious. In Central India in the 5th and 6th centuries. an alphabet was formed that replaced the serifs of northern fonts with square frames and developed some other innovations. The scripts of the Southern Deccan and Sri Lanka assumed more and more rounded forms, until in the Middle Ages they approached their modern writing. The Tamils, on the other hand, developed an angular script called grantha, which is still sometimes used in Tamil Nadu for Sanskrit books; from which the modern Tamil alphabet originated. Thus, by the end of the period under review, the alphabets of India differed little from modern ones.
It was from India (mainly South India) that the peoples of Southeast Asia learned the art of writing. Their oldest surviving inscriptions, found in Kalimantan, Java, and Malaya, dated from the 4th or 5th century, are written in fairly regular Sanskrit in a script reminiscent of the writing of the early Pallavas. Despite the great external difference, all the alphabets of Southeast Asia, except, of course, Arabic and Latin, used for the Malay and Indonesian languages, can be traced to Brahmi. Alphabets of the Indian type spread as far east as the Philippine Islands. The origin of another script of Ashoka's inscriptions, called Kharoshthi (a strange name meaning "donkey's lip"), is not in doubt. It certainly comes from the Aramaic alphabet, which was widely used in Achaemenid Iran and was also known in Northwest India. Many of the Kharosthi letters are clearly similar to Aramaic, and this letter, like Aramaic, is read from right to left. Kharoshthi was adapted to the sounds of the Indian languages ​​by inventing new letters and using vowel marks that are absent in Aramaic writing. It is generally believed that Kharoshthi was derived from Aramaic under the influence of the Brahmi, but it is not entirely certain which of these two Indian alphabets has priority. In India itself, kharosthi was little used after the 3rd century BC. n. BC, but for several centuries longer he lived in Central Asia, where many Prakrit documents written in the Kharoshtha alphabet were discovered. It was later replaced in Central Asia by the Gupta variant of the alphabet, from which the modern Tibetan script is derived.
The usual writing material was the talipot palm leaf, dried, ironed, measured and cut into patches. In order to compose a book, a certain number of such patches were loosely tied with a string passed through the middle of the sheet, or, if the book was large, with two strings along the edges. The book was usually bound, i.e., put it between two wooden planks, which were often varnished and painted. Palm leaves are still used for writing in the remote parts of South India. In the Himalayan regions, where it is difficult to secure a supply of dried palm leaf, it was replaced by birch bark, which, carefully cut and smoothed, was an excellent material for this purpose. In addition, cut paper or silk cloth and thin wooden or bamboo boards were also used, and important documents were engraved on copper plates. Paper is believed to have been invented in China in the early 2nd century BC. n. BC, may have been known in Northern India and certainly was widely used in Central Asia.
In most of India, writing was usually done with soot or charcoal ink, using a reed pen. In the south, however, the letters were usually scratched with a style on a palm leaf, and the leaf rubbed with finely powdered soot. This method of writing gave the letters sharp outlines and allowed the use of only very small print; he may have contributed to the development of the angular forms of the Tamil alphabet.

According to many scientists, one of the centers of the emergence of modern civilization was the region of Central Asia. This opinion echoes the biblical-Quranic statement that it was here that Adam was thrown after being expelled from paradise.
As the population grew, people left their original habitats and settled throughout the earth. This leads to the conclusion that a variety of languages ​​arose from one parent-language-base.
This primitive people is known as the Aryans. According to Indian linguists, from the tribes of the Aryans who went to the west, peoples were formed who spoke Germanic, Romance and other Aryan languages. From the tribes that went north, the languages ​​of the Slavs, Turks and Lithuanians arose. The tribes that went east formed two groups. One of them remained on the territory of modern Iran, where the modern Farsi language was formed through the Median language.

Sanskrit was and remains the most important linguistic means of Indian civilization; there is a huge literature in it.

Religious and philosophical works (Brahmanas and Upanishads), epic poems (Ramayana and Mahabharata), lyric works, collections of fairy tales (Panchatantra and Hitopadesha) and proverbs, dramas, short stories, grammatical, legal, political, medical, astronomical and mathematical works are written in Sanskrit. . Thanks to the prestige of the culture represented by Sanskrit, it had a great influence on all other languages ​​of East Asia, from Tocharian and Tibetan to Chinese, Japanese and Khmer, the languages ​​of Borneo, Java, the Philippines and other areas. Many of these languages ​​have derived much of their terminology from Sanskrit. In India, even the political supremacy of Urdu as the official language of the Muslim administration could not deprive Sanskrit of its key position as the main language of culture and science.

Sanskrit was and is being written in Brahmi script (of Semitic origin) and Kharoshthi. Brahmi was brought from Mesopotamia around 800 BC, while Kharoshthi came to northwestern India as a result of the expansion of the Persian Achaemenid Empire and was studied almost exclusively in the Punjab. In Europe, the Devanagari script, most commonly used for Sanskrit, is commonly studied.

(excerpt from Arthur Basham's book
The miracle that was India

Recently, even in serious publications, one can come across discussions about Vedic Russia, about the origin of Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages ​​from the Russian language. Where do these ideas come from? Why is it now, in the 21st century, when scientific Indo-European studies have more than 200 years of history and have accumulated a huge amount of factual material, proved a huge number of theories, these ideas have become so popular? Why do even some textbooks for universities seriously consider the “Book of Veles” as a reliable source for the study of the history and mythology of the Slavs, although linguists have convincingly proved the fact of forgery and the late origin of this text?

All this, as well as the discussion that unfolded in the comments to my post, prompted me to write a series of small articles talking about Indo-European languages, the methods of modern Indo-European studies, about the Aryans and their connection with the Indo-Europeans. I do not pretend to be a complete statement of the truth - huge studies, monographs by a large number of scientists are devoted to these issues. It would be naive to think that within a blog you can dot all the i's. However, in my defense I will say that due to the nature of my professional activity and scientific interests, I have to come into contact with the issues of the interaction of languages ​​and cultures on the Eurasian continent, as well as with Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. Therefore, I will try to present the results of modern research in this area in an accessible form.

Today I would like to briefly talk about Sanskrit and its study by European scholars.

Text of the Shakta text "Devi Mahatmya" on palm leaves, Bhujimol script, Nepal, 11th century.

Sanskrit: languages ​​and writing

Sanskrit refers Indo-Aryan group of the Indo-Iranian branchIndo-European family of languages and is an ancient Indian literary language. The word "Sanskrit" means "processed", "perfect". Like many other languages, it was considered of divine origin and was the language of ritual, sacred rites. Sanskrit refers to synthetic languages ​​(grammatical meanings are expressed by the forms of the words themselves, hence the complexity and great variety of grammatical forms). It has gone through a number of stages in its development.

In II - early I millennium BC. began to penetrate into the territory of Hindustan from the north-west Aryan Indo-European tribes. They spoke several closely related dialects. Western dialects formed the basis Vedic language. Most likely, its addition occurred in the XV-X centuries. BC. Four (lit. "knowledge") - samhitas (collections) were recorded on it: Rig Veda("Veda of hymns"), Samaveda("Veda of Sacrificial Spells"), Yajurveda("Veda of Songs") and Atharva Veda("Veda Atharvanov", spells and conspiracies). A corpus of texts adjoins the Vedas: Brahmins(priestly books), aranyaki(books of forest hermits) and upanishads(religious and philosophical writings). All of them belong to the class "shruti"- "heard". It is believed that the Vedas are of divine origin and were written down by a sage ( rishis) Vyasa. In ancient India, only “twice-born” could study “shruti” - representatives of the three higher varnas ( Brahmins- priests kshatriyas- warriors and vaishyas- farmers and artisans); sudras(servants), on pain of death, were not allowed to access the Vedas (more details about the varna system can be found in the post).

Eastern dialects formed the basis of Sanskrit proper. From the middle of the 1st millennium BC. according to III-IV centuries. AD was forming epic sanskrit, on which a huge body of literature was recorded, especially epics Mahabharata("The Great Battle of the Descendants of Bharata") and Ramayana("Wanderings of Rama") - itihasas. Also in epic Sanskrit are written Puranas(from the word "ancient", "old") - a collection of myths and legends, tantras(“rule”, “code”) - texts of religious and magical content, etc. All of them belong to the class "smriti"- "remembered", complementing shruti. Unlike the latter, representatives of the lower varnas were also allowed to study the "smriti".

In the IV-VII centuries. formed Classical Sanskrit, on which fiction and scientific literature was created, the works of six darshan- orthodox schools of Indian philosophy.

Starting from the III century. BC. addition is in progress Prakrits("ordinary language"), based on the spoken language and giving rise to many modern languages ​​​​of India: Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, etc. They are also of Indo-Aryan origin. The interaction of Sanskrit with Prakrit and other Indian languages ​​led to the Sanskritization of the Middle Indian languages ​​and the formation hybrid Sanskrit, on which, in particular, Buddhist and Jain texts are recorded.

For a long time, Sanskrit has practically not developed as a living language. However, it is still part of the system of Indian classical education, services are performed on it in Hindu temples, books are published, and treatises are written. As the Indian orientalist and public figure rightly said Suniti KumarChatterjee(1890-1977), India's modern languages ​​rose "figuratively speaking, in the atmosphere of Sanskrit".

There is still no consensus among scholars and researchers as to whether the Vedic language belongs to Sanskrit. Thus, the famous ancient Indian thinker and linguist Panini(approx. 5th century BC), who created a complete systematic description of Sanskrit, considered the Vedic language and classical Sanskrit to be different languages, although he recognized their relationship, the origin of the second from the first.

Sanskrit script: from Brahmi to Devanagari

Despite its long history, there has never been a unified writing system in Sanskrit. This is due to the fact that in India there was a strong tradition of oral transmission of the text, memorization, recitation. When necessary, the local alphabet was used. V. G. Erman noted that probably the written tradition in India begins around the 8th century. BC, about 500 years before the appearance of the oldest written monuments - the rock edicts of King Ashoka, and wrote further:

“... the history of Indian literature begins several centuries earlier, and here it is necessary to note an important feature of it: it is a rare example of literature in the history of world culture that has reached such a high development at an early stage, in fact, without writing.”

For comparison: the oldest monuments of Chinese writing (Yin divinatory inscriptions) date back to the 14th-11th centuries. BC.

The oldest writing system is the syllabary brahmi. On it, in particular, the famous Edicts of King Ashoka(III century BC). There are several hypotheses regarding the time of the appearance of this letter. According to one of them, in the monuments of the III-II millennium BC, discovered during excavations harappans and mohenjo-daro(on the territory of present-day Pakistan), a number of signs can be interpreted as the predecessors of the Brahmi. According to another, the Brahmis are of Middle Eastern origin, as indicated by the similarity of a large number of characters with the Aramaic alphabet. For a long time, this writing system was forgotten and deciphered at the end of the 18th century.

Sixth edict of King Ashoka, 238 BC, Brahmi letter, British Museum

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In Northern India, as well as in the southern part of Central Asia, from the 3rd century BC. BC. according to the IV century. AD semi-alphabetic, semi-syllabic writing was used kharosthi, which also bears some resemblance to the Aramaic alphabet. Written from right to left. In the Middle Ages, it, like Brahmi, was forgotten and deciphered only in the 19th century.

From the Brahmi came the letter gupta, common in the IV-VIII centuries. It got its name from the powerful Gupta empire(320-550), the time of the economic and cultural heyday of India. Since the 8th century, the western version has been distinguished from the gupta - the letter charade. The Tibetan alphabet is based on the Gupta.

By the 12th century, gupta and brahmi were transformed into writing. devanagari("divine city [writing]"), still in use today. At the same time, there were other types of writing.

Text of the Bhagavata Purana (c. 1630-1650), Devanagari script, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Sanskrit: the oldest language or one of the Indo-European languages?

The founder of scientific Indology is the Englishman Sir William Jones(1746-1794). In 1783 he arrived in Calcutta as a judge. In 1784 he became chairman of the founded on his initiative Bengal Asiatic Society(Asiatic Society of Bengal), whose task was to study Indian culture and introduce Europeans to it. On February 2, 1786, in his third jubilee lecture, he wrote:

“No matter how ancient Sanskrit is, it has an amazing structure. It is more perfect than Greek, richer than Latin, and more refined than either, and at the same time bears such a close resemblance to these two languages, both in verb roots and in grammatical forms, that it can hardly be an accident; this similarity is so great that no philologist who would study these languages ​​could not but believe that they came from a common source, which no longer exists.

However, Jones was not the first to point out the closeness of Sanskrit and European languages. Back in the 16th century, a Florentine merchant Filippo Sacetti wrote about the similarity of Sanskrit with the Italian language.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the systematic study of Sanskrit began. This served as an impetus for the formation of scientific Indo-European studies and the establishment of the foundations of comparative studies - the comparative study of languages ​​and cultures. There is a scientific concept of the genealogical unity of the Indo-European languages. At that time, Sanskrit was recognized as the standard, the language closest to the Proto-Indo-European language. German writer, poet, philosopher, linguist Friedrich Schlegel(1772-1829) spoke of him:

"Indian is older than its kindred languages ​​and was their common ancestor."

By the end of the 19th century, a large amount of factual material had been accumulated, which shook the opinion that Sanskrit was archaic. At the beginning of the twentieth century, written monuments were discovered on Hittite dated to the 18th century. BC. It was also possible to discover other Indo-European, previously unknown ancient languages, for example, Tocharian. It has been proven that the Hittite language is closer to Proto-Indo-European than Sanskrit.

In the last century, great results have been achieved in comparative linguistics. A large number of texts written in Sanskrit were studied and translated into European languages, the proto-languages ​​were reconstructed and dated, a hypothesis was put forward about Nostratic macrofamily, which unites Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic and other languages. Thanks to interdisciplinary research, discoveries in archeology, history, philosophy, genetics, it was possible to establish the places of the alleged ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans and the most probable migration routes of the Aryans.

However, the words of a philologist, an Indologist are still relevant. Friedrich Maximilian Müller (1823-1900):

“If I were asked what I consider to be the greatest discovery of the 19th century in the study of ancient human history, I would give a simple etymological correspondence - Sanskrit Dyaus Pitar = Greek Zeus Pater = Latin Jupiter.”

References:
Bongard-Levin G.M., Grantovsky E.A. From Scythia to India. M., 1983.
Bongard-Levin G.M., Ilyin G.F. India in antiquity. M., 1985.
Basham A.L. The miracle that was India. M., 2000.
Kochergina V.A. Sanskrit textbook. M., 1994.
Rudoy V.I., Ostrovskaya E.P. Sanskrit in Indian culture // Sanskrit. SPb., 1999.
Shokhin V.K. Vedas // Indian philosophy. Encyclopedia. M., 2009.
Erman V.G. Essay on the history of Vedic literature. M., 1980.

Photos are from Wikipedia.

PS. In India, it is the oral language (sound) that serves as a kind of core, since there was no single writing system, while in China and in the Far East region in general, it is hieroglyphic writing (image), for which the specific sound of words does not matter. Perhaps this influenced the idea of ​​space and time in these regions and predetermined the features of philosophy.

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Sanskrit is an ancient literary language that existed in India. It has a complex grammar and is considered the progenitor of many modern languages. In literal translation, this word means "perfect" or "processed". It has the status of the language of Hinduism and some other cults.

Spread of the language

The Sanskrit language was originally predominantly spoken in the northern part of India, being one of the languages ​​for rock inscriptions dating back to the 1st century BC. Interestingly, researchers do not consider it as the language of a particular people, but as a specific culture that has been common among the elite strata of society since antiquity.

Mostly this culture is represented by religious texts related to Hinduism, as well as Greek or Latin in Europe. The Sanskrit language in the East has become a way of intercultural communication between religious figures and scientists.

Today it is one of the 22 official languages ​​in India. It is worth noting that its grammar is archaic and very complex, but the vocabulary is stylistically diverse and rich.

The Sanskrit language has had a significant influence on other Indian languages, mainly in the field of vocabulary. Today it is used in religious cults, the humanities, and only in a narrow circle as a conversational one.

It is in Sanskrit that many artistic, philosophical, religious works of Indian authors, works on science and jurisprudence were written, which influenced the development of the culture of all of Central and Southeast Asia, Western Europe.

Works on grammar and vocabulary are collected by the ancient Indian linguist Panini in the work "Octateuch". These were the most famous works in the world on the study of any language, which had a significant impact on the linguistic disciplines and the emergence of morphology in Europe.

Interestingly, there is no single system of writing in Sanskrit. This is explained by the fact that the works of art and philosophical works that existed at that time were transmitted exclusively orally. And if there was a need to write down the text, the local alphabet was used.

It was only at the end of the 19th century that Devanagari became established as the script for Sanskrit. Most likely, this happened under the influence of Europeans, who preferred this particular alphabet. According to a common hypothesis, Devanagari was brought to India in the 5th century BC by merchants who arrived from the Middle East. But even after mastering writing, many Indians continued to memorize texts in the old fashioned way.

Sanskrit was the language of literary monuments by which one can form an idea of ​​ancient India. The oldest script for Sanskrit that has come down to our time is called Brahmi. It is in this way that the famous monument of ancient Indian history called "The Ashoka Inscriptions" was recorded, which is 33 inscriptions carved on the walls of caves, by order of the Indian king Ashoka. This is the oldest surviving monument of Indian writing and the first proof of the existence of Buddhism.

History of occurrence

The ancient language Sanskrit belongs to the Indo-European language family, it is considered to be the Indo-Iranian branch. He had a significant influence on most modern Indian languages, primarily Marathi, Hindi, Kashmiri, Nepali, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu and even Romani.

It is believed that Sanskrit is the oldest form of the once common language. Once within the diverse Indo-European family, Sanskrit underwent sound changes similar to other languages. Many scholars believe that the original speakers of ancient Sanskrit came to the territory of modern Pakistan and India at the very beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. As evidence for this theory, they cite a close relationship with the Slavic and Baltic languages, as well as the presence of borrowings from Finno-Ugric languages ​​that do not belong to Indo-European.

In some studies of linguists, the similarity of the Russian language and Sanskrit is especially emphasized. It is believed that they have many common Indo-European words, with the help of which objects of fauna and flora are designated. True, many scholars adhere to the opposite point of view, believing that the speakers of the ancient form of the Indian language Sanskrit were the indigenous inhabitants of India, linking them with the Indian civilization.

Another meaning of the word "Sanskrit" is "the ancient Indo-Aryan language". It is to the Indo-Aryan group of languages ​​that Sanskrit belongs to the majority of scientists. Many dialects originated from it, which existed in parallel with the related ancient Iranian language.

Determining which language is Sanskrit, many linguists come to the conclusion that in ancient times in the north of modern India there was another Indo-Aryan language. Only he could transfer to modern Hindi some part of his vocabulary, and even phonetic composition.

Similarities with Russian

According to various studies of linguists, the similarity between the Russian language and Sanskrit is great. Up to 60 percent of Sanskrit words have the same pronunciation and meaning as Russian words. It is well known that one of the first to study this phenomenon was Natalya Guseva, Doctor of Historical Sciences, a specialist in Indian culture. Once she accompanied an Indian scholar on a tourist trip around the Russian North, who at some point refused the services of an interpreter, saying that he was happy to hear living and pure Sanskrit so far from home. Since that moment, Guseva began to study this phenomenon, now in many studies the similarity between Sanskrit and the Russian language is convincingly proved.

Some even believe that the Russian North has become the ancestral home of all mankind. The relationship of the northern Russian dialects with the oldest language known to mankind is proved by many scientists. Some suggest that Sanskrit and Russian are much closer than it might initially seem. For example, they say that it was not the Old Russian language that originated from Sanskrit, but exactly the opposite.

There are indeed many similar words in Sanskrit and Russian. Linguists note that words from the Russian language today can easily describe almost the entire sphere of human mental functioning, as well as its relationship with the surrounding nature, which is the main thing in the spiritual culture of any people.

Sanskrit is similar to the Russian language, but, arguing that it was the Old Russian language that became the founder of the most ancient Indian language, researchers often use frankly populist statements that only those who fight against the Rus, helping to turn the Russian people into animals deny these facts. Such scientists frighten with the coming World War, which is being waged on all fronts. With all the similarities between Sanskrit and the Russian language, most likely, we have to say that it was Sanskrit that became the founder and progenitor of the Old Russian dialects. Not the other way around, as some would argue. So, when determining whose language it is, Sanskrit, the main thing is to use only scientific facts, and not go into politics.

Fighters for the purity of Russian vocabulary insist that kinship with Sanskrit will help cleanse the language of harmful borrowings, vulgarizing and polluting factors.

Examples of language kinship

Now, using a good example, let's see how similar Sanskrit and Slavic are. Take the word "angry". According to Ozhegov's dictionary, it means "to be irritated, angry, to feel anger towards someone." At the same time, it is obvious that the root part of the word "heart" is from the word "heart".

"Heart" is a Russian word that comes from the Sanskrit "hridaya", thus they have the same root -srd- and -hrd-. In a broad sense, the Sanskrit concept of "hridaya" included the concepts of soul and mind. That is why in Russian the word "angry" has a pronounced heart affect, which becomes quite logical if you look at the connection with the ancient Indian language.

But why then do the word "angry" have such a pronounced negative effect? It turns out that even the Indian Brahmins connected passionate affection among themselves in a single pair with hatred and anger. In Hindu psychology, malice, hatred and passionate love are considered emotional correlates that complement each other. Hence the well-known Russian expression: "From love to hate is one step." Thus, with the help of linguistic analysis, it is possible to understand the origin of Russian words associated with the ancient Indian language. Such are the studies of the similarities between Sanskrit and the Russian language. They prove that these languages ​​are related.

The Lithuanian language and Sanskrit are similar to each other, since initially Lithuanian practically did not differ from Old Russian, it was one of the regional dialects, similar to modern northern dialects.

Vedic Sanskrit

Particular attention in this article should be given to Vedic Sanskrit. You can get acquainted with the Vedic analogue of this language in several monuments of ancient Indian literature, which are collections of sacrificial formulas, hymns, religious treatises, for example, the Upanishads.

Most of these works are written in the so-called New Vedic or Middle Vedic languages. Vedic Sanskrit is very different from classical Sanskrit. The linguist Panini generally considered these languages ​​to be different, and today many scholars consider Vedic and classical Sanskrit as variations of dialects of one ancient language. At the same time, the languages ​​themselves are very similar to each other. According to the most common version, classical Sanskrit just came from the Vedic.

Among the Vedic literary monuments, the Rig Veda is officially recognized as the very first. It is extremely difficult to date it with accuracy, and, therefore, it is difficult to estimate where the history of Vedic Sanskrit should be calculated from. In the early era of its existence, sacred texts were not written down, but simply spoken aloud and memorized, they are memorized even today.

Modern linguists distinguish several historical strata in the Vedic language based on the stylistic features of texts and grammar. It is generally accepted that the first nine books of the Rig Veda were created precisely on

Epic Sanskrit

The epic ancient language Sanskrit is a transitional form from Vedic Sanskrit to Classical. A form that is the latest version of Vedic Sanskrit. It went through a certain linguistic evolution, for example, at some historical period, subjunctives disappeared from it.

This variant of Sanskrit is a pre-classical form, it was common in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Some linguists define it as a Late Vedic language.

It is generally accepted that it was the original form of this Sanskrit that was studied by the ancient Indian linguist Panini, who can be confidently called the first philologist of antiquity. He described the phonological and grammatical features of Sanskrit, preparing a work that was as accurate as possible and shocked many by its formalism. The structure of his treatise is an absolute analogue of modern linguistic works devoted to similar studies. However, it took modern science thousands of years to achieve the same accuracy and scientific approach.

Panini describes the language that he himself spoke, already at that time actively using Vedic turns, but not considering them archaic and obsolete. It is during this time period that Sanskrit undergoes active normalization and orderliness. It is in epic Sanskrit that such popular works as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, which are considered the basis of ancient Indian literature, are written today.

Modern linguists often pay attention to the fact that the language in which epic works are written is very different from the version presented in the works of Panini. This discrepancy is usually explained by the so-called innovations that occurred under the influence of the Prakrits.

It is worth noting that, in a certain sense, the ancient Indian epic itself contains a large number of prakritisms, that is, borrowings that penetrate into it from the common language. In this it differs greatly from classical Sanskrit. At the same time, Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit was the literary language in the Middle Ages. Most of the early Buddhist texts were created on it, which eventually assimilated to classical Sanskrit to one degree or another.

Classical Sanskrit

Sanskrit is the language of God, many Indian writers, scientists, philosophers, and religious figures are convinced of this.

There are several varieties of it. The first examples of classical Sanskrit reach us from the 2nd century BC. In the comments of the religious philosopher and founder of yoga, Patanjali, which he left on the grammar of Panini, one can find the first studies in this area. Patanjali claims that Sanskrit is a living language at the time, but it may eventually be supplanted by various dialectal forms. In this treatise, he acknowledges the existence of Prakrits, that is, dialects that influenced the development of ancient Indian languages. Due to the use of colloquial forms, the language begins to narrow, and the grammatical notation is standardized.

It is at this point that Sanskrit freezes in its development, turning into a classical form, which Patanjali himself designates with a term meaning "completed", "finished", "perfectly made". For example, the same epithet describes ready-made dishes in India.

Modern linguists believe that there were four key dialects in classical Sanskrit. When the Christian era came, the language practically ceased to be used in its natural form, remaining only in the form of grammar, after which it ceased to evolve and develop. It became the official language of worship, it belonged to a certain cultural community, without being associated with other living languages. But it was often used as a literary language.

In this position, Sanskrit existed until the XIV century. In the Middle Ages, Prakrits became so popular that they formed the basis of neo-Indic languages ​​and began to be used in writing. By the 19th century, Sanskrit was finally forced out by the national Indian languages ​​from their native literature.

A noteworthy story that belonged to the Dravidian family was in no way connected with Sanskrit, but from ancient times competed with it, since it also belonged to a rich ancient culture. In Sanskrit, there are certain borrowings from this language.

Today's position of the language

The Sanskrit alphabet has approximately 36 phonemes, and if we take into account the allophones that are usually considered when writing, the total number of sounds increases to 48. This feature is the main difficulty for Russians who are going to learn Sanskrit.

Today, this language is used exclusively by the upper castes of India as the main spoken language. During the 2001 census, over 14,000 Indians admitted that Sanskrit was their primary language. Therefore, officially it cannot be considered dead. The development of the language is also evidenced by the fact that international conferences are held regularly, and Sanskrit textbooks are still being reprinted.

Sociological studies show that the use of Sanskrit in oral speech is very limited, so that the language does not develop anymore. Based on these facts, many scientists classify it as a dead language, although this is not at all obvious. Comparing Sanskrit with Latin, linguists note that Latin, having ceased to be used as a literary language, has long been used in the scientific community by narrow specialists. Both of these languages ​​were constantly updated, went through stages of artificial revival, which were sometimes associated with the desire of political circles. Ultimately, both of these languages ​​became directly associated with religious forms, even though they were used in secular circles for a long time, so there is a lot in common between them.

Basically, the displacement of Sanskrit from literature was due to the weakening of the institutions of power that supported it in every possible way, as well as to the high competition of other spoken languages, the speakers of which sought to instill their own national literature.

A large number of regional variations have led to the heterogeneity of the disappearance of Sanskrit in different parts of the country. For example, in the 13th century, in some parts of the Vijayanagara empire, Kashmiri was used in some areas along with Sanskrit as the main literary language, but Sanskrit works were better known outside of it, most common in the territory of the modern country.

Today, the use of Sanskrit in oral speech is minimized, but it continues to be in the written culture of the country. Most of those who have the ability to read the vernaculars are also able to read Sanskrit. It is noteworthy that even Wikipedia has a separate section written in Sanskrit.

After India gained independence in 1947, more than three thousand works were published in this language.

Studying Sanskrit in Europe

Great interest in this language remains not only in India itself and in Russia, but throughout Europe. Back in the 17th century, the German missionary Heinrich Roth made a great contribution to the study of this language. He himself lived for many years in India, and in 1660 he completed his book in Latin on Sanskrit. When Roth returned to Europe, he began publishing excerpts from his work, lecturing at universities and before meetings of specialist linguists. Interestingly, his main work on Indian grammar has not been published until now, it is kept only in manuscript form in the National Library of Rome.

Active study of Sanskrit in Europe began at the end of the 18th century. For a wide range of researchers, it was discovered in 1786 by William Jones, and before that, its features were described in detail by the French Jesuit Kerdu and the German priest Henksleden. But their work was not published until after Jones's, so they are considered subsidiary. In the 19th century, acquaintance with the ancient language Sanskrit played a decisive role in the creation and development of comparative historical linguistics.

European linguists were delighted with this language, noting its amazing structure, sophistication and richness, even in comparison with Greek and Latin. At the same time, scientists noted its similarity with these popular European languages ​​​​in grammatical forms and verb roots, so that, in their opinion, this could not be an ordinary accident. The similarity was so strong that the vast majority of philologists who worked with all three of these languages ​​did not doubt the existence of a common ancestor.

Language research in Russia

As we have already noted, in Russia there is a special attitude towards Sanskrit. For a long time, the work of linguists was associated with two editions of the "Petersburg dictionaries" (large and small), which appeared in the second half of the 19th century. These dictionaries opened a whole era in the study of Sanskrit for Russian linguists, they became the main Indological science for the whole coming century.

Professor of Moscow State University Vera Kochergina made a great contribution: she compiled the "Sanskrit-Russian Dictionary", and also became the author of the "Sanskrit Textbook".

In 1871, the famous article by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev was published under the title "The Periodic Law for the Chemical Elements". In it, he described the periodic system in the form in which it is known to all of us today, and also predicted the discovery of new elements. He named them "ekaaluminum", "ekabor" and "ekasilicium". For them, he left empty spaces in the table. We talked about the chemical discovery in this linguistic article not by chance, because Mendeleev here showed himself as a connoisseur of Sanskrit. Indeed, in this ancient Indian language, "eka" means "one." It is well known that Mendeleev was a close friend of the Sanskrit researcher Betlirk, who at that time was working on the second edition of his work on Panini. The American linguist Paul Kriparsky was convinced that Mendeleev gave Sanskrit names to the missing elements, thus expressing recognition of the ancient Indian grammar, which he highly valued. He also noted a special similarity between the periodic table of elements of the chemist and Panini's Shiva Sutras. According to the American, Mendeleev did not see his table in a dream, but came up with it while studying Hindu grammar.

Nowadays, interest in Sanskrit has significantly weakened; at best, individual cases of the coincidence of words and their parts in Russian and Sanskrit are considered, trying to find reasoned justifications for the penetration of one language into another.

We all know that speech is an expression of the culture of its speakers. Any speech is a certain sound vibration. And our material universe also consists of sound vibrations. According to the Vedas, the source of these vibrations is Brahma, who, through the pronunciation of certain sounds, creates our universe with all its types of living beings. It is believed that the sounds emanating from Brahman are the sounds of Sanskrit. Thus, the sound vibrations of Sanskrit have a transcendental spiritual basis. Therefore, if we come into contact with spiritual vibrations, then a program of spiritual development is turned on in us, our heart is cleansed. And these are scientific facts. Language is a very important factor influencing culture, the formation of culture, the formation and development of the people.

In order to elevate a people or, on the contrary, to lower them, it is enough to introduce the corresponding sounds or the corresponding words, names, terms into the language system of this people.

Researches of scientists about Sanskrit and Russian language.

The first Italian traveler Philip Sosetti, who visited India 400 years ago, addressed the topic of the similarity of Sanskrit with world languages. After his travels, Sosetti left a work on the similarity of many Indian words with Latin. The next was the Englishman William Jones. William Jones knew Sanskrit and studied a significant part of the Vedas. Jones concluded that Indian and European languages ​​are related. Friedrich Bosch - a German scientist - philologist in the middle of the 19th century wrote a work - a comparative grammar of Sanskrit, Zen, Greek, Latin, Old Church Slavonic, German.

Ukrainian historian, ethnographer and researcher of Slavic mythology Georgiy Bulashov, in the preface of one of his works, where the analysis of Sanskrit and Russian languages ​​​​is written - “all the main foundations of the language of tribal and tribal life, mythological and poetic works, are the property of the entire group of Indo-European and Aryan peoples . And they come from that distant time, the living memory of which has been preserved to our time in the most ancient hymns and rituals, the sacred books of the ancient Indian people, known as the "Vedas". Thus, by the end of the last century, studies by linguists showed that is Sanskrit, the oldest of all modern dialects.

Russian scientist folklorist A. Gelferding (1853, St. Petersburg), in a book about the relationship of the Slavic language with Sanskrit, writes: “The Slavic language in all its dialects has retained the roots and words that exist in Sanskrit. In this respect, the closeness of the compared languages ​​is unusual. The Sanskrit and Russian languages ​​do not differ from each other in any permanent, organic changes in sounds. Slavic does not have a single feature alien to Sanskrit."

A professor from India, a linguist, a great connoisseur of Sanskrit dialects, dialects, dialects, etc. Durgo Shastri came to Moscow at the age of 60. He did not know Russian. But a week later he refused an interpreter, arguing that he himself understands Russians quite well, since Russians speak corrupted Sanskrit. When he heard the Russian speech, he said that - "you speak one of the ancient dialects of Sanskrit, which used to be common in one of the regions of India, but is now considered extinct."

At a conference in 1964, Durgo presented a paper in which he gave many reasons that Sanskrit and Russian are related languages, and that Russian is a derivative of Sanskrit. Russian ethnographer Svetlan Zharnikova, candidate of historical sciences. The author of the book - On the historical roots of the North Russian folk culture, 1996.

Quotes - the vast majority of the names of our rivers can be translated from Sanskrit without distorting the language. Sukhona - from Sanskrit means easily overcome. Kubena is sinuous. Ships - a stream. Darida - giving water. Padma is a lotus. Kama - love, attraction. There are many rivers and lakes in the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions - Ganges, Shiva, Indigo, etc. The book has 30 pages of these names in Sanskrit. And the word Rus comes from the word Russia - which in Sanskrit means holy or bright.

Modern scientists attribute most European languages ​​to the Indo-European group, defining Sanskrit as the closest to the universal proto-language. But Sanskrit is a language that no people in India has ever spoken. This language has always been the language of scholars and priests, much like Latin for Europeans. This is a language artificially introduced into the life of the Hindus. But how then did this artificial language appear in India?

The Hindus have a legend that says that once upon a time they came from the North, because of the Himalayas, to them seven white teachers. They gave the Hindus a language (Sanskrit), gave them the Vedas (those very famous Indian Vedas) and thus laid the foundations of Brahmanism, which is still the most popular religion in India, and from which Buddhism in turn emerged. Moreover, this is a fairly well-known legend - it is studied even in Indian theosophical universities. Many Brahmins consider the Russian North (the northern part of European Russia) to be the ancestral home of all mankind. And they go to our north on a pilgrimage, just like Muslims go to Mecca.

Sixty percent of Sanskrit words coincide both in meaning and in pronunciation with Russian words completely. Natalya Guseva, an ethnographer, doctor of historical sciences, a well-known expert on the culture of India, the author of more than 160 scientific works on the culture and ancient forms of the Hindu religion, spoke about this for the first time. Once, one of the respected scientists of India, whom Guseva accompanied on a tourist trip along the rivers of the Russian North, refused an interpreter in communication with local residents and, tearing up, remarked to Natalya Romanovna that he was happy to hear living Sanskrit! From that moment, her study of the phenomenon of the similarity of the Russian language and Sanskrit began.

And, indeed, it is surprising: somewhere there, far to the south, beyond the Himalayas, peoples of the Negroid race live, the most educated representatives of which speak a language close to our Russian language. Moreover, Sanskrit is close to the Russian language in the same way that, for example, the Ukrainian language is close to Russian. There can be no question of any other such close coincidence of words between Sanskrit and any other language except Russian. Sanskrit and Russian are relatives, and if we assume that the Russian language, as a representative of the family of Indo-European languages, originated from Sanskrit, then it is also true that Sanskrit originated from the Russian language. So, at least, says the ancient Indian legend.

There is another factor in favor of this statement: as the well-known philologist Alexander Dragunkin says, a language derived from some other language always turns out to be simpler: fewer verbal forms, shorter words, etc. A person here follows the path of least resistance. Indeed, Sanskrit is much simpler than the Russian language. So we can say that Sanskrit is a simplified Russian language, frozen in time for 4-5 thousand years. And the hieroglyphic writing of Sanskrit, according to Academician Nikolai Levashov, is nothing more than the Slavic-Aryan runes, slightly modified by the Hindus.

The Russian language is the most ancient language on Earth and the closest to the language that served as the basis for most of the world's languages.

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html"> in Sanskrit and Russian. Vibration value. https://wowavostok.livejournal.com/8204256.html We all know that speech is an expression of the culture of its speakers. Any speech is a certain sound vibration. And our material universe also consists of sound vibrations. According to the Vedas, the source of these vibrations is Brahma, who, through the pronunciation of certain sounds, creates our universe with all its types of living beings. It is believed that the sounds emanating from Brahman are the sounds of Sanskrit. Thus, the sound vibrations of Sanskrit have a transcendental spiritual basis. Therefore, if we come into contact with spiritual vibrations, then a program of spiritual development is turned on in us, our heart is cleansed. And these are scientific facts. Language is a very important factor influencing culture, the formation of culture, the formation and development of the people. In order to elevate a people or, on the contrary, to lower them, it is enough to introduce the corresponding sounds or the corresponding words, names, terms into the language system of this people. Researches of scientists about Sanskrit and Russian language. The first Italian traveler Philip Sosetti, who visited India 400 years ago, addressed the topic of the similarity of Sanskrit with world languages. After his travels, Sosetti left a work on the similarity of many Indian words with Latin. The next was the Englishman William Jones. William Jones knew Sanskrit and studied a significant part of the Vedas. Jones concluded that Indian and European languages ​​are related. Friedrich Bosch - a German scientist - philologist in the middle of the 19th century wrote a work - a comparative grammar of Sanskrit, Zen, Greek, Latin, Old Church Slavonic, German. Ukrainian historian, ethnographer and researcher of Slavic mythology Georgiy Bulashov, in the preface of one of his works, where the analysis of Sanskrit and Russian languages ​​​​is written - “all the main foundations of the language of tribal and tribal life, mythological and poetic works, are the property of the entire group of Indo-European and Aryan peoples . And they come from that distant time, the living memory of which has been preserved to our time in the most ancient hymns and rituals, the sacred books of the ancient Indian people, known as the "Vedas". Thus, by the end of the last century, studies by linguists showed that is Sanskrit, the oldest of all dialects now.Russian scientist folklorist A. Gelferding (1853, St. Petersburg) in a book about the relationship of the Slavic language with Sanskrit, writes: “The Slavic language in all its dialects has retained the roots and words that exist in Sanskrit. In this regard, the closeness of the compared languages ​​is extraordinary. The languages ​​of Sanskrit and Russian do not differ from each other in any permanent, organic changes in sounds. Slavic does not have a single feature alien to Sanskrit." A professor from India, a linguist, a great connoisseur of Sanskrit dialects, dialects, dialects, etc. Durgo Shastri came to Moscow at the age of 60. He did not know Russian. But a week later he refused an interpreter, arguing that he himself understands Russians quite well, since Russians speak corrupted Sanskrit. When he heard the Russian speech, he said that - "you speak one of the ancient dialects of Sanskrit, which used to be common in one of the regions of India, but is now considered extinct." At a conference in 1964, Durgo presented a paper in which he gave many reasons that Sanskrit and Russian are related languages, and that Russian is a derivative of Sanskrit. Russian ethnographer Svetlan Zharnikova, candidate of historical sciences. The author of the book - On the historical roots of the North Russian folk culture, 1996. Quotes - the vast majority of the names of our rivers can be translated from Sanskrit without distorting the language. Sukhona - from Sanskrit means easily overcome. Kubena is sinuous. Ships - a stream. Darida - giving water. Padma is a lotus. Kama - love, attraction. There are many rivers and lakes in the Vologda and Arkhangelsk regions - Ganges, Shiva, Indigo, etc. The book has 30 pages of these names in Sanskrit. And the word Rus comes from the word Russia - which in Sanskrit means holy or bright. Modern scientists attribute most European languages ​​to the Indo-European group, defining Sanskrit as the closest to the universal proto-language. But Sanskrit is a language that no people in India has ever spoken. This language has always been the language of scholars and priests, much like Latin for Europeans. This is a language artificially introduced into the life of the Hindus. But how then did this artificial language appear in India? The Hindus have a legend that says that once upon a time they came from the North, because of the Himalayas, to them seven white teachers. They gave the Hindus a language (Sanskrit), gave them the Vedas (those very famous Indian Vedas) and thus laid the foundations of Brahmanism, which is still the most popular religion in India, and from which Buddhism in turn emerged. Moreover, this is a fairly well-known legend - it is studied even in Indian theosophical universities. Many Brahmins consider the Russian North (the northern part of European Russia) to be the ancestral home of all mankind. And they go to our north on a pilgrimage, just like Muslims go to Mecca. Sixty percent of Sanskrit words coincide both in meaning and in pronunciation with Russian words completely. Natalya Guseva, an ethnographer, doctor of historical sciences, a well-known expert on the culture of India, the author of more than 160 scientific works on the culture and ancient forms of the Hindu religion, spoke about this for the first time. Once, one of the respected scientists of India, whom Guseva accompanied on a tourist trip along the rivers of the Russian North, refused an interpreter in communication with local residents and, tearing up, remarked to Natalya Romanovna that he was happy to hear living Sanskrit! From that moment, her study of the phenomenon of the similarity of the Russian language and Sanskrit began. And, indeed, it is surprising: somewhere there, far to the south, beyond the Himalayas, peoples of the Negroid race live, the most educated representatives of which speak a language close to our Russian language. Moreover, Sanskrit is close to the Russian language in the same way that, for example, the Ukrainian language is close to Russian. There can be no question of any other such close coincidence of words between Sanskrit and any other language except Russian. Sanskrit and Russian are relatives, and if we assume that the Russian language, as a representative of the family of Indo-European languages, originated from Sanskrit, then it is also true that Sanskrit originated from the Russian language. So, at least, says the ancient Indian legend. There is another factor in favor of this statement: as the well-known philologist Alexander Dragunkin says, a language derived from some other language always turns out to be simpler: fewer verbal forms, shorter words, etc. A person here follows the path of least resistance. Indeed, Sanskrit is much simpler than the Russian language. So we can say that Sanskrit is a simplified Russian language, frozen in time for 4-5 thousand years. And the hieroglyphic writing of Sanskrit, according to Academician Nikolai Levashov, is nothing more than the Slavic-Aryan runes, slightly modified by the Hindus. The Russian language is the most ancient language on Earth and the closest to the language that served as the basis for most of the world's languages. Source
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