Guru in English! – Part 2

As mentioned in Part 1, Sanskrit is an Indic language belonging to the Indo-Iranian subcategory of the Indo-European group of languages.
The word Sanskrit means complete, refined, perfect (sam – together & krtam - created). The legend goes that Sanskrit was created and refined over centuries and it took over a thousand years for the language to be considered perfect.

We move forward with Avatar, which is the manifestation of an immortal being in (generally) a human body. It is derived from the Sanskrit ‘Avatara’ which means ‘descent’. The term is mainly used in Hinduism to depict the incarnations of Gods like Krishna and Rama onto earth for a specific purpose. ‘Avatar’ is now also used by other religions to refer to manifestations, for example Jesus Christ.

The next word is Mantra which is derived from the Sanskrit ‘manyate’, meaning ‘he thinks’. Mantra is a prayer, a chant or a religious formula (a name, a word, or a phrase) that is used in meditation, mainly in Hinduism. ‘Om’ or ‘Aum’ is one of the best known such mantras.

Related to meditation are the Chakras. They are the seven centers of physical or spiritual energy in the human body as per the philosophy of Yoga.
In Sanskrit ‘Chakra’ literally means a wheel. It is said that the body has energy centers that spin like wheels and are therefore called Chakras.

And the next spin takes us to Juggernaut, which is a literal or metaphorical force, campaign, or object that is unstoppable and destroys anything in its path. From ‘Jagannath’, which literally means ‘lord of the world’, a title for the Hindu God ‘Vishnu’.
A now almost obsolete meaning for Juggernaut is any institution that provokes destructive devotion. There is an interesting story to it. Puri, Orissa (India) has one of the most famous temples of Jagannath (Lord Krishna) and an annual procession carries the idols of the Gods in chariots, attracting millions of devotees. The chariots are huge with the main one being 43 feet high and 33 feet wide and with 16 wheels. In the chaos a few devotees would invariably get crushed under the wheels and soon a rumor was spread that the devotees were fanatics who threw themselves under the wheels to attain moksha (salvation). With the government taking extreme precautions, such incidences are extremely rare now.

And did you know that the name of the Asian city-state Singapore is also derived from Sanskrit? Close to the 13th or 14th century, it was known as Temasek. However a member of the then Royal family, while searching for a good site to build a new city, arrived at the shores of the island and came across a tiger. Mistaking it for a lion, he thought that it was a good omen and decided to make his city there. He renamed it as ‘Singapura’, Sanskrit for ‘Lion City’. Singapura got corrupted to Singapore in due course.

Moving on to another Asian country China, the most popular dialect of the Chinese language, Mandarin has the origin of its name in Portuguese mandarim, the Malay menteri, and the Sanskrit ‘mantrin’, which means counselor (it is similar to ‘mantri’, which is Hindi for minister).
Mandarin was used to denote public officers or bureaucrats and was also the language of the judiciary and the ruling classes of the Chinese empire.

The word Loot which means to plunder (usually during a war) or acquire illegally by force, violence or bribery, has its roots in Sanskrit. ‘Luntati or loptrum’ means ‘he plunders’.

Of course it makes sense to loot only expensive things and few things are as expensive or as desirable as the Musk, a strong-smelling, penetrating odorous substance used in perfumes and secreted by the glands of the male musk deer & some other animals. It is derived from Latin muscus, and very likely from Sanskrit ‘muska’, meaning scrotum (testicle) because the deer’s musk glands resemble a scrotum.
The gland can be obtained only by killing the deer; it is then removed from the sac located neat the abdomen and dried. Good musk is reddish brown / dark purplish in color, dry and unctuous (smooth & greasy in texture).

And when we speak of deer, can the predator cats be far behind? The Cheetah is a long-legged, fast moving wild cat, about the size of a leopard; it has black-spotted, yellowish-brown fur and is the fastest animal on land, reaching speeds of 60 miles per hour across short distances. Seen in the heartlands of Africa and Southwest Asia, its name is derived from the Hindi ‘clta’ (leopard) which comes from the Sanskrit ‘citraka’, [citra - bright, multicolored].

From ‘citra’ we also get Chintz, a glazed, printed cotton fabric, usually bright and multicolored. It has its roots in the now obsolete Hindi ‘chints’, which in turn was obtained from the Hindi ‘chit’, a derivative of the Sanskrit ‘citra’.

We end with a colorful word, Bandanna, a usually brightly coloured and patterned large handkerchief that has its roots in ‘bhandhana’, which means tying (also ‘badhnati’, meaning ‘he ties’). It was probably absorbed by the Portuguese and then passed on into the English language.

Although there are many more words that have not been covered, the two parts of ‘Guru in English!’ have amongst them covered many of the important words. Next we will see the influence of the other Indian languages on English.

P.S. The suggested links have some more websites on Sanskrit.