Sanskrit ( '''' , originally '''', "refined speech"), is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand. Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies.
Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of , around the 4th century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe and it has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent, particularly in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, its oldest core dating back to as early as 1500 BCE. This qualifies Rigvedic Sanskrit as one of the oldest attestations of any Indo-Iranian language, and one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family, the family which includes English and most European languages.
The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and dharma texts. Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the forms of hymns and mantras. Spoken Sanskrit is still in use in a few traditional institutions in India and there are many attempts at revival.
The Sanskrit verbal adjective '''' may be translated as "put together, constructed, well or completely formed; refined, adorned, highly elaborated". It is derived from the root '''' "to put together, compose, arrange, prepare", where '''' "together" (as English ''same'') and '''' "do, make".
The term in the generic meaning of "made ready, prepared, completed, finished" is found in the Rigveda. Also in Vedic Sanskrit, as nominalized neuter '''', it means "preparation, prepared place" and thus "ritual enclosure, place for a sacrifice".
As a term for "refined or elaborated speech" the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit, in the Manusmriti and in the Mahabharata.
The language referred to as '''' "the cultured language" has by definition always been a "sacred" and "sophisticated" language, used for religious and learned discourse in ancient India, and contrasted with the languages spoken by the people, '''' "natural, artless, normal, ordinary".
Sanskrit is a member of the Indo-Iranian sub-family of the Indo-European family of languages. Its closest ancient relatives are the Iranian languages Old Persian and Avestan.
In order to explain the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages, many scholars have proposed migration hypotheses asserting that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in what is now India and Pakistan from the north-west some time during the early second millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes the close relationship of the Indo-Iranian tongues with the Baltic and Slavic languages, vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages, and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna.
The earliest attested Sanskrit texts are Brahmanical texts of the Rigveda, which date to the mid-to-late second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive. However, scholars are confident that the oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they were ceremonial literature whose correct pronunciation was considered crucial to its religious efficacy.
From the Rigveda until the time of (fl. 4th century BCE) the development of the early Vedic language may be observed in other Vedic texts: the Samaveda, Yajurveda, Atharvaveda, Brahmanas, and Upanishads. During this time, the prestige of the language, its use for sacred purposes, and the importance attached to its correct enunciation all served as powerful conservative forces resisting the normal processes of linguistic change. However, there is a clear, five-level linguistic development of Vedic from the Rigveda to the language of the Upanishads and the earliest Sutras (such as Baudhayana).
The oldest surviving Sanskrit grammar is 's '''' ("Eight-Chapter Grammar"). It is essentially a prescriptive grammar, i.e., an authority that defines correct Sanskrit, although it contains descriptive parts, mostly to account for some Vedic forms that had become rare in 's time.
The term "Sanskrit" was not thought of as a specific language set apart from other languages, but rather as a particularly refined or perfected manner of speaking. Knowledge of Sanskrit was a marker of social class and educational attainment in ancient India and the language was taught mainly to members of the higher castes, through close analysis of Sanskrit grammarians such as . Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside the Prakrits (vernaculars), also called Middle Indic dialects, and eventually into the contemporary modern Indo-Aryan languages.
Sanskrit, as defined by , had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form. The beginning of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced as early as 1500–1200 BCE (for
Rg-vedic and
Indo-Aryan superstrate in Mitanni). Scholars often distinguish
Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or "Pāṇinian" Sanskrit as separate 'dialects'. Though they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of
phonology,
vocabulary,
grammar and
syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the
Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations (
Samhitas), theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the
Brahmanas and
Upanishads. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the
Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over several centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Vedic period is marked by the composition of the
Upanishads, which form the concluding part of the Vedic corpus in the traditional view; however the early Sutras are Vedic, too, both in language and content. Around the mid-1st millennium BCE, Vedic Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning.
For nearly 2,000 years, a cultural order existed that exerted influence across
South Asia,
Inner Asia,
Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent,
East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of the
Hindu Epics—the
Ramayana and
Mahabharata. The deviations from in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or "innovations" and not because they are pre-Paninean. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ''ārṣa'' (आर्ष), meaning 'of the
ṛṣis', the traditional title for the ancient authors. In some contexts, there are also more "prakritisms" (borrowings from common speech) than in Classical Sanskrit proper.
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is a literary language heavily influenced by
Middle Indic, based on early Buddhist
prakrit texts which subsequently assimilated to the Classical Sanskrit standard in varying degrees.
According to , there were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit: '''' (Northwestern, also called Northern or Western), '''' (lit., middle country), '''' (Eastern) and '''' (Southern, arose in the Classical period). The predecessors of the first three dialects are even attested in Vedic '''', of which the first one was regarded as the purest ('').
There are a number of
sociolinguistic studies of spoken Sanskrit which strongly suggest that oral use of Sanskrit is limited, with its development having ceased sometime in the past. Accordingly, says , "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is
dead". He describes it in comparison with the "dead" language of Latin:
Both died slowly, and earliest as a vehicle of literary expression, while much longer retaining significance for learned discourse with its universalist claims. Both were subject to periodic renewals or forced rebirths, sometimes in connection with a politics of translocal aspiration… At the same time… both came to be ever more exclusively associated with narrow forms of religion and priestcraft, despite centuries of a secular aesthetic.
The decline of Sanskrit use in literary and political circles was likely due to a weakening of the political institutions that supported it, and to heightened competition with vernacular languages seeking literary-cultural dignity. There was regional variation in the forcefulness of these vernacular movements and Sanskrit declined in different ways across the Indian subcontinent. For example, in Kashmir, Kashmiri was used alongside Sanskrit as the language of literature after the 13th century. Sanskrit works from the Vijayanagara Empire failed to circulate outside their place and time of composition. By contrast, works in Kannada and Telugu flourished.
Despite this presumed "death" of Sanskrit and the literary use of vernacular languages, Sanskrit continued to be used in literary cultures in India, and those who could read vernacular languages could also read Sanskrit. It did mean that Sanskrit was not used to express changing forms of subjectivity and sociality embodied and conceptualized in the modern age. Instead, it was reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity in Sanskrit was restricted to religious hymns and verses. When the British imposed a Western-style education system in India in the nineteenth century, knowledge of Sanskrit and ancient literature continued to flourish as the study of Sanskrit changed from a more traditional style into a form of analytical and comparative scholarship mirroring that of Europe.
and contest Pollock's characterization, pointing out that modern works continue to be produced in Sanskrit: }}
argues that modern works in Sanskrit are either ignored or their "modernity" contested. The Sahitya Akademi has had, since 1967, an award for the best creative work written that year in Sanskrit. In 2009, Satyavrat Shastri became the first Sanskrit author to win the Jnanpith Award, India's highest literary award.
European scholarship in Sanskrit, begun by
Heinrich Roth (1620–1668) and
Johann Ernst Hanxleden (1681–1731), is regarded as responsible for the discovery of the
Indo-European language family by
Sir William Jones. This scholarship played an important role in the development of Western
philology, or historical linguistics.
Sir William Jones, speaking to the Asiatic Society in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on February 2, 1786, said:
The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong, indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists.
Traufmann considers that British hostility to Sanskrit was based on British Indophobia, which he calls a developmentalist, progressivist, liberal, and non-racial-essentialist critique of Hindu civilization and race science. The later was a theorisation of the English "''common-sense view''" that Indian's were "separate, inferior and unimprovable race", this was manifest by a neglect of Sanskrit in British academia.
Classical Sanskrit distinguishes about 36
phonemes. There is, however, some
allophony and the writing systems used for Sanskrit generally indicate this, thus distinguishing 48
sounds.
The sounds are traditionally listed in the order vowels (''Ach''), diphthongs (''Hal''), anusvara and visarga, plosives (Sparśa) and nasals (starting in the back of the mouth and moving forward), and finally the liquids and fricatives, written in IAST as follows (see the tables below for details):
:;
:
:
:;
An alternate traditional ordering is that of the Shiva Sutra of .
The vowels of Classical Sanskrit written in
Devanagari, as a syllable-initial letter and as a
diacritic mark on the
consonant (), pronunciation transcribed in
IPA,
IAST, and approximate equivalent in English:
{|class="wikitable"
|-
! Letter !! !! IPA !! IAST !! English equivalent (GA unless stated otherwise)
|-
| |||| or ||a|| short near-open central vowel or schwa: ''u'' in bunny
|-
| ||||||ā||long open back unrounded vowel: ''a'' in father (RP)
|-
| ||||||i||short close front unrounded vowel: ''e'' in england
|-
| ||||||ī||long close front unrounded vowel: ''ee'' in feet
|-
| ||||||u||short close back rounded vowel: ''oo'' in foot
|-
| ||||||ū|| long close back rounded vowel: ''oo'' in cool
|-
| |||||||| syllabic alveolar trill: closest to ''er'' in butter in rhotic accents
|-
| |||||||| syllabic alveolar trill: closest to ''ir'' in bird in rhotic accents
|-
| |||||||| syllabic dental lateral approximant: ''le'' in turtle
|-
| |||||||| syllabic dental lateral approximant: longer ''le''
|-
| ||||||e|| long close-mid front unrounded vowel: ''a'' in bane (some speakers)
|-
| ||||||ai|| a long diphthong: ''i'' in ice, ''i'' in kite (US, Canadian, and Scottish English)
|-
| ||||||o|| long close-mid back rounded vowel: ''o'' in bone (Scottish English)
|-
| ||||||au|| a long diphthong: ''ou'' in h''ou''se (Canadian English)
|}
The long vowels are pronounced twice as long as their short counterparts. Also, there exists a third, extra-long length for most vowels, called pluti, which is used in various cases, but particularly in the vocative. The ''pluti'' is not accepted by all grammarians.
The vowels and continue as allophonic variants of Proto-Indo-Iranian , and are categorized as diphthongs by Sanskrit grammarians even though they are realized phonetically as simple long vowels. (See above).
Additional points:
There are some additional signs traditionally listed in tables of the Devanagari script:
The diacritic called ''anusvāra'', (IAST: ). It is used both to indicate the nasalization of the vowel in the syllable ( and to represent the sound of a syllabic or ; e.g. .
The diacritic called ''visarga'', represents (IAST: ); e.g. .
The diacritic called ''chandrabindu'', not traditionally included in Devanagari charts for Sanskrit, is used interchangeably with the ''anusvāra'' to indicate nasalization of the vowel, primarily in Vedic notation; e.g. .
If a lone consonant needs to be written without any following vowel, it is given a ''halanta/virāma'' diacritic below ().
The vowel in Sanskrit is realized as being more central and less back than the closest English approximation, which is . But the grammarians have classified it as a back vowel.
The ancient Sanskrit grammarians classified the vowel system as
velars,
retroflexes,
palatals and
plosives rather than as back, central and front vowels. Hence and are classified respectively as palato-velar (a+i) and labio-velar (a+u) vowels respectively. But the grammarians have classified them as
diphthongs and in prosody, each is given two ''mātrās''. This does not necessarily mean that they are proper diphthongs, but neither excludes the possibility that they could have been proper diphthongs at a very ancient stage (see above). These vowels ''are'' pronounced as long and respectively by learned Sanskrit Brahmans and priests of today. Other than the "four" diphthongs, Sanskrit usually disallows any other diphthong—vowels in succession, where they occur, are converted to
semivowels according to
sandhi rules.
IAST and
Devanagari notations are given, with approximate
IPA values in square brackets.
{|class="wikitable"
|-
!colspan="2"|
!colspan="2"| Labialओष्ठ्यoṣṭhya
! Labiodentalदन्त्योष्ठ्यdantyoṣṭhya
!colspan="2"| Dentalदन्त्यdantya
!colspan="2"| Retroflexमूर्धन्यmūrdhanya
!colspan="2"| Palatalतालव्यtālavya
!colspan="2"| Velarकण्ठ्यkaṇṭhya
!colspan="2"| Glottal
|-
!rowspan="2"| Stopस्पर्शsparśa
! Unaspiratedअल्पप्राण alpaprāṇa
| || || || || || || || || || ||
|colspan="2"|
|-
! Aspiratedमहाप्राणmahāprāṇa
| || || || || || || || || || ||
|colspan="2"|
|-
!colspan="2"| Nasalअनुनासिकanunāsika
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| m
|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| ( )
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"|
|colspan="2"|
|-
!colspan="2"| Semivowelअन्तस्थantastha
|colspan="2"|
|style="font-weight: normal"| v
|colspan="2"|
|colspan="2"|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| y
|colspan="2"|
|colspan="2"|
|-
!colspan="2"| Liquidढ्रवdrava
|colspan="2"|
|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| l
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"| r
|colspan="2"|
|colspan="2"|
|colspan="2"|
|-
!colspan="2"| Fricativeऊष्मन्ūṣman
|colspan="2"|
|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"|
|colspan="2" style="font-weight: normal"|
|colspan="2"|
|style="font-weight: normal"|
|style="font-weight: normal"|
|}
The table below shows the traditional listing of the Sanskrit consonants with the (nearest) equivalents in English (as pronounced in General American and Received Pronunciation) and Spanish. Each consonant shown below is deemed to be followed by the neutral vowel schwa (), and is named in the table as such.
{|class="wikitable"
|+ Stops—sparśa
|-
!
!UnaspiratedVoiceless alpaprāṇa śvāsa
!AspiratedVoicelessmahāprāna śvāsa
!UnaspiratedVoiced alpaprāṇa nāda
!AspiratedVoiced mahāprāna nāda
!Nasal anunāsika nāda
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Velarkaṇṭhya
| ; English: skip
| ; English: cat
| ; English: game
| ; similar to English: doghouse
| ; English: ring
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Palataltālavya
| ; English: exchange
| ; English: church
| ; English: jam
| ; similar to English: hedgehog
| ; English: bench
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Retroflexmūrdhanya
| ; English: stop
| ; English: top
| ; English: door
| ; similar to English: adhere
| ; English: name
|- style="text-align:center;"
!apico-Dentaldantya
| ; Spanish: tomate
| ; Aspirated
| ; Spanish: donde
| ; Aspirated
| ; Spanish: nombre
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Labial oṣṭhya
| ; English: spin
| ; English: pit
| ; English: bone
| ; similar to English: clubhouse
| ; English: mine
|}
{|class="wikitable"
|+ Non-Plosives/Sonorants
|-
!
!Palataltālavya
!Retroflexmūrdhanya
!Dentaldantya
!Labial/Glottal oṣṭhya
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Approximantantastha
| ; English: you
| ; American English: butter
| ; Spanish: la
| (labio-dental); English: vase
|- style="text-align:center;"
!Sibilant/Fricative ūṣmang
| ; English: ship
| ; Retroflex form of
| ; English: same
| (glottal); English ahead
|}
Vedic Sanskrit had
pitch accent: Some syllables had a high tone, and the following syllable a falling tone, though through ellipsis a falling tone may occur elsewhere.
Classical Sanskrit ...
The Sanskrit vowels are as discussed in the section above. The long syllabic l () is not attested, and is only discussed by grammarians for systematic reasons. Its short counterpart occurs in a single root only, "to order, array". Long syllabic r () is also quite marginal, occurring in the genitive plural of r-stems (e.g. '''' "mother" and '''' "father" have gen.pl. '''' and ''''). are vocalic allophones of consonantal . There are thus only 5 invariably vocalic
phonemes,
:.
Visarga is an allophone of and , and anusvara , Devanagari of any nasal, both in pausa (i.e., the nasalized vowel). The exact pronunciation of the three sibilants may vary, but they are distinct phonemes. An aspirated voiced sibilant was inherited by Indo-Aryan from Proto-Indo-Iranian but lost shortly before the time of the Rigveda (aspirated fricatives are exceedingly rare in any language). The retroflex consonants are somewhat marginal phonemes, often being conditioned by their phonetic environment; they do not continue a PIE series and are often ascribed by some linguists to the substratal influence of Dravidian or other substrate languages. The nasal is a conditioned allophone of ( and are distinct phonemes— 'minute', 'atomic' [nom. sg. neutr. of an adjective] is distinctive from 'after', 'along'; phonologically independent occurs only marginally, e.g. in 'directed forwards/towards' [nom. sg. masc. of an adjective]). There are thus 31 consonantal or semi-vocalic phonemes, consisting of four/five kinds of stops realized both with or without aspiration and both voiced and voiceless, three nasals, four semi-vowels or liquids, and four fricatives, written in IAST transliteration as follows:
:
or a total of 36 unique Sanskrit phonemes altogether.
The phonological rules which are applied when combining morphemes to a word, and when combining words to a sentence, are collectively called ''sandhi'' "composition". Texts are written phonetically, with sandhi applied (except for the so-called '''').
Sanskrit was spoken in an oral society, and the oral tradition was maintained through the development of early classical
Sanskrit literature. Writing was not introduced to India until after Sanskrit had evolved into the Prakrits; when it was written, the choice of writing system was influenced by the regional scripts of the scribes. Therefore, Sanskrit has no native script of its own. As such, virtually all of the major writing systems of South Asia have been used for the production of Sanskrit manuscripts. Since the late 19th century, ''
devanāgari'' has become the ''de facto'' standard writing system for Sanskrit publication, quite possibly because of the European practice of printing Sanskritic texts in this script. Devanāgari is written from left to right, lacks distinct letter cases, and is recognizable by a distinctive horizontal line running along the tops of the letters that links them together.
The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit date to the 1st century BCE. They are in the Brahmi script, which was originally used for Prakrit, not Sanskrit. It has been described as a "paradox" that the first evidence of written Sanskrit occurs centuries later than that of the Prakrit languages which are its linguistic descendants. When Sanskrit was written down, it was first used for texts of an administrative, literary or scientific nature. The sacred texts were preserved orally, and were set down in writing, "reluctantly" (according to one commentator), and at a comparatively late date.
Brahmi evolved into a multiplicity of scripts of the Brahmic family, many of which were used to write Sanskrit. Roughly contemporary with the Brahmi, the Kharosthi script was used in the northwest of the subcontinent. Later (around the 4th to 8th centuries CE) the Gupta script, derived from Brahmi, became prevalent. From ca. the 8th century, the Sharada script evolved out of the Gupta script. The latter was displaced in its turn by Devanagari from ca. the 11/12th century, with intermediary stages such as the Siddham script. In Eastern India, the Bengali script and, later, the Oriya script, were used. In the south where Dravidian languages predominate, scripts used for Sanskrit include Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Grantha.
thumb|300px|Sanskrit in modern Indian and other Brahmi scripts. ''May [[Shiva|Śiva bless those who take delight in the language of the gods.'' (Kalidasa)]]
Since the late 18th century, Sanskrit has been
transliterated using the
Latin alphabet. The system most commonly used today is the
IAST (International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration), which has been the academic standard since 1888/1912.
ASCII-based transliteration schemes have evolved due to difficulties representing Sanskrit characters in computer systems. These include
Harvard-Kyoto and
ITRANS, a transliteration scheme that is used widely on the Internet, especially in Usenet and in email, for considerations of speed of entry as well as rendering issues. With the wide availability of
Unicode aware web browsers, IAST has become common online.
It is also possible to type using an alphanumeric keyboard and transliterate to devanagari using software like Mac OS X's international support.
European scholars in the 19th century generally preferred Devanagari for the transcription and reproduction of whole texts and lengthy excerpts. However, references to individual words and names in texts composed in European languages were usually represented with Roman transliteration. From the 20th century onwards, due to production costs, textual editions edited by Western scholars have mostly been in Romanized transliteration.
Sanskrit grammatical tradition (, one of the six Vedanga disciplines) began in late Vedic India and culminated in the of , which consists of 3990 sutras (ca. 5th century BCE). About a century after (around 400 BCE) Kātyāyana composed Vārtikas on Pāṇinian sũtras. Patañjali, who lived three centuries after Pāṇini, wrote the '''', the "Great Commentary" on the and Vārtikas. Because of these three ancient Sanskrit grammarians this grammar is called Trimuni Vyākarana. To understand the meaning of sutras Jayaditya and Vāmana wrote the commentary named Kāsikā 600 CE. Pāṇinian grammar is based on 14 Shiva sutras (aphorisms). Here whole Mātrika (alphabet) is abbreviated. This abbreviation is called Pratyāhara.
Sanskrit has ten classes of
verbs divided into in two broad groups:
athematic and
thematic. The thematic verbs are so called because an ''a'', called the
theme vowel, is inserted between the stem and the ending. This serves to make the thematic verbs generally more regular.
Exponents used in verb
conjugation include
prefixes,
suffixes,
infixes, and
reduplication. Every root has (not necessarily all distinct) zero,
, and
grades. If V is the vowel of the zero grade, the -grade vowel is traditionally thought of as a + V, and the -grade vowel as ā + V.
The verb tenses (a very inexact application of the word, since more distinctions than simply tense are expressed) are organized into four 'systems' (as well as gerunds and infinitives, and such creatures as intensives/frequentatives, desideratives, causatives, and benedictives derived from more basic forms) based on the different stem forms (derived from verbal roots) used in conjugation. There are four tense systems:
Present (Present, Imperfect, Imperative, Optative)
Perfect
Aorist
Future (Future, Conditional)
Sanskrit is a highly
inflected language with three
grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and three numbers (singular, plural,
dual). It has eight
cases:
nominative,
vocative,
accusative,
instrumental,
dative,
ablative,
genitive, and
locative.
The number of actual declensions is debatable. Pāṇini identifies six ''karakas'' corresponding to the nominative, accusative, dative, instrumental, locative, and ablative cases. Pāṇini defines them as follows (Ashtadhyayi, I.4.24–54):
# ''Apadana'' (lit. 'take off'): "(that which is) firm when departure (takes place)." This is the equivalent of the ablative case, which signifies a stationary object from which movement proceeds.
# ''Sampradana'' ('bestowal'): "he whom one aims at with the object". This is equivalent to the dative case, which signifies a recipient in an act of giving or similar acts.
# ''Karana'' ("instrument") "that which effects most." This is equivalent to the instrumental case.
# ''Adhikarana'' ('location'): or "substratum." This is equivalent to the locative case.
# ''Karman'' ('deed'/'object'): "what the agent seeks most to attain". This is equivalent to the accusative case.
# ''Karta'' ('agent'): "he/that which is independent in action". This is equivalent to the nominative case. (On the basis of Scharfe, 1977: 94)
Sanskrit
pronouns are declined for
case,
number, and gender. The pronominal
declension applies to a few adjectives as well. Many pronouns have alternative
enclitic forms.
The first and second person pronouns are declined for the most part alike, having by analogy assimilated themselves with one another. Where two forms are given, the second is enclitic and an alternative form. Ablatives in singular and plural may be extended by the syllable -''tas''; thus ''mat'' or ''mattas'', ''asmat'' or ''asmattas''. Sanskrit does not have true third person pronouns, but its demonstratives fulfill this function instead by standing independently without a modified substantive.
There are four different demonstratives in Sanskrit: ''tat'', ''etat'', ''idam'', and ''adas''. ''etat'' indicates greater proximity than ''tat''. While ''idam'' is similar to ''etat'', ''adas'' refers to objects that are more remote than ''tat''. ''eta'', is declined almost identically to ''ta''. Its paradigm is obtained by prefixing ''e-'' to all the forms of ''ta''. As a result of ''sandhi'', the masculine and feminine singular forms transform into '''' and ''''.
The enclitic pronoun ''ena'' is found only in a few oblique cases and numbers. Interrogative pronouns all begin with ''k-'', and decline just as ''tat'' does, with the initial ''t-'' being replaced by ''k-''. The only exception to this are the singular neuter nominative and accusative forms, which are both ''kim'' and not the expected ''*kat''. For example, the singular feminine genitive interrogative pronoun, "of whom?", is ''''. Indefinite pronouns are formed by adding the participles ''api'', ''cid'', or ''cana'' after the appropriate interrogative pronouns. All relative pronouns begin with ''y-'', and decline just as ''tat'' does. The correlative pronouns are identical to the ''tat'' series.
In addition to the pronouns described above, some adjectives follow the pronominal declension. Unless otherwise noted, their declension is identical to ''tat''.
''eka'': "one", "a certain". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both ''ekam'')
''anya'': "another".
''sarva'': "all", "every". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both ''sarvam'')
''para'': "the other". (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both ''param'')
''sva'': "self" (a reflexive adjective). (singular neuter nominative and accusative forms are both ''svam'')
One other notable feature of the nominal system is the very common use of nominal compounds, which may be huge (10+ words) as in some modern languages such as
German and
Finnish. Nominal compounds occur with various structures, however morphologically speaking they are essentially the same. Each noun (or adjective) is in its (weak) stem form, with only the final element receiving case inflection. The four principle categories of nominal compounds are:
; (co-ordinative)
: These consist of two or more noun stems, connected in sense with 'and'. Examples are ''rāma-lakşmaņau''—Rama and Lakshmana, ''rāma-lakşmaņa-bharata-śatrughnāh''—Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna, and ''pāņipādam''—limbs, literally hands and feet, from pāņi = hand and pāda = foot.
; (determinative)
: There are many ; in a the first component is in a case relationship with another. For example, a doghouse is a dative compound, a house ''for'' a dog; other examples include instrumental relationships ("thunderstruck") and locative relationships ("towndwelling").
; (descriptive)
: A compound where the relation of the first member to the last is appositional, attributive or adverbial; e.g., uluka-yatu (owl+demon) is a demon in the shape of an owl. are considered by some to be .
; (possessive/exocentric)
: Bahuvrīhi compounds refer to a compound noun that refers to a thing which is itself not part of the compound. For example the word bahuvrīhi itself, from bahu = much and vrīhi = rice, denotes a rich person—one who has much rice.
Because of Sanskrit's complex
declension system the
word order is free. In usage, there is a strong tendency toward
subject–object–verb (SOV), which was the original system in place in Vedic prose. However, there are exceptions when word pairs cannot be transposed.
The numbers from one to ten:
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
#
The numbers one through four are declined. Éka is declined like a pronominal adjective, though the dual form does not occur. Dvá appears only in the dual. Trí and catúr are declined irregularly:
|
|
Three
|
Four
|
| Masculine !! Neuter !! Feminine !! Masculine !! Neuter !! Feminine
|
| ! Nominative
|
tráyas |
|
tisrás | | catvā́ras |
catvā́ri |
cátasras
|
| Accusative
| trīn |
|
tisrás | | catúras |
catvā́ri |
cátasras
|
| ! Instrumental
|
|
|
|
|
| ! Dative
|
|
|
|
|
| ! Ablative
|
|
|
|
|
| ! Genitive
|
|
|
|
|
| ! Locative
|
|
|
|
|
Sanskrit's greatest influence, presumably, is that which it exerted on
languages of India that grew from its vocabulary and grammatical base; for instance,
Hindi is a "Sanskritized register" of the
Khariboli dialect. However, all modern
Indo-Aryan languages, as well as
Munda and
Dravidian languages, have borrowed many words either directly from Sanskrit (''
tatsama'' words), or indirectly via middle Indo-Aryan languages (''
tadbhava'' words). Words originating in Sanskrit are estimated to constitute roughly fifty percent of the vocabulary of modern Indo-Aryan languages, and the literary forms of (Dravidian)
Malayalam and
Kannada.
Literary texts in Telugu are
lexically Sanskrit or Sanskritized to an enormous extent, perhaps seventy percent or more.
Sanskrit is prized as a storehouse of scripture and as the language of prayers in Hinduism. Like Latin's influence on European languages and Classical Chinese's influence on East Asian languages, Sanskrit has influenced most Indian languages. While vernacular prayer is common, Sanskrit mantras are recited by millions of Hindus, and most temple functions are conducted entirely in Sanskrit, often Vedic in form. Of modern day Indian languages, Nepali, Bengali, Assamese, Konkani and Marathi still retain a largely Sanskrit and Prakrit vocabulary base, while Hindi and Urdu tend to be more heavily weighted with Arabic and Persian influence. The Indian national anthem, Jana Gana Mana, is written in a literary form of Bengali (known as ''sadhu bhasha''); it is Sanskritized to be recognizable but is still archaic to the modern ear. The national song of India, Vande Mataram, which was originally a poem composed by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and taken from his book called 'Anandamath', is in a similarly highly Sanskritized Bengali. Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada also combine a great deal of Sanskrit vocabulary. Sanskrit also has influence on Chinese through Buddhist Sutras. Chinese words like 剎那 ''chànà'' (Devanāgarī: क्षण '''' 'instantaneous period of time') were borrowed from Sanskrit.
The 1991 and 2001,
census of India recorded 49,736 and 14,135 persons, respectively, with Sanskrit as their
native language. Since the 1990s, efforts to revive spoken Sanskrit have been increasing. Many organizations like the ''Samskrta Bharati'' are conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops to popularize the language. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its second official language. The ''
CBSE'' (Central Board of Secondary Education) of India has made Sanskrit a third language (though it is an option for the school to adopt it or not, the other choice being the state's own official language) in the schools it governs. In such schools, learning Sanskrit is an option for grades 5 to 8 (Classes V to VIII). This is true of most schools affiliated to the
ICSE board too, especially in those states where the official language is
Hindi.
Sudharma, the only daily newspaper in Sanskrit has been published out of
Mysore in India since the year 1970. Since 1974, there has been a short daily news broadcast on state-run
All India Radio.
In these Indian villages, inhabitants of all castes speak Sanskrit natively since childhood:
#Mattur in Karnataka
#Mohad, District: Narasinhpur, Madhya Pradesh
#Jhiri, District: Rajgadh, Madhya Pradesh
#Kaperan, District: Bundi, Rajasthan
#Khada, District: Banswada, Rajasthan
#Ganoda, District: Banswada, Rajasthan
#Bawali, District: Bagapat, Uttar Pradesh
#Shyamsundarpur, District: Kendujhar, Orissa
In the Republic of India, in Nepal and
Indonesia, Sanskrit phrases are widely used as mottoes for various educational and social organizations (much as
Latin is used by some institutions in the West). The
motto of the Republic is also in Sanskrit.
; Republic of India: '' ''Satyameva Jayate'' "Truth alone triumphs"
; Nepal: '' ''Janani Janmabhūmisca Svargādapi garīyasi'' "Mother and motherland are greater than heaven"
; Goa: '' ''Sarve Bhadrāni Paśyantu Mā Kaścid Duhkhabhāg bhavet'' "May all perceive good, may not anyone attain unhappiness"
; Life Insurance Corporation of India: '', ''Yogakshemam Vahāmyaham'' "I shall take care of welfare" (taken from the Bhagavad Gita)
; Indian Navy: '' ''Shanno Varuna'' "May Varuna be peaceful to us"
; Indian Air Force: '' '''' "Touching the Sky with Glory" (from Bhagavad Gita: XI, Verse 24)
; Mumbai Police: '' ''Sadrakshanaaya Khalanigrahanaaya'' "For protection of the good and control of the wicked"
; Indian Coast Guard: '' ''Vayam Rakshāmaha'' "We protect"
; All India Radio: '' ''Bahujana-hitāya bahujana-sukhāya'' "For the benefit of all, for the comfort of all"
; Indonesian Navy: '' ''Jalesveva Jayamahe'' "On the Sea We Are Glorious"
; Rajputana Rifles: '' ''Veerabhogya Vasundhara'' "The earth is fit to be ruled by the brave"
; Aceh Province: '' ''Pancacita'' "Five Goals"
Many of the post–Independence educational institutions of national importance in India and Sri Lanka have Sanskrit mottoes. For a fuller list of such educational institutions, see List of educational institutions which have Sanskrit phrases as their mottoes.
Sanskrit and related languages have also influenced their
Sino-Tibetan-speaking neighbors to the north through the spread of
Buddhist texts in translation. Buddhism was spread to China by
Mahayanist missionaries sent by Emperor Ashoka mostly through translations of
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit texts, and many terms were transliterated directly and added to the Chinese vocabulary. (Although Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit is not Sanskrit, properly speaking, its grammar and vocabulary are substantially the same, both because of genetic relationship, and because of conscious implementation of Pāṇinian standardizations on the part of composers. Buddhist texts composed in Sanskrit proper were primarily found in philosophical schools like the
Madhyamaka.) The situation in Tibet is similar; many Sanskrit texts survive only in Tibetan translation (in the
Tanjur).
In Southeast Asia, languages such as Thai and Lao contain many loan words from Sanskrit, as do Khmer, Vietnamese to a lesser extent, through Sinified hybrid Sanskrit. For example, in Thai, the Rāvana—the emperor of Sri Lanka is called 'Thosakanth' which is a derivation of his Sanskrit name 'Dashakanth' ("of ten necks").
Many Sanskrit loanwords are also found in Austronesian languages, such as Javanese particularly the old form from which nearly half the vocabulary is derived from the language.
Other Austronesian languages, such as traditional Malay, modern Indonesian, also derive much of their vocabulary from Sanskrit, albeit to a lesser extent, with a large proportion of words being derived from Arabic. Similarly, Philippine languages such as Tagalog have many Sanskrit loanwords, although more are derived from Spanish.
A Sanskrit loanword encountered in many Southeast Asian languages is the word ''bhāṣā'', or spoken language, which is used to mean language in general, for example ''bahasa'' in Malay, Indonesian and Tausug, ''basa'' in Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese'', ''phasa'' in Thai and Lao, ''bhasa'' in Burmese, and 'phiesa'' in Khmer.
Many of India's and Nepal's scientific and administrative terms are named in Sanskrit, as a counterpart of the western practice of naming scientific developments in Latin or Greek. The
Indian guided missile program that was commenced in 1983 by
DRDO has named the five missiles (ballistic and others) that it has developed as
Prithvi,
Agni,
Akash,
Nag and
Trishul. India's first modern fighter
aircraft is named
HAL Tejas.
Recital of Sanskrit shlokas as background chorus in films, television advertisements and as slogans for corporate organizations has become a trend. The opera ''Satyagraha'' by Philip Glass uses texts from the ''Bhagavad Gita'', sung in the original Sanskrit.
Recently, Sanskrit also made an appearance in Western pop music in two recordings by Madonna. One, "Shanti/Ashtangi", from the 1998 album ''Ray of Light'', is the traditional Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga chant referenced above set to music. The second, "Cyber-raga", released in 2000 as a B-side to Madonna's album ''Music'', is a Sanskrit-language ode of devotion to a higher power and a wish for peace on earth. The climactic battle theme of ''The Matrix Revolutions'' features a choir singing a Sanskrit prayer from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the closing titles of the movie. Composer John Williams featured choirs singing in Sanskrit for ''Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'' and in ''Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace''.
The Sky1 version of the title sequence in season one of ''Battlestar Galactica 2004'' features the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rig Veda (3.62.10). The composition was written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs.
Sanskrit has also seen a significant revival in China. Musicians such as Sa Dingding have written pop songs in Sanskrit.
There have been suggestions to use Sanskrit as a
metalanguage for knowledge representation in e.g.
machine translation, and other areas of
natural language processing because of its relatively high regular structure. This is due to Classical Sanskrit being a regularized,
prescriptivist form abstracted from the much more complex and richer
Vedic Sanskrit. This leveling of the grammar of Classical Sanskrit began during the Brahmana phase, and had not yet completed by the time of Pāṇini, when the language had fallen out of popular use.
Whitney, William Dwight ''The Roots, Verb-Forms and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language: (A Supplement to His Sanskrit Grammar)''
Wackernagel, Debrunner, ''Altindische Grammatik'', Göttingen.
*vol. I. Phonology Jacob Wackernagel (1896)
*vol. II.1. Introduction to morphology, nominal composition, Wackernagel (1905)
*vol. II.2. nominal suffixes, J. Wackernagel and Albert Debrunner (1954)
*vol. III. nominal inflection, numerals, pronouns, Wackernagel and Debrunner (1930)
Delbrück, B. ''Altindische Tempuslehre'' (1876)
Otto Böhtlingk, Rudolph Roth, ''Petersburger Wörterbuch'', 7 vols., 1855–75
Otto Böhtlingk, ''Sanskrit Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung'' 1883–86 (1998 reprint, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi)
Manfred Mayrhofer, ''Kurzgefasstes etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindischen'', 1956–76
Manfred Mayrhofer, ''Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen'', 3 vols., 2742 pages, 2001, ISBN 3-8253-1477-4
Sanskrit Central is where you can read Sanskrit Blogs, do discussions about Sanskrit, watch Sanskrit Videos, look at Sanskrit Dictionary and do many more things.
Academic Courses on Sanskrit Around The World
Samskrita Bharati, organization promoting Sanskrit
Sanskrit Alphabet in Devanagari, Gujarati, Bengali, and Thai scripts with an extensive list of Devanagari, Gujarati, and Bengali conjuncts
snskrit.blogspot.com, more about the Sanskrit Language
Free Sanskrit Books, Sanskrit PDF books collection for download
Romanized Nepali Unicode Keyboard developed by OOPSLite Technologies
Sanskrit transliteration software with font conversion to Latin and other Indian Languages
Sanskrit Documents — Documents in ITX format of Upanishads, Stotras etc. and a metasite with links to translations, dictionaries, tutorials, tools and other Sanskrit resources.
Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon
Gretil: Göttingen Register of Electronic Texts in Indian Languages — a cumulative register of the numerous download sites for electronic texts in Indian languages.
Gaudiya Grantha Mandira — A Sanskrit Text Repository. This site also provides encoding converter.
Sanskrit texts at Sacred Text Archive
Digital Library of India at Ernet.in and IIIT.in — scanned/OCRed copies of public-domain books
A Practical Sanskrit Introductory by Charles Wikner
Sanskrit Self Study by Chitrapur Math
An Analytical Cross Referenced Sanskrit Grammar By Lennart Warnemyr
Category:Ancient languages
Category:Classical languages of India
Category:Indo-Aryan languages
Category:Subject–object–verb languages
Category:Languages written in Devanagari
kbd:Санскрит
af:Sanskrit
als:Sanskrit
am:ሳንስክሪት
ar:لغة سنسكريتية
an:Sanscrito
as:সংস্কৃত
ast:Sánscritu
az:Sanskrit
bn:সংস্কৃত ভাষা
zh-min-nan:Hoân-gí
be:Санскрыт
be-x-old:Санскрыт
bh:संस्कृत
bcl:Sanskrito
bg:Санскрит
bar:Sanskrit
bo:ལེགས་སྦྱར་སྐད།
bs:Sanskrit
br:Sañskriteg
ca:Sànscrit
ceb:Pinulongang Sanskrito
cs:Sanskrt
cy:Sansgrit
da:Sanskrit
de:Sanskrit
dv:ސަންސްކްރިއްތް
et:Sanskriti keel
el:Σανσκριτική γλώσσα
es:Sánscrito
eo:Sanskrito
eu:Sanskrito
fa:زبان سانسکریت
hif:Sanskrit
fr:Sanskrit
fy:Sanskryt
ga:An tSanscrait
gl:Lingua sánscrita
gan:梵語
gu:સંસ્કૃત ભાષા
hak:Fan-vun
xal:Эндкгин келн
ko:산스크리트어
hy:Սանսկրիտ
hi:संस्कृत भाषा
hr:Sanskrt
io:Sanskrita linguo
bpy:সংস্কৃত
id:Bahasa Sanskerta
ia:Sanscrito
is:Sanskrít
it:Lingua sanscrita
he:סנסקריט
jv:Basa Sangskreta
kn:ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತ
ka:სანსკრიტი
kk:Санскрит
kw:Sanskrytek
rw:Igisansikiriti
sw:Kisanskrit
kv:Санскрит
ku:Sanskrît
la:Lingua Sanscrita
lv:Sanskrits
lt:Sanskritas
lij:Lengua sànscrïa
li:Sanskriet
lmo:Sanscrit
hu:Szanszkrit nyelv
mk:Санскритски јазик
mg:Sanskrity
ml:സംസ്കൃതം
mr:संस्कृत भाषा
arz:سانسكريتى
ms:Sanskrit
mn:Санскрит хэл
my:သင်္သကရိုက်ဘာသာ
nah:Sanscritotlahtōlli
nl:Sanskriet
ne:संस्कृत
new:संस्कृत
ja:サンスクリット
no:Sanskrit
nn:Sanskrit
oc:Sanscrit
or:ସଂସ୍କୃତ ଭାଷା
pnb:سنسکرت
ps:سانسګریت ژبه
pms:Sànscrit
nds:Sanskrit
pl:Sanskryt
pt:Sânscrito
ro:Limba sanscrită
qu:Sanskrit simi
rue:Санскріт
ru:Санскрит
sah:Санскрит
sa:संस्कृतम्
sco:Sanskrit
scn:Lingua sanscrita
simple:Sanskrit
sk:Sanskrit
sl:Sanskrt
ckb:زمانی سانسکریت
sr:Санскрит
sh:Sanskrit
su:Basa Sangsakerta
fi:Sanskrit
sv:Sanskrit
tl:Wikang Sanskrito
ta:சமசுகிருதம்
roa-tara:Lènga sanscrite
tt:Санскрит
te:సంస్కృతము
th:ภาษาสันสกฤต
tr:Sanskritçe
uk:Санскрит
ur:سنسکرت
vi:Tiếng Phạn
war:Sinanskrit
yi:סאנסקריט
zh-yue:梵文
bat-smg:Sanskrita kalba
zh:梵语
![Kondaveedu, the first historical records appear in the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya, when what is now Nizamabad and Adilabad districts of the Telangana region constituted parts of the Assaka Mahajanapada (700–300 BCE)[11] An Andhra tribe was mentioned in the Sanskrit epics such as Aitareya Brahmana (800 BCE) and Mahabharata (400 BCE).](http://web.archive.org./web/20120610081259/http://cdn2.wn.com/pd/41/89/6ceea624ba824024aceda1a9e30e_medium.jpg "Kondaveedu, the first historical records appear in the Buddhist text Anguttara Nikaya, when what is now Nizamabad and Adilabad districts of the Telangana region constituted parts of the Assaka Mahajanapada (700–300 BCE)[11] An Andhra tribe was mentioned in the Sanskrit epics such as Aitareya Brahmana (800 BCE) and Mahabharata (400 BCE).")
![Pushkar seen from Saraswati temple Rajasthan, India. Pushkar in Sanskrit means blue lotus flower.[2] Hindus believe that the gods released a swan with a lotus in its beak and let it fall on earth where Brahma would perform a grand yagna.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120610081259/http://cdn7.wn.com/pd/25/08/5880c9d7c76bf639166dffb766d0_medium.jpg "Pushkar seen from Saraswati temple Rajasthan, India. Pushkar in Sanskrit means blue lotus flower.[2] Hindus believe that the gods released a swan with a lotus in its beak and let it fall on earth where Brahma would perform a grand yagna.")
![Performer playing Sugriva in the Koodiyattam form of Sanskrit theater.The earliest form of Indian drama was the Sanskrit drama.[33] It began after the development of Greek and Roman drama and before the development of theatre in other parts of Asia.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120610081259/http://cdn9.wn.com/pd/78/00/0cf355b79d06241ecc7c7435a471_medium.jpg "Performer playing Sugriva in the Koodiyattam form of Sanskrit theater.The earliest form of Indian drama was the Sanskrit drama.[33] It began after the development of Greek and Roman drama and before the development of theatre in other parts of Asia.")
![The white mulberry (Morus alba) is a short-lived, fast-growing, small to medium sized mulberry tree, which grows to 10–20 m tall. The species is native to northern China, and is widely cultivated (and even naturalized) elsewhere.[1][2] It is also known as Tuta in Sanskrit and Tuti in Marathi.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120610081259/http://cdn6.wn.com/pd/52/2c/9374514087d5d7088662843b07be_medium.jpg "The white mulberry (Morus alba) is a short-lived, fast-growing, small to medium sized mulberry tree, which grows to 10–20 m tall. The species is native to northern China, and is widely cultivated (and even naturalized) elsewhere.[1][2] It is also known as Tuta in Sanskrit and Tuti in Marathi.")
![Thiruvannamalai (Tamil: திருவண்ணாமலை, same as English pronunciation) is a pilgrimage town and municipality in Thiruvannamalai district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the headquarters of the Thiruvannamalai district. Thiruvannamalai is home to the Annamalaiyar Temple located at the foot of the Annamalai hill and amongst one of the great Shiva Temples of Tamilnadu. Thiruvannamalai has long been associated with many yogis and siddhars,[1] and more recently the 20th century guru Ramana Mah](http://web.archive.org./web/20120610081259/http://cdn4.wn.com/pd/e1/f8/20cd053d4a5bc9ebd3d37965dc56_medium.jpg "Thiruvannamalai (Tamil: திருவண்ணாமலை, same as English pronunciation) is a pilgrimage town and municipality in Thiruvannamalai district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the headquarters of the Thiruvannamalai district. Thiruvannamalai is home to the Annamalaiyar Temple located at the foot of the Annamalai hill and amongst one of the great Shiva Temples of Tamilnadu. Thiruvannamalai has long been associated with many yogis and siddhars,[1] and more recently the 20th century guru Ramana Mah")
![Varanasi (Sanskrit: वाराणसी Vārāṇasī, Hindustani pronunciation: [ʋaːˈɾaːɳəsiː] ( listen)), also commonly known as Benares or Banaras (Hindi: बनारस, Urdu: بنارس, Banāras [bəˈnɑːɾəs] ( listen)) and Kashi (Hindi: काशी, Urdu: کاشی, Kāśī [ˈkaːʃiː] ( listen)), is a city situated on the left (west) bank of the River Ganga (Ganges) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, regarded as holy by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. It is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120610081259/http://cdn2.wn.com/pd/56/94/024145a9bde0fd44a0b502ff4b22_medium.jpg "Varanasi (Sanskrit: वाराणसी Vārāṇasī, Hindustani pronunciation: [ʋaːˈɾaːɳəsiː] ( listen)), also commonly known as Benares or Banaras (Hindi: बनारस, Urdu: بنارس, Banāras [bəˈnɑːɾəs] ( listen)) and Kashi (Hindi: काशी, Urdu: کاشی, Kāśī [ˈkaːʃiː] ( listen)), is a city situated on the left (west) bank of the River Ganga (Ganges) in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, regarded as holy by Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. It is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.")
![The Ravi (Hindi: रावी, Punjabi: راوی ਰਾਵੀ, Sanskrit: इरावती, परुष्णि, Urdu: راوی) is a river flowing through India and Pakistan. It is one of the five rivers which gives the Punjab region its name. The Ravi was known as Paruṣṇī or Irāvatī to Indians in Vedic period and as Hydraotes[citation needed] to the Ancient Greeks.](http://web.archive.org./web/20120610081259/http://cdn4.wn.com/pd/2a/2c/9f6a8f41e711c2bfa8128aacb3f9_medium.jpg "The Ravi (Hindi: रावी, Punjabi: راوی ਰਾਵੀ, Sanskrit: इरावती, परुष्णि, Urdu: راوی) is a river flowing through India and Pakistan. It is one of the five rivers which gives the Punjab region its name. The Ravi was known as Paruṣṇī or Irāvatī to Indians in Vedic period and as Hydraotes[citation needed] to the Ancient Greeks.")
