The time of the wise and the foolish - काव्यशास्त्रविनोदेन

The time of the wise passes by entertainment with arts and sciences.
That of the foolish goes by troubles, sleep or quarrel.

kAvya-shAstra-vinodena kAlo gachchhati dhiimatAm |
vyasanena cha muurkhANam nidrayA kalahena vA ||

काव्यशास्त्रविनोदेन कालो गच्छति धीमताम् ।
व्यसनेन  च  मूर्खाणां  निद्रया  कलहेन  वा ।।

Moving forward with the story of Hitopadeśha, King Sudarśhana was pondering the role of parents in a child’s education, welfare, and growth.

Thinking about the importance of education and worldly wisdom for the future kings—his sons—the worried king called a meeting of the wise. There he said:

"O great wise men, listen. Is there any wise man here who, by teaching nīti-śhāstra (polity, people management, worldly wisdom, administration), can give rebirth to my sons—my sons who are always on the wrong path and have not studied properly? Because even glass acquires the shining colors of precious stones by being near them, and the ignorant learn in the company of the learned. In the company of lower minds, the thinking goes low; with similar minds, it remains level; and with the wise, it becomes better!"

Then, a very famous and wise old man named Viṣhṇuśharmā, an expert authority in nīti-śhāstra, said:

"Your sons are of a good lineage, and investing effort and time in them will not be fruitless. For investing in the unworthy is fruitless—just as no amount of effort can make a crane talk like a parrot. In this family of yours, I do not see any worthless person. In six months, I shall make your sons experts in nīti-śhāstra (polity, people management, worldly wisdom, administration)."

(In the Pañchatantra, he even throws a challenge that if he fails, he should be beheaded or have his name changed. He even declines the payment of a hundred villages for his teachings, saying that he does not sell knowledge but will do it for the good of the kingdom.)

Then he took them to the top of the palace, and after sitting comfortably, he said to the princes:

"The time of the wise passes by in entertainment with arts and sciences.

That of the foolish goes by in troubles, sleep, or quarrel.

Let me tell you the interesting story of the crow, turtle, etc., for your entertainment."

And the princes said: "Sir, please do tell."

The princes had been wasting their time and intellect in useless idling and following the wrong paths. Who can stop them but themselves? Youth, fame, power, and thoughtlessness—each is enough for disaster, and they had all four!

But time is money, time is life, and once gone, time never comes back. In the very long run, time is cyclic, but not within our perceptible range. The foolish waste their time with bad habits or a lack of wisdom that gets them into trouble. Laziness or petty quarrels eat up their time. The foolish waste their time, and those who waste their time become or remain foolish. It is a vicious cycle.

Think about it. How often have you tried to save your time by avoiding useless arguments, ego bruises, showing off, gossiping, or simply lazing around beyond the point of refreshment? You are being tāmasika—inert, not alive. And how many times have you gotten into trouble because of not doing the small, right things that you most probably knew but ignored, taking the easy way out?

Entertainment through arts and sciences! It is not boring—it is entertainment! It is not work—it is fun, your very own nature to know. For example, some people watch The Jerry Springer Show on TV, while others check out TED.com online.

One who is wise loves to enrich themselves through learning and experiencing new things. And one who does this becomes wise. It is a good cycle. Don’t look at learning as a burden or boredom, for all of life is learning. Approach it as a good habit.

Reading is so widely stressed by every government—literacy rates! But after learning how to read, we also need to know what to read. Of course, there will be all grades of literature available, just as there are all types of readers! From playboys to playwrights! From philo-sophie to philosophy!

Here, the words used are kāvya and śhāstra. Most translations do injustice to them by rendering them as “poetry” and “scripture.” Kavi is not just a poet or wordsmith but a seer, a visionary—one who sees all and says all. Kāvya is the output of a kavi. In a stricter sense, kāvya belongs to literature, while kalā refers to the arts. But all artists are kavi in that they see beyond the obvious and create visions through their art—be it dance, painting, music, design, sculpture, etc.

Śhāstra is certainly science—a field of study—and not just “scriptures,” which has a heavy religious connotation. A wise person is not one who simply reads religious texts, for life on this earth is about more than just that. Both are important. Any formal field of study is called a śhāstra, akin to “-logy” in modern terms.

Do some study every day. Grow old while learning. You are never too old to learn.

---

And now the language aspects of the shloka -

kAvya-shAstra-vinodena = काव्यशास्त्रविनोदेन = by entertainment with arts and sciences
kAvya = poetry (arts)
shAstra = sciences
vinoda = entertainment
vinodena = by entertainment

kAlo = कालो = time
kAlaH = time (-aH becomes -o due to sandhi rules)

gachchhati = गच्छति = goes

dhiimatAm = धीमताम् = of the wise

vyasanena = व्यसनेन = by troubles
vyasana = troubles, difficult times, bad habits (that give troubles)

cha = च = and

muurkhANam = मूर्खाणां = of the foolish
muurkhaH = foolish

nidrayA = निद्रया = by sleep
nidrA = sleep

kalahena = कलहेन = by quarrel
kalah = quarrel

vA = वा = or




(c) Shashikant Joshi । शशिकांत जोशी । ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः ।

https://PracticalSanskrit.com/

https://facebook.com/PracticalSanskrit  

Meet the alphabet - letters and vowels i and ii

Continuing with the vowel series, here are the short and long 'i' vowels.

The short sound is 'i' and sounds like 'i' of ink, think, sing etc.
It is said for 1 unit of time. The longer vowel, or diirgha is said for 2 units of sounds (represented in ITRANS as ee, ii, or I). The longer vowel for 3 units is not used in classical spoken Sanskrit, and is only used in Vedic chants, and is denoted by i3, the 3 denoting 3 units of time. malayAlam for one, has longer vowels as well, so I am told.

 

Writing i and ii is easy (see below). It is like an 'S' hanging from a stalk. But, the bottom of the S has one more curved 'knot', without which it would be the consonant 'D' sound.

  

The word 'i', or the verb root 'i' means - to go, to go near. the verb forms go like
एति इतः यन्ति (eti, itaH, yanti)
एषि इथः इथ (eShi ithaH itha)
एमि इवः इमः (emi ivaH imaH)
e.g. निर्बुद्धिः क्षयं एति  nirbuddhiH (mindless) kShayam (to ruin) eti (goes)

Role of parents in child's education - मातृपितृकृताभ्यासो

The child taught by mother and father becomes qualified.
The child doesn't become learned just by being born.

mAtRi-pitRi-kRitAbhyAso guNitAm_eti bAlakaH |
na garbha-chyuti-mAtreNa putro bhavati paNDitaH ||
hitopadeshH - preface 28

मातृपितृकृताभ्यासो गुणितामेति बालकः ।
न गर्भच्युतिमात्रेण पुत्रो भवति पण्डितः ।।

Indian parents put a lot of stress on education—whatever they can afford, or sometimes even what they cannot afford. This has given Indians an edge almost everywhere they go for higher studies. As the saying goes, "a king is respected only in his own kingdom, but the wise are respected everywhere." To the point that even President Obama urged the US to focus on education. This is also seen in many Asian cultures, where Indian parents support even their child’s college education.

While in the US, I saw many undergraduate students taking all sorts of odd jobs on campus to support themselves, and sometimes it did impact their studies. It is also true that higher education in the US has become exorbitantly expensive for the average Joe.

Continuing from the last post, where King Sudarśhana ponders the pros and cons of hard work and education, here is another śhloka that signifies the role of parents and education in a child's success.

As we have seen in the opening śhlokas of Hitopadeśha, they stress the importance of education and how it nurtures and makes a person worthy in society. Here, we see the role of parents in making a child qualified, worthy, and successful in society.

Merely being born is not enough. A human child is born much before it is ready to survive on its own. Most other animals come into life ready to fight and survive, both oviparous and viviparous. A giraffe baby stands within minutes and trots in a few more! Immediately after hatching, a chick starts to run fast enough to give you a good workout trying to catch it. The parental support required is very little in most animals.

But a human baby needs support, guidance, and help in every aspect of life for a considerable duration. Be it eating, walking, talking, learning skills, or being dropped off for soccer or violin practice—the mother plays a critical role in the beginning (including soccer moms!). Anthropologists say that language was most probably developed by women because while men had to work silently on the hunt, women back in the cave or home would talk with their children and other women to pass the time. There is a reason why it is called "mother tongue."

The mother tells who the father is, the father shows the guru, and the guru shows the divine (God). Hence, this is the sequence in which they are held in reverence. This is also the sequence in which they are important in a person's life. A baby only cares for the mother, a growing child starts to look up to the father, school kids think their parents know nothing compared to their teachers, and once beyond the guidance of a teacher, somewhere along the way, we realize the importance of the divine—when the understanding grows to comprehend the supreme spectacle of all, the glory of the manifest and unmanifest.

So, it is not enough to just take birth. By birth, we are just like animals—food, sleep, fear, and procreation. And after this śhloka, comes another: "A mother who does not educate her child is an enemy, and a father is a competitor."

While it is true that children are like arrows shot from a bow, and we cannot control them (Khalil Gibran), nor should we even try to, it is the paramount duty of parents to make every effort to give the child skills to survive and education to succeed in this world. Parents have the greatest influence on a child.

When parents do this as their duty, children see it and reciprocate with respect and care. Children don’t listen to you; they watch you. How you live is more important than what you say. When parents do this with a sense of burden—worrying about their economic security in old age, their privacy, and their "free will"—children sense it too. And when they grow up, they start looking for glossy brochures of senior homes.

The role of a parent is critical in a child's development—genes at the physical level, education, environment, and care at the mental level.

Don't neglect your children's welfare.

---

And now the language aspects of the shloka -

mAtRi-pitRi-kRitAbhyAso =
abhyAsaH = practice, study, training
kRita = done
mAtRi = mother
pitRi = father
kRita-abhyAsaH = who has done abhyAsa
mAtRi-pitRi-kRitAbhyAsaH = one who has been taught, trained, educated (even indirectly) by the mother and father

guNitAm_eti =
guNa = virtue, qualification, skill, etc
guNitAm = learned
eti = goes towards
i.e. goes towards the state of being qualified

bAlakaH = boy, child (for today's inclusive context)

na = not
garbha-chyuti-mAtreNa = merely by coming out of the womb
garbha = womb
chyut = displaced, fallen
achyuta = not fallen, displaced, hence unblemished, name of kRiShNa
chyuti = displacement, fall
mAtra = mere, only
mAtreNa = by merely (-eNa suffix, karaNa 3rd vibhakti)

putro = putraH = son, child
bhavati = becomes, happens
paNDitaH = learned

trailing -aH becomes -o due to sandhi.
so, 'putraH bhavati' becomes 'putro bhavati'

(c) Shashikant Joshi । शशिकांत जोशी । ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः ।

https://PracticalSanskrit.com/

https://facebook.com/PracticalSanskrit  

Writing Sanskrit vowels and symbols

A short post, about a video on writing Sanskrit vowels, and some experiments with chisel tip pen.

Om!
In the above writing, I have tried to create the effect as if the character is created using a strip of ribbon.

Om!



Above:
Shiva's third eye.
While playing around with the chisel tip pen, stumbled upon this visual.

The two 'normal' eyes are for the physical world - sun and moon. The third, vertical eye is the 'fire', fire of knowledge, that burns away all ignorance, pain, arrogance, attachment.

We all are equipped with it, it is for us to realize and use this third eye.

(c) Shashikant Joshi । शशिकांत जोशी । ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः ।

https://PracticalSanskrit.com/

https://facebook.com/PracticalSanskrit  

Meet the alphabet - the letter aa - आ

This is the second letter of the alphabet.

It is a long sound, similar to the 'a' of father, or hard.

A long vowel is called 'diirgha' (meaning long), and is said for two units of sounds. The short vowel being one unit of time. When counting the timing of a verse based on vowels, the short vowel is called 'laghu' (short), and long one is called 'guru' (heavy, more (in duration)). In chanting, or non-conversational speaking, there is a third longer vowel also, but that is not part of normal words used for conversation.

It is written in roman characters in ITRANS format as 'aa' or 'A' (single character to keep word length short and for readability). The use of a single character for a single sound is key to Sanskrit alphabet, and gives rise to some seeming complicated 'conjugate' letters, which are combinations of consonants. More on that much later when we talk about consonants.


The 'a' (short) and 'aa' (long) sounds have to be clearly understood. As mentioned in previous post on 'a', the confusion between the two can cause meaning difference of earth and sky, black and white. A suffix of -aa is the most common way of making the feminine form of the word.
E.g.
kRiShNa = lord kRiShna; kRiShNaa = draupadii (wife of the pAnDavas, daughter of drupada)
drupada = king of pA~nchAla; drupadaa = (of drupada), his daughter
jalada = jala+da = cloud; jaladaa = jala+daa = river
shiva = lord shiva, mahesha; shivaa = durgA, pArvatI, devI, shaktI

This happens mostly in the trailing sound. 'a' and 'aa' sounds in between a word are usually always pronounced correctly.

Meet the alphabet - the letter a - अ

The Sanskrit language's alphabet is very scientifically arranged. It shows the deep understanding of linguistics as early as 500 BCE (pANini's time) but the alphabet might have been in this order even in Vedic times, which might push it another 1-2 thousand years back, conservatively. We will see its arrangement in later posts. Check this

The letter 'a' is pronounced like 'u' of but, cut, shut etc.
In a word, the trailing sound of 'a' causes a lot of confusion in modern times. If it is not stressed enough, it sounds like a consonant without the vowel, like many English words put, cut, but etc. The lack of stress on trailing 't' is what would be called a 'halant' or vowel-less consonant sound.

When it is stressed, usually it ends up sounding like 'aa'.
E.g. yoga is pronounced erroneously like yogaa, whereas it is somewhat like "yo-g-uh" (NOT yogurt, but yogurt without the 'rt' sound!)

This confusion gives rise to errors of saying shiva as shivaa (pArvatI), brahma (brahman, the supreme unmanifest) as brahmaa (the creator, the manifest), drupada (the king) as drupadaa (his daughter), kRiShNa (the cowherd) as kRiShNaa (draupadI). gaNesha is pronounced as gaNeshaa. The 'sha' and 'ga' have exactly same vowel pronunciation, but mostly in English it is pronounced as 'ga' and 'shaa'. avoid such errors.

'a' is also a word in itself. The word 'a' (just the vowel), implies viShNu.

अकारो विष्णुरुद्दिष्ट उकारस्तु महेश्वरः ।
मकारस्तु स्मृतो ब्रह्मा, प्रणवस्तु त्रयात्मकः ॥ 

a-kāraḥ viṣhṇuḥ uddiṣhṭaḥ, u-kāraḥ tu mahéshvaraḥ |

makāraḥ tu smṛitaḥ brahmā, praṇavaḥ tu trayātmakaḥ || (IAST) 

a-kAraH viShNuH uddiShTaH, u-kAraH tu maheshwaraH |

makAraH tu smRitaH brahmA, praNavaH tu trayAtmakaH || (ITRANS)

The sacred 'om' is made up of a+u+m [a + u = o] and
a stands for viShNu
u stands for maheshwara (shiva)
m stands for brahmaa.
thus praNava (om) is trifold.

[The comments about the letter style is shown in handwriting]

Shiva - the lord of lords

om tryambakam yajAmahe, sugandhim puShTi_vardhanam |
urvArukamiva bandhanAt, mRityor_mukShIya mAmRitAt ||
rigveda - 7.59.12

we meditate to the three-eyed, (like) fragrance, the nourisher |
give us liberation from death like a (ripe) cucumber, not from immortality ||


i will keep the post short, since it is very easy to write pages and pages on shiva, and not even make a start!

tryamabakam = tri (three) + ambakam (eye)
it is NOT triambakam, lingustic rules make the i+a = y. that is why the vowels are a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y. because y is made of i + a

the three eyes of shiva are sun, moon and fire (see next shloka). the sun and moon are the day and night, the physical world being watched, caused by shiva, and the third, the fire or knowledge is the inner sight. this fire of knowledge is what burns down desire, kAmadeva. this third eye of fire of knowledge burns all sins, and removes all darkness of inside.

sugandhim = fragrance
shiva is as subtle as fragrance, and without being seen, pervades all that is there.

puShTi-vardhanam = puShTi (nourishing, health) + vardhanam (one who increases)
shiva is the raw nature, all his symbols are about time and growth. shiva is the energy that nourishes all.

urvArukamiva = urvArukam (cucumber) + iva (like)
bandhanAt = from bondage (bandhanam)
mRityoH = of death
mukShIya = liberate me

like a cucumber, here the reference is to a ripe cucumber, which separates from the vine very easily. compared to an unripe one which you can tug and tug and even break the vine but not separate the cucumber.

this is symbolic of our attachment to this world. unless we ripen, mature, grow out of the attachments of this mortal world, the death, separation can't be easy.

some explanations say that urvArukamiva = from great disease.
the break up given is urvaa = huge, arukam = disease
this is completely wrong, and is an axample of how, when we get carried away in 'devotion', we start creating new explanations, which are not even warranted from the words.

for it to be 'big disease' it has to UrvA not urvA (short u at beginning). and then how do you explain the 'iva' (like)?

this is a very ancient mantra of shiva, appearing in rig-veda, the earliest extant large volume works of humanity, and verily prized possession of the aryans. this itself should disprove all the aryan invasion theories, since if the aryans really invaded from outside, why would they hold shiva, the 'pagan', 'local' god, in such high esteem? (couldn't help that side remark : ) aryan invasion or migration into india is purely a colonial distraction.

No substitute for hard work - उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि

as a chariot (cart) can't move with one wheel, similarly, without hard work destiny doesn't bring fruit.

यथा ह्येकेन चक्रेण न रथस्य गतिर्भवेत् ।
एवं पुरुषकारेण विना दैवं न सिध्यति ।। 23

yathA hyekena chakreNa na rathasya gatir_bhavet |
evam puruSha_kAreNa vinA daivam na sidhyati ||

---

even if by sheer luck, a treasure is seen lying in front, (as kAka-tAlIya nyAya), destiny doesn't give it in hand, some effort (of picking it up) is (still) expected.

काकतालीयवत्प्राप्तं दृष्ट्वापि निधिमग्रतः ।
न स्वयं दैवमादत्ते पुरुषार्थमपेक्षते ।। 26

kAka-tAlIya_vat-prAptam dRiShTvApi nidhim_agrataH |
na svayam daivam_Adatte puruShArtham_apekShate ||

---

work gets accomplished by effort, industry, not merely by wishing. the animals don't enter a sleeping lion's mouth.

उद्यमेन हि सिध्यन्ति कार्याणि न मनोरथैः ।
न हि सुप्तस्य सिंहस्य प्रविशन्ति मुखे मृगाः ।। 27

udyamena hi sidhyanti kAryANi na manorathaiH |
na hi suptasya siMhasya pravishanti mukhe mRigAH ||


in this post we will consider three shlokas, that are all related, to the role of fate and hard work. they appear in hitopadeshaH kathArambham (introduction).

while king sudarshan, strolling on the river bank, pondered upon the two shlokas he heard, and the state of his sons, he was indeed worried. good education is important, and education, dharma, proper thinking is what makes us different from animals. [see previous shlokas from the story here]

and then the other side of rationalizing thoughts popped up in his head. it happens to us all. we know what is right, and then a set of 'arguments' starts cropping up, supporting the easy way out!