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Showing posts with label sanskrit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sanskrit. Show all posts

Monday, January 07, 2013

6 Vices

Through the 5 years of my Sanskrit education, I scored very high in that subject, by pure mugging up. I did pick up parts of the language, but nowhere enough to be able to claim that I know it. I terribly repent it!

Parts of it have stuck with me. And that gives me the hope that probably someday...

Anyway, here's a sloka I remember from my school days:



षट् दोषाः पुरुषेन हातव्या भूतिमिच्छति .
निद्रा तन्द्रा भयं क्रोदः आलस्य दीर्घसूत्रता 

6 vices try to kill man: sleep, drowsiness, fear, anger, laziness, procrastination.

Probably sleep, drowsiness, laziness and procrastination are related and similar. The other 2 -- fear and anger -- are related too. Anger is often a display of deep fear and insecurity. As Master Yoda says:


"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."

That's all for now. See, sometimes, I too am capable to deal out small morsels of thoughts! But, do chew on it a bit please! ;)


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The meaning of 'quintessential'

I roughly knew the meaning of the word because I had heard it being used rather often. Today, I hit something interesting when I decided to look it up in dictionary.com.

Quintessential element is the fifth essential (quint for five) element of universe, which is ether. The other four are air, earth, water and fire.

What surprises me is the fact that the same set of objects are quoted in Indian text as the panchbhoota, or the five elements. It's not a trivial co-incidence again, if at all a co-incidence.

Anyone has any idea regarding the origins of this idea of elements in both latin and sanskrit scriptures?