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Ale
23 September 2017, 05:21 AM
Hello, I have a doubt a little detail in pronounciation of Durga mantra.
Is it " om dum durgayei namaha" or "om dum durgaye namaha"?

Thanks.

Jainarayan
28 September 2017, 01:11 PM
Hello, I have a doubt a little detail in pronounciation of Durga mantra.
Is it " om dum durgayei namaha" or "om dum durgaye namaha"?

Thanks.

Namaste...

I'm going to say it's neither. The inflection for the feminine singular dative case ("to" or "for") for a-stem nouns is -āyai, the 'ai' pronounced eye or I.

So I'm going to say it's Durgāyai. I think 'dum' is pronounced doom. Then it would be om doom durgāyai namaḥ. However, if dum is a bija, a seed syllable, unless initiated I personally would not use it. I'd use om srī durgāyai namaḥ

For names like Lakshmī and Saraswatī ending in long i, we have Lakshmyāi and Saraswatyāi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit_grammar#a-stems
http://sanskrit.inria.fr/cgi-bin/SKT/sktdeclin?lex=SH&q=durgaa&t=VH&g=Fem&font=roma
http://sanskrit.inria.fr/cgi-bin/SKT/sktdeclin?lex=SH&q=lakshmi&t=VH&g=Fem&font=roma I don't know why there are two forms of the dative (to/for), ablative (from/away), genitive (of) and locative (near, location). It's not Vedic Sanskrit afaik. I'll bet Yajvan knows. ;)

I hope that helped and didn't confuse you beyond all hope.

Ale
29 September 2017, 08:40 AM
Hello Jaynarayan, thanks. Yes I'm a bit confused too. Maybe the ones containing beej syllabe (in this case dum/doom) belong to agamic/tantric tradition. The same pattern repeats with Ganesha mantra:

Tantric: om gam ganapataye namaha.
Vedic: om sri ganeshaya namaha.

It seems in vedic sanscrit, the beej syllabe is replaced by "sri" and the "ye" is changed to "ya".
I'm interested in using the one containing beej syllabe, as it is said that beej posesses a lot of condensed power in it. I've also read that beej syllabes (like: joom, hroum, kleem, hreem, gam, doom, etc) end in anusvara pronunciation. So the final "M" shouldn't be pronouned by closing the mouth but pressing the tounge against the posterior part of the palate in order to close the throat cavity and get a more nasal sound. I'd like if yajvan or someone who understands about this can clarify.

Jainarayan
03 October 2017, 09:41 AM
Namaste...




Tantric: om gam ganapataye namaha.
Vedic: om sri ganeshaya namaha.

It seems in vedic sanscrit, the beej syllabe is replaced by "sri" and the "ye" is changed to "ya".

No, that's an effect of Sanskrit inflection. Masculine singular nouns ending in -a (short a) take āya in the dative case... Krishnāya, Rāmāya, Shivāya, Ganeshāya,Indrāya.Masculine singular nouns ending in -i (short i) take in the dative case.

Sri is an honorific. The mantras could easily be om ganeshāya namo namaha, om ganeshāya namaha (without the sri honorific) and/or om sri ganapataye namaha.

Unfortunately I don't know how to inflect 'Hanuman', 'Bhagavan', 'Brahman' or other -n stem nouns. Someone else here will know that.

I personally would not use a beej syllable unless instructed or initiated by a guru.