Re: Plurals in romanized mantra
hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté
śubhāśayāḥ
I wrote above,
If I say rāmaśca kṛṣṇaśca is it like saying ( in English) rāma & kṛṣṇa
Now one may ask ( I hope) how is this term rāmaśca or kṛṣṇaśca formed ?
Let’s look at one term (a noun) as it applies to both – rāmaśca. This term is rāmas ca. By the grammatical rules to be followed any time this ‘s’ at the end of rāmas associates\combines with a tālaya ‘belonging to throat and palate’ i.e. c , ch , j , jh , ñ or y , then a 'ś' is substituted for the ‘s’ when the words are combined i.e. rāmas + ca = rāmaśca or kṛṣṇas + ca = kṛṣṇaśca.
If I keep the terms apart then another rule (as you would expect) applies and the final ‘s’ becomes ‘ḥ’ or visargaḥ. Hence rāmas ca = rāmaḥ ca and kṛṣṇas ca = kṛṣṇaḥ ca.
Let’s do one more rule that is in the same vein... many see this: namaḥ śivaya. What if I wanted to combine the two terms? Well, namaḥ is really namas. So we are combining namas+śivaya the following occurs: namaśśivaya. Hence the rule is when a final ‘s’ associates with tālaya ‘belonging to throat and palate’ c , ch , j , jh , ñ or y , and ś then that final ‘s’ is converted to ‘ś’ just like in this example namaśśivaya. If the two terms are kept separate then it is namaḥ śivaya.
But what if this final ‘s’ associates\associated with a mūrdhanya ‘ formed at the roof or top of the palate ( with the tongue) ’ some call cerebrals ? i.e. ṛ , ṝ , ṭ , ṭh , ḍ , ḍh , ṇ , r , ṣ , then what? Another set of rules. the final ‘s’ becomes ‘ṣ’ and a whole other list of examples.
One quickly finds that saṃskṛtam & its written script of devanāgarī is very much a disciplined , rules driven , structured language. Why mention this? It does the same to the student.
इतिशिवं
iti śivaṁ
यतस्त्वं शिवसमोऽसि
yatastvaṁ śivasamo'si
because you are identical with śiva
_
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