Indica Today- Shastraas & Indic Knowledge

  Introduction In this series, Yogic terminologies will be taken up and their – Etymological analysis, Lexical descriptions and Textual occurrences in Yogic literature and their commentaries, as available, will be presented. And finally observations will be made on the references. Three texts – Yogasūtra , Haṭha-yoga-pradīpikā and Bhagavad-gītā are consulted for textual occurrences portion. Śabda-yoga is intended to help students, teachers, and professionals of Yoga to develop a sound grammatical, contextual, and thereby an authentic and immersive understanding of Yoga terminologies. List of Words The words that appear in the Yogasūtras will be sequentially dealt initially and then terms from other prominent Yoga texts will be taken up. Every śabda-yoga unit will analyze five terms. Three compound terms are taken for analysis in this part viz – abhāvapratyayālambanā, anubhūtaviṣayāsampramoṣaḥ, abhyāsavairāgyābhyām. These three compound terms yield six unique words for analysis in t...

  1. Who is Dakshinamurty ? There are many etymological derivations of the name ‘ Dakshinamurthy ’ which derive many great meanings of his name. Let’s begin this article with the meaning stated in Shruti. Upanishad says, Dakshina means buddhi (knowledge) through which Siva (who is Brahman)can be known. “shemushhii dakshiNaa proktaa saa yasyaabhiikshaNe mukham.h | dakshiNaabhimukhaH proktaH shivo.asau brahmavaadibhiH |” (Dakshinamurty Upanishad 19) “The word ‘Dakshinâ’ means Buddhi. Because Buddhi is the eye by which Siva can be directly seen, He is called Dakshinabhimtikha by the Brahma-vâdins”. Therefore Dakshinamurthy is verily the Shivagyanam / brahmagyanam which assumes a form as our preceptor, to gift himself to us. Therefore there is no difference between the lord and the divine knowledge! Lord Shiva is the parabrahman of Vedas and is essentially nirguNa. However he is the only one who assumes many names or forms and sports in this world. Each name of that Maheshwara is accom...