The general meaning of Āgama (Agama) is śāstra (sastra; scriptures), at least as it appears in the ślokas (sloka; verses) in Śāntiparva(Santiparva) of Mahābhārata (Mahabharata). These ślokas maintain that scholars all know that nobody has seen svarga (the heaven) or naraka (the hell). So those who work according to the thought of the other world, […]

There are fifty-one alphabets starting from a-kāra (a-kara) to kṣa (ksha)— a-kārādi-kṣa-kārāntaikapañcāśad varṅāḥ.  The Bṛhaspati (Brihaspati) smṛti (smriti) text says that the Creator churned the series of alphabets out of a machine— dhātrākṣarāṇi sṛṣṭāṇi yantrārūḍhānyataḥ purā. These alphabets are of five types, namely lithograph, artistic scripts, scripts written by pen, scripts produced by colour dust, and […]

Aśvatara (Aswatara) is an animal belonging to the horse family. Haricharan Bandyopadhyay has given it lexical meaning as ‘a horse with lesser horse-like qualities’. The hybrid creature born of the union of a she-horse and an ass, in called ‘aśvatara’ (khacchar, or mule). From Viṣṇupurāṇa (Vishnupurana) it is known that in the beginning of Tretāyuga, […]

A sage of a high level, – one who does not abide by the rules of varṇāśrama (varnasrama, the system of four varnas), who has not attachment to saṃsāra (samsara;the material world), who has a certain ‘what you will’ kind of orientation even towards the nature of vairāgya (vairagya; non attachment or reclusive renunciation), but […]

The eminent lexicon-editor Amarasiṁha (Amarasimha), in the Puravarga (Puravarga) of his Amarakoṣa (Amarakosha), has mentioned eḍūka (eduka), among several types of houses or abodes in a locality– bhittiḥ strī kuḍyameḍūkaṁ sadantaryastakīkasam. The term ‘kīkasa‘ means ‘last remains of the corpse’ or ‘asthi‘ (bone-dust). It is to be understood that the house in which the remains […]

The main and general meaning of Upāṁśu (Upamsu) indicates a kind of Mantrajapa (chanting of mantras or hymns). Upāṁśu (Upamsu) is also used as a conjunction to mean serenity- Upāṁśujarpabhede (Upamsujarpabhede) syād (syad) upāṁśu (upamsu) vijane’vyayam| In the Agni Purāṇa (Purana), it was said in the Mantraparibhāṣā (the text about the mantra or chants) that […]