Sanskrit Language - Literary or Scientific

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 1
Sanskrit Language – Literary or Scientific?
September 2017
ॐ सह नाववतु। सह नौ भुनक्तु। सह वीर्यं करवावहै।
तेजस्वव नावधीतमवतु | मा ववद्ववषावहै।
ॐ शास््तिः शास््तिः शास््तिः ||
Most of us know the above mantra from our primary school days – it used to be our prayer.
In secondary school, we were told that the prayer is in a language called ‘Sanskrit’. Some of
us also studied the subject of Sanskrit. To us, Sanskrit was a language and languages fell
under the broad category of ‘arts’, unlike mathematics and science which fell under the
broad category of ‘science’. The demarcation between languages and sciences was made
clear from a very early age in our life. As a result, our perspective towards languages was
completely different than that towards science and maths.
To us, languages contained
 lessons – some of which were from popular novels, short stories by well-known
authors
 poems – most of them had meanings deeper than what you would interpret in first
pass
 essay writing – which required a lot of imaginative power and creative abilities
 some grammar – the conjugations etc. we were expected to mug up
As oppose to that, science and maths subjects contained
 problems – to be solved using formulae
 proofs – to be derived at based on the known concepts
 constructions – to be done based on the known rules
 creation of compounds from base elements, understanding the precision involved in
concepts and principles etc.
Thus, in general, languages were considered descriptive whereas science and maths were
considered prescriptive. As a result, we always associated languages with literature and our
emphasis while studying languages was on literary nature of the languages.
Learning languages from only the literary perspective is fine as most natural (or human)
languages of the world are developed for that very purpose and because of their structure,
grammar, vocabulary, constructs etc., it is impossible to convert them into scientific
languages. While this may be true to a great extent for most of the languages of the
world, Sanskrit is an exception. Sanskrit is not only a literary language but is also a

scientific language. Here I have tried to bring out Sanskrit language’s some of the
interesting characteristics as a literary language as well as a scientific language.
Literary Language v/s Scientific Language
Let us briefly understand the differences between a literary language and a scientific
language.
1. First, the two types of languages focus on different aspects of meaning. Scientific
language depends on denotation while literary language depends on connotation.
Denotation implies precision whereas connotation implies implied meaning.
Denotation means a direct specific meaning as distinct from an implied idea where
as connotation means suggesting of a meaning apart from the thing it explicitly
names or describes.
2. Second, the purposes for using these two kinds of languages are different. The
purpose for using scientific language is practical. In other words, a scientific
language is used for describing the physical world. But the purpose for using a
literary language is to share the author's emotion, attitude and feeling.
3. Third, they are different in form. When we use a scientific language, we need not to
create an aesthetic experience. But when we use a literary language, we have to pay
attention to the choice of words and the sentence order. Poem is a typical example.
The question arises that if literary languages and scientific languages are so different in
nature, how can a language, any language, be both – literary and scientific –
simultaneously? Well, believe it or not, this IS true for Sanskrit and that is the beauty of the
language which was designed thousands of years ago.
We will first look at the literary aspect of Sanskrit followed by scientific aspects. However,
before we get into those details, it is important to know about the history of Sanskrit in
brief.
Brief History of Sanskrit
The word संवकृ त means polished or refined.
As we know, the Vedas are composed in Sanskrit. The earliest Sanskrit work is the Rig Veda,
which was probably composed around 2000 B.C. However, it was subsequently continued
from generation to generation by oral tradition. Sanskrit used to compose Vedas is Vedic
Sanskrit.
Language changes with passage of time. For instance, it is difficult to understand
Shakespeare's plays today without a good commentary because Shakespeare wrote them in
the 16th
Century A.D. and since then the English language has significantly changed. Many of

the words and expressions which were in vogue in Shakespeare's time are no longer in
vogue today. Hence we cannot understand Shakespeare's plays today without a good
commentary.
Similarly, the Sanskrit language kept changing from around 2000 B.C. when the Rig Veda
was composed to about 500 B.C. i.e. for about 1500 years. In the 5th
Century B.C., the great
scholar Panini, who was perhaps the greatest grammarian the world has ever seen, wrote
his great book Ashtadhyayi (book of eight chapters). In this book, Panini fixed the rules of
Sanskrit, and thereafter no further changes in Sanskrit were permitted except slight changes
made by two other great grammarians, namely, Katyayana who wrote his book called
Vartika, and Patanjali who wrote his commentary on the Ashtadhyayi called the
Mahabhashya. Except for the slight changes by these two subsequent grammarians,
Sanskrit as it exists today is really Panini's Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit.
It is important to note that Vedic Sanskrit is quite different from the Classical Sanskrit.
This article refers to Classical Sanskrit, and not Vedic Sanskrit.
Sanskrit from Literary Perspective
There is a misconception about the Sanskrit language that it is mainly a language for
chanting mantras and stotras. However, that is less than 5% of the total Sanskrit literature.
More than 95% of the Sanskrit literature has nothing to do with religion, and instead it deals
with philosophy, law, science, literature, grammar, phonetics, interpretation etc.
Sanskrit was the language of our philosophers, our scientists, our mathematicians, our poets
and playwrights, our grammarians, our jurists, etc.
 In grammar, Panini and Patanjali have no equals in the world.
 In astronomy and mathematics, the works of Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta and Bhaskar
opened up new frontiers for mankind.
 In medicine, the works of Charak and Sushrut talks not only about how to maintain a
good health for long life but also about how to perform a surgery.
 In philosophy, Gautam (founder of the Nyaya system), Ashvaghosha (author of
Buddha Charita), Kapila (founder of the Sankhya system), Shankaracharya etc.
present the widest range of philosophical systems the world has ever seen - from
deeply religious to strongly atheistic.
 Jaimini's Mimansa Sutras laid the foundation of a whole system of rational
interpretation of texts which was used not only in religion but also in law,
philosophy, grammar, etc.
 In literature, the contribution of Sanskrit is of the foremost order. The works of
Kalidas (Shakuntal, Meghdoot, Malavikagnimitram, Raghuvansh, Kumarsambhav
etc.), Bhavabhuti (Malti Madhav, Uttar Ramcharit, etc.) and the epics of Valmiki,
Vyas etc. are known all over the world.

The Sanskrit word for poet is कवव, which means a wise person. The earliest poet was Valmiki
who composed Ramayan. Valmiki was the first poet, आदि कवव. The story goes that the
sage Valmiki went to the banks of the river Tamasa to have a bath. A couple of curlews
(क्रौंच) were making love. Along came a hunter and shot down the male curlew. The female
curlew lamented at this. Valmiki was stirred by compassion and wanted to curse the hunter.
However, this curse got transformed into the first couplet ever, in a metre (छ्ि) known as
अनुष्टुप् which is used in lots of places in Sanskrit literature including the Ramayana and the
Mahabharata.
मा ननषाि प्रनतष््ां त्वमगमिः शाश्वतीिः समािः।
र्यत्क्रौंचममथुनािेकमवधीिः काममोदहतम ्॥
“O hunter! Since you have slain one of two curlews when they were
engaged in an act of love, you will obtain ill-fame for an
eternity.”
Sanskrit literature started to flourish during what is called the classical period, around 3rd
century B.C. onwards.
 There were great playwrights like Shudraka, Bhasa, Ashvaghosa and Kalidasa. There
was a famous text known as Natya Shastra, a treatise on stagecraft.
 There were collections of popular tales, like Panchatantra and Hitopadesha.
 There was poetry by Kalidasa, Bharavi, Magha and Sriharsha.
 There were authors like Banabhatta, Vatsyayana and Bhartihari.
Appendix A lists a few interesting anecdotes and shlokas which bring out the power of
Sanskrit mainly from the literary perspective. Now let us look at the same language from
the scientific perspective.
Sanskrit from Scientific Perspective
Typically scientific languages are languages for computer programming, languages defined
to denote mathematical equations etc.
Some characteristics of a scientific language are:
 Adherence to syntax: They need to strictly adhere to the syntax in order for the
computer to understand.
 No ambiguity: There is absolutely no scope for ambiguity. One has to be able to
convey exactly what one means.

 Generative nature: One should be able to build on the created constructs
(subroutines in a programming language or x denoting a large formula in a
mathematical function)
The above characteristics are mainly pertaining to written languages. For spoken languages,
yet another important characteristic is phonetics – the speech sound and all related
aspects.
It is very easy to comprehend these characteristics in the context of a programming or
mathematical language. But how can a natural language have these characteristics?
Let’s look at some of the important characteristics of Sanskrit and it will be clear that
Sanskrit is a scientific language too! 
1. Adherence to Syntax
As mentioned earlier, Sanskrit as it exists today is Panini's Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit.
What exactly did Panini do?
Well, he studied the existing Sanskrit language in his time and then refined, purified and
systematized it so as to make it a language of great logic, precision and elegance. He
formalized the Sanskrit grammar as it existed then. He described the complete
language as a set of rules in Ashtadhyayi with the dictionary (or lexicon) listed in
Dhatupath for verbs and Ganapath for nouns. Thus Panini made Sanskrit a highly
developed and powerful vehicle of expression in which ideas could be expressed with
great precision and clarity. He elegantly defined all the rules of the vast Sanskrit
grammar in just 4000 sutras, 2000 verbal stems in Dhatupath, and 1500 nominal stems
in Ganapath. As a result, Sanskrit can be very effectively used for Machine Translation in
the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
2. Inflection
Human language is highly ambiguous. The ambiguity multiplies primarily because of the
ambiguities of word meanings on their own, in association with another word in a
phrase, and in association with verbs and other words in a sentence.
For example, in the sentence “He saw the crane fly outside”, one might be referring to
the crane fly (a long-legged, two-winged fly) or to a bird known as a crane, flying.
Another example is "That leopard was spotted." Is spotted used as an adjective for the
leopard or it refers to the action of spotting the leopard?

Sanskrit is a highly inflected language (as oppose to English which is a lightly inflected
language). Inflection is the modification of a word to express different grammatical
categories (tense, mood, voice, person, number, gender, case etc.). As a result, in
Sanskrit, each word is self-contained – the word-inflection provides all the required
information regarding the part of speech, gender, person, number, case, tense etc. As a
consequence of highly inflected nature of Sanskrit,
 Word order in a sentence is not grammatically important.
 The ambiguities arising out of word order, part of speech, association with other
words do not exist.
 It is a language without prepositions thereby altogether avoiding one major
cause for ambiguities.
 Sanskrit has the power to say a sentence in a minimum number of words than
any other language.
 It could be very effectively used for Knowledge Representation in the field of
Artificial Intelligence (AI).
3. Phonetics
Phonetics deal with the study and knowledge of speech sounds. There is a complete
branch of linguistics in Sanskrit known as Shiksha Shastra which deals with the phonetics
aspects of the language.
No language in the world is so advanced in terms of phonetics as Sanskrit.
 Sanskrit language has 13 vowels and 34 consonants and these alphabets
(वर्णमाला) are arranged in a rational and systematic manner. Our ancestors
went into amazing levels of details for this seemingly simple matter of arranging
alphabets. (For details, please refer to Appendix B)
 There is exactly one sound for each alphabet symbol. (For ex., in English, letter
‘C’ is sometimes pronounced as ‘K’ (as in cat), sometimes as ‘S’ (as in race) and so
on).
 There is a concept of duration (मात्रा) for which a syllable is to be uttered – हृवव
for one time period, िीर्ण for two time periods and प्लुत for three time period. It
is said that the crowing sound of rooster in early morning clearly indicate these
three durations!
 In addition to वर्ण and मात्रा, Sanskrit phonetics is defined in terms of ववर, बल,
साम, and संतान and the pronunciation of words changes based on these
parameters.

In fact, utterance and pronunciation are so important in Sanskrit that small changes
could change the complete meaning of the message. This is beautifully explained in the
following shloka.
चचता चचंता समाह्र्युक्ता बब्िुमात्रववशेषता ।
सजीवं िहते चचंता ननजीवं िहते चचता ॥
“The difference in the words चचता and चचंता is only that of an
अनुववार. चचंता burns a living person where as चचता (pyre) burns a
dead body.”
This extremely powerful, rich, and highly developed Shiksha Shastra of Sanskrit is very
useful in Speech Synthesis & Recognition in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
4. Morphology
Morphology is the study and description of how words are formed in a language. It is
the knowledge about generating meaningful words from stems. In Sanskrit, this is
known as Pada Vyutpatti. Sanskrit is extremely systematic and logical in describing word
generation.
In Sanskrit, a word is called Pada. Pada could have a nominal stem (based on
Ganapatha) or verbal stem (based on Dhatupath). The method for generating words is
explained step-by-step in Panini's Ashtadyayi like a mathematical equation. Panini
describes algorithms to be applied to stems for the generation of well-formed words and
sentences.
To give an example, there is a verbal stem कृ which means to do. From this stem, there
are many derived words such as करोनत, कु र्याणत ्, कार्यण, संवकृ त, संवकार, कमण, कृ त्वा,
अकमण and so on. And there are mathematics-type rules in Ashtadhyayi using which we
can precisely derive these words. In other words, there is a set of stems (2000 for verbs
and 1500 for nouns) and there is a set of rules. Using the stems as the input to these
rules, innumerable words can be generated – manually as well as using a computer
program. Also, there are well-defined rules to combine two or more words to generate
more words.
While the rules are mathematical in nature, the output (or results) produced by these
rules is the key to the richness of Sanskrit literature!! We could say that it is the

scientific nature of the language which has significantly contributed to making the
Sanskrit literature so rich, elegant and beautiful!!! 
Conclusion
Sanskrit is a great wonder and it is a great heritage. It is as much a literary language as it is
a scientific language. It can be used and has been effectively used to create prose, poetry,
literature, mantras and it can also be effectively used in the field of computer science for
applications in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Speech Recognition, Knowledge Representation,
Machine Translation (MT), Natural Language Processing (NLP) etc. For this, we need the
expertise of Sanskrit language as well as computer programming.
Sanskrit is the only language, which uses all the nerves of the tongue. By its pronunciation,
energy points in the body are activated that causes the blood circulation to improve. This,
coupled with the enhanced brain functioning and higher energy levels, ensures better
health.
So, whether we want to create a beautiful poem or develop a complicated AI application or
we simply want to remain fit or we want to make sure the ancient heritage is passed on to
the next generation, we must learn Sanskrit. If we don’t learn and read Sanskrit, all this will
be lost.
References
1. “Sanskrit Literature and the Scientific Development in India”
http://www.bhu.ac.in/mmak/resent_article/Justicekatju%27sspeec27Nov..pdf
2. “Shiksha Shastra and Experimental Phonetics”
https://cdac.in/index.aspx?id=mc_hc_sikshasastra
3. “The Wonder That is Sanskrit” http://swarajyamag.com/culture/the-wonder-that-is-sanskrit
4. “A Case for Sanskrit as Computer Programming Language”
http://www.parankusa.org/sanskritasprogramming.pdf
5. “ The Paninian Approach to Natural Language Processing”
http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/KAKThePaninianApproach.pdf
6. “Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence”
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3be9/3d7d713796ae7f2c1f8e55449f2e530bce2f.pdf
7. Learning Resource: Sanskrit Primer available for Android on Google Play Store

Appendix A
Here are a few interesting examples of Sanskrit language through short tales and shlokas
where the power of the language is clearly visible.
1. King Bhoja and Kalidasa
Once King Bhoja and Kalidasa had a disagreement and Kalidasa left Dhara and went
to live somewhere else. Though they had quarrelled, Kalidasa still retained a lot of
affection for King Bhoja. While he was there, a message was brought to him that
King Bhoja had died. Kalidasa was distraught and composed the following shloka.
अद्र्य धारा ननराधारा ननरालम्बा सरववती।
पस्डितािः खस्डितािः सवे भोजराजे दिवं गते॥
“Today, Dhara is without a foundation. The goddess Sarasvati
is without support. All the learned men are disappointed or
abandoned. King Bhoja has gone to heaven.”
It is a beautiful shloka, but there was a problem. King Bhoja hadn’t actually died;
that was wrong information. When Kalidasa realized that he had been misled, he
rejoiced. As for the shloka, did it have to be abandoned? Not quite. Kalidasa
changed it to the following.
अद्र्य धारा सिाधारा सिालम्बा सरववती।
पस्डितािः मस्डितािः सवे भोजराजे भुवं गते॥
A little bit of tweaking and the entire meaning changes.
“With King Bhoja having gone to earth, Dhara always has a
support and the goddess Sarasvati always has a support. All
the learned men are adorned.”
You will say that it needed a Kalidasa to do this. That’s undoubtedly true. But you
also needed the Sanskrit language to do this. There are very few languages in the
world where you could have done this. That’s the beauty of Sanskrit.

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 10
2. Shlokas with Riddles
2.1. Riddle Shloka - 1
कवतुरी जार्यते कवमात ्
को हस््त करीर्ां कु लम ् |
ककं कु र्याणत ् कातरो र्युद्धे
मृगात ् मसंह: पलार्यते ||
There are three questions asked in the first three lines. The literal meaning of the
last line is that a lion runs away from a deer (which can never be true as lion is a
much stronger animal than deer). It turns out that each of the word in the last line
is the answer to the question in corresponding lines above. Here it is –
कवतुरी जार्यते कवमात ्– “Where is kasturi found (generated)?”
Answer is मृगात ्– from a deer
को हस््त करीर्ां कु लम ्– “Who hunts down a group of elephants”
Answer is मस्हिः – A lion
ककं कु र्याणत ् कातरो र्युद्धे – “What does a coward do in a war?”
Answer is पलार्यते – Runs away
2.2. Riddle Shloka – 2
भोजनांते च ककं पेर्यम ्
जर्यंत: कवर्य वै सुत: ।
कथं ववष्र्ुपिं प्रोक्तम ्
तक्रं शक्रवर्य िुलणभम ्||
There are three questions asked in the first three lines. Again the literal meaning of
the last line is something like buttermilk is rare for Shakra! (which obviously cannot
be true as Shakra gets all that he wants.) But just like the shlok above, the three
words of the last line answer the questions asked in the first three lines.
भोजनांते च ककं पेर्यम ्- “What to drink at the end of a meal?”
Answer is तक्रं - Buttermilk
जर्यंत: कवर्य वै सुत: - “Whose son is Jayant?”

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 11
Answer is शक्रवर्य – Shakra’s
कथं ववष्र्ुपिं प्रोक्तम ्- “What kind is Vishnu pad called?”
Answer is िुलणभम ्- Rare
2.3. Riddle Shloka - 3
सीमम्तनीषु का शा्ता
राजा को भूद् गुर्ोत्तमिः ।
ववद्वनि: का सिा व्द्र्या
तत्रैवोक्तं न बुध्र्यते ।।
Who is quiet among ladies? Who is the king with maximum
virtues? To whom do learned persons bow down?
There are three questions asked in the first three lines and the answers are also
available in the same lines. By combining the first syllable with the last of each line,
we find the answers. Who is the quiet among ladies? – सीता Who is the king with
maximum virtues? – रामिः To whom do learned persons bow down? - ववद्र्या .
2.4. Riddle Shloka – 4
कं संजर्ान कृ ष्र्:
का शीतलवादहनी गंगा |
के िारपोषर्रत:
कं बलव्तं न बाधते शीतम ् ||
“Whom did Krishna kill? Where is River Ganga? Who looks after
the wife and the kids? Which strong person is not affected by
cold?”
The answers are hidden in the same lines with questions –
"कं संजर्ानकृ ष्?" - "कं सं जर्ान कृ ष्र्" - Krishna killed Kansa.
"का शीतलवा�हनीगंगा?" - "काशी तलवादहनी गंगा।" - Ganga is located at Kashi.
"के िारपोषर् रत:?" - "के िारपोषर्रत:।" - Kedar (Shiv) looks after the wife
and kids.
"कं बलव्त न बाध्र्यतशीतम ्?" - "कं बलव्तं न बाध्र्यते शीतम ्।" – A person having a
blanket is not affected by the cold.

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 12
3. Shlokas with Palindromes
3.1. Palindrome Shloka – 1
तं भूसुतामुस्क्तमुिारहासं व्िे र्यतो भव्र्यभवं िर्याश्री |
श्रीर्यािवं भव्र्यभतोर्यिवं संहारिामुस्क्तमुतासुभूतम ् ||
In the above shloka, the first line is about Shri Ram and the second one is about Shri
Krishna. The two lines are palindromes (of each other).
3.2. Palindrome Shloka – 2
वारर्ागगभीरा सा साराभीगगर्ारवा।
काररताररवधा सेना नासेधा वाररताररका॥
“It is very difficult to face this army which is endowed with
elephants as big as mountains. This is a very great army and
the shouting of frightened people is heard. It has slain its
enemies.”
Notice that each line is a palindrome, read right to left.
3.3. Palindrome Shloka - 3
The next one is about the battle between Arjuna and Shiva.
ववकाशमीर्युजणगतीशमागणर्ा ववकाशमीर्युजणगतीशमागणर्ािः।
ववकाशमीर्युजणगतीशमागणर्ा ववकाशमीर्युजणगतीशमागणर्ािः॥
The words only seem to repeat themselves. However, the meaning is quite
different.
“The arrows of the king Arjuna spread out. The arrows of the
lord of the earth, Lord Shiva, spread out. The Ganas who are
the slayers of demons rejoiced. The seekers of Lord Shiva i.e.
the deities and sages, reached the sky (to watch the battle).”
4. Shlokas with minimal alphabets
4.1. Minimal Alphabets Shloka - 1

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 13
Maha kavi Bharavi created this shlok with just the letter न.
न नोननु्नो नु्नोनो नाना नानानना ननु ।
नु्नोऽनु्नो ननु्नेनो नानेना नु्ननु्ननुत ् ॥
“A man is not a man who is wounded by a low man. Similarly, he
is also not a man who wounds a low man. The wounded one is not
considered to be wounded if his master is unwounded. And he
who wounds a man, who is already wounded, is not a man.”
4.2. Minimal Alphabets Shloka - 2
How about composing a shloka with the first चरर् entirely in ज, the second चरर्
entirely in त, the third चरर् entirely in भ and the fourth चरर् entirely in र? Magha
came up with –
जजौजोजास्जस्जज्जाजी तं ततोऽनततताततुत ्।
भाभोऽभीभामभभूभाभू- राराररररररीररिः॥
“Then the warrior, winner of war, with his heroic valour, the
subduer of the extremely arrogant beings, he who has the
brilliance of stars, he who has the brilliance of the
vanquisher of fearless elephants, the enemy seated on a
chariot, began to fight.”
4.3. Minimal Alphabets Shloka – 3
Here is another example, composed only with भ and र.
भूररमभभाणररमभभीराभूभारैरमभरेमभरे।
भेरीरेमभमभरभ्राभैरभीरुमभररभैररभािः॥
“The fearless elephant, who was like a burden to the earth
because of its weight, whose sound was like a kettle-drum, and
who was like a dark cloud, attacked the enemy elephant.”
4.4. Minimal Alphabets Shloka – 4
As the next example, composed only with ि,
िाििो िुद्दिुद्दािी िाििो िूििीििोिः।
िुद्दािं िििे िुद्दे िािाििििोऽिििः॥

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 14
“Sri Krishna, the giver of every boon, the scourge of the
evil-minded, the purifier, the one whose arms can annihilate
the wicked who cause suffering to others, shot his pain-
causing arrow at the enemy.”
5. Additional Shlokas
5.1. Additional Shloka – 1
उपमा कामलिासवर्य भारवेरथणगौरवं|
िस्डिन: पिलामलत्र्यं मार्े सस््त त्रर्यो गुर्ािः||
We have four Sanskrit poets mentioned in this couplet – Kalidasa, Bharavi, Dandi
and Magha.
“Kalidasa’s similes (metaphors), the deep purport of Bharavi’s
words, the beauty of Dandin’s words – all three qualities are
to be found in Magha.”
पुरा कववनां गर्ना प्रसंगे कननस्ष््काSचधस्ष्टत कामलिासिः |
अद्र्यावप तत्तुल्र्य कवेरभावात ् अनाममका साथणवनत बभूव ||
This shloka is about how the name ‘Anamika’ for the ring finger established its
genuineness. Once, there was a counting going on about number of poets. The first
one (starting with the little finger) got assigned to Kalidas. After that, since there is
no one who can be compared with him, ‘Anamika’ (ring finger is called Anamika in
Sanskrit and its literal meaning is one having no name) proved its name to be
correct.
नृपामभषेके मि ववह्वलार्या हवताच्र्युतो हेमर्टवतरुडर्या |
सोपानमागे च करोनत शब्िं ््ं ््ं ्ं ्््ं ््ं ्म ् ||
This shloka shows the readiness of Rajkavi (The Royal Poet in a king’s court) to
instantly come up with a shloka.
A king utters just the fourth line which has no meaning and asks the Royal Poet
what could be the complete shloka? And the poet instantly comes up with the

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 15
above shloka in which he describes the excitement among people for the king’s
enthronement ceremony. A young lady having a gold pot in her arms, excited for
the enthronement, drops the golden pot from her arms out of excitement and the
pot comes down the stairs with the sound ््ं ््ं ्ं ्््ं ््ं ्म ्!
रामो राजमणर् सिा ववजर्यते रामं रमेशं भजे
रामेर्ामभहता ननशाचरचमू रामार्य तवमै नमिः ।
रामा्नास्वत परार्यर्ं परतरं रामवर्य िासोऽवम्र्यहम ्
रामे चचत्तलर्यिः सिा भवतु मे भो राम मामुद्धर ॥
This is a unique shloka which covers all eight declensions (ववभस्क्त) of राम:. Each
line contains two declensions.
िीर्णचतुरश्रवर्याक्ष्र्र्यारज्जु: पार्श्रवणमानी
नतर्यणग्मानी च र्यत ् पृथग्भूते
कु रूतवतिुभर्यं करोनत ॥
“When a rope is stretched along the length of the diagonal,
it produces an area which is what the vertical and the
horizontal sides make together.”
Bhaskaracharya was a famous Indian mathematician and astronomer. Leelavati is
both the name of a text that he wrote and Leelavati is also believed to have been the
name of his daughter.
इ्र: वार्युर्यणमश्चैव नैरृतो मध्र्यमवतथा ।
ईशानश्च कु बेरश्च अस्ग्नवणरुर् एव च ॥
The one given above is composed by Leelavati. Why was this important enough to
be written down in the form of a shloka?
It is just the names of various gods. This gives the names of protectors or guardians
of the world. There are ten directions. If you leave out above and below, there are

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 16
eight. These are North, North-East, East, South-East, South, South-West, West and
North-West. Each direction has a protector. Vayu is the guardian of the North-
West, Kubera of the North, Ishana of the North-East, Indra of the East, Agni of the
South-East, Yama of the South, Nairritya of the South-West , and Varuna of the
West. Now arrange these names corresponding to the direction they protect and
you get the following 3x3 table.
Vayu Kubera Ishana
Varuna Madhyam Indra
Nairritya Yama Agni
But what’s the point of the shloka? Why write out a shloka that only lists the
names of the protectors? We know their names. Follow the order listed by
Leelavati. Indra is the first, Vayu is the second, Yama is the third and so
on. Madhyama means middle, there is no guardian there. Fill in the matrix
below in the order in which Leelavati has listed the names.
2 7 6
9 5 1
4 3 8
It is a 3X3 magic square, with the sums along all rows, all columns and all
diagonals adding up to 15. So that’s what she was doing. She wasn’t writing
down any odd shloka, she was actually constructing a magic square!!

Sept. 3, 2017 Page 17
Appendix B
Sanskrit language has 13 vowels and 34 consonants. Panini in his first fourteen Sutras
arranged alphabets in the Sanskrit language in a very scientific and logical manner after
closely observing the sounds in human speech.
Thus, for example the vowels अ, आ, इ, ई, उ, ऊ, ए, ऐ, ओ, औ are arranged
according to the shape of the mouth when these sounds are emitted. अ and आ are
pronounced from the throat, इ and ई from the palate, उ and ऊ from the lips, etc. In the
same way, the consonants have also been arranged in a sequence with a scientific
pattern (please refer to the figure below).
 The क- varga consonants (क, ख, ग, र्, ङ्ग) are emitted from the throat (Guttural)
 The च- varga consonants (च, छ, ज, झ, ञ) are emitted from the palate
(Palatal)
 The ट- varga (ट, ्, ि, ढ, र्) are emitted from the roof of the mouth
(Cerebral)
 The त- varga (त, थ, ि, ध, न) are emitted from the teeth (Dental)
 The प- varga (प, फ, ब, भ, म) are emitted from the lips (Labial)

Sanskrit Language - Literary or Scientific

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