Yaska's Nirukta extensively refers to the Nighantu. However, Nighantu is not a dictionary, a genre of texts that developed in later centuries and was called a Kosha in Sanskrit. The Nighantu is a glossary or compilation of words in the Vedas, and is an example text of Abhidhanashastra (literally, science of words). Additionally, a related work that is extant and is more ancient than the 5th-century BCE Nirukta by Yaska, is the Nighantu which is a lexicographic treatise. Three bhasya (commentaries) on Yaska's Nirukta have also survived. The only basic Nirvacana shastra (Nirukta-related text) that has survived from ancient times into the modern era is the one by Yaska, and it is simply called Nirukta. The meaning of Vedic passages has to be understood through context, purpose stated, subject matter being discussed, what is stated, how, where and when. Ī sentence is a collection of words, a word is a collection of phonemes, according to Nirukta scholars of Hindu traditions. Words are created around object-agent, according to Yaska, to express external or internal reality perceived by man, and are one of six modifications of Kriya (action) and Bhava (dynamic being), namely being born, existing, changing, increasing, decreasing and perishing. He asserted that both the meaning and the etymology of words are always context dependent. However, added Yaska, not all words have verbal roots. The meaning of Speech, is its fruit and flower.Ī central premise of Yaska was that man creates more new words to conceptualize and describe action, that is nouns often have verbal roots. Many a one, hearing, do not hear Her,Īnd many a one, She spreads out body, like a wife desiring her husband. It never flares up, like dry firewood without fire. Yaska, the sage who likely lived around the 7th–5th century BCE, approached this problem through a semantic analysis of words, by breaking them down into their components, and then combined them in the context they were used to propose what the archaic words could have meant. By the 1st millennium BCE, interpreting and understanding what the Vedas meant had become a challenge, and Nirukta attempted to systematically propose theories on how words form, and then determine their meaning in order to understand the Vedas. The Vedic literature from the 2nd millennium BCE has a very large collection of such words, with nearly 25% of the words therein being used just once. The field of Nirukta deals with ascertaining the meaning of words, particularly of archaic words no longer in use, ones created long ago and even then rarely used. The related Sanskrit noun niruktiḥ means "poetical derivation" or "explanation of a word." Discussion It also refers to the etymological interpretation of a word, also the name of such works. Nirukta (Sanskrit), states Monier-Williams, means "uttered, pronounced, explained, expressed, defined, loud". The critical edition by Lakshman Sarup places it between 700 and 500 BCE, i.e., before Gautama Buddha. A critical edition of the Nighantu and the Nirukta was published by Lakshman Sarup in the 1920s. The texts of the Nirukta field of study are also called Nirvacana shastra. Yaska asserts that the prerequisite to the study of Nirukta is the study of Vyakarana. Vyakarana deals with linguistic analysis to establish the exact form of words to properly express ideas, while Nirukta focuses on linguistic analysis to help establish the proper meaning of the words, given the context they are used in. The study of Nirukta has been closely related to the ancillary Vedic science of Vyakarana, but they have a different focus. His text is also referred simply as Nirukta. The most celebrated scholar of this field is Yāska, who wrote the Nighaṇṭu (book of glossary), the first book on this field. The study of Nirukta can be traced to the last centuries of the 2nd-millennium BCE Brahmanas layer of the Vedic texts. The field grew probably because almost a quarter of words in the Vedic texts composed in the 2nd-millennium BCE appear just once. Nirukta is the systematic creation of a glossary and it discusses how to understand archaic, uncommon words. Nirukta covers etymology, and is the study concerned with correct interpretation of Sanskrit words in the Vedas. Nirukta ( Sanskrit: निरुक्त, IPA:, "explained, interpreted") is one of the six ancient Vedangas, or ancillary science connected with the Vedas – the scriptures of Hinduism.
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