Bruce M. Sullivan - The A to Z of Hinduism

Bruce M. Sullivan (B.A., Trinity University; M.A., Trinity University; Ph.D., The University of Chicago) is professor of religious studies and Asian studies at Northern Arizona University. His previous books include Ka Dvaipyana Vysa and the Mahbhrata: A New Interpretation (2nd edition: Seer of the Fifth Veda) and The Sun God's Daughter and King Savaraa: Tapat-Savaraa and the Kiyam Drama Tradition (coauthored with N. P. Unni). He has published professional articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Asian Theatre Journal, Literature and Theology, International Journal of Hindu Studies, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute , and the Journal of Vaiava Studies. In addition, he has published chapters in Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, and This Sacred Earth: Religion , Nature, Environment, and Modern Evaluation of the Mahbhrata. He has served in various capacities in the American Academy of Religion, and has been active in the Association for Asian Studies and the American Oriental Society.

Other A to Z Guides from Scarecrow Press

The A to Z of Buddhism by Charles S. Prebish, 2001
The A to Z of Catholicism by William J. Collinge, 2001

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Copyright 2001 by Bruce M. Sullivan
Revised and updated text based on Bruce M. Sullivans Historical Dictionary of Hinduism published by Scarecrow Press, 1997. The earlier hardbound edition contains full bibliographical citations.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sullivan, Bruce M., 1951

The A to Z of Hinduism / Bruce M. Sullivan,
p. cm.

Revised and updated text based on Bruce M. Sullivans Historical dictionary of Hinduism published by Scarecrow Press, 1997.T.p. verso.

ISBN: 9780-810840706

1. HinduismDictionaries. I. Sullivan, Bruce M., 1951 Historical dictionary of Hinduism.
BL1105.S847 2001
294.5'03dc21 2001031349

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992. Manufactured in the United States of America.

For my wife Patricia, who has had to draw upon her religious faith for patience while this book was compiled, and for Lauren, our joy.

Hinduism is a religious tradition of remarkable diversity, and no one person, however learned, could profess to know the whole of it. The timespan in which it has flourished, and the large population India has sustained over those many centuries, not to mention the creativity of Indias thinkers, has given Hinduism a wonderful array of ideas and practices. Hinduisms linguistic diversity alone is sufficient to provide anyone attempting a work such as this ample frustration. As a Sanskritist, I am comfortable enough with that language, but its modern vernaculars such as Hindi and Bengali are considerably different, and the Dravidian languages such as Tamil are entirely unrelated to Sanskrit except for borrowed terms; yet all these languages, and others, are represented on the pages of this volume. I have provided a pronunciation guide for Indie languages in an effort to aid those who use this volume.

One of the great delights of preparing this work has been the opportunity, in fact, the necessity, of investigating aspects of Hinduism on which I do not lecture or publish research findings. Another has been the willingness of friends who work in the same field to offer their expertise, aiding me in my effort to be clear in what I write about Hinduism. I want particularly to commend Douglas Renfrew Brooks, Andrew O. Fort, and Glen A. Hayes for the information they so graciously provided on short notice. My wife Patricia did proofreading and reference checking, for which I am grateful. It is also my pleasure to thank Charles S. Prebish, who shared with me some of his hard-won ability in computer technology for the representation of the diacritical marks throughout the text. He also encouraged me to persevere with this project, which at times has seemed overwhelming. Whatever errors may be found in this volume are my own, and readers are encouraged to inform me of them for future correction.

Finally, I have the pleasure of thanking Northern Arizona University for providing me with the computer equipment needed for producing this volume. And I especially thank my family for tolerating the long periods in which they saw only the back of my head as I sat at the computer.

Most of the foreign-language names and terms in this volume are in Sanskrit or a related Indie language. Scholars have established a system of transliteration for Indie languages that is clear and that the nonspecialist can quickly learn. To use the twenty-six letters of the Latin alphabet to represent the forty-nine letters of Sanskrit, some additional markings called diacritical marks are used so that it is possible to distinguish the letters from each other. The following chart will aid readers in pronunciation of words in Indie languages.

Vowels and diphthongs

Consonants

(a) Consonants with dots under them (, , , ) are called retroflex or cerebral consonants. Their sounds are made by placing the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth at its highest point as the sound is produced. Those not accustomed to Indie languages often find it difficult to hear the distinctive sounds of these consonants. Semi-vowels , , , and (the latter two veiy rare) sound like ri and li; so i is pronounced like i. The Tamil underlined l (l) has a similar retroflex sound.

(b) Aspirated consonants (kh, gh, ch, jh, h, h, th, dh, ph, bh) are sounded by expelling breath as the consonant is produced. Thus, th in artha sounds like art-house.

(c) Nasal consonants are of two types. The sounds like the Spanish , so praj sounds like prajny. The and are close in sound quality, and with a following k or g take on a sound like ng, so Skhya sounds like Sngkhya.

(d) Indic languages have three sibilants. The in iva sounds like Shiva; the sound is described above in (a). These two sibilants have a similar sound to those who are unaccustomed to Indie languages. The unmarked s sounds like the s in so. C has the sound of ch, so Cakra is pronounced Chakra. Often works in which these diacritical marks are not used will add the h to words, so they appear as Shiva or Chakra; this volume does not, so when looking for entries in the Dictionary, please bear this in mind.

(e) At the beginning of a word or between vowels, the v sounds like a v in English, but combined with other consonants it takes on a sound halfway between v and w.

(f) Doubled consonants are both pronounced.

(g) Other consonants sound like their English equivalents.