[Advaita-l] Aham Brahmaasmi

[Jaldhar H. Vyas]

Sorry for the late reply.  I have a large backlog of emails to attend to.


On Thu, 10 Dec 2009, sivasenani at yahoo.com wrote:

> Dear Sri Michael and Sri Jaladhar
>
> I meant to look up a few references after reading your statement that 
> asmi is a pronominal suffix but could not.
>
> I know it is too basic for either of you but would it be possible to 
> supply an authority to back up this view? My own understanding is that 
> 'aham brahma' is exactly the same as 'aham brahmaasmi' or 'brahmaasmi'.
>

I did not mean to imply that asmi is a pronomial suffix.  It is a verb as 
you say.  It is in modern English (and Middle English too I think) that 
the pronoun is used to convey this meaning because English has lost the 
Indo-European case system (Old English or Anglo-Saxon had it though.)

The difference between brahmasmi, aham brahma and brahmo'ham is stylistic. 
In Vedic, the first form is preferred to convey a reflexive sense.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>