[Advaita-l] Sal Mubarak 2067

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

Wishing each other for a new year is not Puja. For that matter, Deepavali is not the new year
for everybody, only for one small section of people. Whatever words have been used for the
last two or three hundred years by that section of people is good enough for this list.
 
We don't object when somebody says "Ugadi shubhakankshalu" in Telugu and we don't insist
that they use English, a commonly understood language, or Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language.
Why should you object when someone uses a Gujarati (not Urdu, by the way) greeting?

> > FYI, if  you listen to discourses given by contemporary Sankaracharyas, they freely use words
> > like Sawal and Jawab interchangeably with praSna and uttara, or ghabar interchangeably with
> > bhaya. Many other such linguistic examples can be cited. They do not insist upon only Sanskrit
> > derived words in common vernacular usage.
> >
> 
> They use the words because all people in the audience in that area
> like North India understand them. Will they use Urdu words in front of
> a English speaking audience? Will they use it front of a Tamil
> audience ? Please think.

Why not? I have heard sentences such as, "inta keLvikku jawab kuTukka veNTum" (if you
understand Tamil). I have heard "ghAbra beDa" in Kannada and "ghAbra paTa veNTAm" in
Tamil - these from the mouths of the Sringeri Sankaracharyas, who are great Sanskrit
scholars. In the heart of Tamil Nadu today, the word "dil" is used freely, as in "dil iruntA
paNNu"; it came into Tamil from Hindi, but it did not come into Hindi from Sanskrit. A rich
vocabulary exists in every Indian language today, drawing from all sorts of historical
influences. Picking and choosing what offends you among them is a political exercise.
 
Anyway, enough said. Faultfinding and nitpicking can have no end, but that is hardly the
purpose of this list. I have placed on record my view on this, so alam anena. 
 
Regards,
Vidyasankar