Research Sanskrit Grammar Article

[nickumia]

Reference: https://bigthink.com/the-past/ancient-sanskrit-text-algorithm-solved/

[nickumia]

Another article, but tangentially related.. https://bigthink.com/13-8/information-key-life/

[nickumia]

I had discovered this a while ago, but I struggled in coming up with where to put it. Since I'm drawing a lot of inspiration from different sources. I want to say that It can be temporarily moved to here until I find the best spot for it:

In ancient India, there were 3 families of religious philosophies:

Astika traditions — the famed 6 schools of Yoga, Nyaya, Vaisesika, Samkhya, Mimamsa and Vedanta that are attached to the Vedic religion.
Nastika traditions — the 5 religious schools that declined to believe in the supremacy of Vedas — Buddhism, Jainism, Ajivika, Ajnana, Caravaka. 2 of them became independent religions, while the philosophies of other 3 merged with other faiths.
Folk traditions — these were faiths that are quite common across rural India and of indeterminant origin. This group is often left out in the discussion of Indian philosophies.

The 6 key Astika schools:

Nyaya — logic and justice as the core founded by Gotama/Aksapada — with center as the ancient Mithila university
Vaisesika — atomist school with naturism and metaphysics as stress. Founded Kanada Kashyapa
Samkhya — enumeration of 25 key principles that lead to emacipation founded by Kapila. Everything is an interplay of Purusha (soul) and Prakriti (energy).
Yoga — the 8 fold path of Patanjali that start from Yamas and Niyamas. Control of body and mind to attain liberation.
Mimasa (Purva Mimasa)— focuses on critical investigation of vedas, dharma founded by Jamini. Compared to Vedanta, it places more emphasis on rituals and yajnas.
Vedanta (Uttara Mimasa) — empahsis on the upanishads, Brahma Sutras and Bhagvad Gita. Vyasa is the key sage for this.

These all came around 2000-2500 years ago. Then in the 8th-11th centuries CE a new way of Bhakti came up and this time Vedanta has take a key importance in defining the philosophy of Hinduism.

Evolution of Hinduism through time:

As the Astika and Nastika schools fought for supremacy, a new religious tradition came in the early medieval era that focused on Bhakti and devotion. The Bhakti schools were often centered on Shiva or Vishnu. They took the key gods from the Astika traditions — especially the various gods of Yajurveda, and mixed with the folk traditions, to create gripping songs and stories. They also began using temples as the key center of worship, possibly drawing from the Nastika school.

The schools of Bhakti include Shaiva Siddhanta, Veerasaivism, Kashmir Shaivism, Ramanandis, Gaudinya Vaishnavism, Manipuri Vaishnavism, Warkaris etc.

As the Bhakti tradition began attracting the masses, there was a revival of the Astika tradition under the umbrella of Vedanta that used Upanishads, Brama Sutras Bhagvad Gita to build the philosophical backbone of the Bhakti movement. The key schools of Vedanta of medieval area are Advaita (Shankara), Dvaita (Madhva), Vishidavaita (Ramanuja), Shuddavaita (Vallabha). A key feature of this was the concept of Mutts (monastries) that provided not just place for monks to stay and pray and manage temples, but also provided leadership to the followers over a long period of time through an established lineage. This expanded on the concept of Ashram that had a more limited scope.

In modern day Hinduism, the various schools of Bhakti as mentioned above, along with traditions of Advaitis under Sankara mutts, Vishidavaita under various Jeeyar mutts, Dvaita under various Madhwa mutts, Swaminarayan/ BAPS (an offshoot of Vishidavaita), ISKCON (offshot of Gaudinya Vaishnavism), Ramakrishna Mission (Vedanta), Neoadvaitism under Ramana Maharishi etc.

There are also various influential groups that are not tied to single philosophy above — Sai Baba organization, Isha foundation, Art of Living, MAM etc that influence present day life of Hindus.

[nickumia]

"The more we fiddle with Pāṇini’s grammar, the more it eludes us" (Dr. Rishi Rajpopat)

Seems oldly similar to physics and the god equation...

An example shared by Rajpopat is the sentence “devāḥ prasannāḥ mantraiḥ” (“The Gods are pleased by the mantras”). Rajpopat notes that a rule conflict arises when trying to derive the word mantraih (“by the mantras”). One rule applies to the left word, mantra, and another to the right word, bhis. By applying his interpretation of the meta-rule, he followed the rule for bhis and arrived at the correct form of mantraih.

The fix is so simple, it's almost a wonder how it was not corrected sooner..

“Some of the most ancient wisdom of India has been produced in Sanskrit, and we still don’t fully understand what our ancestors achieved. We’ve often been led to believe that we’re not important, that we haven’t brought enough to the table. I hope this discovery will infuse students in India with confidence, pride, and hope that they too can achieve great things,” Rajpopat said.

Accurate 💯

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I think, in general, the exploration of language machines is the key takeaway. I don't know if I'll be able to go through all of the 4,000 rules of Sanskrit in Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī, but I'll do my best. I don't think this article was meant to solve anything big for the NLP work I'm doing, but it just piqued my interest being so aligned with me, in general. I'll probably make more tickets in the future based on things from here.