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From: "Mani M. Manivannan"
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Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 19:27:28 -0800
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Subject: [agathiyar] Etymologies of "bhakti"
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In the Indology list, Yaroslav Vassilkov raised an interesting question.

>I would be most grateful for references to different etymologies of
>the words:
>bhagavat, bhakti, bhakta (even to those that you think are wrong)
>and to different ideas on the history of their semantics

There were several speculations about the Sanskrit etymologies
of these words and I'll let the Sanskritolgists analyse them.
An example is from "K. S. Arjunwadkar" :

>bhAgavata < bhagavat = bhaga + vat = one possessed of 'fortune'.
>bhAgavata(bhagavat + the secondary suff. a) refers to a devotee of God.

>bhakti (devotion) and bhakta (devotee) come from the root 'bhaj' to worship
>-- the first ending in the suffix 'ti' and the second in 'ta' (past part.
>suff.). bhaga also comes from the same root with the suffix 'a', changing j
>to g. (Cp. tyAga < tyaj)

Interestingly, Prof. C. R. Selvakumar,
had this observation:

> In Tamil, the word 'patti' (often said to be related to skt bhakti)
> comes from 'paRRu' (attachment > love). The statement(Tamil)
> 'paRRuvatu patti, muRRuvatu mutti'
> (to be attached, in a supreme sense, is love of God;
> to reach fullness (also means to end) is liberation
> in the sense of ultimate).
> Tamil patti has become sanskrit Bhakti, apparently.
> Bhakti movements spread from Tamil Nadu to other parts of
> India starting from around 4-5th centuries in the current era.

> In Tamil, pakavan comes from the verb(Tamil) 'paku' meaning
> divide,split > dispense.
> Pakavan means dispenser exactly as several on this list have
> pointed out, but the root sense here is from tamil/dravidian
> 'paku' for pakavan.

Any comments from Agathiyar Readers?

Mani M. Manivannan
Fremont, CA, USA.


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