Kerala +2 Sanskrit Sastra flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Mahakavya

A court epic in sargas (cantos) with a heroic or devotional theme; its plot is structured by the five sandhis (mukha, pratimukha, garbha, vimarsa, upasamhrti).

Abhijnanasakuntala

Kalidasa's seven-act nataka in which the ring (abhijnana) resolves Durvasa's curse, leading to the reunion of Sakuntala and Dushyanta.

Rasa

The aesthetic relish produced by combining vibhava (determinant), anubhava (consequent), and vyabhicaribhava (transitory state); Bharata lists eight rasas.

Dhvani

The suggested sense in poetry; Anandavardhana's Dhvanyaloka argues that dhvani, not alamkara, is the soul of poetry.

Astadhyayi

Panini's grammar of eight adhyayas and roughly four thousand sutras; its Siva Sutras generate pratyaharas such as 'ak' (vowels) and 'hal' (consonants).

Sphota

Bhartrhari's indivisible word-meaning unit; the Vakyapadiya holds that phonemes are only the means, and meaning is grasped as a whole.

Karaka

The semantic role of a noun relative to the verb; kartr (agent), karma (object), karana (instrument), and others determine the case ending Panini assigns.

Samasa

A Sanskrit compound; the six main types are tatpurusa, karmadharaya, dvigu, dvandva, bahuvrihi, and avyayibhava, each with a distinct head-member relation.

Nyaya pramanas

The four valid means of knowledge accepted by Nyaya: pratyaksa (perception), anumana (inference), upamana (comparison), and sabda (testimony).

Sankhya tattvas

Twenty-five principles: purusa (consciousness) and prakrti (matter), whose three gunas - sattva, rajas, tamas - explain cosmic evolution and bondage.

Advaita Vedanta

Sankara's non-dualism: Brahman alone is real, the world is maya (avidya), and jnana alone removes ignorance and yields liberation.

Anvaya

The prose word order of a Sanskrit verse; the translator identifies the kriya (verb) and kartr (subject) first, then resolves the remaining karaka relations.

Sandhi-viccheda

The splitting of sandhi and compounds before translation; a long samasa must be analysed into its members to locate the head word.

Lakara

A Sanskrit tense-mood marker: lat (present), lit (perfect), lrt (future), lot (imperative), and vidhilin (optative) each carry a distinct sense.

Meghaduta

Kalidasa's 111-verse mandakranta lyric in which an exiled yaksha sends a cloud as messenger to his wife; a model of sandesa-kavya.

Natyasastra

Bharata's 36-chapter treatise on dramaturgy covering rasa, bhava, abhinaya, and the origin of drama as a fifth Veda accessible to all castes.

Dasarupaka

The ten dramatic forms of Sanskrit drama, including nataka, prakarana, anka, vyayoga, samavakara, ihamrga, dima, prahasana, and bhaga.

Vibhakti

A Sanskrit case ending; the eight cases run from prathama (nominative) to saptami (locative), plus the vocative, and are assigned by karaka rules.

Sabda-brahman

Bhartrhari's identification of ultimate reality with word; the world is a manifestation of language, and liberation comes from knowing its true nature.

Anvitabhidhana

Kumarila's view that words express their meanings only in relation to a sentence, as opposed to Prabhakara's abhihitanvaya.

Vaisesika padarthas

Seven categories: dravya, guna, karma, samanya, visesa, samavaya, and abhava; nine dravyas include earth, water, fire, air, ether, time, space, self, mind.

Mimamsa

Jaimini's school holding the Vedas apauruseya (authorless) and eternal; dharma is known only through vidhi, and six pramanas are accepted.

Pancabheda

Madhva's Dvaita doctrine of five real differences: God and soul, God and matter, soul and soul, soul and matter, and matter and matter.

Nibandha

A Sanskrit essay structured as prastavana (introduction), visaya-vistara (body), and upasamhara (conclusion), linked by connectives such as tatha and atah.

Patra

A Sanskrit letter; it opens with 'priya' or 'namaste', uses the vocative case, and closes with 'iti' or 'bhava eva'.

Upapada

A noun accompanying a verb that determines the verb's meaning, as in 'grham gacchati' (he goes to the house).

Prakarana

A Sanskrit play with an invented plot and a brahmin or merchant hero; Sudraka's Mrcchakatika is the classic example.

Abhinaya

The four modes of dramatic expression - angika (gesture), vacika (speech), aharya (costume), and sattvika (emotion) - all needed to produce rasa.

Sthayibhava

One of the eight permanent emotional states that, combined with vibhava and anubhava, ripens into a rasa in the audience.

Pratyaya

A Sanskrit suffix; krt suffixes form nouns from verbs (e.g., -aka, -tr), while taddhita suffixes form derivatives (e.g., -in, -ya, -tva).

Anumana

Inference, with five members: pratijna (thesis), hetu (reason), udaharana (example), upanaya (application), and nigamana (conclusion).

Kaivalya

The goal of Patanjali's Yoga: the isolation of purusa from prakrti, reached through the eight limbs culminating in samadhi.