In Indian context, Sanskrit has its own linguistic rules which, in essence, restrict the wild imaginative connotations of the words. Moreover, Sanskrit words differ significantly from English words due to Sanskrit’s highly inflected* and synthetic nature.
In Sanskrit, the words evolve from Sanskrit root words or verbal words. There are about 3350 such root verbs that, when prefixed or suffixed with other words, form the various parts of speech of Sanskrit language. These words in their inflected form give the language the richness it possesses. Moreover, often two or more Sanskrit words join to form a new word that defines a new meaning of the word. Take for example the word “word”, called (शब्द) “shabd” in Sanskrit. The word “shabd” is derived from the root Sanskrit word shad (शद्) meaning ‘to make a sound’. Since Sanskrit is essentially an oral language that evolved for, at least, over a millennia before being codified the evolution process added wide range of connotations to the words. The letters, that combine to make a word are called ‘akshar’ (अ+क्षर) meaning indestructible, imperishable or perpetual. ‘अ’ stands for not and ‘क्षर’ is derived from the root word क्षय, a verb which means “to perish.” Thus ‘akshar’ (अ+क्षर) means indestructible, imperishable or perpetual.
Similarly, a collection of words that make a sentence is called “vakya” (वाक्य्) which is derived from the root Sanskrit word ‘वच्’ meaning “to speak”.
Thus, we see that Sanskrit words usually evolve from their root verbal words and have a specific meaning which, depending upon their usage, may be modified within a logical framework, but it’s meaning cannot be extended to an illogical extent.
Indeed, I agree with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s comparison of a language to an ancient city and its gradual evolution:
“Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses”.
Still, I do firmly believe that the core meaning of a word and the sentence, formed thereof, by combining them in a logical order cannot be extended to an infinite extent. If we allow infinite freedom to words and sentence than any word would denote anything and a sentence would be led to mean anything.
This is why, I feel, the Parsimony rule or application of Occam’s razor is an absolute necessity to understand the true meaning of the various interpretations of the Vedic and the post-Vedic Hindu scriptures.
My effort in the write-ups in this portal would be to follow the Principle of Parsimony so as to interpret or translate the Sanskrit verses keeping parsimony in mind. To make my view clear I will cite two important Sanskrit words of Hindu metaphysics that have been haunting me for a long time — “moksha” (मोक्ष) and ‘mukti’ (मुक्ति).
*An inflected language is one where words change their form (endings or spellings) to show grammatical function, like tense, number, gender, or case, using prefixes or suffixes (affixes) attached closely to the root.
Next : Moksha & Mukti