Dharma is a Sanskrit word which means decree or custom. In Hinduism, humans include adherence to the social order and see dharma as the cosmic law both upheld by the gods and expressed as right behaviour. In Buddhism, it is seen as universal truth or law, especially as proclaimed by the Buddha. In Jainism, it is conceived both as virtue and as a kind of fundamental substance, the medium of motion. In today’s lingo, it is used in the sense of the eternal law of the cosmos, inherent in the very nature of things, and also means conformity to one’s duty.

A mahatma is a person who is regarded with reverence or loving respect and could be a holy person or a sage. The word comes from the Sanskrit words maha (great) and atman (soul). Way back in 1949, H. N. Brailsford wrote in Mahatma Gandhi, acknowledging the word mahatma: "On 9 January, 1915`85Gandhi landed in Bombay... Soon after`85in a published letter, the poet Rabindranath Tagore conferred on him the title of ‘Mahatma’, of which the literal meaning is ‘great soul’. It is the custom among Indians to bestow such distinctions on leaders whom they love and admire."

Ahimsa, the noun that refers to the principle of respect for all living things and avoidance of injury to all living beings is made up of the Sanskrit a, a prefix meaning ‘no or non’ and himsa, which is derived from himsati, meaning ‘he injures’. A word that forms part of Buddhist, Jain and Hindu philosophy, ahimsa came to the vocabulary of English through Mahatma Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1927): "As my conception of Ahimsa went on maturing, I became more vigilant about my thought and speech. The lines in the Anthem: ‘Scatter her enemies/ And make them fall;/Confound their policies, / Frustrate their knavish tricks’, particularly jarred upon my sentiments of Ahimsa."

Yoga comes from the Sanskrit yoga, where it means union. Today it is widely practised for health and relaxation and is perceived as a spiritual and ascetic discipline comprising breath control, simple meditation and the adoption of specific bodily postures. Hatha yoga is the form popular these days, which forms one aspect of the ancient Hindu system of religious and ascetic observance along with meditation. The highest form of yoga is raja yoga, the ultimate aim of which is spiritual purification and self-understanding. This leads to samadhi or union with the divine.

When Sanskrit words reached the lexis of Hindi, they underwent changes in meaning in three distinct fashions. One group of words took on new connotations that soon became denotations due to the changes in people and society. In this category came words like prastav, which in Sanskrit held meanings like literary passage or opportunity but in Hindi it remained restricted within the modern sense of proposal or suggestion. The second group of words included words that had carried with them their original Sanskrit meaning but also took on new denotations. These were words like dhoop that brought the Sanskrit meaning of incense for burning with it, but also took on the meaning of sunshine. The third group comprises words that have, since coming to Hindi, totally moved away from the original meaning of the root. For example, the Sanskrit dakshina, (for Hindi, the gift given to Brahmins on the completion of a holy rite) as per its root, means a milch cow.

This feature was published on December 6, 2003