Learn Sanskrit through Slokas – 6

We have been building our Sanskrit vocabulary over the past few posts. In this post, we shall learn a few ‘relationships’ in Sanskrit.

Today’s sloka is about praying to Lord Ganesha:

shrikaantho maathulo yasya jananee sarvamangalaa
janaka: shankaro deva: tham vandhe kunjaraananam

Let’s discuss the word-by-word meaning of the above sloka.

shrikaantho maathulo yasya

• shrikaantha: is Lord Vishnu. Kaantha: is husband (Kaanthaa is wife). Shri, as you are aware is Goddess Lakshmi. So, the husband of Lakshmi is Lord Vishnu. Similarly, Rajanikantha: is ‘Chandra’ (the Moon) because the husband of night (Rajani) is Chandra.
• maathula: is uncle
• yasya is ‘to whom’

jananee sarvamangala

• jananee is mother. The one who gives ‘janma‘ (birth)
• sarvamangalaa is the one who provides all auspicious things. In this context, it refers to Goddess Paarvathi.

janaka: shankaro deva:

• janaka: is progenitor (male), father. There was a king with the same name in Ramayana, whose daughter was Jaanaki. Here it denotes ‘father’.
• shankaro deva: is Lord (deva:) Shiva (shankara). ‘sham’ is general denotes ‘auspiciousness’ or ‘harmony’ and ‘kar’ is doer or maker. So Shankara is the maker/preserver of harmony.

tham vandhe kunjaraananam

• kunjara aananam – kunjara is an Elephant. During the Mahabharatha war, Yudhishtra made the statement ‘Ashvatthaamaa hatha: kunjara:‘ to his teacher Dhrona in order to make him cease fighting. He said Ashwatthaama was killed in a high voice and Kunjara: in a low voice that can’t be heard. Thus even though they killed only an Elephant by name Ashwatthaamaa, the Pandavas at the behest of Lord Krishna, made it sound like they killed Dhrona’s son Ashvatthaama instead. So Kunjara: means an elephant. Aaananam is face. Dashaananan is Ravana (one with 10 faces). Kunjaraananan or Gajaananan will be Lord Ganesha
• tham vandhe is to be saluted/to be hailed. Vandhe Maatharam will be ‘I salute my Motherland’.

The complete meaning of the above verse would be, “The One for whom Lord Vishnu, the husband of Lakshmi is the uncle, whose mother is the all-auspicious one, Parvati and whose father is Lord Shiva, I offer salutations to Sri Ganesha, the elephant faced.”

A few other family relationships in Sanskrit:

• Mother – Janani, Maathaa
• Father – Janaka:, Pithaa
• Son – Puthra
• Daughter – Puthree
• Sister – Bhaginee
• Brother – Bhraathaa
• Grandfather – Pithaamaha: (Father’s side), Maathaamaha: (mother’s side)
• Grandmother – Pithamahee, Maathaamahee

Previous posts on learning Sanskrit:

Part 5     Part 4     Part 3     Part 2     Part 1