sabato 13 ottobre 2012

Etymologies: ayurveda, dharma and samsara

Ayurveda is the traditional Indian medicine which dates back to 5,000 BC. Brahma revealed that to Prajapati. 
File:Sanskrit Devanagari.png
The word 'sanskrit' in devanagari script
The word ayurveda consists of the word ayus and the word veda. The word veda we met many times and it means knowledge. The more complex is the etymology of the word ayur
We can say that it means life, understood in a very broad sense as everything about living being from his birth to his death: body, senses, mind. So Ayurveda is the science of life, the science of well-being of the living being from his birth to his death. 
Dharma instead is usually translated as religion, morality, rules, virtues. In fact the word comes from the Sanskrit root dhr meaning to support, maintain, operate. Dharma is in fact the universal order, the universal balance, what makes things be as they are. 
Dharma is the essence of all being and the well is to respect the dharma that is, be yourself, its opposite, that is non-compliance with universal law, is adharma
Instead samsara is the cycle of rebirth which is interrupted by the liberation, moksha
Samsara means in fact wandering through, succession of states and its etymology derives from the Sanskrit prefix sam denoting a concept of completeness and the root sr indicating motion verbs such as to run, pass, glide.

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