Sanskrit onomastics

[Allen Thrasher]

One thing I have never seen investigated but which ought to be is the habit of giving teachers and other prominent persons informal nicknames, one which seems to go back quite a ways. E.g. KaNAda, "particle eater" for the founder of VaiZeSika - though he may be mythical, or BhagavatpAda for AdiZankarAcArya, or in modern times Lokamanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi.

One factor at work in onomastics in classical Sanskrit is the attitude, perhaps originating in the needs of verse, that one may take any compound word and substitute any synonym of either or both members without loss of meaning, metris causa or for elegant variation, something which may be applied to proper names of people and places as well as to common nouns or adjectives.


Allen


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