[INDOLOGY] Is this question about the Sanskrit word 'linga' ?

Nagaraj Paturi nagarajpaturi at gmail.com
Fri Oct 9 06:38:59 UTC 2015


Dr Greg Bailey wrote :

A student who does not know Sanskrit has asked the following question: "I
am doing some research into the etymological history of the term 'gender'.
Currently I am trying to find out whether the term was used in Sanskrit to
denote the socio-sexual meaning of the term, or whether the usage was
restricted to the grammatical meaning."

Apart from the name of the three grammatical genders and the other common
means of 'mark, characteristic' and 'penis,' can anybody please recommend
any articles that may be of use?
The question of the student  seems to be:

*I am doing some research into the etymological history of the term
'linga' *

Only then, the sentence

"Apart from the name of the three grammatical genders and the other common
means of 'mark, characteristic' and 'penis,' can anybody please recommend
any articles that may be of use?"

makes sense.

Now the answer:

Apart from the meanings mentioned in the sentence, the word carries the
following meanings too:

1. Shiva's unanthropomorphic image

2. In Ayurveda, an indicator of a bodily /mental condition

3. In Nyaya, hetu =reason, cause (ref. Apte)

4. In Nyaya itself, the middle term of a syllogism (ref. Apte)

5. Any image of any god

6. As part of the word lingazarIra in Vedanta, to mean aggregate of  seeds
of rebirth carried by the self after 'death' ( the loss of the sthUlazarIra
=gross body)

7. One of the relations or indications which serve to fix the meaning of a
word in a passage (ref. Apte)

and more



-- 
Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )


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