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According to Vācaspati Miśra’s explanation occurring in his comments on the first verse of the Sāṅkhyakārikās the term ādhyātmika means ‘relating to self - mentally or physically’. The same meaning of the term will be found in the Nirukta. When the speaker of a hymn is in the first person, it is called ādhyātmika. The term adhyātmayoga is used very generally in the Gītā for spiritual practice. The Kannaḍ usage might have its influence.

Though Plotinus had been preceded by the Upaniṣads and Buddhism, it will be futile to find exact parallels. Earlier Indian theologians were more concerned with salvation so that the soteriological i.e salvation related aspects, with or without unity with divinity, gained prominence in their deliberations.

However, the type of erotic mysticism that appeared in, say, very late medieval Dutch religious practice and thought will be found also in contemporary India. They go under the term bhaktisādhanā There were strong anti-erotic-mystic movements too within India. As late as the 20^th century some British theologians decried the ‘corruptions’ in Indian religions by which they meant erotic mysticism.

The works on bhakti by Dr. Chinmayee Chatterjee deal with some aspects of what one calls Vaiṣṇava mysticism.

I am sorry for the long lecture. But the aim was clarification.

Best

From: Robert Zydenbos <zydenbos@UNI-MUENCHEN.DE>
To: INDOLOGY@liverpool.ac.uk
Sent: Wednesday, 2 May 2012 3:43 PM
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Mysticism

In Kannada, the commonly used word in ādhyātmikate (which of course is Sanskrit ādhyātmikatā), but the same word also seems to be used as a supposed equivalent for 'spirituality'. As Dominik already said, it seems we have another example of incommensurability here.

RZ

On Apr 29, 2012, at 10:53 PM, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:

> You might look at Apte's Eng-Skt dict for some ideas.
> • http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/AEScan/AEScanjpg/ae0302-myope.jpg
> But as always with such queries (like last year's 'What's the Sanskrit for "go with the flow"?'), one has first to ask whether there is a Sanskritic concept that might correspond to English "mysticism." And, most probably, there isn't, quite. Much interesting work has been done on incommensurability in translation theory.
>
> Dominik
>
>
> On 29 April 2012 13:49, Harsha Dehejia <harshadehejia@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Friends~
>
> What is the best Sanskrit word for mysticism?
>
> Regards.
>
> Harsha

-----
Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos
Institute of Indology and Tibetology
Department of Asian Studies
University of Munich
Germany
Tel. (+49-89-) 2180-5782
Fax (+49-89-) 2180-5827
Web http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~zydenbos