Professor Emeritus Patrick Olivelle has just published a new biography or portrait of King Ashoka, a pivotal figure in the history of ancient India. The book, Ashoka: Portrait of a Philosopher King (Harper Collins, 2023), is now available in India and will shortly be available through Yale University Press in the US. It is the first book in a new series called Indian Lives, edited by Ramachandra Guha. A number of translations of the book into other languages are already in progress. Congratulations to Prof. Olivelle on this tremendous achievement!

Le 12 oct. 2023 à 09:42, Dániel Balogh via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> a écrit :

As for the Sanskrit in the lyrics of "The Duel of the Fates", it's probably there, but very well hidden. "Mangled" doesn't begin to describe it... I looked into this years ago, and here's some of what I've found. Allegedly, the lyrics are based on a Welsh poem called Cad Goddeu, rendered into English as The Battle of the Trees. One verse of this, in one English translation, goes

"Under the tongue root a fight most dread, and another raging behind in the head"

(I am still baffled as to what this "fight most dread" may be under a "tongue root".)

Anyway, this was supposedly "translated" into Sanskrit, though the translator may not have known Sanskrit beyond being able to look up some words in a dictionary, then broken up and rearranged by the composer into something that sounded good to him. As far as I know, no official lyrics were ever published, but some people have transcribed phonetically what they thought they heard. The result was:

Korah Matah Korah Rahtahmah
Korah Rahtamah Yoodhah Korah
Korah Syahdho Rahtahmah Daanyah
Korah Keelah Daanyah
Nyohah Keelah Korah Rahtahmah
Syadho Keelah Korah Rahtahmah
Korah Daanyah Korah Rahtahmah
Korah Daanyah Korah Rahtahmah
Nyohah Keelah Korah Rahtahmah
Syadho Keelah Korah Rahtahmah
Korah
Korah Matah Korah Rahtahmah
Korah Daanyah Korah Rahtahmah
Nyohah Keelah Korah Rahtahmah
Syadho Keelah Korah Rahtahmah

Then someone, who definitely knew no more Sanskrit than being able to flip the pages of a dictionary (but was a speaker of a modern North Indian language), kept doing so until he found something that sort of vaguely resembled the words above, and announced to the world that these are the meanings of the words in the lyrics. For instance: Matah = head (Hindi माथा?); Rath = speak (??); Amah = give (??) etc.

Others then passed this on as fact, some even adding that it's okay if it doesn't make sense, "because there is no formalised grammar in Sanskrit".

At any rate, I think some segments of the above transcript can indeed be matched to Sanskrit words, e.g.

korah is probably ghoraḥ (unless it's kharaḥ) and korah rahtamah may be ghoratamaḥ, perhaps a rendition of "most dread"

yoodhah is definitely yuddhaḥ

syahdho may be *sya adhaḥ (perhaps matah also contains adhaḥ?)

daanyah and/or nyohah may contain anyaḥ (perhaps preceded by an ablative case ending in daanyah)

There's rather more recognisable Sanskrit in the lyrics of another piece, Qui Gon's Funeral. The (unofficial) transcript says,

Madhurah swehpna, go rahdomah swehpna, morittioo, madhurah, swehpna. There is no translation, but the English subtitle of the song is Death''s long sweet sleep.

I think this can safely be equated to Madhuraḥ svapnaḥ, ghoratamaḥ svapnaḥ, mṛtyuḥ, madhuraḥ svapnaḥ.

Though perhaps we should look for a word meaning something like "long" in "go rahdomah" - but I haven't been able to think of one.

All the best,

Dan

On Wed, 11 Oct 2023 at 16:12, Antonia Ruppel via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear Herman,

For once, this is a case of mythology that came to be recently enough for its creators to tell us about their motivations on Wikipedia:

Ahsoka was created by George Lucas and Dave Filoni.^[2] The character was developed to illustrate how Anakin Skywalker develops from the brash, undisciplined Padawan apprentice in Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) to the more reserved Jedi Knight in Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005).^[3] Lucas, who had two daughters, also wanted the character to appeal to girls.^[4] Early in development, Ahsoka's name was "Ashla".^[5]^[a] Lucas renamed her after the ancient Indian emperor Ashoka; the spelling was then altered by screenwriter Henry Gilroy.^[7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahsoka_Tano)

and Twitter:

'In honor of #CloneWars 10th, the title page for the series bible I wrote back in 05. When we met with George to discuss the bible he changed Anakin's Padawan from 'Ashla' to 'Ashoka', after the Indian Emperor of the Maurya Dynasty. I later tweaked it to Ahsoka to make her unique.' (https://twitter.com/HGilroy67/status/1019372713712893952)

All my best,

Antonia

On Wed, 11 Oct 2023 at 11:08, Charles DiSimone via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear Herman Tieken,

I don't know if Ahsoka is related to Aśoka but there is a long history of Sanskrit and related influence in Star Wars. I recell reading that Yoda takes his name from yoddhṛ. The Duel of the Fates song from Episode 1 has its chorus sung in (mangled) Sanskrit. Additionally, Tibetan and Kalmyk were supposedly the inspiration, in part, of the language of the Ewoks.

With my best wishes,
Charles

Prof. Dr. Charles DiSimone

Associate Professor of Buddhist Studies

Department of Languages and Cultures

Ghent University

On Wed, Oct 11, 2023 at 9:44 AM Tieken, H.J.H. (Herman) via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear List members,

I saw announced a sequel to Star Wars which features a character called Ahsoka. I am curious to know if this is a mangled version of Aśoka, via Ashoka (in Dutch papers the aspiration in the name Gandhi is often misplaced: Ghandi).

with kind regards, Herman

Herman Tieken

Stationsweg 58

2515 BP Den Haag

The Netherlands

00 31 (0)70 2208127

website: hermantieken.com

The Aśoka Inscriptions: Analysing a corpus, New Delhi: Primus Books, 2023.

https://primusbooks.com/ancient/the-asoka-inscriptions-analysing-a-corpus-by-herman-tieken/

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