So, if you chant these mantras, at least one in one day, your life will be glorious. This mantra, bhāgavata-mantra, not only Bhāgavata, every Vedic literature is a mantra. Transcendental sound. So practice resounding this mantra. So we have taken so much labor to put in diacritic mark, all the words, word meaning, utilize it. Don't think that these books are only for sale. If you go to sell these books and if some customer says, "You pronounce it," then what you will do? Then he will understand, "Oh, you are for selling, not for understanding." What do you think? Eh? So therefore it is necessary now, you have got nice books, each and every śloka, verse, should be pronounced. Therefore we have given this original verse in Sanskrit, its transliteration with diacritic mark—these marks are universally accepted amongst the scholars. So all the scholars of Sanskrit, they agreed to use this mark for pronouncing Sanskrit language.
Diacritic marks
Expressions researched:
"Diacritic spelling"
|"diacritic mark"
|"diacritic markings"
|"diacritic marks"
|"diacritic signs"
|"diacritic transliteration"
|"diacritical markings"
|"diacritical marks"
|"mark Diacritic"
Lectures
Srimad-Bhagavatam Lectures
Pradyumna: (leads chanting, etc.)
- nyarundhann udgalad bāṣpam
- autkaṇṭhyād devakī-sute
- 5niryāty agārān no 'bhadram
- iti syād bāndhava-striyaḥ
- (SB 1.10.14)
Translation: "The female relatives, whose eyes were flooded with tears out of anxiety for Kṛṣṇa, came out of the palace. They could only stop their tears with great difficulty. They feared that tears would cause misfortune at the time of departure."
Prabhupāda:
- nyarundhann udgalad bāṣpam
- autkaṇṭhyād devakī-sute
- niryāty agārān no 'bhadram
- iti syād bāndhava-striyaḥ
- (SB 1.10.14)
You can practice this diacritic mark. English transliteration is there. It is not very difficult. Simply if you practice twice, thrice, four times, it will come exactly, the pronunciation. You have to learn the diacritic marks. Then it will be all right. Word meaning.
Pradyumna: Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. (leads chanting)
- śrī-śuka uvāca
- evam etan nigaditaṁ
- pṛṣṭavān yad bhavān mama
- nṛṇāṁ yan mriyamāṇānāṁ
- manuṣyeṣu manīṣiṇām
- (SB 2.3.1)
- brahma-varcasa-kāmas tu
- yajeta brahmaṇaḥ patim
- indram indriya-kāmas tu
- prajā-kāmaḥ prajāpatīn
- (SB 2.3.2)
- devīṁ māyāṁ tu śrī-kāmas
- tejas-kāmo vibhāvasum
- vasu-kāmo vasūn rudrān
- vīrya-kāmo 'tha vīryavān
- (SB 2.3.3)
Prabhupāda: So, anyone else? That's all right. So in this way, if you chant ten times, you'll get it by heart. It is not difficult. So we are giving this diacritic mark, English transliteration, only for this purpose—so that you can chant, you can vibrate these mantras. So practice. Here you hear, and in your leisure time, you practice. If you chant these mantras anywhere, you'll be honored. Sanskrit language is so nice. And direction, everything is there: purport, word meaning, and translation. So we are taking so much trouble in writing books not for simply making market. It is for you to read. Not that simply we go and sell books, and that ... If the customer says, "You read it first of all," then what you will say? You'll say, "No, I cannot read. I can sell only." (laughter) (Prabhupāda laughs.) Then what will be your position, if you say like that? "I can sell; I cannot read." Anyway, then? Word meanings? (Pradyumna reads synonyms.) So these are kāma, these material desires.
Puṣṭa Kṛṣṇa: "This cosmic manifestation, the material world, is also Your body. By Your potential energy known as kāla-śakti, this total lump of matter is agitated, and thus three modes of material nature are manifested. In this way You become awakened from the bed of Ananta-Śeṣa, and from Your navel a small transcendental seed is generated, from which the gigantic universe becomes manifest. Exactly like the small seed of banyan tree, the lotus flower of the cosmic manifestation is grown up."
Prabhupāda: These verses of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, they are Vedic mantras. They're not ordinary wording, set of wording. It is not. Veda-mantra, saṁhitā. So every one of you must try to chant. This is required. Each verse of Bhagavad-gītā or Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, they are Vedic mantras, veda-mantra. So simply by chanting them we become purified. So every one of you... There is diacritic marks, literation, transliteration, so everyone should try to chant the mantra. That is very beneficial. That is kīrtana. Kīrtanād eva kṛṣṇasya (SB 12.3.51). Everything is being chanted in relationship with Kṛṣṇa, with reference to Kṛṣṇa.
Purports to Songs
Prabhupāda: Karatāla, cymbal, this is also being sounded, all together.
Pradyumna: Madhura mṛdaṅga.
Prabhupāda: And the madhura, with sweet mṛdaṅga. You know, mṛdaṅga.
Pradyumna: Madhura means street?
Prabhupāda: Sweet.
Pradyumna: Sweet.
Prabhupāda: Yes. The mṛdaṅga vibration is very sweet.
Pradyumna: Bāje, sounding. Śunitai?
Prabhupāda: Śunite, to hear.
Pradyumna: Rasāla.
Prabhupāda: Rasāla, very relishable. All these sounds together, when vibrated, they are very relishable to hear. So make typed copies nicely, with diacritic mark, hard "a," and explain. And the sound is there, repeat. If you practice two, three days, it will be all right. Everyone will be able to sing, and it will be very nice.
Pradyumna: It's very beautiful.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everything will come out nice, beautiful.
Conversations and Morning Walks
1969 Conversations and Morning Walks
Allen Ginsberg: So I have been learning to notate music, in..., singing songs by William Blake which I've written a little music to. So those are, in a way, my guru's songs.
Prabhupāda: I can give you so many songs. (laughter) Just like he can read it.
Allen Ginsberg: Are there many songs in there?
Prabhupāda: Not there. There is diacritic mark. Can you read it?
Allen Ginsberg: No. I don't think.
Prabhupāda: This, Nitāi-pada...
Allen Ginsberg: Nitāi-pada-kamala koṭi candra suśītala.
Prabhupāda: Yes, you are reading.
Allen Ginsberg: Ye chāyāya jagata jurāya. Hena nitāi vine bhāi, rādhā-kṛṣṇa pāite nāi...
Prabhupāda: Dharo nitāi... Dṛḍha kori... You can read it. It is not difficult.
Allen Ginsberg: Se sambandha nāhi jār, bṛthā janma gelo tār. What meter is that in? Da-da-da-da da-da-da, da-da-da-da...
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes.
1971 Conversations and Morning Walks
Mohsin Hassan: Yeah, it seems to me this is the biggest problem, the cost of operations.
Prabhupāda: Never mind. Kṛṣṇa is giving. You have seen our publications?
Mohsin Hassan: No. I have seen the books. I have most of them.
Prabhupāda: Small Bhāgavata, chapterwise it is publishing. It is very scholarly. (aside:) Bring some chapters of Bhāgavatam.
Devotee: Yes. Prabhupāda, he has almost all of them.
Prabhupāda: You have got the chapterwise Bhāgavatam?
Devotee: Those little tiny ones, Śrīla Prabhupāda? The soft-covered ones?
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yes.
Devotee: Like The Lord in the Heart? He has them.
Prabhupāda: He has got. There you will see how it is scholarly written.
Mohsin Hassan: Oh, yes. Wonderful.
Prabhupāda: So we are publishing all our books in a scholarly way so that professors, teachers, philosophers, they, they can read it. And it is very easily done. Word-to-word, Sanskrit word, English, and diacritic marks. So we are working very hard. So if it is introduced among the scholarly sections, professors, teachers, it will be very beneficial to the human society.
Mohsin Hassan: Do you do your printing in Japan and America?
Prabhupāda: Yes, yes. I am... Whenever I travel, I travel all over, around the world.
Haṁsadūta: And another thing I wanted to ask you about, Prabhupāda, is that Maṇḍalībhadra, he wants to make your literature perfect, which is natural because we want to make the nicest presentation. But the devotees are saying that the translation... For instance, this Easy Journey to Other Planets, has been in the process so long, it has so many times been reworked, that it's no longer palatable to them. They don't even read it. They'd rather have the English version. So I know that Your Divine Grace has said you have full faith in his ability to do the work...
Prabhupāda: No, no. If you... you find out somebody else. He can also do.
Haṁsadūta: Because my opinion is that he's becoming overworked, it's becoming strained, so much so that we're not even able to bring it to the printer because he insists on making every time more and more corrections.
Prabhupāda: (chuckles) It never comes to perfection.
Haṁsadūta: It never comes to perfection. It can, you know. For instance, this little booklet, Easy Journey to Other Planets, one of the things that has been holding it up is because the diacritic marks, to get the diacritic marks in there perfectly... We took it to a professional composer. Of course, they're not experienced, so they didn't, at first they didn't want to do it and then... At any rate, my opinion was first let us print it without the diacritic marks, and then the second edition make it with diacritic marks. Improve it by editions rather than wait until it's completely perfect before we put it on the market because...
Prabhupāda: But if once it is made perfect, then it will be easier to print more and more.
Haṁsadūta: That's true, but see, what has happened is the entire sum has been lost...
Prabhupāda: He could not finish any one?
Haṁsadūta: No, not even the magazine was finished. The magazine before this recent one, I put it together myself from old magazines.
Prabhupāda: There are so many German students. They cannot do?
Haṁsadūta: They can do, but the thing is that you have said that he is the chief and unless it goes through him, it can't be printed.
Prabhupāda: No. No, no. No, no. No, no.
Haṁsadūta: Everything is bottle-necked around him.
Prabhupāda: Now, the important subject, he may do slowly, but...
Haṁsadūta: Like Bhagavad-gītā or Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Others may be done by others. You print it. Even there is some mistake, that doesn't matter.
1973 Conversations and Morning Walks
Jesuit Priest: Yes, but all I was saying was, isn't it difficult to get across at times what you can see the meaning in the Sanskrit, but you can't put it into acceptable English? You know what I mean. The idiom isn't the same.
Prabhupāda: We are giving every word, meaning. The book... Have you got any book? Bring it. You can see. Each and every word of Sanskrit we are giving meaning. Our mode of presentation is first of all we put the original Sanskrit language in devanāgarī character. Then we give English, Roman transliteration, pronouncing the same word by diacritic mark. Then each word is translated into English. Then we give translation, the whole. And then we give the purport. This is our way. So we are giving meaning of each and every word means we have got considerable knowledge of that word. Otherwise how we can give?
Professor: Do you use any grammar, Sanskrit grammar, when you study Sanskrit?
Prabhupāda: Sanskrit grammar?
Professor: Yes, how do they learn when they learn Sanskrit?
Paramahaṁsa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: We have given some hints.
Professor: Or do they learn from a text or...?
Prabhupāda: We have given some hints. In the last... You can show him, in the Bhagavad-gītā. Or Īśopaniṣad. The mode, how to read.
Professor: No, Sanskrit is quite difficult...
Prabhupāda: Yes, there...
Professor: Many forms and so forth.
Prabhupāda: Now, these boys, they did not know Sanskrit. By, by following the direction, they read very nicely these diacritic marks.
Professor: Yes. Oh, this is good.
Pradyumna: (indistinct)
Professor: But they don't learn how to inflect forms and so on...
Prabhupāda: Simply they have to learn the alphabet.
1975 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: Yes. Because they had very good tendency for learning Sanskrit to know so many things. That was their research. They knew it that in Sanskrit language there are so many wonderful things.
Dr. Patel: Now, sir, they say that in American universities also, many universities have started teaching Sanskrit.
Prabhupāda: Yes. In every school, every college, every university, there is Sanskrit. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Jaya. (break)
Dr. Patel: ...was the real man who, when he started studying Vedas, he realized that in Sanskrit language there is a huge literature of great importance. He spread the things in Germany. No, he was staying in England.
Prabhupāda: By international scholars' meeting these diacritic marks were discovered for studying Sanskrit. The diacritic marks which we use, that is international agreement of Sanskrit scholars.
Dr. Patel: Yes. Yes. Those marks. A, and a and u and ai and these dots. Yes, that is international. Nobody can claim. That is long back, sir. I think Max Muller's time.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
1976 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: You are reading the transcription or original verse?
Hṛdayānanda: Transcription.
Prabhupāda: So this transcription is quite helpful in pronunciation, everything. Exact it is coming. The diacritic marks follow, you can pronounce exactly. Then?
Hṛdayānanda:
- nāhaṁ bibhemy ajita te 'tibhayānakāsya-
- jihvārka-netra-bhrukuṭī-rabhasogra-daṁṣṭrāt
- āntra-srajaḥ-kṣataja-keśara-śaṅku-karṇān
- nirhrāda-bhīta-digibhād ari-bhin-nakhāgrāt
"My Lord, who are never conquered by anyone, I am certainly not afraid of Your ferocious mouth and tongue, Your eyes bright like the sun, or Your frowning eyebrows. I do not fear Your sharp, pinching teeth, Your garland of intestines, Your mane soaked with blood, or Your high, wedgelike ears. Nor do I fear Your tumultuous roaring, which makes elephants flee to distant places, or Your nails, which are meant to kill Your enemies."
Prabhupāda: Now he'll come to the point in which he's afraid of. Next verse.
1977 Conversations and Morning Walks
Prabhupāda: No, that, you do not take care. I said three times, "yaḥ." Now you simply saw "y-a." Why did you not see "y-a-ḥ"?
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. I didn't realize it was spelled that way. It's my lack of learning.
Prabhupāda: Spelling... But yaḥ, you do not know, "So let me see how to this 'yaḥ.' Which yaḥ is there."
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That I didn't know. I didn't know that. I mean, I know it's my fault. I was looking for y-a-s, and I should have seen y-a-ḥ. I was looking for ya śāstra, y-a-s, instead of y-a-ḥ.
Prabhupāda: So you know how to read phonetical.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Phonetical.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Yaḥ. What is that mark? Diacritic.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes.
Prabhupāda: You must know thoroughly that, that how yaḥ is spelled. This is standard. Practice. Everything practice. (break) Y-a-ḥ... This is determined by the diacritic mark. But this, everything is there. So this was beginning... (break)
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: They know...
Prabhupāda: Good.
| Page Title: | Diacritic marks |
| Compiler: | Visnu Murti, Laksmipriya |
| Created: | 17 of May, 2010 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=0, CC=0, OB=0, Lec=5, Con=8, Let=20 |
| No. of Quotes: | 33 |