Ask The Yogi
Love in Sanskrit
Q. What is “Love” in Sanskrit?
A. Your question about what love is in Sanskrit intrigued me a bit. So I looked at an online dictionary and found that, in addition to bhakti, there are literally over a hundred entries! I thought of Eskimos and how many different words they had for snow, describiing the subtle nuances and differences and thought that this was a pretty good technique to use for the word “love” as well.
Many definitions of love have to do with deprivation or denial and speak to the self-effacing qualities of love where union begins to become possible by the loss of attachment to self as the center of the universe. These particular definitions can be associated with much suffering as they require the “sacrifice” of th elittle self. Here are a few listed interesting findings that have more to do with love’s “positive” qualities:
Bhaj (from Bhajan, a meditation technique which occurs after simran) and bhakti both have, among their meanings, a practic of dividing or apportioning. This is an extremely important aspect of these words because they speak to the partial human ability to love which transforms th epractitioner into th eembodiment of Divine or perfect love that is whole and complete. These two words usually refer to a Divine love or love for the Divine and devotion and speak to the miracle of that one eternal source of love from which we have “emerged” and into which we shall “return”.
Abhikama (lit. to move toward desire) and kAma (desire) speak more to the pull of earthly love and affection and can be frought with attachment. However they can also become a clean-burning fuel for a “higher” love by offering an opportunity to see the Divine in all things. KAma is sexual love, the embracing of the indivisibility of sex and love and the inetense desire for wholeness and unification. This type of love is not to be discounted or looked down upon; How can we love something as seemingly intangible and impossible to cognize as “God” unless we are first able to experience attraction (and inevitable repulsion) on the earthly material plane? KAma elevates mere desire for pleasure or sex without love into the sexual union as sacred sacrament. Through the practice of Tantra such a union leads to the path of liberation integrating wholeness and unity.
Bhava can be love as a process or feeling or state of being, an energetic presence with the feeling or heart/soul quality of love itself with less of a focus on the object of that love. Bhavabandhana and bhavabhAva deal more with the fettering quality of this love as it links heart to heart or to link one to earthly items.
Karuna often associated with compassion, it also has a mournful or suffering quality to it as it requires empathy (which is quite different from pity) so we actually feel the loved one’s pain as our own, yet do not claim it as an ego posession or badge of devotion. The one who experiences true compassion does not identify with this pain and remains free in the grace of love.
Mihr and mitrasneha is the love of friendship.
man, manyate, -ti, manute all com efrom the root “manas” which deals with our abilty to reason and the mind. These definitions are more concerned with the thought and intellectual ponderings of love and their thought revelations that can lead to indulgence, distraction, or a transforming understanding of the love that resides in one’s heart.
Jeff Martens is a teacher, writer and co-owner of Inner Vision Yoga. All suggestions are voluntary. Consult a qualified teacher or your physician before you embark on any practice in which you are unfamiliar.