# Hindi-Urdu: Tumahaare Farishte



## tarkshya

While watching a Hindi movie, I recently took note of a dialogue which goes something like..

"Is kaam ko to tumhaare farishte bhii naa kar paayeN".

I have heard sentences like this before too, but never paid much attention earlier. Now I am wondering what is the origin of this idiom? The sentence seems to imply some "personal" angels working for a person. Is it rooted in some middle-eastern myth?


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## littlepond

Influence of Abrahamic religions, tarkshya jii.


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## marrish

As if Hindi speakers were not able to say so. Many of them are adherents of such religions, and even if not so, then you can say their Hindi is influenced by Urdu.

Anyway I'd been curious as to the context of this sentence; I don't think I have heard it before. The meaning will be clearer to me at least.


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## tarkshya

I don't know which movie was it. Some old nondescript movie. Anyway, you can search google for "تمہارے فرشتے"  or "tumhare farishte" (in quotes), and you will find many sentences with the same general meaning.


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## tarkshya

littlepond said:


> Influence of Abrahamic religions, tarkshya jii.



Well, this assertion does seem to be most likely source of this idiom! Apparently, not only there are personal angels (Mu'aqqibat), but personal Jinns too! (Qareen) And jinns being jinns, they can't help but goad a person to do evil things. (Now I know who keeps pushing me to drink beer all the time .


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## marrish

There are also such angels, Lailah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Guardian angel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia guardian angels in many religions. *farishtah* itself is a Persian word and guardian angels feature in pre-Abrahamic Persia.


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## littlepond

^ But I doubt, marrish jii, that the pre-Abrahamic guardian angels are the reason that we have "farishtaa" in modern Hindi. In fact, I can't think of a non-Persian-based word for "angel" in Hindi. That strongly points to the influence of Abrahamic religions on Indian languages insofar as the concept of angel is concerned.


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## mundiya

^ There is dev-duut, which encompasses the concept of both angel and prophet. But since it has the word dev, I think it would only be used in the context of Dharmic religions and wouldn't really apply to an angel or prophet of Abrahamic faiths.


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## Jashn

Wouldn't a gandharva be like an angel? They live in heaven and sing/are musically inclined, and they pass on messages? Not exactly the same but very close, no?


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## littlepond

^ I don't think so: people don't have gandharvas watching over them, never heard anything like that. Just because someone is musically inclined doesn't make that one an angel!


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## littlepond

mundiya said:


> ^ There is dev-duut, which encompasses the concept of both angel and prophet. But since it has the word dev, I think it would only be used in the context of Dharmic religions and wouldn't really apply to an angel or prophet of Abrahamic faiths.



"dev-duut" is just messenger: and it does not encompass the concept of a prophet-like messenger, because "dev" themselves are created, they are not the God of Abrahamic religions, "dev" are not creators, and hence all those "dev-duut" are more like carrier pigeons rather than carrying the Word of God to human race or something like that. And "dev-duut" are certainly not watching over the welfare of people, so by no stretch of imagination they are angels!


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## Jashn

One of the main purposes of an angel is to sing God's praise in heaven, and then to pass messages from God to humans. I agree, a Gandharva is not a guardian angel, but a guardian angel is one type of angel. Perhaps I should have been clearer that I was wondering whether a parallel could be drawn between the non-guardian angel varieties and Gandharvas. Perhaps I was too off-topic. Regardless, thank you for the input.


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## littlepond

Jashn said:


> One of the main purposes of an angel is to sing God's praise in heaven, and then to pass messages from God to humans.



Oxford gives this definition for the "generic" angel: "a spirit who is believed to be a servant of God, and is sent by God to deliver a message or perform a task."

Now as I explained in my previous post, since God does not deliver messages to humanity in Hinduism, the concept of any angel is not possible.


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## mundiya

littlepond said:


> Now as I explained in my previous post, since God does not deliver messages to humanity in Hinduism,



Millions of people would disagree with that because there is a strong belief in the divine messages of avtaars, gurus, and sants.



> the concept of any angel is not possible.



Even though we have our reservations about dev-duut, Bahri considers dev-duut and farishtaa to be synonyms. However, I personally wouldn't use dev-duut in Tarkshya jii's example sentence in the OP.


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## littlepond

mundiya said:


> Millions of people would disagree with that because there is a strong belief in the divine messages of avtaars, gurus, and sants.
> 
> Even though we have our reservations about dev-duut, Bahri considers dev-duut and farishtaa to be synonyms.



A message or anything can be divine: in fact, every being is divine in most of Hindu beliefs, so of course a message can be. That doesn't make the enunciator of a message a "messenger", since in any case at the most a messenger in Hindu beliefs can only be a divine him/herself between two divines, since everything and everyone is divine. "avataar" is incarnation, and not messenger. There's a huge difference between the two.

Bahri is not some authority on Hindu beliefs, so Bahri's synonyms are irrelevant. In any case, for facilitating reading to Western people, lot of gross approximations are done: like attaching an "-ism" to Hindu (and calling it as some religion).

I do not by the way disagree with you that millions might disagree with me (and millions agree): Vivekananda and his ilk, and the modern Hindutva brigade, have quite succeeded in creating confusion, and measuring everything with Western scales.


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## tarkshya

I feel that the word "dev-duut" is almost like a neologism, coined specifically to convey the meaning of messenger of god in the context of Abrahamic religions. I don't recall coming across this word in the large corpus of Indian religious texts.


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## mundiya

tarkshya said:


> I feel that the word "dev-duut" is almost like a neologism, coined specifically to convey the meaning of messenger of god in the context of Abrahamic religions. I don't recall coming across this word in the large corpus of Indian religious texts.



dev-duut is a genuine Sanskrit word (devaduuta "divine messenger"). According to Monier Williams, the word is mentioned in the Mahabharata.


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## tarkshya

mundiya said:


> According to Monier Williams, the word is mentioned in the Mahabharata.



Can you provide a link for this.


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## mundiya

tarkshya said:


> Can you provide a link for this.



Besides the Mahabharata, "devaduuta" is also in Taittiriya Samhita of Yajurveda. You can find the dictionary here. Type _devaduta_ in the search box, or you can also access scanned versions of the dictionary on that site.


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## littlepond

But a dictionary is not an ancient text. I would like to see the scan of an ancient version of Mahabharata or a Veda itself with the context of the word, if it is used at all. My feeling coincides strongly with tarkshya jii's.


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## desi4life

littlepond said:


> But a dictionary is not an ancient text. I would like to see the scan of an ancient version of Mahabharata or a Veda itself with the context of the word, if it is used at all. My feeling coincides strongly with tarkshya jii's.



As I interject myself into the discussion, I have a few comments. Unless you know Sanskrit, you would need the assistance of a dictionary to understand the texts. Even those who know Sanskrit consult dictionaries for the definitions of words. If you believe the definition provided for devaduuta in one of the foremost Sanskrit dictionaries is wrong, or that the word is not attested in Sanskrit texts at all, then by all means go ahead and attempt to prove it.

Perhaps @Dib can weigh in about devaduuta in Sanskrit.


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## littlepond

^ I didn't try to prove anything, and didn't try to belittle Monier-Williams; you are trying to prove me proving something, instead. A dictionary's job is to give equivalents, even if they hardly exist or are untranslatable, so what a dictionary says may not be of much import. It is the actual sources and their contexts that are of more value.

I would also like Dib jii to weigh in here.


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## marrish

One instance in
एवमुक्वाय व सुरश्रेष्ठं प्रणिपत्यस कृतांजली।
प्रेषयामासतुर्वीरौ रंगमध्यो नृपैर्वृते।।
*देवदूतस्य*स वचनं यथोक्तं वज्रपाणिना।
लखित्वाय सुमहातेजा: कैशिक: प्राह शासनम् (हरिवंश पुराण विष्णुपर्व chapter 50)
[EDIT: transliteration here:
evamukvāya va suraśrēṣṭhaṁ praṇipatyasa kr̥tān̄jalī.
prēṣayāmāsaturvīrau raṅgamadhyo nr̥pairvr̥tē..
*dēvadūtasya*sa vacanaṁ yathōktaṁ vajrapāṇinā.
lakhitvāya sumahātējāḥ kaiśikaḥ prāha śāsanam (harivanśa purāṇa viṣṇuparva chapter 50)]


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## mundiya

mundiya said:


> ^ There is dev-duut, which encompasses the concept of both angel and prophet. But since it has the word dev, I think it would only be used in the context of Dharmic religions and wouldn't really apply to an angel or prophet of Abrahamic faiths.



I investigated this further, and "dev-duut" is used for angel but not prophet. Bahri correctly states "dev-duut" and "farishtaa" to be synonymous because that's the way they are used in written Hindi. I've found news articles in which a person who does a great or heroic deed is referred to as a "dev-duut" (i.e. a farishtaa or angel). Hindi fictional literature includes tales about "dev-duutoN" who come from svarg and assist humanity. Religious literature from a variety of faiths also use "dev-duut" for angels or angel-like beings. The literal meaning of "dev-duut" also fits the main definitions of angel found in the online Oxford English dictionary here.


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## littlepond

^ Hindi, which is a modern language (much post-dated to the introduction of Abrahamic religions in India), would of course use "dev-duut", "farishtaa", etc., for angels; for prophets, words like "paigambar" are used in Hindi. What the word "dev duut" can mean in modern languages of India was never in question; the OP had something else as the question.


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## mundiya

littlepond said:


> What the word "dev duut" can mean in modern languages of India was never in question



Well, you questioned it in post 11. But we need not dwell on this.


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