# Sanskrit... related to divine



## Borin3

1. सुरभी      f.    *surabhI* fear of god
2. सुरभूय     n.   *surabhUya* becoming a deity
3. सुरभवन   n.   *surabhavana* god's abode
4. सुरभाव   m*.   **surabhAva* dignity of a god
5. सुरभीगोत्र  n.   *surabhIgotra *race of surabhI
5. असुर      adj.* asura * divine
6. असुर्य     adj.  *asurya* divine
7. दिव्य      adj.  *divya * divine

I know i'm asking a difficult question and i guess i'll get no answer. Anyway...It's easy to notice Sur being root in all of these Sanskrit examples. Except for all of the English translations all connected to divine there is a different one in 5th row. 
Is there anyone on this forum who can explain these Sanskrit words, how is Sur connected to divine and if it's some Deity since there is also race of surabhi, maybe people pulling their origin from the same God Sur, if that deity existed. Since these English translations are shallow i'd prefer a bit better interpretation to better understand their meaning.
Might it also be somehow connected to Assyrian Empire? I guess this character सुर is the key..

Thanks in advance


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## CyrusSH

Yes, both Assyrian god _Ašur_ and Akkadian god _Anšur_ related to Indo-Iranian god _*n̩su-_ and Germanic god _*ansu-_.


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## desi4life

The following link has a discussion about asura and sura: असुर - Wiktionary

The Assyrian and Akkadian words are not related to the Sanskrit.


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## CyrusSH

desi4life said:


> The following link has a discussion about asura and sura: असुर - Wiktionary
> 
> The Assyrian and Akkadian words are not related to the Sanskrit.



I didn't say those relate to Sanskrit but Indo-Iranian, of course Sanskrit belongs to the Indian branch of Indo-Iranian.


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## CyrusSH

In 2,000 BC, Ašur/Asura was the main God who was worshipped in the north of Mesopotamia and the west of modern Iran, but about 1,500 BC Indo-Iranian language broke up and Asura and Deva (the main Indo-European God) became the enemies of each other, Indians (Indo-Aryans) with the help of Mitanni captured the Assyrian empire and ruled there for about 200 years, as we see in the Mittani inscriptions, they just worshipped Devas, such as Mitra, Varuna, Indra and Nasatya. Iranians migrated to the east and considered Deva as demon, and Ahura (s>h) as still the main God. This new land was Xvaniratha (Land of Vanir in Germanic), the cradle or seed of the Aryans (Iranians).


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## desi4life

The Indo-Iranian *asura has cognates in Hittite, Latin, and Germanic. Therefore, a borrowing from the Akkadian/Assyrian words seems far-fetched. Let's see what others think.


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## CyrusSH

Asura/Aesir is actually prulal, the oldest known form in IE languages is Hittite A'as, derived from the Sumeriam god Enki (Ea). As I said the main Indo-European god was Deva (Dios, Deos, Di, Tiw, ..).


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## CyrusSH

In the 2nd millennium BC, Asura/Ašur was the name of main god, not a word with an exact meaning, for example it can compared to the name of Jesus: Isa in the Indo-Iranian languages and Išo in Assyrian/Syriac.


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## fdb

The place to look for Sanskrit etymologies is Mayrhofer’s _Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen_, which records all the suggestions, good or bad. For _asura-_ (vol. I pp. 147-8) Mayrhofer gives his vote to a suggestion by Schlerath according to which Skt. _asura-_ and Av. _ahura_- are cognate with Av. _ahu- _“lord, overlord” (not identical with Av. _ahu-_, Skt. _asu-_ “life”), and with Hittite _hassu_ “king”, suggesting an IE *h²n̥s-u(ro)-.

Other, more problematic, suggestions include the proposal that Indo-Iranian _asura_- was either borrowed from or influenced by the name of the principal Assyrian god Aššur. This old theory has been revamped in an article in a recent issue of the _Journal of the American Oriental Society_ (available on JSTOR): Ṛgveda, Avesta, and Beyond—ex occidente lux? on JSTOR


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## Dib

CyrusSH said:


> Asura/Aesir is actually prulal, the oldest known form in IE languages is Hittite A'as, derived from the Sumeriam god Enki (Ea). As I said the main Indo-European god was Deva (Dios, Deos, Di, Tiw, ..).



Let's put some rigour into this. It is probably not of paramount importance to the arguments presented here, but being accurate won't hurt, I suppose.

Old Norse *æsir *is, indeed, plural, the singular being *áss *(u-stem) - meaning "(a class of) gods". The proposed Avestan cognate is *ahu-* (overlord). The Avestan *ahura-* (god) and Sanskrit *asura-* (god > demon) are thus a -ra extension to this stem. All the Avestan and Sanskrit examples are word stems (as indicated by the final -). They are neither singular nor plural. In fact, they are not even valid words (well, strictly speaking, the Sanskrit one can be the vocative singular form), but the _theoretical_ base forms (i.e. stems), to which case-number endings are added. Traditionally that's how Old Indo-Iranian nouns and adjectives are cited - a convention which derives from the Indian grammatical tradition. Note that all these terms are common nouns, not name of any specific god/lord.

In the "deva" group also, there are two separate stems. There is firstly the basic root-noun, Sanskrit *div-~dyu-* (sky,day), Latin *Iu*ppiter, Greek *Zeus *(patēr), etc. This is clearly the daytime sky being personified as the "Father Heaven" - also in Sanskrit as a minor deity in the Vedas. Sanskrit *deva-* (god) is an -a extension of this root-noun. Avestan *daēva-* (demon), Latin *deus* (god), Old English *Tīw* belong to this last stem.

Finally, *sura-* (god) in Sanskrit is most likely a late back-formation from asura-, after the meaning of asura- shifted to demon, because a(n)- is a common prefix meaning "not" (i.e. privative prefix) in Sanskrit (and Greek, etc.). As far as I know, this word doesn't occur in the earlier parts of the Vedic corpus, nor does it have any cognates in the other IE languages.


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## Borin3

I guess Isa must have a meaning, but we maybe can't get to it.

oh, prefix A meaning not is interesting indeed.  Could it be possible that prefix A in name of Arabia has the same role?

So Sura can just be translated as a God, or it had some further meanings? I can notice that Assyrian religion is tightly connected to Sun, with lots of Sun symbolism, and lots of them being almost completely the same as symbols we can find in old Slavic. 

Div in Serbian means a giant. Divan-wonderful. 
Might El (Il) be a similar deity to Indra? Rather often mentioned in the Bible itself. The last words from Jesus were directed to this God. 
El (deity) - Wikipedia This is just an article on wikipedia so you can have an impression.
Does it relate to Sanskrit in any way?


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## Treaty

There is no _a-_ prefix in Arab(ia). It starts with an _ayin _letter that is a part of the root _ʿ-r-b_.


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## Borin3

Thanks a lot people..Your posts helped a lot. I'm quite interested in Serbian-Sanskrit language similarities, as well as religious ones, which are also connected by the language. Present day Serbian we would say "Bog Vishnji" (God Sky(adj.))maybe heavenly would be the best translation. It's not a name for the God, but just a way to describe him, with a word that pulls roots from far away history. Both of these can be found in Sanskrit. We had Ognebog, Svarog, Stribog, Triglav (Trimurti) and many other deities all being very similar.


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## aruniyan

Tamil similar words,
Choozh- Surrounded
Choozhchi-  plot,
Chool- Resolution.
Choolai- Kiln
ChooL- The Trident


Churuku: Encircle/ Shorten / Tie around
Chutru: Round about.
Chutram: Environment/Surrounding
Churuttu: to cover roll over/ Cheroot.
etc..

This word Sur(Choor), related with the word Chool, "surrounded by", referring to the forces that covers/engulfs ones mind or body thereby threatens.

Choor in Tamil is  frieghtening one, devil, disease, pungency, cruelty and also refers to the Sooran in religious sense, often the gods helps relieve.


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## desi4life

Borin3 said:


> So Sura can just be translated as a God, or it had some further meanings?



It has other meanings too as indicated in Sanskrit dictionaries, but in the context of the thread topic_ sura _means "god, deity", same as _deva_.



> Div in Serbian means a giant. Divan-wonderful.



Div is probably borrowed from Turkish/Persian.



> Might El (Il) be a similar deity to Indra? ... Does it relate to Sanskrit in any way?



El is a Semitic word for "god, diety".


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## Borin3

Oh.. English word Divine which comes from earlier Latin Divus (that later became Deus) are also probably borrowings from Turkish/Persian? Same goes for Spanish, Italian, French etc. ?


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## desi4life

No, just the Serbian word is probably borrowed from Turkish/Persian. Words in the other languages are related to the meaning "god" and not to "giant". The meaning "giant" has a negative connotation stemming from the original meaning of "demon" in the Iranian tradition.


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## Borin3

Word _div_ must have lost it's godlike features with christianisation, just because Christian's main enemy is old and "pagan" div, godlike giant (In Serbian word pogan-disgusting, very similar to pagan).Luckily we still have word _divan _(wonderful) which pretty much explains and reminds us of what div is. The only giant that can be _divan_ (wonderful) is God. After all Turks don't have word divan to describe their div but we do and our div used to be god, unlike theirs. 

After all demon is also a type of God, but a bad one.Example: With arrival of Anglo-Saxons to Britain who brought their own Gods, an old Celtic White Goddess was satanized. I'm not entirely sure about how the whole story goes since i learnt about this quite long time ago, but supposedly one of Celtic deities was believed to live in the Loch Ness lake. The myth says that there is a monster dwelling in Loch Ness now. If Anglo-Saxonic Gods didn't dominate but Celtish, there would be no monster there now. Or might it be this deity became a monster because of christianization? You get the point. Could something similar happen to divs in Persia? The case in Serbia is people were too dedicated to their old Gods (Divs) that they didn't dare proclaim them demons. This is why we present day have Ilija the Thunderlord, what was Perun and then Saint Vid day, which was Svetovid. We incorporated them in Christianity and proclaimed them Christian Saints. True story.

Since christianisation of Serbia happened long before Turkish arrival and christianization itself must have been the main reason why div only remained giant in Serbian lexicon, don't you think we already had this word when Turks arrived? Also why must it be that Turks gave us words? Turks at that time were a cultural marvel? As a matter of fact there are lots of words Turks adopted from Serbs. Somebody very professional must finally explore this topic seriously and stop the confusion or should i say robbery of Serbian words. Furthermore almost every Turkish Sultan spoke Serbian.


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## Olaszinhok

Borin3 said:


> Oh.. English word Divine which comes from earlier Latin Divus (that later became Deus) are also probably borrowings from Turkish/Persian? Same goes for Spanish, Italian, French etc. ?



In Italian we have the adjective _*divino*_ with the same meaning as the English divine, _*Dio*_ means God and its plural is _*dei/dèi*_ (Gods), for instance _*gli dèi greci*_ (Greek gods), whereas *divo/a* is a movie star or a celebrity, it is both an adjective and a substantive.
*Divinità* can be translated into English with deity or divinity.


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## desi4life

Borin3 said:


> Since christianisation of Serbia happened long before Turkish arrival and christianization itself must have been the main reason why div only remained giant in Serbian lexicon, don't you think we already had this word when Turks arrived?



Christianization doesn't appear to be the reason for the meaning of "giant" because the original meaning is preserved in Latin and many other languages of Europe. The Serbian language probably borrowed this word during the centuries of Turkish rule in Serbia. A Serbian etymological dictionary would be a good resource for verification.


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## aruniyan

Tamil has this word _Thee(_fire) from which comes from the words _Theemai, Theethu, Theettu_ meanings  bad/evil/to keep away etc... this could be related with Sanskrit words like Deepa(flame), Dveepa(island) and many other divine words there.


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## Borin3

Aight aight you are right, i write the truth and you act blind. No offense, it just came out of my moment of inspiration...i just had to write it. 

As i said word div and divan relate to each other and say everything that needs to be said about it. Unfortunately for Latin and many other languages of Europe the only thing it means is God. The fact is Gods used to be depicted as Giants. Speaking of Serbian just like many other languages, they all have more ways to refer to God. It's not a surprise that some word looses it's meaning in a language and gets another one, or gets extinct, or the word gets borrowed from one language to another, becomes forgotten in original language and then brought back to original language via the language that borrowed it in the first place, or through some intermediate language. I'm not saying it comes from Serbian, just stressing something we both know.

If checking the etymological dictionary of word div in Serbian lexicon, it would also be interesting to check word divan as well.


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## tarkshya

aruniyan said:


> Tamil similar words,
> ...
> Choolai- Kiln



No opinion regarding Tamil chool vs Sankrit sur. However this word Choolai caught my attention. Hindi has a similar sounding word "Chuulhaa" which means a stove - close enough to kiln. I wonder if there is a connection.


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