# Sanskrit: Navanish



## gole

I would like to know the meaning of the sanskrit word Navanish. 

According to the Sanskrit Dictionary found here http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?script=HK&beginning=0+&tinput=navan&trans=Translate&direction=AU 

Navan=nine + ish=lord, So, Navanish=Nine Gods/Lords
Nava=new + nish=night, So, Navanish=New night

Still, from this site http://www.babycenter.com/baby-names-nish-569835.htm

Nish = Supreme, So, would that make Navanish=New Supreme

Could somebody please tell me what meaning(s) the name Navanish holds?


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## Wolverine9

There is a possibility that it's a contraction of _nava _"new, young" (or _nava_ "nine" or _nava _"praise") + _niishah_ "overpowering," but that seems unlikely.  I don't think any of the possible meanings you provided would be correct.  I'm tempted to say that it's a modern, nonsensical name.  Most  baby naming sites also leave that name undefined.


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## Au101

Hi 

Could we possibly have it in Devanagari?

I don't really buy the second posibility. निशा _niśā-_ is 'night'. This can become निश _niśa-_ as a final memeber of a compound, but this could only be if it were a bahuvrīhi compound referring to some other entity. Now, this is perfectly appropriate for names, for example, there is a sage in the Mahābhārata called बृहदश्व _bṛhadaśva-_, which means "(he who has) a great horse". Literally, the compound just means "great horse," but - applied to a person - it gains the meaning "someone who has a great horse." In English, it's similar to "the great-horsed-one." But it's difficult to imagine what meaning you could gain from "the new-nighted-one" or "he who has/is/is related to a new night." I could be wrong, but I can't really make this interpretation work. As for निश् _niś-_, the paradigm is defective. In the case of निश् _niś-_, the word is not present in Vedic Sanskrit and - according to Monier Williams - it occurs only in some weak cases as "निशि _niśi_, °शस् _-śas_, °शौ _-śau_, °शोस् _-śos_ [and निड्भ्यस् _niḍbhyas_  Pāṇini  6-1 , 63]"

I checked every variant of "nish" I could think of (viz. निश् _niś_, निश _niśa_, निशा _niśā_, निष् _niṣ_, निष _niṣa_, निषा _niṣā_, नीश् _nīś_, नीश _nīśa_, नीशा _nīśā_, नीष् _nīṣ_, नीष _nīṣa_, नीषा _nīṣā_) and found no mention of "supreme". ईश् _īś-_ does mean "master, lord, the supreme spirit."

Which brings me to the first suggestion. Monier William's dictionary doesn't actually give any form of "Navanish," so if I had to make a guess, I'd say नवन् _navan-_ "nine" + ईश् _īś-_ "lord" is probably the most reasonable - although I'm still not really sure how to interpret this as a name.

N.B.: नवन् _navan-_ "nine" forms compounds with the stem नव _nava-_, so I suppose "nine nights" is also a possibility; but, again, I'm not really sure what it would mean. I mean, I suppose it's possible that it really is just a name, but there's probably some cultural or literary background to it, I'm afraid I just don't really know what it is.


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## Au101

Wolverine9 said:


> _navaniish _would literally mean "lord of 9," but I'm tempted to say that it's a modern, nonsensical name because I don't know what the symbolic importance would be of that definition.  Most baby naming sites also leave that name undefined.  There is also the possibility that it's a contraction of _nava _"new, young" (or _nava_ "nine" or _nava _"praise") + _niishah_ "overpowering," but that seems unlikely.



"Lord of nine" is quite a good interpretation - I never thought of that; that's a possibility, but - again - I agree with Wolverine9 that it's hard to know what that would mean/refer to.


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## Wolverine9

^ I edited my post.  I realized _navan _"nine" is not a possibility because it takes the form _nava _in compounds.  For a meaning of "lord of 9" the name would hypothetically be *_navesha _in Sanskrit.


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## Au101

Wolverine9 said:


> ^ I edited my post.  I realized _navan _"nine" is not a possibility because it takes the form _nava _in compounds.  For a meaning of "lord of 9" the name would hypothetically be *_navesha _in Sanskrit.



You're quite right, I did note this, but I thought that perhaps the न् _n_ was simply retained before the vowel. On reflection, however, I don't think this happens very often. William Dwight Whitney mentions that the न् _n_ can be retained, but it seems pretty unlikely in this case.


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## gole

Wolverine9 and Au101, thanks a lot for your responses. In devanagari, it would be नवनिश or नवनिश्

Modern nonsensical name seems to be the conclusion, is it? I am confused, can you please again list all the possible meanings? It is a very common Hindu male name (googling out Navanish in images reveals it) but I would like to know the meaning of the word itself.


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## Wolverine9

If you're certain that it's spelled the way you wrote it in Devanagari, it would mean "new night" or perhaps more likely "9 nights," in which case it would be a synonym for the Hindu festival of _navaraatrii_ and would explain the significance of the name.

Based on the usual pronunciation, I was under the impression that it was spelled नवनीश or नवनीष.


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## gole

Wolverine9 said:


> If you're certain that it's spelled the way you wrote it in Devanagari, it would mean "new night" or perhaps more likely "9 nights," in which case it would be a synonym for the Hindu festival of _navaraatrii_ and would explain the significance of the name.
> 
> Based on the usual pronunciation, I was under the impression that it was spelled नवनीश or नवनीष.



Thank you. I am certain that Navanish is  नवनिश in Devanagari.  नवनीश or नवनीष would be written Navaneesh in English. I am just curious what these other names would mean. Can you list them here? I hope this is still on topic.


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## Wolverine9

A Google search reveals that the name Navanish is also spelled Navaneesh by some.  The latter form, however, is a poor transliteration of नवनिश.

As I mentioned,  नवनीश is nonsensical.  It has no meaning as far as I can tell.  नवनीष is also nonsensical unless it's a combination of नव and नीषह्, with the latter word contracted to नीष, in which case it would mean "overcoming nine/new/praise."  But such a contraction is unlikely to be the case.


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## gole

Wolverine9 said:


> A Google search reveals that the name Navanish is also spelled Navaneesh by some.  The latter form, however, is a poor transliteration of नवनिश.
> 
> As I mentioned,  नवनीश is nonsensical.  It has no meaning as far as I can tell.  नवनीष is also nonsensical unless it's a combination of नव and नीषह्, with the latter word contracted to नीष, in which case it would mean "overcoming nine/new/praise."  But such a contraction is unlikely to be the case.



Thank you for your interest. You appear to have a deep knowledge of Sanskrit Grammar. I, on the other hand, only have some contextual/cultural knowledge of Sanskrit words in my own language - Nepali. Just one comment that नवनिश as you seem to have interpreted to mean "Nine nights" might also mean "Ninth Night" - the auspicious night falling on the ninth day of "Navaraatri". Could I be correct? By the way, in Nepal, it is called Dashain where it is the biggest national festival with celebrations lasting a full fortnight - from No Moon to Full Moon.

http://nepalipatro.com.np/calendar/month


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## Wolverine9

I just did a Google search in Devanagari.  The only common form is  नवनीश, which is puzzling because it would point to either a nonsensical meaning or a dubious  "lord of 9." 

Ninth would be _navama _or _navamii_


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## gole

Wolverine9 said:


> I just did a Google search in Devanagari.  The only common form is  नवनीश, which is puzzling because it would point to either a nonsensical meaning or a dubious  "lord of 9."



That sure is puzzling. But this could be because people writing Devanagari often do not pay attention to grammar. I know this because my own language Nepali uses the Devanagari alphabet and Nepali material, especially on the internet, is full of grammatical and syntactic mistakes.


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## Au101

Are you sure it's from Sanskrit?


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## gole

Au101 said:


> Are you sure it's from Sanskrit?



I am positive about the name नवनिश

The origin cannot be anything other than Sanskrit. When it comes to names, this is almost always true. A large number of Sanskrit words are used as is in Nepali. However, some Sanskrit words have lost their original form and changed somewhat in Nepali. Perhaps, the same is true of Hindi.


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## Wolverine9

I think I figured it out finally.  If my theory is correct, the name is in fact नवनीश and is composed of navanii (नवनी) + iish (ईश).  नवनी means the same as नवनीत "fresh butter," which at one time would've been symbolic of wealth.  So नवनीश would mean "lord of fresh butter (lord of wealth)."

Even if Nepali material on the internet is full of mistakes, I don't think the name can be नवनिश because it had 0 results on Google.  The only spelling with significant results was नवनीश.


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## gole

Wolverine9 said:


> I think I figured it out finally.  If my theory is correct, the name is in fact नवनीश and is composed of navanii (नवनी) + iish (ईश).  नवनी means the same as नवनीत "fresh butter," which at one time would've been symbolic of wealth.  So नवनीश would mean "lord of fresh butter (lord of wealth)."
> 
> Even if Nepali material on the internet is full of mistakes, I don't think the name can be नवनिश because it had 0 results on Google.  The only spelling with significant results was नवनीश.



Very interesting. But is it common in Sanskrit for the final "t" to get dropped to mean the same thing? I found "navaniit" but did not find "navanii" in the dictionary:
http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?tinput=navanIta&script=&direction=SE&link=yes


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## Wolverine9

Both _navaniita _and _navanii _are Sanskrit words and are listed in Monier Williams' Sanskrit Dictionary.  The dictionary at the link you provided is not a comprehensive Sanskrit dictionary.

I wouldn't be surprised if _navaniish _is a nickname for Krishna given his fondness for butter in legends.


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## Au101

Remember that in Sanskrit नवनीत is pronounounced _navanīta_, नवनीत् is how we write _navanīt_ in Sanskrit. The dropping of the final _a_ is a development of the modern Indo-Aryan languages called "schwa-deletion" and it is this that is responsible for _rāma_ becoming _rām_, _bhārata_ becoming _bhārat_, _lakṣmaṇa_ becoming _lakṣmaṇ_, _śiva_ becoming _śiv_, etc. so it is not the mere dropping of a final _t_. As for whether it being common to find two words with the same meaning differing only in a final त _ta_, I doubt that there is any rule like this. I really don't know, but I imagine this is just a specific case, I would be very cautious about inferring a general rule from it.

As Wolverine9 says, both नवनी _navanī_ and नवनीत _navanīta_ are listed in the more comprehensive Monier Williams dictionary.

Wikipedia lists "Navanitachora" (presumably this is नवनीतचोर _navanītacora_), meaning "thief of butter" as a name of Kṛṣṇa and also gives the following:

ॐ नवनीत विलिप्ताङ्गाय नमः _Oṃ navanīta viliptāṅgāya namaḥ_
ॐ नवनीत नटनाय नमः _Oṃ navanīta naṭanāya namaḥ_

Under "Krishna Ashtottaram."

So, I think your suggestion, wolverine9, is a good one, but this is clearly not an original name for kṛṣṇa. I can only assume it must be more recent.


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## gole

A nickname for Krishna sounds very plausible. Thanks. 

Apparently, the more comprehensive Monier Williams dictionary is available here: http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/mwquery/index.html

But, here you need to input navanI for नवनी


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