Dear Dr. Haas, I should add that the English usage is no doubt based on much older liturgical formulas. The common Hebrew prayers, for instance, often begin: baruch atoi adonai elohenu melekh ha-olem for which the standard English rendition is "Blessed art thou o Lord, our God, King of the universe..." Similarly, in French "Béni sois-tu, Seigneur, notre Dieu, Roi de l'univers," though French tends to use other locutions in varying contexts, for instance, "bien-aimé Seigneur" where English would use "Blessed Lord."
Matthew Kapstein Directeur d'études, émérite Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris Associate, The Divinity School The University of Chicago https://brill.com/view/title/60949 https://ephe.academia.edu/MatthewKapstein ________________________________ From: INDOLOGY <[email protected]> on behalf of Matthew Kapstein via INDOLOGY <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 30, 2022 2:51 AM To: Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA <[email protected]>; [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Translation of bhagavān / bhagavatī Dear Dr. Haas, In English usage the phrase "Blessed Lord" is current in reference to the deity of the Western monotheisms. I believe that this usage was extended to Indian religions during the nineteenth century. sincerely, Matthew Kapstein Directeur d'études, émérite Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris Associate, The Divinity School The University of Chicago https://brill.com/view/title/60949 https://ephe.academia.edu/MatthewKapstein ________________________________ From: INDOLOGY <[email protected]> on behalf of Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 30, 2022 1:18 AM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Translation of bhagavān / bhagavatī Dear native speakers, to me “blessed” implies that someone has pronounced a blessing on a person/object. How does this work with a deity such as Kṛṣṇa? Or can “blessed” be used in a more figurative sense (is this what you have in mind?)? Best regards, D. Haas __________________ Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> | ORCID 0000-0002-8505-6112 <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8505-6112> | academia.edu DominikAHaas <https://univie.academia.edu/DominikAHaas> | twitter DominikAHaas <https://twitter.com/DominikAHaas> | hcommons DominikAHaas <https://hcommons.org/members/DominikAHaas/> ÖGRW<https://www.univie.ac.at/oegrw/> | DMG<https://dmg-web.de/page/home_en> | SDN<https://stb.univie.ac.at/publikationsreihen/sammlung-de-nobili-sdn/> | WPU<https://philology.org/> DOC Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2020–2022) [cid:[email protected]] The Initiative for Fair Open Access Publishing in South Asian Studies foasas.org<https://foasas.org> | [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> | tweet #FOASAS<http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=%20%23FOASAS> Am 30.09.2022 um 01:41 schrieb Harry Spier via INDOLOGY: Tracy Coleman wrote: Bhagavān Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Blessed Lord Krishna Thank you Tracy for this. "Blessed" is exactly what I need. And of course thank you to everyone else who answered, Rajam, Donald Davis, Dean Michael Anderson, and Matthew Kapstein. "Blessed" is a little more concise than this definition of bhagavat in the Vishnu Purana translated by Sw. Tyagīśānanda "That which is imperceptible, undecaying, inconceivable, unborn, inexhaustible, indestructible; which has neither form, nor hands, nor feet, which is almighty, omnipresent, eternal; the cause of all things and without cause, permeating all, itself unpenetrated, and from which all things proceed, that is the object which the wise behold, that is Brahman, that is the Supreme State, that is the thing spoken of by the Vedas, the infinitely subtle, supreme condition of viSNu. That Essence of the Supreme is defined by the term Bhagavat; the word Bhagavat is the denotation of that primeval and eternal God; and he who fully understands the meaning of that expression is possessed of holy wisdom, the sum and substance of the three vedas. The word Bhagavat is a convenient form to be used in the adoration of that Supreme Being, to twhom no term is applicable; and therefore bhagavat expresses that Supreme Spirit which is individual, almighty, and the cause of causes of all things. . . . Harry Spier _______________________________________________ INDOLOGY mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
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