[Buddha-l] Swearing

[Richard Hayes]

On Thursday 28 September 2006 06:35, Mike Austin wrote:

> That's a new one on me. I heard 'mantra' translated as 'mind protector'.

That's an unscientific folk etymology, Mike. 

As the list's expert in Sanskrit grammar, Ashok Aklujkar, will verify, the 
suffix "tra" means "in or at" and "man" is a male human being. So it 
means "in man," as opposed to in God, which would be "gotra" (As is "Gotra 
ni"scaya.m kurma.h" --- in God we trust --- which used to be stamped on 
ancient Indian coins.) 

Nowadays it is considered sexist to use the word "man" to refer to both 
genders, so those of us who like to include all the genders in which human 
beings come these days prefer the term "humantra".

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes