16 October 2010

Śraddhā

From my book on Buddhist names:

śraddhā (f.)
m. (in compounds only) śraddha. (Pāli saddhā) “faith, trust, confidence, loyalty” < śrad + dhā ‘to put or place’. Sanskrit śrad is believed to be from the PIE root *√kerd > Latin cred, and so probably allied to Latin credo (cred + do) and English creed, though śrad does not survive as an independent word, except perhaps in the form √hṛd, e.g. hṛdaya 'heart'. The literal meaning, then, is ‘to put one’s heart on’.
I was thinking about how to explain the meaning in Sanskrit:



The text reads: śraddha tatra hṛdaya mama dadhāmi. Faith: there I place my heart. Or perhaps it should be where yatra.

1 comment:

  1. according to traditional compound analysis:
    śraddhā iti. yatra hṛdayam mama dadhāmi, sā.

    Or maybe less personal:
    śraddhā iti. yatra hṛdayaṃ dhīyate, sā.

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