actually, i dont like the change, the quality seems worse, because i cant select "academic" it seems to be more poetic.

although its not perfect, i miss "literal and etymological"

kagi just made a change ive been seeking, which is universal translation settings (instead of varying with each query)

satyadharmāya can have many complementary meanings. one devoted to Truth in the sense of being devoted to God as satya, one who practices truth, or one whose nature is Truth itself.

despite being a monist i find many of sankaras interpretations uncompelling

oh "birth and non-birth" definitely means "creation and destruction" as well, because of the literal meaning of "saṃbhūtiṃ ca vināśaṃ"

@ikeWren while God is presented as genderless in the upanishads, the traditional hindu family is quite patriarchal. this is a big part of why femicide is such a problem in india. so while hinduism has shaktism and tantra which is arguably the most notable form of Goddess worship in the world, it is not immune from critique.

@ikeWren damn thank you. i forgot to mention that in the brihadaranyaka upanishad, water is said to be "woven, warp and weft" on air. other upanishadic creation accounts have this formulation too, with water being created from air. i havent seen someone mention this but with that in mind, the element of water (apah) is indeed established by the wind.

kagis translation is "Within it, the life-breath establishes all actions.", with an alternative translation of "through it" and "by its power". this translation is very good imo. however, it doesnt address the stillness/standing. (many translations dont, am i misreading tiṣṭhat?)

i could talk more about my interpretation of this. basically, Being is the cause and essence of becoming.

plz read my effortpost

im smarter than kimi (or at least i know more about the hindu topics i ask it about) but im probably not smarter than the fancy claude model which was trained with all sorts of primary sources

i used to think that olivelles translation was universally better than easwarans being more literal, but now i see merits in both, and not just greater beauty in the case of easwarans. for instance, the early upanishads has for tiṣṭhattasminnapo mātariśvā dadhāti "in it matarisvan places the waters". while the upanishads has "without the self, never could life exist". now, i would say these very different translations are are both poor, but they both have some merit. olivelles is a very literal translation that totally misleads from the true meaning, while easwarans is an interpretation of the literal some degrees removed from it. here is my understanding and also my interpretation.

tiṣṭhat: staying/standing (still), (ie remaining immutable, unmoving, unchanging, as God is)

tasmin: in that (that refers to God in vedanta, in it, as in within itself, both as in literally within it and as in by virtue of it. in it, by it, through it.)

apaḥ: activities/actions (functions, especially of living moving beings. literally water, but by virtue of substances like water and ghee being used in ritual activities, ritual activities, and by extension of that all activities of living beings. by extension of that, all activities of all things. this is not merely my understanding but a well known one in vedanta.)

mātariśvā: this is not easily translated. he was a devata who gave fire to mankind, often compared to prometheus. thus he is associated with or is literally considered to be Agni, meaning both fire and the God of fire, who is very important in the vedas because of burnt oblations as well as because fire is necessary to life. this may be parsed as "growing in the mother", referring to fire growing in the fire-stick, coming from śvi meaning to increase and mātṛ meaning mother. however, he is also identified in the rig veda with the wind Vayu, and Vayu refers to both wind, the God of wind, and life-air, ie prana. "mātr" can be both mother and space or the heavens and "'śvas" means to breathe and to move. so in vedanta matarisva can be understood literally as the indian prometheus who gives fire to mankind and thus supports their rituals, or he can be understood (and especially was and is) as he who moves/breathes in space ie the cosmic or life breath which supports the functions and movement of living beings. in light of this clearly easwarans translation is superior. why would matarisvan, a fire bringer and the living cosmic wind, place water (of course, diverse elemental imagery is clearly intended, so one cant ignore the literal meaning)? the brihadaranyaka upanishad calls vayu a sutra, or thread, and says that this thread binds this world, the other world, and all bodies/beings. vajnavalka says that he who knows this string and he who knows the inner controller (which he explains is Atman), knows Brahman, and thus knows all. now i should mention the vedantic philosophical concept of sutratman, the thread-Self, because sutratman is a common translation of matarisvan. this has more than one connotation. in one sense, upon the Self all is woven, warp and woof, connecting all of reality, so it is the thread-Self. this is conveyed in the mundaka upanishad "in whom heaven, earth, and the interspace are woven, the mind along with all the pranas,
know him alone as the one Atman". in the upanishads Brahman is also compared to a spider that weaves the world like its thread, and then returns its threads to itself. in another sense in later vedantic philosophy, the sutratman specifically refers to a form of Brahman, the cosmic/universal subtle body or universal subtle principle, or in advaita Brahman from the perspective of the limiting adjunct of the subtle. if the viraj is the gross cosmic form of Brahman, the sutratman is the subtle cosmic form of Brahman. it becomes obvious why sutratman is an interpretation of matarisvan and a synonym for vayu. the subtle body contains the prana and mind, and thus the sutratman can be said to drive all breath and all activity, being he who breathes/moves in space. so overall, in vedantic philosophy, vayu or matarisva or sutratman can be said to support all of dynamic creation as its subtle active principle. on it the activity of life itself depends, and in it all of the universe is subtly held together, with gross proceeding from subtle. on that note, if i were to give a translation of matarisva, it would be "he who breaths/moves in space".

dadhāti: establishes (english "place" obscures the meaning. the root is PIE *dʰeh₁- which means to place, to set, to do. sanskrit dadhāti means to place yes but is better defined by set, because it can mean cause, allot, and even conceive or resolve, as in to set ones mind to something. hence, "establish" is also a very good translation. because it means to do or cause it also means to create, but another usage of the word is to support/bear. clearly, all of these words complement eachother to refer to "he who breathes/moves in space" (who acts through/by virtue of Brahman) establishing (but also supporting) the functions of living beings and all things. there is a clear theological meaning here: God is the cause of all activities and functions.

so my overall translation would be something like "staying still, in That (within it, by it) He who moves/breaths in space (the vital breath, the dynamic principle of creation) establishes/supports the functions/activities (esp of living beings)." this translation is imperfect, but by it one sees the deliberate contradiction like the ones the isha upanishad are famous for. while God is unmoving/unchanging, He is the material and efficient cause all activities.

when you read a literal or etymological translation you realize that what is often translated as "the manifest" and "the unmanifest", "creation" and "dissolution", "being" and "non-being", or worst, "prakriti" and "karya brahman", is actually "birth" and "non-birth". birth and non-birth has all the connotations i mentioned, referring both to what is born and the unborn, the process of birth/becoming and the process of dissolution/unbecoming, the existent and the non-existent, and sarva and shunya. it also refers to being and becoming as i said before, because being is birthless while birth is becoming.

@lillian which do you believe

@meeper it is!

i think the meaning of being and non-being also applies in this, too. sat and asat are both God, and while worshipping sat can be called "paradoxically" worse than worshipping asat for various reasons i wont explicate (thus you get buddhism), ultimately one crosses over death by asat (rejection of the impermanent) and experiences immortality by sat (knowing the permanent, which is pure being).

it probably also can refer to creation and destruction as vedantics say but im not gonna address that. okay maybe i will a little, worshipping destruction can parodoxically be called better than worshipping creation because by this you understand the impermanent nature of things besides God. this is a more half-baked idea, though.

again on the isha upanishad i think that "worshipping the unmanifest/unborn" as superior to but still leading to ignorance vs "worshipping the manifest/born" can have many meanings. traditionally its interpreted by sankara as unborn prakriti vs born hiranyagarbha, but i think its worshipping being vs worshipping becoming, worshipping purusha and prakriti (although samkyhans call both unborn, to me they are cause and effect) as separate, worshipping God in an abstract sense vs worshipping God as He exists in the world, or to compare with common vedic understandings of God, worshipping the pradhana vs worshipping the devas. just like rote knowledge is enhanced by its application leading to immortality, being and becoming are best understood together leading to liberation, this is monism.

my fiber gummies were 30 dollars dude -.-