Sanskrit:इन्द्रशर्मा नाम ब्रह्मणोऽस्माकं सहाध्यायि मित्रम् ।

[MindBoggle]

Hello everybody.
My Sanskrit book has:

इन्द्रशर्मा नाम ब्रह्मणोऽस्माकं सहाध्यायि मित्रम् ।

- which makes no sense to me.

I get: Indrasharma's name, a brahmin, our co-pupil, is a friend.

- or something like that. But it must be wrong. Please help!

Greetings
MindBoggle

 

[Au101]

Correct me if I'm wrong anyone, but I think you're bascially there aren't you?

A Brahman named Indraśarman is our friend and fellow-student.

इन्द्रशर्मा = nom sg masc of Indraśarman- "Indraśarman"
नाम = "named" (although given by monier-williams as an ind, in truth it is (as he also, actually, points out) the acc sg of nāman- "name")
ब्रह्मणो < ब्रह्मणः = nom sg masc of brahman- "Brahman"
ऽस्माकं < अस्माकम् = gen pl of the hypothetical root asmad-, the 1st person pronoun
सहाध्यायि = nom sg neut of sahādyāyin (compound of saha + adhyāyin-) "fellow-student"
मित्रम् = nom sg neut of mitra- "friend"

 

[MindBoggle]

Correct me if I'm wrong anyone, but I think you're bascially there aren't you?

A Brahman named Indraśarman is our friend and fellow-student.

Ah! Of course. I was unsure of इन्द्रशर्मा (is it a compound? a name? some obscure deva? or what?) and got further confused by all the nominatives. I guess I had the dots all figured out then, I just couldn't connect them.

Thank you for your help!

 

[Au101]

As I said इन्द्रशर्मा is the nom sg of इन्द्रशर्मन् (indraśarman-), which Monier-Williams simply gives as "m. N. of a man." I can't tell you anything about him, I'm afraid, but an extremely quick google search has him turning up on a Buddhist website and in a few inscriptions. It's likely that the author (this is Deshpande again, right?) simply borrowed a Sanskrit name for the sake of the example and I doubt who he was is really very important. It does seem, of course, to be a compound of इन्द्र indra- and शरमन् śarman- and Monier-Williams gives us this very useful little tidbit:
"joy, bliss, comfort, delight, happiness (often at the end of names of Brāhmans, just as varman is added to the names of Kshatriyas, and gupta to those of Vaiṡyas) Yājñ. MBh. Kāv. &c."
Presumably, of course, the name means 'delighting in Indra' as a bahuvrīhi compound, so it's, in other words, 'he who has delight in Indra' - I think.

 

[MindBoggle]

Thanks Au, that's great info!

 

[Dib]

I have nothing useful to add after the excellent explanation by Au101 (as also in the other Sanskrit post), however, shouldn't it be ब्राह्मणः instead of ब्रह्मणः?

 

[Dib]

Incidentally, I am learning some Old Persian these days, and there also exists this weird "naming syntax" using the word नाम| But interestingly, there नाम changes to नामा when introducing a feminine name.

 

[Au101]

I have nothing useful to add after the excellent explanation by Au101 (as also in the other Sanskrit post), however, shouldn't it be ब्राह्मणः instead of ब्रह्मणः?

Yes I think you must be right! I often get ब्राह्मण and ब्रहमन् confused, not helped massively by the neut and masc versions of ब्रह्मन् and the English translations, so I didn't spot it. If it is ब्रह्मणः then it must surely be from ब्रह्मन्, which would have to make it an abl/gen sg, which is no good at all. I suggest you're almost certainly right and it should be:

ब्राह्मणो < ब्राह्मणः = nom sg masc of brāhmaṇa- "Brahman"

MindBoggle, I don't suppose you could check for us?

Edit: I managed to track down the sentence in the book, and it is ब्राह्मणो, so that's that mystery solved. Thanks for pointing it out to us Dib!

 

[MindBoggle]

Yes, sorry, it's a long a.

 

[Au101]

Not at all, easy typo, all sorted now

 

[Dib]

Case closed, it is.