APOD: Sagarmatha? (2005 Mar 06)

[rtyags]

Today's APOD says : "In the native language of Nepal, the mountain's name is "Sagarmatha" which means "forehead of the sky."

Does anyone know the source of this information? I am from India and in Hindi "Sagarmatha" means "forehead of the ocean/sea". So, I have my doubts about this. Nepal's language is very much related to Hindi and its very likely that the word has exactly the same meaning in the two languages. Anybody knows more about this?

Rahul

[wellesley]

The Sanskrit meanings of the roots of Sagarmatha may be elaborated as follows:

"Sagar" meaning "sea/ocean/sky" (here, the understanding of ocean may be extended to 'an ocean of stars', meaning 'the sky'), and

"Matha" meaning "mother/goddess/head/forehead"

So, in combination, the meaning, as interpreted by the Nepali Sanskrit origin, may mean either:
Goddess of the sky
Mother of the sky
Forehead of the sky
Forehead of the Ocean

In some interpretations, it was even explained as "Mother of the Universe", but that may be a stretch.
Hope that helps.

Wellesley.

[rtyags]

Thanx for the explanation. Though I have my doubts about this. I am very sure that "Matha" does NOT mean mother. the word for mother is "Maata" and not "Matha", which only means forehead as far as I know. Similarly, I have never seen "Sagar" used for sky in Sanskrit. Though, this one I am not quite as sure as the "Matha" part.

[makc]

...which means "forehead of the sky."... in Hindi "Sagarmatha" means "forehead of the ocean/sea"... "Sagar" meaning "sea/ocean/sky" (here, the understanding of ocean may be extended to 'an ocean of stars', meaning 'the sky')... I have my doubts about this

Very close discrepancy exists about translation of the title of XIII c. mongol emperor "chingis khan". One claim it to be "ruler of oceans", while others vote for "ruler of skies". Very different language, but very same dilemma.

The root of this problem can be seen (or, felt ?) better, if you take a look at ancient jews Torah (or Bible), Gen 1:7-8. There, both ocean and sky are referred to as "waters", and it is described how gods have separated them.

I think one should be looking into even more ancient Sumerian legends. I have no any experience there, but quick googling gives this:

in the beginning there was... [goddess] Tiamat, the salt water ocean... Hebrew word for the chaos of the waters or “the deep”, tehom, is actually derived from the Akkadian Tiamat... [later, ]Marduk, son of the Ea the god of wisdom, killed Tiamat and split her into two. The upper half of Tiamat was fixed onto the sky to keep the waters above in place.

(or, click the link for the above quoted page)

That are my 5 cents. If you will find anything related, let us know.

[Sputnick]

Interesting posts .. however, the Hebrews were zealous in preserving their written and oral language particularly because the Torah and the rest of the Old Testament were their prime source of faith, intellect and knowledge; and there is a vast difference between ocean and sky - therefore I have to absolutely reject the theory that the Hebrew word was the same for both. I have faith that if I approached an Orthodox Rabbi about this my certainty would be confirmed.

It is interesting that the Persians, from whom Abraham oiginated, attached flames to the top of letters in their written language, as do the Hebrews, but the Hebrew flames are more pronounced. Fire is a huge part of both cultures, the Persians having altars which contained a fire, and many instances of fire in the Hebrews, the burning bush - the pillar of fire - carrying into the New Testament as the Christ having "eyes as flames of fire" in Revelation. I have read (somewhere) that the Hebrews were the only people for whom reading and writing was compulsory education for all children, male and female. Their may be some close word for 'ocean' and and 'sky' though, as Genesis says, 'the sons of God saw that daughters of men, that they were fair, and took them for wives'. Theoretically, the sons of God could have sailed across the ocean of space to reach earth.

However - the waters in Genesis were 'above the firment' (the firmament, research of the scripture will reveal, was above ground level or ocean and included the stars) - the waters were also below the firmament, 'from which dry land appeared.' It is clear that sky and ocean were not thought of as being similar.

[BMAONE23]

unless the "waters above" refers to the "sea of stars" swimming in an ocean of free floating hydrogen and oxygen in the vaccuum of space.

[Sputnick]

Well BMA - sea of stars is a picturesque description .. very poetic. But the scripture is clear that the firmament contains the stars, sun and moon; with waters being above that firmament (water which I expect to be discovered post haste with the new telescopes - water in some form beyond the furthest stars and galaxies) - and water below that firmament (the ocean/oceans) from which dry land appeared. Did you know the book of Job says 'the earth is a sphere suspended on nothing' (?)

Rtyags and Wellesley .. I know nothing of Sanskrit or Hindi - but the Pacific Islands had one language, with slight variances in spelling and pronunciation from island group to island group .. or from island to island for isolated islands. Note how English has become 'British ENglish - American English -Canadian English - Aussie English - NA English - and then there are the Newfies who speak an unidentiable and untranslatable lingojingomingoling French, Spanish, English, Dutch, Portugese, Beothuk, etc. (I speak as part Newfie - the part what cornfusians languishidments.

[neufer]

unless the "waters above" refers to the "sea of stars" swimming in an ocean of free floating hydrogen and oxygen in the vacuum of space.

<<In Hindu mythology, Chukwa is the first and oldest turtle, supporting the Earth.
The turtle swims in Ksheera Sagara (the primordial ocean of milk).>> -Wikipedia

Three turtles swimming in Ksheera Sagara (the primordial ocean of milk):
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070123.html

[Kaul]

Thanx for the explanation. Though I have my doubts about this. I am very sure that "Matha" does NOT mean mother. the word for mother is "Maata" and not "Matha", which only means forehead as far as I know. Similarly, I have never seen "Sagar" used for sky in Sanskrit. Though, this one I am not quite as sure as the "Matha" part.

What I understand is as follows:

'Sagar' = Ocean in Sanskrit, Nepali, Hindi (However, there are chances that it refers to the sky, which is also blue and appears as infinite as the ocean)
'Matha' = Forehead in Nepali, Hindi (derived from the Sanskrit 'Mastak'). This has no connection with Mata (Nepali/Hindi), derived from Matru (Sanskrit), meaning mother.

My theory is that 'Sagar', in this context, means nothing but 'ocean', because Mount Everest is the forehead of a former seafloor. 'Sagar' refers to the Tethys Sea, whose sediments were folded to build the Himalaya. Elaborate accounts of the Himalayan orogeny are found in several ancient Hindu texts.

[makc]

How would ancient indians know about Tethys sea?

[Chris Peterson]

How would ancient indians know about Tethys sea?

Of course, they didn't. Nor do any Hindu texts contain anything geologically accurate about the Himalayan orogeny. But many ancient texts do contain creation myths where the land formed by rising from the sea. So the idea of "sagar" as ocean isn't extreme, although I don't think it is correct.

[neufer]

How would ancient indians know about Tethys sea?

Of course, they didn't. Nor do any Hindu texts contain anything geologically accurate about the Himalayan orogeny. But many ancient texts do contain creation myths where the land formed by rising from the sea. So the idea of "sagar" as ocean isn't extreme, although I don't think it is correct.

How would ancient Nepalese know about "Sagarmāthā?"

"In the early 1960s, the Nepalese government gave Mount EVEREst the official name
Sagarmāthā (सगरमाथा). This name had not previously been used."

Sometimes a Sagar is just a Segar.
--------------------------------------------

<<Sagarmāthā is a Sanskrit word, from sagar = "sky" (not to be confused with "sea/ocean")
and māthā = "forehead" or "head", and is the modern Nepali name for Mount EVEREst.>>

--------------------------------------------

<<With the height now established, what to name the peak was clearly the next challenge. While the survey was anxious to preserve local names if possible (e.g. Kangchenjunga and Dhaulagiri), Waugh argued that he was unable to find any commonly used local name. Waugh's search for a local name was hampered by Nepal and Tibet being closed to foreigners at the time. Many local names existed, with perhaps the best known in Tibet for several centuries being Chomolangma, which had appeared on a 1733 map published in Paris by the French geographer D'Anville. However, Waugh argued that with the plethora of local names, it would be difficult to favour one specific name over all others. So, he decided that Peak XV should be named after George EVEREst, his predecessor as Surveyor General of India. He wrote:

"I was taught by my respected chief and predecessor, Colonel Sir George EVEREst to assign to every geographical object its true local or native appellation. But here is a mountain, most probably the highest in the world, without any local name that we can discover, whose native appellation, if it has any, will not very likely be ascertained before we are allowed to penetrate into Nepal. In the meantime the privilege as well as the duty devolves on me to assign…a name whereby it may be known among citizens and geographers and become a household word among civilized nations."

George EVEREst opposed the name suggested by Waugh and told the Royal Geographical Society in 1857 that EVEREst could not be written in Hindi nor pronounced by "the native of India". Waugh's proposed name prevailed despite the objections, and in 1865, the Royal Geographical Society officially adopted Mount EVEREst as the name for the highest mountain in the world. Interestingly, the modern pronunciation of EVEREst /ˈɛvərɨst, ˈɛvrɨst/ is in fact different from Sir George's pronunciation of his surname, which was /ˈiːvrɨst/.

The Tibetan name for Mount EVEREst is Chomolangma or Qomolangma (ཇོ་མོ་གླིང་མ, which means "Saint Mother"), phonetically transliterated into Chinese as Zhūmùlǎngmǎ Fēng, or translated by meaning as Shèngmǔ Fēng, literally "Holy Mother". According to English accounts of the mid-19th century, the local name in Darjeeling for Mount EVEREst was Deodungha (meaning "holy mountain").

In the late 19th century, many European cartographers incorrectly believed that a native name for the mountain was Gaurisankar. This was a result of confusion of Mount EVEREst with the actual Gauri Sankar, which, when viewed from Kathmandu, stands almost directly in front of EVEREst.

In the early 1960s, the Nepalese government gave Mount EVEREst the official name Sagarmāthā (सगरमाथा). This name had not previously been used; the local inhabitants knew the mountain as Chomolangma. The mountain was not known and named in ethnic Nepal (that is, the Kathmandu valley and surrounding areas). The government set out to find a Nepalese name for the mountain because the Sherpa/Tibetan name Chomolangma was not acceptable, as it would have been against the idea of unification (Nepalization) of the country.

In 2002, the Chinese People's Daily newspaper published an article making a case against the continued use of the English name for the mountain in the Western world, insisting that it should be referred to by its Tibetan name. The newspaper argued that the Chinese (in nature a Tibetan) name preceded the English one, as Mount Qomolangma was marked on a Chinese map more than 280 years ago.>>

[makc]

"In the early 1960s, the Nepalese government gave Mount EVEREst the official name
Sagarmāthā (सगरमाथा). This name had not previously been used."

Ha ha, now that totally ruins the thread

[arun.singh]

Sagarmatha has been named after great Ikshwaku king Sagar (सगर).