Sanskrit 22 letters

I am curious whether there is any information about the 22 Sanskrit letters and how do they compare with the 22 Hebrew letters?

I'd like to read a tarot deck using the esoteric meaning behind the Sanskrit alphabet so I'm looking for deeper meanings to the number 22 as it relates to other models besides that of the Quabalah.

Thanks.

Uma said:

I am curious whether there is any information about the 22 Sanskrit letters and how do they compare with the 22 Hebrew letters?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

I thought sanskrit had about 59 letters? 33 consonants and 16 vowels or something like that? Maybe my memory is not quite right on the numbers but I certainly recall there being more than 22. Is there a special 'limited' set of letters in the language?


Kwaw

Hi Uma- Alphabets are a passion of mine and I am not sure if you meant Sanskrit the Indian language or not. Sanskrit has 34 Consonants plus 14 complex consonants. It seems to me that you might be looking for an Abjad; which is a consonant alphabet (I think there are at least twenty of these some of which are Aramaic, Arabic,Hebrew,Phoenician, Tifinagh and Syriac. These have 22 consonants. Alphabets are consonants and vowels some of which are Latin,Ogham and Runic. English is an Alphabet that started out as an Abjad. Hope that helps and you can clarify what your looking for. Welcome to the Forum. ~Rosanne

"Sanskrit" ~literally: prepared, cultivated, refined

An ancient Indic language that is the classical language
of India and Hinduism (as described by grammarians).

*

Also (perhaps) of interest...

Indus Script
http://www.ancientscripts.com/indus.html

Gola Dhoro
http://www.harappa.com/goladhoro/index.html

Indus Valley
http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html
(Note: Proto Indo-Aryan to Indo-Aryan to Sanskrit...)

I know it with 50 letters, which in the Kundalini-Yoga are connected to Lotus leaves of the 6 lower chakras.

2
16
12
10
6
4
--
50

A seventh chakra on top of the head has 1000 leaves.

The following page also knows 50 letters.
http://www.storytellingmonk.org/downloads/root_meaning_sanskrit_alphabet.pdf

... but it might be that there are different Sanskrit forms.

Hi

If you are looking at less well-known alphabets the following site may interest you -

http://www.omniglot.com

It's a linguistic site, not an occult one, but it's a very interesting springboard that I've spent hours on.

Uma said:

I am curious whether there is any information about the 22 Sanskrit letters and how do they compare with the 22 Hebrew letters?

Click to expand...

I believe you may mean the Brahmi alphabet, which was an offshoot, seemingly, of south Semitic writing. Some forms in south Semitic are provocative—such as an axe or hammer for D, duir-the-oak in Irish, one version of whose line in the ancient druidic Song of Amairgin is “I am a tree-stump in a shovel”—but overall its connexion to north Semitic (proto-Canaanite) seems somewhat loose.

I'd like to read a tarot deck using the esoteric meaning behind the Sanskrit alphabet so I'm looking for deeper meanings to the number 22 as it relates to other models besides that of the Quabalah.

Click to expand...

You should get Huck to tell you about his I-Ching theory, which shows how division of 32 ‘paths’ into 10 and 22 arises naturally from the structure of the 64 hexagrams of I-Ching (seen as 32 reflected pairs).

Dave's Angel said:

If you are looking at less well-known alphabets the following site may interest you -

http://www.omniglot.com

Click to expand...

That site leaves out two of the most important ancient alphabets, Tifinag and Libyan, both of which are found in the New World. Instances of Libyan in America (as well as Phoenician, and Keltic ogham) are especially widespread, Libyans having been the great ocean-going seafarers of the ancient world (Sea Peoples, who settled in Libya and later became the Egyptian navy). (For Libyan, consult Barry Fell’s America B.C., and for Tifinag, his Bronze Age America.)

venicebard said:

That site leaves out two of the most important ancient alphabets, Tifinag and Libyan,

Click to expand...

What's this then?

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tifinagh.htm

Dave's Angel said:

What's this then?

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/tifinagh.htm

Click to expand...

Neo-Tifinag. Never saw it before (some letters are like Tifinag, but others are not). Tifinag itself was still in use amongst the Berbers till quite recently but looks rather different. Barry Fell, in Bronze Age America, shows the probable Scandinavian (Low German) roots that explain their shapes as inscribed in that region in the 2nd millennium B.C.E., from which they became transferred to Libya via that contingent of the Sea Peoples who were of Nordic extraction (probable ancestors of the Berbers) when this confederation settled there after its defeat by Egypt. Tifinag you can still find online, but Libyan it seems has been expunged (I wonder if from political motives, or just academia’s defense of itself against what it wishes to ignore?).