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ArchivesRe: Pramila
in reply to a message by ajay rawat
pra' is a particle that qualifies verbs with the meaning of before or towards (and is ultimately related to English fore). mIl means to close the eyes, and pra'-mIl means closing the eyes as in becoming sleepy. pramilA means exhaustion and sleepiness, and, in mythology, is used as the name of the queen of the kingdom of women (and her relationship with arjuna is stuff of stories).
There is a Sanskrit root shri (related to English lean) which means to rest upon, and a bunch of words seem to be irregularly derived from it: as if the root was shR (for example, sharaNa'). One of these words, sha'rman (according to manu, the epithet of any brAhmaNa) is a very old (Rgvedic) word for shelter or protection; but the meaning extends to house, comfort, happiness, luck etc. sharmilA (and sharmiSThA) thus means protected or lucky: the oldest usage that I know of is in the reference to mythology in pANdu-sharmilA, meaning protected by the pANdus (pAndavas), i.e. draupadi.
You are obviously right about UrmilA. The root R, meaning to rise, reach, meet, go straight etc. (from which the word Arya and Rtam come) also gives rise to Urmi', which referred often to the waves of feeling (as in the English `well'ing up) in parallel to the physical waves and swelling in the ocean which was its origin. Urmi is very old, and even UrmilA (`she of the waves') appears as a name by the mahAbhArata.
Thus, not only do they rhyme, grammatically, the -lA of UrmilA and sharmilA are similar. Only Urmi, however, contains a mi suffix (In the uNAdi chapter of pANinI). pramIlA is a long -i-, so it sounds different in Sanskrit.
There is a Sanskrit root shri (related to English lean) which means to rest upon, and a bunch of words seem to be irregularly derived from it: as if the root was shR (for example, sharaNa'). One of these words, sha'rman (according to manu, the epithet of any brAhmaNa) is a very old (Rgvedic) word for shelter or protection; but the meaning extends to house, comfort, happiness, luck etc. sharmilA (and sharmiSThA) thus means protected or lucky: the oldest usage that I know of is in the reference to mythology in pANdu-sharmilA, meaning protected by the pANdus (pAndavas), i.e. draupadi.
You are obviously right about UrmilA. The root R, meaning to rise, reach, meet, go straight etc. (from which the word Arya and Rtam come) also gives rise to Urmi', which referred often to the waves of feeling (as in the English `well'ing up) in parallel to the physical waves and swelling in the ocean which was its origin. Urmi is very old, and even UrmilA (`she of the waves') appears as a name by the mahAbhArata.
Thus, not only do they rhyme, grammatically, the -lA of UrmilA and sharmilA are similar. Only Urmi, however, contains a mi suffix (In the uNAdi chapter of pANinI). pramIlA is a long -i-, so it sounds different in Sanskrit.
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