lak•aæa (‘mark’, ‘characteristic’)

In logic, implication.

Lak•maæa

Son of King DAŸARATHAby his wife

Sumiträ, twin brother of ŸATRUGHNA

and half-brother of RÄMA. He married

Ürmilä, sister of Sïtä. He was very

attached to Räma and Sïtä and accom-

panied them on their 14-year forest

exile. He is seen as ideal of brotherly

love and loyalty. (See alsoRÄMÄYAŒA.)

Lak•mï, also Ÿrï, Tiru

(‘good fortune’)

Personified as the goddess of fortune,

wife of Vi•æu and mother of KÄMA. She

sprang fully developed from the sea at

the time of the CHURNING OF THE OCEAN

with a lotus in her hand. She is repre-

sented as having four arms.

Lakulin, also Lakuli•a

(second century CE)

Legendary founder of the PÄŸUPATA

system, a school of Ÿaivism.

Lalla,or Lal Ded (14th century)

A Ÿaivite woman poet and spiritual

teacher from Käshmïr, whose verses

have been published under the title

Lalla-väkyäæi. She advocated openness

for all schools of thought and religion

and rejected ritualism and IMAGEwor-

ship. She taught that the way to salva-

tion was the disinterested performance

of one’s duties.

language

Language was always very important to

Hindus, and their greatest cultural

achievement is in the area of language.

The Veda exhibits great respect for lan-

guage and treats it as a divine being

from which everything originated. The

extraordinary care with which the Veda

was preserved and transmitted over

thousands of years again shows how

greatly language was valued. According

to Hindu tradition Sanskrit, their sacred

language, the ‘language of the gods’, is

eternal. In the course of time Hindus

developed a variety of theories concern-

ing the nature of language. One of the

early controversies concerned the ques-

tion whether words (päda) or sentences

(väkya) were the basic elements of lan-

guage. The early interest in grammar

and etymology, as shown by the

VEDÄ¢GASand later scholarly works,

again exhibits a religious concern with

language. A proper study of language

was considered the preliminary to all

other disciplines. Cultivation of lan-

guage skills was always considered the

highest aim of education.

L

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