Amarkosh | Sanskrit 2.1

The Amar Kosh is highly popular and well-known among Sanskrit dictionaries. It can be considered the world's first thesaurus. Its creator is said to be Amarsingh, who was one of the nine gems in the court of Chandragupta II (4th century). Some people consider Amarsingh to be contemporary with Vikramaditya (7th century). There are nearly ten thousand words in this dictionary, with only four thousand in the Medini section and eight thousand in the Halayudha section. Due to this, scholars have honored it, and its popularity has increased.

The Amar Kosh is written in verse form. It consists of three sections: the Swargadikandam, Bhuvargadikandam, and Samanyadikandam. Each section has several categories. Words are classified accordingly. Gender indications are also provided with the words. Like other Sanskrit dictionaries, Amar Kosh also follows a metrical composition. The reason for this is that ancient Indian scholars considered "Pustaka-stha" knowledge to be of less importance. Only an adept scholar could make the appropriate use of the dictionary as the verses quickly become memorable. This is why all medieval Sanskrit dictionaries are in verse form. Italian scholar Pavolini discovered seventy years ago that these Sanskrit dictionaries are essential for poets as they contain rare words that are not commonly used. The Amar Kosh dictionary is one such treasure.

The true name of Amar Kosh, according to Amarsingh, is Namalinganushasanam. The meaning of the name here is "noun words." It teaches nouns and their grammatical gender distinctions. While adverbs are provided, verbs are not included since verb roots had separate dictionaries (Kaavyaprakaash, Kaavyaanushaasanam, etc.). Halayudha stated his purpose for writing a dictionary as ornamentation for poets. Dhananjay wrote about his dictionary's topic as "I am writing this for the benefit of poets." Amarsingh remained silent on this matter, but his intention was likely similar.

Along with common Sanskrit words, Amar Kosh includes a plethora of unusual names. From the start- where Amarsingh used words like "Devdryang" or "Vishdryang" (3,34) finding rare and unusual words was considered a duty for dictionary makers. "Namasya" is a word from the Rigveda (2,7,34). "Naasatya" is also such a word that appears in dual form. In these medieval dictionaries, some Prakrit words were treated as Sanskrit due to their extensive use, like "chhurik," "dhakka," "gargarri" (Prakrit for gaggari), "duli," etc. The influence of Buddhist-corrupted Sanskrit is also evident, as seen with Arkbundhu being another name for Buddha included in the dictionary. It was mentioned in Buddhist-corrupted Sanskrit about Arkbundhu's name being in the dictionary along with other synonyms such as "Sugat."

I am pleased to announce that an Android application for the Amar Kosh text has been recently launched. It displays words and their synonyms according to categories. For user convenience, all words come with Shabdakalpadrum and Vachaspatyam along with William Monier-Williams Dictionary and an optional English dictionary. Users are encouraged to provide their feedback and reviews on this comprehensive tool.