Sanskrit Hint Vasudeva
Sanskrit lesson
Vasudeva is the father. Pronounced as Vuh-sue-deva.
Vāsudeva is the son of that man. Pronounced as Vaa-sue-deva.
Notice that for the son the first a letter is sounded in a harsh way. Instead of vuh, it is vaa. Also notice the bar above the a which means it is a harsh a
Krishna’s biological parents were Vasudeva and Devaki (day-vuh-kee)
In some usage the word Vāsudeva means Lord Vishnu. There was a transition from the worship of Vishnu to that of Krishna. Vishnu was known before as Nārāyāna. After Krishna did his Universal Form display, word got around that this Vishnu or Nārāyāna came as Krishna. But some authories said that Krishna was just a phase of Vishnu or somebody who was empowered by Vishnu.
Even as great a person as Parashar Muni, (puh-raa-shaar) proved in his Vishnu Purana that Krishna and Balaram were two hairs of Vishnu. He felt they were throw-offs, splinters, from Lord Vishnu.
But Parashar’s son, Vyasa (vee- aas), said that Krishna was the source of the Vishnus. And Shuka the son of Vyasa vouched for this as well.
In additions there are a group of supernatural beings, controllers, who are called the Vasus. They are also called devas, making them Vaasudevas. Bhishma was one of these people. They can mess up a person’s existence, if they fancy to do so. A yogis need to keep away from these people and when in contact with them, try to cooperate with them.
One important hint about Sanskrit is that the words are frequently joined to make word compounds. If you know the word fragments, then pronunciation is easier to furnish.
For instance.
Nārāyāna is two words combined and if you recognize that, the pronunciation puzzle is mostly sorted out because you will instinctively to make each word audible.
Nārāyāna = Nāra + āyāna.
That looks easy but the y is a problem because one has to decide if it acts like a vowel, like i or if it acts like a consonant like y.
In this case use it like an I, where you would get Naa-raai-aan or Naa-raai-aa-nu.
Nāra is the man or the person, āyāna is the water or ocean. Nārāyāna is the one who lies on the cosmic ocean. That is Vishnu. He is reputed as the father of Brahma because just as we woke up as infants with no understanding of how we got there and we accepted a woman as the mother, so Brahma discovered himself on a lotus flower and then heard somebody give him advice. This person was later established by Brahma as the person who spoke to him at the onset. Up to this day Brahma still does not understand how he came into existence.
One of the things which we are afflicted with is to figure how we came into existence. Will we ever get direct insight about this? That is the question?
