Lably
Skip to content

Amarakosha

Thesaurus of Sanskrit written by the ancient Indian scholar Amarasimha

  • 2 min read
  • 4 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Thesaurus, Kalidasa and Chandragupta II

Lab · Class 7–9Ancient Indian Empires

According to Arthur Berriedale Keith, this is one of the oldest extant Sanskrit lexicons (kosha). According to Keith, Amarasiṃha, who possibly flourished in the 6th century, " knew the Mahāyāna and used Kālidāsa."

The author himself mentions 18 prior works, but they have all been lost. There have been more than 40 commentaries on the Amarakosha.

Author

Amarasimha is said to have been one of the Navaratnas ("nine gems") at the court of Vikramaditya, the legendary king inspired by Chandragupta II, a Gupta king who reigned around AD 400. Some sources indicate that he belonged to the period of Vikramaditya of the 7th century.

Mirashi examines the question of the date of composition of Amarakosha. He finds the first reliable mention in Amoghavritti of Shakatayana composed during the reign of Amoghavarsha (814-867 CE).

Sign in to keep reading

3 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Religion

PinyinRomanization scheme for Standard ChineseHindusAdherents of HinduismTraditional Chinese charactersStandardized set of Chinese charactersLiteral translationWord-for-word translation of a textReligionSocial-cultural systemTheologyStudy of the nature of deities and religious beliefs