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IPA

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Does the IPA want to give the usual English pronunciation or the pronunciation of the Sanskrit term? At the moment, it gives apparently the English pronunciation (as there is no long vowel in the Sanskrit term, while the IPA displays the -a- in the penultimate syllable as long - though not so in the source). This is, however, not clear to the reader. I would recommend to explicitely state: 

    Pronounced in English as ....

If there is a way to override the automatic display behaviour that renders any /ar/ as long [a:r] in IPA-for-English transcriptions, I would recommend to over-ride it here. An uninformed user will take pains to both pronounce the -r- and prolong the vowel before it, when it is displayed as [a:r], though to a phonetically educated person it is clear that the rendering tries to be a compromise between the non-rhotic pronounciation of English (where /ar/ will be pronounced as long vowel [a:]), as is standard in the UK, and the Standard US rhotic one (where the vowel need not be lenthened here, as the original /r/ is pronounced). Also, a discussion about adding IPA-English to all articles the name of which derives from non-English sources, should be held at some proper place. It is certainly good that there is IPA for Brahmacharya on Wiki, but why not for all the other Sanskrit terms?!

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Organized the links and brushed up the descriptions, removed links to sites that should be linked from under celibacy if they are linked to at all. No need for many links to a single site if there's an external page where they are all listed! —Raga 00:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Any particular reason why the following link was removed?

Aside that, there are hardly any references to the scriptural roots of brahmacarya. Putting it back. --Raga (talk) 11:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lets have some broader discussion on the meaning of Brahmacharya

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The word "Brahmacharya" stems literally from two components

1. "Acarya" composed of 'car' - "to go" and 'a' - "toward". Together this makes the word 'carya', which is often translated as activity, mode of behaviour, a 'virtuous' way of life or 'conduct'. Acarya has meant in practice a teacher, spiritual guide, master etc and

2. "Brahma", the word for god in the form of creative energy, the diety that gave birth to the universe and to humanity.

So in a literal sense, the word brahmacharya (Brahma + Acarya) seems to indicate a life lived in conformance with proper expression of creative energy.

The word Brahamacharya is also understood broadly in yoga as "sexual continence," which can be understood contextually (e.g. faith in marriage, celibacy for spiritual aspirants etc), in more extreme terms (complete celibacy full stop) or in more specific terms in relation to preserving and sublimating male sexual energy rather than losing it through ejaculation.

Brahmacharya can also be understood more generically in terms of generally striving for excellence in all domains of activity and relationship, of pursuing 'virtue' however defined (like the classical Greek concept of Arete) and in terms of clearing underlying personality conflicts and centering oneself and ones spiritual journey in clear, well conceived and sustainable values.

Update: this section should distinguish more between Brahma and Brahman. I wrote this section many years ago, so I think I'm qualified to update it :)

Brahma is 'god' in the form of the creative force, as per https://www.ancient.eu/Brahma/ Brahman is the universal, formless unity of the real nature of existence.

So I updated (2) to refer to "god in the form of creative energy, the diety that gave birth to the universe and to humanity." instead of "the absolute, eternal, never-born god-head"

Also, I don't really know if the word Brahmacharya is a derivation of Brahma + Charya or Brahma + Acharya. They would be slightly different - 'Acharya' is more like 'teacher' and 'charya' is more like conduct. I suspect it's more 'charya' ... Brahmacharya is conduct that expresses our creative energy well. But it would need a Sanskrit scholar / historian to be definitive on this!

The meaning of "Brahmacarya" is how one must behave (acar) to achieve God - Brahman. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.204.247.30 (talk) 06:46, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Diet and ahimsa

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(rewrite) To commit violence, one must cease to covet all material possessions. To terminate egotism and possessiveness, as a part of curbing one's aggressiveness and tendency Brahmacharya is also observed to contain one's sensual desires for food and taste, as well as materialism. Most brahmacharis prescribe to avoiding the consumption of meat, spices and cooked foods, said to cultivate the taste buds and pleasure senses of the mind. As such, besides being a frontrunner for Simple_living and Nonresistance, Mohandas also devoted himself trying to create a (in his vision) perfect diet. The diet, later named the "Gandhi-diet" meant a diet which was environmentally acceptable, based on economical (low-cost) products and healthy (allowing the body to perform at its best capabilities; thus keeping digestion in mind). [1] The diet, on which he worked for 35 years, constantly re-evaluating and improving it, consisted of a litre of goat's milk, 150 gm cereals, 75 gm leafy vegetables, 125 gm other vegetables, 25 gm salad, 40 gm ghee or butter, and 40-50 gm jaggery or sugar. [2] As such, despite being inspired by vegetarianism and environmentology, the diet (containing the [[animal-products of ghee/butter and goat milk) cannot be called truly "environmental" (see Vegan#Animal_products). Certain diets (as the Biosphere 2-diet) do not include these downsides [3]. Today, the Gandhi diet is again becoming more popular [4], and is said to be very healthy and fit perfectly with the food-pyramid. [5]

Include this rewrite in article + add links to the articles: how to become a fruitarian 2/3 (add-ons to the guidebook linked earlierin fruitarian article) See this site

KVDP (talk) 08:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ Gandhi diet overview
  2. ^ Ghandi diet make-up and info
  3. ^ Biosphere 2-diet
  4. ^ [this site Gandhi diet becoming more popular as of late]
  5. ^ [Gandhi diet very healthy

Proper noun?

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The article alternates between capitalising Brahmacharya and leaving it all-lowercase. Which is correct? —QuicksilverT @ 15:15, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a proper noun, which is an argument for lower-case.
And it would be lowercase in an article written by me. (Being an indologist, specialist in Sanskrit and traditional Indian culture, but not a native speaker of English)
On the other hand, it seems a widespread practice here on Wiki (and it is in some secondary literature, particularly that which originates in India) to capitalize terminology from Sanskrit.
I do not find it a good practice, yet, it I could see one practical point about it: Followers of religions like to capitalize nouns that are somehow noble to them; consequently, some people will keep fighting for capitalizing _certain_ terminology from Hinduism (though no-one would probably fight for capitalizing a proper form of behaviour, which brahmacarya is). The fact that many editors here capitalize just every noun transcribed from Sanskrit can avoid such discussions. Yak-indolog (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can we have some Logic here please ?

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1. Brahmacharya is a period of 14-20 years _before_ the onset of puberty. 2. This stage of life was characterized by the practice of strict celibacy. Am I the only one wondering, how can one _not_ practice celibacy _before_ puberty? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bailoo (talk • contribs) 08:09, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Has this still not been corrected in the article? Yak-indolog (talk) 19:23, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

OR, Synthesis by user at 81.106.127.14

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User at 81.106.127.14 - Please see wikipedia's guidelines on WP:V, WP:OR, WP:SYNTHESIS and WP:LEAD. Your recent edits violate these community agreed guidelines, as follows: (1) In history section, almost all of the content you added is without cites; you did the same some time ago here when you disruptively removed tags requesting citations; such behavior is disruptive and violates WP:V; (2) In history section, you provided one cite - Geoffrey Samuel's book at page 8. However, the page makes no mention of the word Brahmacharya anywhere, or anything close. Using what Samuel states, to imply something about the concept of Brahmacharya, is violating wiki's policy on WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS; (3) You deleted, a paragraph from the lead, which summarized an important part of the main text. This violates WP:LEAD. I am correcting some of these issues, while keeping some of your contributions. I welcome your comments. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 12:23, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Business as usual with this guy. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 13:01, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
So says the man who claims that "The dominant Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism holds that sexual yoga as an actual physical practice is the only way to attain Buddhahood in one lifetime." What a joke! What a fraud! Only on Wikipedia folks! 81.106.127.14 (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know which editors you're confusing now, but your response betrays the same grandiosity as ever. Nevertheless, I'm glad you found Samuels; you're improving on your sources. Try also Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Religion, general editor Lindsay Jones. Pdf's can be found at the web; it's a lot better than Bowkes, or whatever his name is. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:08, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, don't be side-tracked by my unfriendly remarks; Ms Sarah Welch is still waiting for an answer. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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Title spelling

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Article seems to mostly say "brahmacharya", but the title is missing an H, as "brahmacarya". Should it be moved to the other spelling? Crossroads -talk- 15:25, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Crossroads: Yes, and it just was. The consonant in ब्रह्मचर्य in that position is च, pronounced /cha/ (unless a vowel sign is appended). Usage also confirms this as the common name in English with a bit over twice as many with -cha-, although it's varied over time, and in the 1960s British usage even showed the opposite trend for a decade.
It surprises me that there are as many uses of 'brahmacarya' in English as there are. At first I thought there was maybe a trend in British Indological scholarship to use a c-hacek as a transliteration where the diacritic got lost due to printing considerations, but it seems more likely that the -ca- version comes from Indian authors; see here for example, who seem much more likely to use the -ca- transliteration.
I ended up tracking it down to the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration as the probable source, "a transliteration scheme that allows the lossless romanisation of Indic scripts as employed by Sanskrit and related Indic languages... based on a scheme that emerged during the nineteenth century". So it all makes sense now. Wiktionary still uses this system (I'm uncertain if en-Wikipedia has a standard about this) and because of this, probably the move should not have been done here unilaterally, but only after a move request.
I agree with the outcome per common name, but nevertheless, others should have been allowed to weigh in first. Pinging @Uanfala, Fowler & Fowler, Winged Blades of Godric, and Sitush: for some feedback here, as my Hindi is elementary. Mathglot (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(fixing bad ping: @Fowler&fowler:.) Mathglot (talk) 21:30, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OED (entry last revised 1972) says: brahmacharya, n. Pronunciation: /ˌbrɑːməˈtʃɑːrɪə/: Etymology: < Sanskrit brahmacárya, < brahman prayer, worship + carya conduct. So, like you said, the English tends to use "ch;" whereas "c" is preferred in Sanskrit. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:57, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
PS Yes it should not be changed before ascertaining with the original authors what they had in mind. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:00, 14 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It all boils down whether articles about Sanskrit terms should be listed in their anglicized spelling forms (brahmacharya) or in their Sanskrit form (brahmacarya in both IAST and ISO norms of romanizing Sanskrit).
This issue should be treated "globally" for all Wikipedia articles.
To this day, I have not discovered where the standard practice for Wiki has been discussed - pls link me to the decision outcome, as well as to the discussion details that lead to the decision, if anybody who knows it happens to read this)
Whatever the solution, the other correct spelling should be duly mentioned. In this article, it should be clearly mentioned in the beginning that brahmacharya is an ANGLICIZED common spelling of the Sanskrit term brahmacarya, so correctly romanized in both IAST and ISO norms. Citing the devanagari is not as important as citing the romanization norm! Yak-indolog (talk) 19:34, 22 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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