[Advaita-l] Aham Brahmaasmi

[S Jayanarayanan]

--- On Thu, 12/10/09, sthanunathan Ramakrishnan <r_sthanu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Dear Shakthi,
> 
>             I have one
> problem with your interpretation. I do not know if "ham"
> means rejectable. But assuming it is, the statement should
> be 
> "Aham Brahma Asthi" (to get the meaning you intend, that is
> the "Non Rejectable is the greatest") and not "Aham Brahma
> Asmi", because "Asmi" is in the first person and "Asthi"
> would be in the third person. 
> 

You are of course correct, but if I'm not mistaken, Shakthi is regurgitating (without clear understanding) the dvaitin interpretation of the Mahavakya, where even the straightforward term "asmi" is split up into strange and unrecognizable components:

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.religion.vaishnava/msg/08b489dfc9ef1273?hl=en&dmode=source

-----
i) 'aham brahmaasmi'

Now, the word 'aham' in "aham brahmaasmi" does not mean "I" -- it
means "aheyam" -- that which cannot be avoided, that which is not to
be given up. The word 'asmi' does not mean "I am" but is a compound of
"as" meaning existence, and "mi" meaning knowable.

...

Thus, "aham brahma asmi" means: "That Brahman which cannot be avoided
..."
-----

>    Folks, Please correct me if Iam wrong.
> Iam just taking my baby steps in learning sanskrit.
> 
> regards
> Sthanu
> 
> > But I have also heard an interpretation like this:
> > 
> > "Aham Brahmasmi"
> > ham - means reject-able ? ? ? ? ?? [in Sanskrit.]
> > Aham - means Non-reject-able?? [in Sanskrit.]
> > Brahma - Greatest??????????????????? [in Sanskrit.]
> > 
> > So, it comes to a conclusion that,
> > The one which is Non-reject-able? is the Greatest.
> 
> 
> 
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 10:34:04 +0530 (IST)
> > From: Shakthi Prashanth <shakthi.prashanth at ymail.com>
> > Subject: [Advaita-l] Fw: RE: Query [continued]
> > To: advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
> > Message-ID: <843026.39194.qm at web95104.mail.in2.yahoo.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> > 
> > Hi All,
> > 
> > Thank you so much for such a great response from all
> of
> > you.
> > 
> > But I have also heard an interpretation like this:
> > 
> > "Aham Brahmasmi"
> > ham - means reject-able ? ? ? ? ?? [in Sanskrit.]
> > Aham - means Non-reject-able?? [in Sanskrit.]
> > Brahma - Greatest??????????????????? [in Sanskrit.]
> > 
> > So, it comes to a conclusion that,
> > The one which is Non-reject-able? is the Greatest.
> >