| From The River Of Heaven |
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| Books By David Frawley |
| SANSKRIT : THE POWER OF MANTRA | |
| L (a soft or vowel sound 'l') is the
sound of form and stability. It gives joy, harmony, contentment, and
inertia. These five basic sounds create the five orders of consonants, which reflect and expand their meaning. A creates the gutturals; K, KH, G, GH, NG. I creates the palatals; C, CH, J, JH, NY. U creates the labials; P, PH, B, BH, M. R creates the cerebral set (pronounced with the tongue curled back towards the palate) of T, TH, D, DH, N. L creates the labial set (pronounced with the tongue behind the teeth) of T, TH, D, DH, N. These are the twenty-five constants of Sanskrit. There are sixteen vowels in Sanskrit. A, I and U have short and long forms. The long form of A is pronounced like in 'father', the long form of E as in 'sheet', the long form of U as in 'boot'. Combined forms or diphthongs are E, AI, O, AU. E is pronounced as our long vowel A as in 'rate'. AI is pronounced as our long I as in 'site'. O is pronounced as in 'home' and AU as in 'ouch'. Short and long forms of a soft semi-vowel R and L also exist, though they seldom actually occur. An aspiration of the vowel sound is recognized as the letter AH, and a nasalization of the vowel sound as the letter M. An intermediate class between the vowels and consonants is the nine semi-vowels and aspirants. These are Y, R, L, V, H, S, Sh (palatal), Sh (cerebral), Ksh (the Sanskrit equivalent of the Greek X). These fifty letters form the garland of the Goddess, the Kundalini, which is the power of speech. They reside in the different chakras of the subtle body. In the Upanishads, the series of vowels represents the Spirit or consciousness (Indra). Consonants represent matter or death, as they are based on limitation. A consonant cannot be said without a vowel. The intermediate class of the semi-vowels and aspirants represents the creative power through which Spirit becomes matter (Prajapati).
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