Namaste 🙏

Sanskrit pronunciation: [nɐmɐste:], Devanagari: नमस्ते

I was thinking what should be my first post about? I choose “Namaste” because that’s how I started with coding as well — hello world! Greetings to you for visiting my home on the internet.

You may have heard the word “Namaste” before, from your yoga intructor or an Indian friend. In common use, we say “Namaste” to greet someone in Hindi or even while saying goodbye. But this Sanskrit word has Hindu roots that dates all the way back to the Vedic period.

It is derived from two key Sanskrit words:

• Namah: bow or salutation
• Te: to you

Thus, the literal translation of Namaste is “I bow to you”, but its Hindu interpretation is appreciation and respect towards another person, entity or deity. It assumes the god (or the consciousness/universe) inside me bows to the the god in you. It asks the other person to identify the consciousness that both the person share and thus identify as one entity.

When saying Namaste, you bow your head slightly and bring the hands together close to the heart in a ‘mudra’ or hand gesture called Anjali Mudra. In yoga, this mudra connects the mind and body and deepens the yoga practice.

That’s it for this post. It was supposed to be a short and concise beginning.

Namaste 🙏