Talk:Arishadvargas

Adi Shankaracharya on Arishadvargas
Desire (kama), anger (krodha), greed (lobha), attachment (moha), pride (mada), jealousy (matsarya) ; these dacoits are residing within your own body. They are not outside. They are residing as six column enemies within you. And, why are they there? To loot you of the Jnana-Ratna, to rob you of the precious gem of spiritual wisdom or atma-jnana, to loot you and deprive you of the precious gem of Self-awareness and make you forget your Self and weep and wail and be in ignorance. In order to deprive you of this jewel of atma-jnana, they are there. Therefore, oh man, oh Sadhak, Jagrata, Jagrata. Beware, beware. In this way, from the submerged level of the chitta or the deep within, various samskaras and vasana are brought into activity.

- Adi Shankaracharya. Shivani Yogini (talk) 04:09, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Citation? Original Research?
I think this article has original research in the translations here to make Arishadvargas match more closely with the Christian 7 deadly sins. Where are the citations for the translations? All academics would translate matsarya as miserliness or stinginess. While this may loosely be translated as jealousy (coveting what one possesses), it does NOT translate as envy (coveting what another possesses). While envy is among the Christian 7 deadly sins, it does not make sense to translate matsarya as envy. It appears there was an attempt to make matsarya match with Christian doctrine and no citations were provided.

I understand that non-technical people may be confused as the lay person conflates 'jealousy' with 'envy' thinking they are synonyms, but there is a substantial and philosophical difference between being unable to relinquish one's possessions (e.g. hoarding) versus pining after another person's possessions (envy). Matsarya is more akin to hoarding, and loosely jealousy, not envy.


 * Edit: so I have asked a Sanskrit and Hinduism scholar, and they explained Matsarya as an unwillingness to share something even when it would not deplete or would not otherwise hinder oneself by giving away, and when such unwillingness is done so with the motivation as to prevent another person from rising or advancing. This word is non-translatable to English because no other English word encapsulates that full meaning. It is similar to a child who is no longer playing with a toy but wants no other child to play with it either because seeing their enjoyment with it would be infuriating.  Is there any English word to describe this behavior?  Hoarding, miserliness, or stinginess I think are the closest translations?  They seems vastly better translations than jealousy or envy.

- Thoreaulylazy (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2022 (UTC)