Noun or Adjective ?

I am sure you know the difference between noun and adjective. Nevertheless let me take the help of Cambridge dictionary to explain the same.

Adjective – is a word that describes a noun or pronoun and Noun – is a word that refers to a person, place, thing or event. Lets take an example. in the sentence – ‘Suresh is a fantastic artist’, ‘Suresh’ and ‘artist’ are nouns and ‘fantastic’ is an adjective. I guess thats enough of English grammar for now !

This short blog is not about noun or adjective. It is about God. Wondering about the connection ? Read ahead to know.

Vishnu, Shiva, Vinayaka, Sai Baba, Rama, Krishna et al are the many forms of God or some would say many Gods. In both case, we are treating these words as nouns. I would argue that these words are actually adjectives. Let me explain what each of these words mean in Samskrutam [what we incorrectly refer to as Sanskrit in English].

Vishnu means all pervading. Shiva means auspiciousness. Vinayaka means one who does not have a leader. Sai Baba means mother and father*. Rama means that which pleases. Krishna means that which attracts. You would recognize that much like ‘fantastic’ artist, these words are actually describing somebody. These are adjectives referring to a noun. I would say that the singular noun is ‘God’ (*in Marathi and/or Telugu may be)

God is all pervading. God is auspiciousness. God is one without a leader. God is mother and father. God is pleasing. God is attractive in nature and so on.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, each attribute (adjective) of God was given a form and it became a noun in practice. Lets take another example. ‘Suresh is a fantastic, creative, talented, beautiful, imaginative artist’. Clearly, we are talking of only Suresh here. However, imagine if people instead decided to focus on only one attribute of Suresh and made it tangible. Then it would mean there exists ‘fantastic Suresh’, ‘creative Suresh’, ‘talented Suresh’, ‘beautiful Suresh’, ‘imaginative Suresh’ and so on. Much like ‘Vishnu-God’, ‘Shiva-God’, ‘Vinayaka-God’, ‘Sai Baba-God’, ‘Rama-God’, ‘Krishna-God’ and so on.

Taking this perspective gives us a whole new vision. It suddenly puts to rest numerous differences basis imagined identities. Lets make this shift internally. We are free to like, associate, celebrate one adjective more than others. However, we must not forget that there is only one noun, one God !

Thank you. Look forward to your responses.