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Friday, November 11, 2011

Indic Unfunnies


There are plenty of subject jokes, funny oneliners in various other subject areas even Karnataka sangita.  Somehow the field of indology and indic studies has remained rather humorless. So here is a beginning:
More to come..

1.What is a naiyāyika's favorite Tamizh movie?   guṇā

2.What did śankara say to the abominable snowman?   Yeti Yeti
3.Why was the vyākaraṇa paṇdita never offered coffee. Because he declined it.
4. Why did the kāsmira śaiva love Halloween?  Because he could trika treat.
5.Who is an advaita vedantins least favorite poet? Maya Angelou

6.What did pāṇini do when the other grammarians asked too many questions?

He became a grilled panini

7.What do you call a tortilla chip that defies death? Nachoketas.

8.Which are the smallest set of sūtra-s. Jai'mini' Sūtra-s.






16 comments:

turanga said...

A somewhat tortured one:

Why is the visarga in naraa imee like a bed?

A bed is a charpai (think Hindi). There is no sign of charpai (think Trig).

turanga said...

What sutras do polite engineer's study?

Apastambha sutras.

turanga said...

The question for your 3. is better as
Why did the vyākaraṇa paṇdita never drink the coffee that he was offered?

and the answer

Because he always declined it?

Vidya Jayaraman said...

@turanga,
Phew, I finally got the think Trig reference! :)

Vidya Jayaraman said...

Why was durvasa like a leaf?
Because he was born of 'a tree'

turanga said...

How do we know that Vyasa and Vishnu had some business dealings?

Because we know they exchanged money:

vyAsAya viShNu rUpAya vyAsa rUpAya viShNave...

turanga said...

Referring to 6., where were the other grammarians who asked Panini questions from?

From Africa. Because they were grillers.

elisa freschi said...

Very nice idea. I am embarassed to admit that I do not get many of turanga's puns…

turanga said...

@elisa, that's OK. Sometimes I wonder whether I get them too.:-)

It is probably because they draw on too many domains. While it makes doing it easy (more elements to draw from), it becomes hard for the audience that does not share all the domains, - pun paNra paNDitan.

turanga said...

Another tortured one:

What does the vaiyalaraNi do with his tea when it is offered to him? Does he drink it?

No. Actually he swats it away (1.1.64).

elisa freschi said...

I'm sorry for the stupid question. What is a vaiyalarani?

Vidya Jayaraman said...

The first one is rather convoluted.There is no visarga in that phrase. charpai is the word for bed in hindi and there is no sine(4Pi) in Trigonometry. So that explains the first one.

I didn't get the Apastambha sutra one either. vyāsāya viṣṇu rūpāya is the phrase from the viṣṇu sahasranāma and refers to the Indian currency of rūpāy or rupee.

The last one should be vaiyākaraṇi due to the Pāṇiniyan 1.1.64 acah antya adi ti reference

turanga said...

@Vidya, right about the first one and the typo in the latest! There is a typo in the second one too. No apostrophe, sorry. And polite engineers are civil to everyone and you know what civil engineers learn to build. To make the last tortured one more explicit, for the word vaiyākaraṇi according to 1.1.64, Ti is i and i in tamil is a fly{:-<). It is probably a really bad pun as these puns go...

turanga said...

OK! An attempt to fix all typos, rephrase and string together all the grammer ones to make them more tied together...(:->)

Why did pāṇini never drink coffee that was offered to him?

He always declined it.

What did pāṇini do when the other grammarians asked too many questions?

He became a grilled pāṇini.

Where were the other grammarians who asked pāṇini questions from?

From Africa. Because they were grillers.

What does pāṇini do with his tea when it is offered to him? Does he drink it?

No. He swats it away (1.1.64).

(For grillers, think of a variant spelling of the sound that has an African connection)

shreevatsa said...

The variant of 3. that I've heard (not in an Indic context!) goes something like this: "Why are celibate people bad at vyākaraṇa? Because when asked to conjugate, they decline."

turanga said...

So are the unhappily married ones. Because they conjugated when they should have declined.