Core Glossary
Core Glossary
translation_memory.json is the enforced glossary for every Phase 2 translation in this curriculum. This document summarizes its shape and the principles behind it; see the Glossary Risk Groups for the full per-term entries.
Composition
The glossary currently holds 47 terms spanning all four risk tiers, drawn from the doctrines identified in Doctrine Analysis and grounded in the philosophical risks identified in Culture Analysis and Comparative Theology. Every term entry records:
- The approved Sanskrit translation and transliteration
- The doctrine risk tier (Critical/High/Medium/Low)
- Explicitly rejected alternatives, with the specific classical school or text each rejected term belongs to
- Notes explaining the non-obvious translation choice, citing primary sources where applicable (Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads, Mimamsa/Nyaya technical vocabulary)
Governing principles
- No neutral word exists — select the least doctrinally contradictory available technical term. Unlike vernacular Language Packages, which can often find or coin a comparatively unloaded word, nearly every Sanskrit candidate is already a precise technical term in a developed system. The governing discipline is deliberate selection among imperfect options, not the search for a clean one.
- Mandatory redefinition on use for Critical/High terms. Because this audience is trained to actively parse philosophical vocabulary, silent contextual disambiguation is not sufficient; Critical and High risk terms require explicit redefinition at first occurrence in every document.
- Explicit rejection with citation, not silent avoidance. Every Critical-risk term records which specific school or text the rejected alternative belongs to (see
alternatives_rejectedandnotes), so a reviewer can verify the reasoning against the primary source rather than trusting a general cultural claim. - Reuse existing Christian Sanskrit precedent where it exists. Proper names follow the 1808 Serampore Sanskrit New Testament; the God-term follows Roberto de Nobili’s Sarvesvara precedent. Where no precedent exists, this glossary makes a reasoned, documented, precedent-setting choice rather than assuming settled usage.
- Version-controlled and append-only in Phase 2 — if a new term is discovered during document translation, it is added to translation memory and the version number incremented, never silently improvised per-document (see the AI Translation Requirements’ Translation Memory Load and Enforcement Instructions).
Relationship to the Doctrine Risk Registry
Every glossary term’s doctrine field links back to an entry in doctrine_risk_registry.json, so a term’s risk tier is always traceable to the specific doctrine it protects, and from there to the specific classical text or school the doctrine risk registry cites as the source of the collision.
Critical Risk Terms
Father
Approved rendering: पिता
Transliteration: pitā
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: ब्रह्मा, प्रजापतिः
God as personal Father. Never ब्रह्मा (the creator deity of the Purāṇic trimūrti) or प्रजापतिः (the Vedic ‘lord of creatures,’ a distinct creator-figure category in Brāhmaṇa literature).
God
Approved rendering: सर्वेश्वरः
Transliteration: sarveśvaraḥ
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ईश्वरः, ब्रह्मन्, भगवान्, देवः
CRITICAL: this glossary follows the historical precedent set by the 17th-century Jesuit missionary Roberto de Nobili, who worked in Sanskrit-influenced Tamil theological vocabulary and deliberately chose ‘Sarvēśvara’ (Lord OF ALL) over ‘Dēva’ specifically because Dēva is heard as one deity among the many devāḥ of Vedic and Puranic religion. देवः is rejected for exactly de Nobili’s reason. भगवान् is rejected because it is the common devotional honorific applied to any personally worshipped chosen deity (iṣṭa-devatā) — Kṛṣṇa, Śiva, Devī are each addressed as Bhagavān/Bhagavatī. ब्रह्मन् is rejected as the impersonal Absolute (see Holy Spirit entry). Bare ईश्वरः is rejected (see ‘lord’ entry) for its Advaitic subordination-to-māyā risk. सर्वेश्वरः (‘Lord of all’) most forcefully closes off the ‘one god among many’ reading by asserting sovereignty over every other being that could be called deva or īśvara, rather than merely claiming superlative status among a category.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: पवित्र आत्मा
Transliteration: pavitra ātmā
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: ब्रह्मन्, परमात्मा
CRITICAL — THE SINGLE HIGHEST-STAKES TERM IN THIS ENTIRE LANGUAGE PACKAGE: आत्मन् is not a loosely ‘spiritual-sounding’ word but the central category of Vedāntic metaphysics. The Upaniṣadic mahāvākyas (great sayings) — ‘tat tvam asi’ (‘thou art that,’ Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.8.7), ‘ayam ātmā brahma’ (‘this Self is Brahman,’ Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 1.2), and ‘ahaṃ brahmāsmi’ (‘I am Brahman,’ Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.10) — assert the ultimate non-difference (advaita) of the individual self (ātman) and the universal Absolute (Brahman). Rendering ‘Holy Spirit’ with ātmā therefore risks a categorically graver error than the impersonal-Brahman confusion flagged in vernacular Language Packages: an Advaita-trained reader may hear ‘Pavitra Ātmā’ not as the distinct third Person of the Trinity but as the reader’s own true universal Self, collapsing Trinitarian personhood into monistic self-identity with the Absolute. This is not a peripheral folk misunderstanding but a direct collision with the central thesis of Advaita Vedānta, the most influential classical school. This term must never appear without an explicit note affirming the Holy Spirit’s distinct personhood, given and not achieved, and must never be used to render generic ‘spirit’ or ‘self’ language elsewhere in a way that could reinforce an ātman-Brahman identity reading.
Imputed Righteousness
Approved rendering: आरोपिता धार्मिकता
Transliteration: āropitā dhārmikatā
Doctrine: Justification by Faith
Rejected alternatives: अर्जिता धार्मिकता
Credited/attributed righteousness from God, NOT righteousness achieved through one’s own effort (अर्जिता, ‘earned,’ is explicitly rejected). आरोपित is itself a real Nyāya-epistemology term for a superimposed/attributed property (cf. adhyāsa, superimposition, a key Advaita concept for how illusory qualities are ‘imposed’ on reality) — here repurposed positively: righteousness genuinely credited by God’s declaration, not illusory, but not self-generated either.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: देहधारणम्
Transliteration: dehadhāraṇam
Doctrine: Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: अवतारः
CRITICAL: NEVER अवतारः. This is the most textually explicit rejection in this whole Language Package: avatāra theology is not vague cultural background but an explicit doctrine with its own scriptural proof-text, Bhagavad Gītā 4.7-8 (‘yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati… tadātmānaṃ sṛjāmyaham,’ ‘whenever dharma declines, I manifest myself’), and a canonical list of instances (Viṣṇu’s daśāvatāra). देहधारणम् (‘taking on a body’) must be explicitly taught, every time, as the eternal Son’s unique, permanent, once-for-all assumption of human nature — categorically different from a periodic, repeatable, dharma-restoring divine descent with named prior and future instances.
Jesus
Approved rendering: यीशुः
Transliteration: yīśuḥ
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Follows the Serampore Sanskrit New Testament (1808) precedent, the earliest sustained Christian Sanskrit Bible translation tradition.
Justification
Approved rendering: धर्मीति निर्णयः
Transliteration: dharmīti nirṇayaḥ
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: क्षमा, पुण्यार्जनम्
निर्णयः is deliberately borrowed from Mīmāṃsā/Nyāya argumentative method, where it names the definitively ascertained conclusion (siddhānta) reached after stating an objection (pūrvapakṣa) and refuting it (uttarapakṣa) — i.e. a formal, reasoned, authoritative declaration, not a private feeling. This gives ‘justification’ genuine forensic weight in Sanskrit’s own intellectual idiom: God’s definitive declaration that the believer is righteous, reached through Christ’s atoning work, not the believer’s own argument or merit.
Lord
Approved rendering: प्रभुः
Transliteration: prabhuḥ
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ईश्वरः, स्वामी
प्रभुः (‘master, one with power/authority’) is preferred as the default title precisely because ईश्वरः carries a specific philosophical liability: in Advaita Vedānta, Īśvara is Brahman as viewed through māyā — a real but only provisionally real (vyāvahārika) qualified (saguṇa) manifestation, ultimately superseded by the attributeless (nirguṇa) Brahman beyond even Īśvara. Using ईश्वरः as Christ’s title risks an Advaita-trained reader hearing ‘Lord’ as naming something less than ultimate reality. प्रभुः avoids this specific subordination trap, though it must still be paired with explicit exclusive-Lordship language, since प्रभुः alone does not rule out being one master among several.
Messiah
Approved rendering: मसीहः
Transliteration: masīhaḥ
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: अवतारपुरुषः
Transliterated term. The Anointed One fulfilling a specific Jewish Old Testament promise, not an avatāra-puruṣa (avatar-figure) within Viṣṇu’s daśāvatāra sequence.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: पुनरुत्थानम्
Transliteration: punarutthānam
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: पुनर्जन्म
CRITICAL: NEVER पुनर्जन्म. This is not a vague popular idea in Sanskrit — it is the precise technical mechanism of transmigration developed across multiple systematized darśanas: Sāṃkhya-Yoga’s theory of karmāśaya/vāsanā (latent karmic impressions carried across lives) and Vedānta’s liṅga-śarīra (subtle body) that migrates at death. पुनरुत्थानम् (‘rising again’) is a doctrinally neutral compound describing a single bodily event, not a mechanism of repeated embodiment, and must always carry a note distinguishing it from this fully theorized transmigration doctrine.
Righteousness
Approved rendering: धार्मिकता
Transliteration: dhārmikatā
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: धर्मः, न्यायः, पुण्यम्
CRITICAL AND UNAVOIDABLE: unlike in any vernacular in this pipeline, there is no way to fully escape dharma’s weight in Sanskrit — धार्मिकता is an abstract noun built directly on धर्म, the first and organizing category of the four puruṣārthas (dharma, artha, kāma, mokṣa) and the entire subject of the Mīmāṃsā school’s scriptural-injunction hermeneutics and of the dharmaśāstra legal-ritual literature (varṇāśrama-dharma). न्यायः is equally unusable as a plain word for ‘justice’ because it is the proper name of an entire orthodox darśana (the Nyāya school of logic and epistemology). Every candidate term is already a school name or a theorized category. This term therefore requires mandatory explicit redefinition at every occurrence — ‘right standing before God granted through faith, not cosmic/social duty performed or ritually prescribed’ — rather than reliance on the word alone.
Salvation
Approved rendering: त्राणम्
Transliteration: trāṇam
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: मोक्षः, मुक्तिः, निर्वाणम्
CRITICAL: NEVER मोक्षः or मुक्तिः — both name the precise, fully theorized fourth puruṣārtha: liberation from saṃsāra achieved through jñāna-mārga (Advaita’s Self-realization that ātman is Brahman), bhakti-mārga, or karma-mārga, depending on school. निर्वाणम् (the Buddhist term, ‘blowing out’ of craving) is a related but distinct rejected alternative from a separate rival system. त्राणम् is an old Vedic-root word (from √trā, ‘to protect/rescue’) meaning rescue or protection, and carries no liberation-from-cycle metaphysics — it names a rescue by another, not a Self-achieved realization or extinguishing.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: परमेश्वरस्य पुत्रः
Transliteration: parameśvarasya putraḥ
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ईश्वरांशः, देवपुरुषः
CRITICAL: full phrase required, using परमेश्वर (see ‘god’ entry) rather than bare ईश्वर for the same Advaita-subordination reasons noted under ‘lord’. Conveys eternal, unique Sonship within the Godhead, not a partial divine portion (अंशः, a term also used of avatāra theory, where an avatāra can be described as a partial descent/portion of Viṣṇu — another reason to avoid अंशः here).
High Risk Terms
Abba
Approved rendering: अब्बा
Transliteration: abbā
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Aramaic term of filial intimacy preserved in Romans 8:15; retained as a transliteration rather than reduced to formal पिता alone.
Adoption
Approved rendering: पुत्रत्वेन स्वीकरणम्
Transliteration: putratvena svīkaraṇam
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Rejected alternatives: दत्तकग्रहणम्
दत्तकग्रहणम् (the classical dharmaśāstra term for formal legal adoption, discussed with specific inheritance-share rules in texts like the Dattaka Mīmāṃsā literature) is available and not wrong, but the fuller descriptive phrase is preferred here to foreground full inheritance rights without importing dharmaśāstra’s specific partial-share adoption rules, which do not match Romans’ picture of complete heirship.
Called
Approved rendering: आहूतः
Transliteration: āhūtaḥ
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: निमन्त्रितः
Context-sensitive: in 1:1, called to apostleship; in 1:7, called to be saints; in 8:28-30, effectual calling to salvation. आहूतः is drawn from the Vedic sacrificial vocabulary of āhvāna, the ritual invocation of a deity to a yajña by mantra — repurposed here for God’s own sovereign summons of a person, a deliberate reversal of the Vedic direction of address (human invoking deity, versus God summoning human).
Calling
Approved rendering: आह्वानम्
Transliteration: āhvānam
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: निमन्त्रणम्
Noun form sharing its root with ‘called’; translators should be aware this term’s ordinary Vedic sense is a human ritual act toward a deity, so its use here for God’s initiative toward humans should be flagged at first occurrence.
Covenant
Approved rendering: संविद्
Transliteration: saṃvid
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: वाचा, नियमः
वाचा (speech/word) is avoided because it activates Vāc theology: in Ṛgvedic and later Mīmāṃsā thought, Vāc is a cosmic principle of speech, and Mīmāṃsā holds the Veda’s very sound-form to be eternal (śabda-brahman) — a rich but unrelated doctrine that would distract from covenant’s relational-promise sense. नियमः is avoided because it is Patañjali’s second yogic limb (niyama: purity, contentment, austerity, study, devotion to Īśvara). संविद् (mutual understanding/compact) is the least technically encumbered available option, though it still requires explicit teaching as ‘God’s own binding promise,’ since it carries no inherent covenantal weight on its own.
Election
Approved rendering: परमेश्वरस्य वरणम्
Transliteration: parameśvarasya varaṇam
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: भाग्यम्, दैवम्
God’s sovereign personal choice, not भाग्यम् (fortune) or दैवम् — the latter a genuine philosophical category debated in texts like the Mahābhārata’s daiva-puruṣakāra discussions (the relative weight of fate versus human effort), not the same as a personal God’s deliberate choice of specific people.
Faith
Approved rendering: विश्वासः
Transliteration: viśvāsaḥ
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: श्रद्धा, भक्तिः
श्रद्धा is rejected not as generically ‘too devotional’ but because it is a precisely theorized technical term: Bhagavad Gita chapter 17 analyzes śraddhā as threefold (sāttvikī, rājasī, tāmasī), classified by which guṇa of prakṛti dominates the believer’s constitution — a fully worked-out psychological-metaphysical doctrine incompatible with faith as simple trust in a specific person. भक्तिः names an entire soteriological path (bhakti-mārga) alongside jñāna-mārga and karma-mārga in Gita chapters 9-12, not a general disposition of trust. विश्वासः is comparatively untheorized in classical philosophy and is therefore the safer vessel for a new, specific meaning: trust placed in Christ.
Glory
Approved rendering: महिमा
Transliteration: mahimā
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: तेजस्
तेजस् is rejected because in Sāṃkhya cosmology and Purāṇic narrative it names a specific metaphysical substance — radiant potency or energy — famously the combined tejas of the gods from which the goddess Durgā is formed in the Devī Māhātmyam. महिमा (greatness/majesty) avoids that substance-metaphysics and keeps the sense of honor and radiant presence without invoking a specific goddess-formation narrative.
Gospel
Approved rendering: सुसमाचारः
Transliteration: susamācāraḥ
Doctrine: Gospel
Rejected alternatives: शुभवार्ता
Follows the precedent of William Carey’s 1808 Serampore Sanskrit New Testament, which coined this compound (su- ‘good’ + samācāra ‘report/conduct-account’) rather than borrowing a term already tied to a specific school. शुभ (‘auspicious’) carries astrological/ritual-timing connotations (śubha muhūrta) that would misdirect toward a favorable-omen reading rather than a proclaimed historical message.
Grace
Approved rendering: अनुग्रहः
Transliteration: anugrahaḥ
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: कृपा, प्रसादः, पुण्यम्
प्रसादः is explicitly rejected because in Sanskrit it names a concrete ritual category: food or an object offered to a deity and returned to the worshipper as a sanctified gift (prasādam), a transactional cultic exchange, not unmerited relational favor. पुण्यम् is accumulated merit within the karma system. अनुग्रहः, while still meaning ‘favor,’ is the least ritually-encumbered of the available terms and is used in bhakti Vedanta (e.g. Ramanuja) for divine favor toward the devotee, giving it some theological precedent, though even there it operates within a devotion-response framework that must be explicitly distinguished from unconditional grace prior to any devotion.
Holy
Approved rendering: पवित्रम्
Transliteration: pavitram
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: शुद्धम्
The Vedic root sense of pavitra is a physical purifying instrument (e.g. the kuśa-grass strainer used to purify soma in yajña ritual) — a ritual-mechanical purity, not primarily a moral or relational one. This term requires deliberate redefinition toward ‘set apart for God, morally pure’ rather than assumed transfer of its Vedic ritual sense.
Law
Approved rendering: विधिः
Transliteration: vidhiḥ
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
Rejected alternatives: धर्मः, धर्मशास्त्रम्
विधिः is deliberately chosen from Pūrva Mīmāṃsā, the classical school devoted entirely to interpreting Vedic scriptural injunctions: a vidhi is a positive scriptural command carrying binding authority. This gives ‘the Law’ (Torah) real technical precision as a body of divinely authoritative commands, closer in structure to Paul’s argument than धर्मशास्त्रम् (the broad dharmaśāstra legal-ritual genre) or bare धर्म, both of which are too broad and too tied to varṇāśrama social duty.
Obedience Of Faith
Approved rendering: विश्वासस्य आज्ञापालनम्
Transliteration: viśvāsasya ājñāpālanam
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Rejected alternatives: धर्माचरणम्
Romans 1:5 and 16:26. धर्माचरणम् (‘conduct according to dharma’) is rejected because it would reframe this as duty-based religious performance within the varṇāśrama system rather than obedience flowing from faith already given.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: परमेश्वरस्य सामर्थ्यम्
Transliteration: parameśvarasya sāmarthyam
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: शक्तिः
शक्तिः is rejected with unusual precision here: in Śākta philosophical theology, Śakti is not merely ‘a goddess-flavored word’ but the personified, hypostasized divine feminine creative power, consort-energy of Śiva, and the subject of an entire Tantric-Śākta theological literature (e.g. the Devī Māhātmyam). सामर्थ्यम् avoids this hypostasis entirely, naming ability/capacity without personifying it as a distinct divine power.
Providence
Approved rendering: परमेश्वरस्य विधानम्
Transliteration: parameśvarasya vidhānam
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: भाग्यम्, दैवम्, कर्मफलम्
God’s personal, purposive governance. Never भाग्यम् or दैवम् (fate/fortune) or कर्मफलम् (the fruit of karma, an impersonal causal law operating without a personal governing will).
Saints
Approved rendering: पवित्राः जनाः
Transliteration: pavitrāḥ janāḥ
Doctrine: Sainthood
Rejected alternatives: ऋषयः, संन्यासिनः
ऋषयः names the specific class of Vedic seers credited with perceiving the eternal mantras — an inspired-elite category, not every believer. संन्यासिनः names the formal fourth life-stage (āśrama) of world-renunciation within the varṇāśrama-dharma system, a specific institutional status incompatible with ‘all who believe, regardless of life-stage.‘
Sanctification
Approved rendering: पवित्रीकरणम्
Transliteration: pavitrīkaraṇam
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: शुद्धिः
The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy, distinguished from Vedic/dharmaśāstra ritual purification procedures (śuddhi) prescribed for specific ritual-impurity events.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: दाविदः वंशात्
Transliteration: dāvidaḥ vaṃśāt
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Romans 1:3; conveys physical lineage and OT covenant fulfillment via the ablative वंशात् (‘from the lineage’).
Sin
Approved rendering: पापम्
Transliteration: pāpam
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: अधर्मः
Moral transgression before a personal God. Note for reviewers: dharmaśāstra literature (e.g. Manusmṛti) catalogues specific sins alongside specific ritual atonements (prāyaścitta); this curriculum must guard against पापम् being read as a category resolved through prescribed ritual penance rather than through Christ’s atoning work.
Medium Risk Terms
Apostle
Approved rendering: प्रेषितः
Transliteration: preṣitaḥ
Doctrine: Apostleship
Rejected alternatives: गुरुः, ऋषिः
प्रेषितः (‘one sent,’ from √preṣ) is a plain, non-technical formation naming a sent, authorized messenger. गुरुः is rejected because it invokes the entire guru-śiṣya-paramparā (teacher-disciple lineage) system central to nearly every classical school’s transmission of authority. ऋषिः is rejected because a Vedic ṛṣi is specifically a ‘seer’ credited with directly perceiving (not authoring) the eternal, uncreated (apauruṣeya) Vedic mantras — a fundamentally different theory of religious authority than a historically commissioned apostle.
Church
Approved rendering: मण्डली
Transliteration: maṇḍalī
Doctrine: Church as God’s People
Rejected alternatives: मन्दिरम्, मठः
Never मन्दिरम् (temple, image-centered) or मठः (a monastic institution organizationally tied to a guru-lineage, e.g. Śaṅkara’s four cardinal maṭhas). मण्डली names the assembled congregation.
David
Approved rendering: दाविद्
Transliteration: dāvid
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Proper name, transliterated consistent with the Serampore Sanskrit New Testament tradition.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: अन्यजातीयाः
Transliteration: anyajātīyāḥ
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: म्लेच्छाः
म्लेच्छाः is explicitly rejected: in classical Sanskrit usage this term for ‘foreigner/outsider’ carries a ritual-impurity and cultural-contempt connotation (those outside varṇa society and Vedic ritual competence) far more pejorative than the neutral ‘non-Jew’ sense Paul intends.
Intercession
Approved rendering: मध्यस्थता
Transliteration: madhyasthatā
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
Prayer offered on behalf of others through Christ as sole mediator; a plain compound with no major rival technical sense.
Israel
Approved rendering: इस्राएलः
Transliteration: isrāelaḥ
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Proper name, transliterated.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: परमेश्वरस्य राज्यम्
Transliteration: parameśvarasya rājyam
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
God’s sovereign reign; a straightforward genitive-noun construction with no major rival technical sense to displace.
Mission
Approved rendering: सुसमाचारप्रचारः
Transliteration: susamācāraprachāraḥ
Doctrine: Mission to the Nations
Describes the activity plainly (proclamation of the good news). Since this Language Package’s audience is scholarly/liturgical rather than a lay mission field, the colonial-connotation caution present in vernacular Language Packages applies with less force here, though tone should remain descriptive rather than triumphalist.
Peace
Approved rendering: शान्तिः
Transliteration: śāntiḥ
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: निर्वृत्तिः
In Romans 5:1, relational and forensic peace with God through justification — at risk of being heard instead as the meditative cessation of mental fluctuation (citta-vṛtti-nirodha, Yoga Sūtra 1.2) sought through yogic discipline, a private psychological attainment rather than a restored relationship with a personal God.
Spiritual Gifts
Approved rendering: आत्मिकं वरदानम्
Transliteration: ātmikaṃ varadānam
Doctrine: Spiritual Gifts
Rejected alternatives: वरदानम्, सिद्धिः
सिद्धिः is explicitly rejected because it names the eight classical yogic supernatural attainments (aṣṭasiddhi: aṇimā, mahimā, and others) systematically catalogued in Yoga Sūtra chapter 3 as by-products of advanced yogic mastery — powers earned through disciplined practice, not enablements freely given by the Spirit.
Low Risk Terms
Exhort
Approved rendering: उत्तेजनम्
Transliteration: uttejanam
Doctrine: Mutual Edification
Context-sensitive: use विनयः/प्रार्थना (entreaty) for beseeching; उत्तेजनम् (encouragement/stirring up) for building up.
Fellowship
Approved rendering: सहभागिता
Transliteration: sahabhāgitā
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: सत्सङ्गः
सत्सङ्गः (‘association with the good/true’) is a specific, well-developed devotional practice-category in Vaishnava bhakti and later Hindu reform movements (gathering with the wise for spiritual discourse); सहभागिता (shared participation) avoids importing that specific institutional practice.
Prophecy
Approved rendering: भविष्यवाणी
Transliteration: bhaviṣyavāṇī
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
God-inspired declaration of what is to come; a straightforward compound with no major competing technical sense.
Prophet
Approved rendering: भविष्यद्वक्ता
Transliteration: bhaviṣyadvaktā
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: ऋषिः
ऋषिः is rejected for a precise reason: a Vedic ṛṣi is credited with directly perceiving (√dṛś, hence mantra-draṣṭā, ‘seer of the mantra’) the eternal, uncreated (apauruṣeya) Veda, not with receiving a historically situated message from a personal God at a point in time. भविष्यद्वक्ता (‘one who speaks what is to come’) keeps the historically-situated, personally-addressed sense biblical prophecy requires.
Thanksgiving
Approved rendering: धन्यवादः
Transliteration: dhanyavādaḥ
Doctrine: Thanksgiving
Standard term; कृतज्ञता (‘gratitude’) is an acceptable descriptive synonym. No significant doctrinal risk.
Referenced passages