Abstract

The Sanskrit term most frequently rendered in English as “truth” is satya, which is derived from a form of the verb “to be” (as). This can be traced etymologically back to the ancient Indo‐European copula, which is preserved also in Greek eirni, Latin esse, English is, and German Sein. The relationship between truth and being in Sanskrit is not just a discovery of modern linguistic science: Sanskrit grammarians, though not engaged in Indo‐European historical linguistics, were always sensitive to the derivational principles of their own language, and they explain the term “satya” as being formed by the application of the suffix ya to sat, the present participle of the verb “to be.” Satya, given a strong interpretation of the semantical influence of the derivational suffix, is therefore literally “what stands in relation to, has affinity with, being.” Read more weakly, it is simply “what has being.”