Talk:Mahātmā
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Mahatmas and Mahandas are the same name for Gandhis first name. Juicyboy 325. 11/12/04
"Great White Brotherhood" was not a term used by Blavatsky. I have removed that reference. -Brucey
This is incorrect. Gandhi's first name is 'Mohandas' (Mohan-das) which has no etymological relation to the world 'Mahatma'. --Bigbenboa 22:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Split?
Should this page be separated into articles on the Hindu and Theosophist versions of Mahatma? It seems to me that they're completely different concepts. Rojomoke 13:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this is correct. The Theosophical material seems to me mainly relevant to Theosophy; it doesn't belong on a general article on the idea of mahatma. I'm flagging this for a POV-check; it's special pleading for a particular minor position. Randwolf 18:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The Theosophical definition can be seen as an appropriation of the Hindu definition. It could be split into two articles or as suggested below, split within this article. Either way, the two definitions are significant enough to be mentioned. --Bigbenboa 22:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Neutrality
Mahatma is a Sanskrit word that means, more-or-less, "saint". As such, the current text of the article gives undue weight to the term as used by the Theosophical Society, is almost a completely different use of the term; many, many more people use the common Indian sense--see for instance the articles on Mahatma_Gandhi, Adi Shankara, and Prahlad Keshav Atre. It is as if the article on saints had extensive coverage of the saints significant to a tiny group of Indian christians, and almost nothing on the Roman Catholic saints. My preference in this would be to start an article Mahatma (Theosophical Society) and reference it in the main article. Are there other opinions? Randwolf 07:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
- I would suggest a separate section within this article to clarify the distinctions between the two concepts. Aburesz 16:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
- Probably a separate article isn't necessary, but there is certainly a need for more clarification.
On the "letters": the text states that these alleged letters existed as if they are physical entities. Is this correct? Can we have a reference for it? The text makes it sound like Blavatsky was passing physical letters on to other people. Correct, if so, what is the ref?
