Rang and varna: colour words in Sanskrit and Hindi

Rang and raga

Sanskrit ranga comes from a root, ranj, that means to dye or to colour, and also to delight or be moved. The same root gives raga, the melodic form of Indian classical music, sometimes explained as that which colours the mind. Ranga also means a stage or arena, which is why a theatre is a rangmanch and Holi is played with rang. In everyday Hindi the word spreads widely: rangeen is colourful, rangrez is a dyer, and to be coloured in someone's rang is to be won over by them, a favourite image of devotional poetry.

Varna

Varna in Sanskrit means colour, covering, outward look and kind. Grammarians use it for a letter or speech sound, and the alphabet is the varnamala, a garland of varnas. It is also the word for the four classes of society described in ancient texts. Whether that use ever referred to skin colour is disputed. Many scholars read it as meaning type or category, and the texts also assign each class a symbolic colour. Treating varna as a simple matter of complexion is a later reading and should be handled with caution.

The colour words themselves

Modern Hindi draws on two streams. From Sanskrit come neela for blue, from nila, peela for yellow, from pita, hara for green, from harita, and kala for black. From Persian come lal for red, safed for white and several names taken from things: gulabi, pink, from the rose, asmani, sky blue, and firozi, turquoise. Others are home-grown comparisons: narangi from the orange, baingani from the aubergine, kesariya from saffron. Sanskrit theatre theory also links colours to moods. The Natyashastra assigns red to fury and white to laughter.

Colours on this page

Sources and further reading

• Varna (Hinduism) on Wikipedia
• Cologne Digital Sanskrit Dictionaries, University of Cologne
• Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English (Digital Dictionaries of South Asia, University of Chicago)
• Online Etymology Dictionary: raga
• Columbia University Press: A Rasa Reader