The theory behind 'chiranjeevis' edit

I have read an explanation of this in the Malayalam book Bharata Paryatanam (A journey through the Mahabharata) by the scholar and author Kuttikrishana Marar which was a winner of the Kendra Sahitya Academy Award in the 1970s.

The idea is that a chiranjeevi in the Hindu mythology is not one who won't die, but that they represent seven different natures/characteristics which will stay with the mankind for ever. Marar mentions this only in passing, so we have work out most of them for ourselves.

Each of the seven immortals stands for one of these :

  • Hanuman - servility
  • Ashwathama- senseless spirit of retribution, even when he has nothing to get out of it.
  • Vibhishana - the back-stabber
  • Bali (demon) - the one who lands up in trouble trying to be helpful, and doesn't change his character even when he knows he is going to land up in one
  • Kripa - the gutless one who knows what is right but hasn't got the courage to stick with it and relents when pulled in the other direction (as when Ashwathama wanted him to co-operate in murdering the remainder of the Pandava army)
  • Parashurama - one who acts before thinking and then repents.
  • Vyasa - not sure.

If this looks interesting, shall I incorporate in the article ? Tintin 06:01, 6 September 2005 (UTC)Reply


This looks very sensible to me. These characters represent the true nature of people we have in the Kalyuga.

This article is mixing two different classes of persons: 'amar' (immortal) and 'chiranjivi' (extremely long lived). It's a bit surprising because in the Etymolgy section it does say these two concepts are often confused, yet the article itself mixes up these two. Maybe someone could separate these two out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.83.1.233 (talk) 12:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)Reply

Name change request edit

I suppose a name change for this article from Chirinjivin to either Chiranjeevi or Chiranjivi as these are the most relevant to Sanskrit word चिरंजीवी . The extra letter 'n' at the end of the spelling doesn't have any confluence on the word, it is just because some people in Southern India add such syllables to the words. Krishna is made Krishnan and Rama is made Raman in south Indian languages, but still here in wikipedia, we don't see Page names of Krishna or Rama as Krishnan or Raman, then why Chiranjivin?-- DhavalTalk

Requested move edit

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. DrKay (talk) 11:30, 6 March 2010 (UTC)Reply


ChiranjivinChiranjivi — The Sanskrit word is चिरंजीवी, which transliterates either into Chiranjivi or Chiranjeevi, while the current spelling used for the page Chiranjivin transliterates in Sanskrit as चिरंजीवीन्, which is not correct. Also the book published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has spelled it as Chiranjeevi. Not only that, but the spelling Chiranjeevi returns most Google book search results 680 followed by Chiranjivi-662 compared to only 15 for Chiranjivin. But, there is already an existing page Chiranjeevi, which is about an actor, hence proposing to name this as Chiranjivi.-- DhavalTalk 22:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)Reply

  • Support: Chiranjivi - चिरंजीवी is the nominative or prathama singular (Sanskrit jargon) of the root form चिरंजीवीन् Chiranjivin. The former also is used in (at least) Marathi and Telugu. --Redtigerxyz Talk 02:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

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