Agraharam - The residential Brahmin locality.

Amirtha - Immortality. A food or potion of the gods that confers immortality.

Ananda - Bliss, Ecstasy.

Apsara - A female beauty of divine orders.

Araadhana - Worship.

Archana - Worship.

Ashtakam - A collection of eight hymns or prayers.

Ashtama-Siddhies - The eight great miraculous powers.

Bhajan - A collective singing of religious songs usually accompanied by musical instruments.

Bharata Natya - A form of Indian dance founded by the sage Bharata Muni.

Brahmam, Brahman - The ultimate infinite Godhead.

Brahma-Sutras - Aphorisms on Brahman.

Brindavan - The densely sylvan mythical tract of Bliss and beauty on the banks of the river Jumna where Lord Krishna is said to have played his love-sports with Gopis, the belles of the cow-herd community.

Carnatic Music - The South-Indian classical music.

Chela - Disciple.

Dharsan - Seeing, Viewing, Sighting.

Kendras - The religious centers for the propagation of righteous conduct.

Dhyana - Meditation.

Gnana - Wisdom.

Homam - A fire ritual.

Indra Loka - Land of Indra, the god of sensuous pleasures and king of Devas.

Jeevatma - The individual soul.

Karma Yoga - Yoga based on selfless action and disinterested performance of one’s duties.

Kirthana - A musical composition.

Krithi - A musical piece of a maestro.

Maarga - The path, way, route.

Maatha - Mother.

Maha Vaakiyas - The four summative sentences of Hindu Vedanta.

Mandap - Usually a colonnaded structure in a religious place or temple.

Manthropadesa - The formal initiation of a disciple by his Guru in a Mantra.

Maya - Illusion.

Moksha - Liberation.

Mona - Self-absorbed silence.

Mutt - Monastery.

Nadha - Sound.

Nadha Brahmam - God conceived as infinite patterns of sound-rhythms. Or simply as the sacred sound "OM".

Natya - Dance.

Nirvikalpa - Non-differentiation.

Panchakshara - The five-lettered mantra of Lord Shiva

Pan-supari - Betal leaves and areca-nut.

Paramatma - Cosmic soul.

Patsala - School.

Prakriti - The primal creative material of the cosmos. The transcendental originating power of all that exists.

Prana pradhishta - Infusion of life into an object or icon or talisman through prescribed rituals.

Prasadam - The food or other edible offering made to a deity.

Puja - Worship.

Punya - A spiritually meritorious deed.

Rishi - Sage.

Sabha - Assembly.

Samadhi - Becoming one with the Divine. A concentrated identification or fusion with the Godhead.

Samudrika-Lakshanas - Anatomical excellences or auspicious formations.

Sanyasin - A world-renouncing ascetic.

Satya - Truth eternal.

Satchitananda - The final bliss or ecstasy that belongs to God. Or the informing substance of God.

Shastra - Scripture.

Shilpa - Sculpture.

Siddhi - Miraculous power.

Siddha purusha - The holy man who has attained siddhies.

Sloka - Hymn.

Swarga - Heaven.

Sama-gana - A form of Vedic music consisting of terrible vibrations and mystic potencies.

Thaala - Sound-patterns of classical drum-music.

Tharka - Debate.

Thillana - A dance number in Bharata-Natya.

Vidwan - A respectable scholar of Advanced Learning.

Yaga - A fire-ritual.

Yagna - A sacrificial offering to a chosen deity through a fire-ceremony.