etymological meaning of Maharlika

post from Maharlika Nation, from the book "Maharlika: in Search of Identity" by Deo Palma:


Perhaps no one knows the Sanskrit influence on our languages more than Professor Juan R. Francisco. He spent several years studying Sanskrit in Madras University in India and wrote several books and articles on the subject. He discovered that more than 300 words in our languages are recognizably Sanskrit in origin. According to Mike Pangilinan, an advocate of Kapampangan language, there are Kapampangan words which are Sanskrit in origin. Many of these terms refer to the spiritual ideas of Tantra The Kapampangan language borrowing from Sanskrit can be traced way back to the
spread of Hinduism and Buddhism in S.E. Asia between 5th to 15th centuries.
How come Sanskrit is preferred than Pali language? It is been said that Lusung Empire is known in Ancient India as the
"Suvarna Bhumi / Suvarnadvipa" or in English, The Land of Gold.

There are two types of Sanskrit language – Tatsama are directly spoken Sanskrit words, and Tadbhava’, are Sanskrit words which have undergone slight change. The following are few words that show the spiritual roots of Tantra in Mahárlikán culture: 

• Kapampangan word Upaya (power, ability) and kalma (karma);
• Visayas islands and the people came from Vijaya (victorious). The word implies the state of permanent victory or liberation;
• Tagalog word ‘sama-sama’ (all together) and ‘samahan’ (a group of people together) came from the Sanskrit samája, which means a group of people moving together towards a noble goal; Bathala (Supreme God of the ancient Tagalog) originated from the Sanskrit Bhattara Guru, meaning “the highest of the Gods;
• Katha (stories) came from the same word, which means spiritual and devotional stories with moral teaching; and
• Mahárliká means freeman or nobleman. The same word in Sanskrit means small in size yet great in potentiality.

In his article titled, The Land that was Once Called Mahárliká, Dennis Teves mentioned Sarkar’s explanation of Mahárliká – which came from the following Sanskrit derivatives: Maha means good and great (such as Mahabharata, good and great India). Mahar is used when referring to something with many good and great qualities, resources, and attributes. Maha became Mahar, La means a cup or container, IK means small, and A as a suffix puts in it the feminine gender. So Mahárliká which comes from Maha + R+La+Ik+A means small entity or country containing good and great qualities and resources in the physical, mental, and spiritual sense. And since a beautiful country is referred to as motherland, the suffix A puts it in a feminine gender form.

Professor Erle Frayne Argonza in his book 13th Gate Unveiled mentioned that “Maharlika possess mantric significant as to resonate precise resonances and convey corresponding impacts. Root words are mantric or that they connect directly to the expressive concerns of the Self or psyche, so that it is not surprising at all to discover that root words convey certain meanings across cultures.” 

According to Frayne “the name Maharlika vibrates with greater power befitting not only a Great Power but a Global Center.” He explains “for the purposes of current Maharlika proselytizers, it may pay to consider the following characteristics that Ma-Har-Li-Ka possess: Potential-Actual (Ma-Har)&Alteration-Revolution (Li-Ka). Potentiality-Actuality vibrates with the wholeness of the Feminine-Masculine I Am or the ying-yang process of innovation, that its fusion with the Ma-Har practically assures the presence of conductivity fields for grand name maharlika, the definition ‘great creation’ ascribed upon the name by the Maharlikan advocates to the name is therefore justified. The phrase ‘great creation’ does match very well with the possible destiny of the archipelagic nation as a Great Power worth esteem of its neighbors and other nations of the planet.” 

Meanwhile, former President of Mahárliká Movement Ramon Devora wrote in his article titled, Pamunuang Mutya sa Bayang Mahárliká, that the deeper analysis of the term Mahárliká reveals two root-words (a compound word): mahar and lika. The word ‘mahar’ is a variant of ‘mahal’ which means great, beloved, noble, or high-born. In Visayan ‘mahal’ means expensive, which is close to great or noble. On the other hand, ‘lika’ is a contracted form of ‘likha’, meaning ‘creation’ and ‘work.’ It connotes an artistic and imaginative work, creation, and product. At the same time, it also refers to the sacred images of gods, goddesses, and ancestral spirits represented in wood, stone, or other precious materials, otherwise as ‘larawan’ by the pre-Hispanic Filipinos. 

In Bicol, there is a local word ‘mahar’ which means high, noble and great being, person, figure, image, or thing. Thus, to be called ‘Mahárliká’ Republic is to connect and identify the people and the country to a noble, great and precious origin, nature, condition, and state. 

Devora said, “Mahárliká has a profound symbolic meaning that has been forgotten. To empower ourselves, we can draw from our rich cultural wisdom and heritage which this particular word embodies and then retrieve its ancient meaning and re-claim it for our times. The word ‘Philippines’ could not be a rallying point for the nation’s harmony. It is, in fact, one reason why our Muslim and Lumad brothers and sisters resist being called ‘Filipinos’ and think of separating from the Philippines. The word is also strongly associated with colonization and a terrible Spanish King.” 

Moreover, the word is deeply grounded within the Dravidian and Austronesian ancestral traditions and heritage of the peoples in Mahárliká. 

In the book ‘Pamunuang Mutya ng Maharlika’ Devora wrote, “the essence of a name is its core idea and vibration. Words vibrate energies. The wave vibrations of the word ‘Mahárliká’ seem to vibrate with subtle creative power and life-force. These could re-align the energies of the people with the great prophesies for the nation made long ago. These energies may well be a vital element of what we need to dissolve the inertia of chaos, disorder and confusion -- and to create tremendous momentum for the realization of the people’s noble and precious destiny in the spirit of the New Millennium.” 


These few examples clearly demonstrate that in the ancient past, a great spiritual tradition came from India to the Mahárliká Islands, as it did to the rest of Southeast Asia. Some of the research on the incredible origin of Sanskrit reveals that in the ancient times, the ascetics and yogis meditating in the deep forests and caves of the Himalayan Mountain discovered by deep insight these sounds/letters. They found sound-syllables hidden in each and every chakra – the psycho-spiritual centers located in the human spinal cord. In this way, the Yogis created the very beginnings of the Sanskrit language.

Most human beings are unaware of these cakras, but when the mind and body become more refine through meditation, these subtle energy centres can be perceived and control.

The cakras have been described by enlightened saints and mystics of all spiritual paths and culture – by Buddhists, ancient Chinese, Hindus, Tantriks, Christian and Jewish mystics, Sufis, and Native American Indians. Recently, science has detected them as well. Sensitive instruments have measured energy emanations (beyond frequencies which are known to come from biochemical anatomic systems), surging from the surface of the body at the exact locations of the cakras.

Those ancient yogis who directed their inner ear toward these energy centres, were able to hear the subtle vibrations emanating from each of them – 49 different vibrations in all. Then they spoke them aloud, and each of these subtle inner sounds became one letter of the Sanskrit alphabet.

Thus, the Sanskrit language – sometimes called ‘the mother of all languages’ – was developed from the externalized sounds of our subtle internal energies. It is the human body’s eternal song.