Maharishi is the anglicized version of the Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 word Maharshi महर्षि (mahā meaning "great" and ṛṣi meaning "seer"). Maharishi is often use as an addition to a person's name as an honorary title. The term was first seen in modern English literature in the 18th century .

Description and usage

Maharishi may refer to a Hindu

Hindu

Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

 guru or "spiritual teacher" of "mystical knowledge". Additional meanings cited by dictionaries include: sage, poet, spiritual leader, wise man and holy man.

Alternate meanings describe Maharishi as a collective name that refers to the seven rishi

Rishi

Rishi denotes the composers of Vedic hymns. However, according to post-Vedic tradition, the rishi is a "seer" to whom the Vedas were "originally revealed" through states of higher consciousness. The rishis were prominent when Vedic Hinduism took shape, as far back as some three thousand years...

s or saptarishis (including Maharishi Bhrigu) cited in the scriptures of Rig Veda and the Puranas

Puranas

The Puranas are a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.Puranas...

 or any of the several mythological seers that are referenced in Vedic writings and associated with the seven stars of the constellation Ursa Major.

Maharishi may refer to any individual who has added the title to their name. Outside of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 the most well known Maharishi was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi , born Mahesh Prasad Varma , developed the Transcendental Meditation technique and was the leader and guru of the TM movement, characterised as a new religious movement and also as non-religious...

, who founded the Transcendental Meditation technique

Transcendental Meditation technique

The Transcendental Meditation technique is a specific form of mantra meditation often referred to as Transcendental Meditation. It was introduced in India in 1955 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi...

 and made it available to the West.

Ramana Maharshi

Ramana Maharshi

Sri Ramana Maharshi , born Venkataraman Iyer, was a Hindu spiritual master . He was born to a Tamil-speaking Brahmin family in Tiruchuzhi, Tamil Nadu. After experiencing at age 16 what he later described as liberation , he left home for Arunachala, a mountain considered sacred by Hindus...

 (1879-1950) was an "Indian sage" with a philosophy about the path to self-knowledge and the integration of personality espoused in books by author Paul Brunton

Paul Brunton

Paul Brunton was probably born as Hermann Hirsch of German Jewish origin. Later he changed his name to Raphael Hurst, and then Brunton Paul and finally Paul Brunton. He was a British philosopher, mystic, traveler, and guru...

 and Ramana's own writings such as the Collected Works (1969) and Forty Verses on Reality (1978).

The title was also used by Maharishi Valmiki

Valmiki

Valmiki is celebrated as the poet harbinger in Sanskrit literature. He is the author of the epic Ramayana, based on the attribution in the text of the epic itself. He is revered as the Adi Kavi, which means First Poet, for he discovered the first śloka i.e...

, Maharishi Patanjali

Patañjali

Patañjali is the compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, an important collection of aphorisms on Yoga practice. According to tradition, the same Patañjali was also the author of the Mahābhāṣya, a commentary on Kātyāyana's vārttikas on Pāṇini's Aṣṭādhyāyī as well as an unspecified work of medicine .In...

 and Maharishi Dayananda Sarasvati.

History

Maharishi has it origin in the Sanskrit term, Maharshi, which originates in the Veda literature called Manusmriti (1.34) and states that ten maharshis were created by Manu Svayambhuva, viz. Marici

Marici

Marici may refer to:*Marici , a Ligurian people of Gallia Transpadana*Sanskrit term for the solar deity known in Japanese as Marishi-Ten*Marichi, masculine Sanskrit term for one of the Saptarshis...

, Atri

Atri

This article is about the sage named Attri. See also the gotra named Atri. For the Italian city, see Atri, AbruzzoIn Hinduism, Attri or Atri is a legendary bard and scholar and was one of 9 Prajapatis, and a son of Brahma, said to be ancestor of some Brahmin, Prajapatis, kshatriya and Vaishya...

, Angiras, Pulastya

Pulastya

Pulatsya was one of the ten Prajapati or mind-born sons of Brahma, and one of the Saptarishis in the first Manvantara....

, Pulaha, Kratu, Pracetas, Vasishtha, Bhrigu, Narada

Narada

Narada or Narada Muni is a divine sage from the Vaisnava tradition, who plays a prominent role in a number of the Puranic texts, especially in the Bhagavata Purana, and in the Ramayana...

, also called the ten Prajapati

Prajapati

In Hinduism, Prajapati "lord of creatures" is a Hindu deity presiding over procreation, and protector of life. He appears as a creator deity or supreme God Viswakarma Vedic deities in RV 10 and in Brahmana literature...

s; while other sources restrict the number of maharshis to seven. The title Maharshi first appears in the Sanskrit Epics.

The term Maharishi became popular in modern English literature "sometime before 1890" and was first used in 1758.