Shri

Shri (Devanagari: श्री, ISO: Śrī, also transliterated as Shree, Sri, or Sree, is an Indian word denoting wealth and prosperity, primarily used as a honorific.

 Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, is also known as Shree.

In Devanagari script for Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi and other languages, the word ⟨श्री⟩ is combination of three sounds: श् (ś), र् (r) and  (ī, long i). The word is widely used in South and Southeast Asian languages such as Indonesian, Javanese, Balinese, Sinhala, Thai, Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada and Malay. It is transliterated as SriSreeShriSi, or Seri based on the local convention for transliteration.

Hindus use a popular "yantra", or mystical diagram, called Shri Yantra, to worship the goddess of wealth. The term is also used in Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia as a polite form of address equivalent to the English "Mr." or "Ms." in written and spoken language, but also as a title of veneration for deities; for example, the

Monier-Williams Dictionary gives the meaning of the root verb śrī as "to cook, boil, to burn, diffuse light", but as a feminine abstract noun, it has received a general meaning of "grace, splendour, beauty; wealth, affluence, prosperity".[4][5]

The word śrī may also be used as an adjective in Sanskrit, which is the origin of the modern use of shri as a title. From the noun, is derived the Sanskrit adjective “śrīmat” (śrimān in the masculine nominative singular, śrīmatī in the feminine), by adding the suffix indicating possession, literally “radiance-having” (person, god, etc). This is used in modern vernacular as form of address Shrimati (abbreviated Smt) for married women, while Sushri, (with “su”, “good”, added to the beginning), can be used for women in general (regardless of marital status).

 

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