Why Sanskrit? Because that was the language associated with Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian nationalist who was born on this date in 1869. One historian credits Mahatma Gandhi as the catalyst, if not the initiator, of three of the great revolutions of the last century: against racism, against colonialism, and against violence.

Gandhi referred to Bhagavad Gita (literally, "song of the blessed one" in Sanskrit) as his spiritual dictionary, and he took two words from that devotional work to heart. Aparigraha, or "nonpossession," implies one should jettison the material goods that cramp the life of the spirit; while samabhava, or "equability," enjoins believers to remain unruffled by pain or pleasure, victory or defeat, and to work without hope of success or fear of failure.

Neither of those terms has entered our language, but a third term, introduced to the 20th century by Gandhi, has earned a place of its own in the dictionary. Satyagraha, a pairing of the Sanskrit words for "truth" plus "persistence," names the practice of determined but nonviolent resistance to some specific evil. Satyagraha was the guiding philosophy for Gandhi and the Indian people in their fight against British imperialism.