Hinduism Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for followers of the Hindu religion and those interested in learning more about Hinduism. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
As already discussed here: Why we put 'A' after each Hindu name?, the subsequent "a" in an English transliteration word, is to interpret the Sanskrit word for full pronunciation.
Example:
Similarly, Is it "भगवद्गीता" or "भगवद्गीत"?
Note: Though in the popular culture including wikipedia, it seems the 1st one, hardly it's spelled with last word as "A" or "ā".
It is भगवद्गीता, since it is a sacred song. There are other forms (गीत/गीतम् etc) which mean song / singer and so on but the word गीता in particular means a sacred song.
The Apte dictionary says:
गीता gītā
गीता [गै कर्मणि क्त] A name given to certain sacred writings in verse (often in the form of a dialogue) which are devoted to the exposition of particular religious and theosophical doctrines; e. g. शिवगीता, रामगीता, भगवद्गीता.
But the name appears to be especially confined to the last, the Bhagavadgītā;
गीतासुगीता कर्तव्या किमन्यैः शास्त्रविस्तरैः । या स्वयं पद्मनाभस्य मुखपद्माद्विनिःसृता ॥
quoted by Śrīdharasvāmin.
Note that आत्मा is the correct version since it's root is आत्मन् (नकारान्त पुल्लिङ्ग).
Also note that the English transliteration people use in this site is only halfway there: they should be spelling गीता as 'gItA' but rarely does anyone do it (nArAyaNIyam for example). They seem to only care for the आ and nothing else.
