Mataji

Mataji (Hindi माताजी mātājī) is a Hindi term meaning 'respected mother'.

Etymology

"Mātā" (माता) is the Hindi word for "mother", from Sanskrit matr. (मातृ), and the "-jī" (जी) suffix is an honorific suffix used to indicate respect.

Use

"Mataji" is a respectful term used to address an older woman in Indian culture, particularly if she is unknown to the speaker. Another term that is sometimes used is the anglicized "auntie".

"Mataji" is also used by ISKCON devotees as a title. Female devotees are referred to as "(name) Mataji", for example, "Rukmini Mataji". Female devotees who have not been initiated append it to their given name. The term is also used as a form of address, particularly to a female devotee whom the speaker does not know. Men are encouraged to call all devotee women "Mataji" because according to Vedic culture, all women who are not one's wife are to be treated as one's mother.

gollark: https://a.osmarks.net/ ← I waste a substantial amount of disk space on my server on this.
gollark: Or their big database dumps, but they lack search and images.
gollark: You can use kiwix for it.
gollark: The 15GB figure is for without images. With images (probably downscaled) my copy is 80GB.
gollark: Wikipedia fits into 15GB (minus user pages etc) and it uses horrible inefficient XML.

See also

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