[shas3]

Ancient sanskrit, yes. But the term vitanDa is very current. It is a common word in my language, Kannada and I imagine in other Indian languages as well.

This article is as much about the etymology of a modern term as about a concept from Sanskrit philosophical texts.

[danans]

"The Notion of Trolling in Ancient Indian Literature" may have been a better choice of title. Of course it was in Sanskrit, because that was the literary language of the time.

But this is probably named this way because the names of Ancient Indian works of literature, especially obscure ones like Nyaya Sutra, are not well known in the west, whereas "Sanskrit" almost immediately contextualizes the post to Ancient South Asia for most readers, even though the language in which it is composed is a bit beside the point, which is that an ancient society sort of identified "trolling".

[ensconced]

Telugu too! It's called "vitanDa vaadam"

[ultrasounder]

Which is a direct translation of the same word from Sanskrit which carries the same meaning. Hardly surprising as Telugu is at lest 50% Sanskrit

[m33k44]

Indian languages are heavily influenced by Samskrutam and have borrowed words from the language. So the word vitanDa in Kannada is borrowed from Samskrut language.

[QuercusMax]

What does vitanDa mean in Kannada? Google hasn't been much help.

[nitheshm]

In Telugu, I use vitanda vadam to mean something closer to a rhetorical fallacy than deliberate dishonesty.

[grey-sunshine]

In Tamil it means speech that leads no where. In the sense of debating but not useful.