Serendipity

ser·en·dip·i·ty

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.

2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.

3. An instance of making such a discovery.

Put simply, it is good luck in making unexpected and fortunate discoveries. I always had trouble remembering the meaning of this word. It's a substantial word. According to Wikipedia, plays a huge role in Economics, Chemistry, Pharmacology, Medicine, et cetera. It's also a pleasant word, I think, perhaps because it implies good fortune. There's this uniqueness to it; it would be hard to find an appropriate synonym. So, a good way of not forgetting Serendipity would be to know where it comes from.

Before we proceed, it is important for you to hear the tale of the Three Princes of Serendip (it's a Persian fairy tale). It has been told beautifully on Wikipedia. Here's a gist of it:

   "King Giaffer, ruler of Serendip, had three sons. He undertook to provide them with the finest education imparted by the most knowledgeable tutors. After a while, he felt that his sons' education was too sheltered and privileged and eventually sent them away from the country.

    On their arrival abroad, the three princes traced clues to precisely identify a camel they have never seen. They concluded that the camel is lame, blind in one eye, missing a tooth, carrying a pregnant woman, and bearing honey on one side and butter on the other. When they later encountered the merchant who has lost the camel, they reported their observations to him. He accused them of stealing the camel and took them to the Emperor Beramo (Bahram V of Persia), demanding punishment.

    The princes explained their deduction as follows: Grass had been eaten from the side of the road where it was less green, so the princes had deduced that the camel was blind on the other side. Because there were lumps of chewed grass on the road the size of a camel’s tooth, they deduced they had fallen through the gap left by a missing tooth. The tracks showed the prints of only three feet, the fourth being dragged, indicating that the animal was lame. That butter was carried on one side of the camel and honey on the other was evident because ants had been attracted to melted butter on one side of the road and flies to spilled honey on the other. One of the princes said: "I guessed that the camel must have carried a woman, because I had noticed that near the tracks where the animal had knelt down the imprint of a foot was visible. Because some urine was near by, I wet my fingers and as a reaction to its odour I felt a sort of carnal concupiscence (sexual desire), which convinced me that the imprint was of a woman’s foot."

    "I guessed that the same woman must have been pregnant," said another prince, "because I had noticed nearby handprints which were indicative that the woman, being pregnant, had helped herself up with her hands while urinating."

    At this moment a traveller enters the scene to say that he has just found a missing camel wandering in the desert. Beramo spares the lives of the Three Princes, lavishes rich rewards on them and appoints them to be his advisors."

The three princes had many other adventures, where good fortune and unexpected accidents followed them and where they continued to display their wisdom.

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It is on a later date in a later age that the word 'serendipity' was created. It comes from Serendip, the Old Persian name for Sri Lanka, and was coined by Horace Walpole on 28 January 1754 in a letter written to his friend Horace Mann. In the letter, he mentions 'a silly fairy tale' called The Three Princes of Serendip, the half-blind camel story, and tries to explain the term Serendipity to his friend in this light.

Additional stuff on the names of Sri Lanka:

Sri Lanka is an island country to the south of India. Sri Lanka is a Sanskrit word, where Sri means sacred and Lanka, island. Up until 1972, it was known as Ceylon. Let's do some reverse engineering to find out the origin of this name.

Ceylon (anglicised) <= Cilao (Portuguese) & Ceilan (Dutch) <= Serendib (Arabic) <= Senendiva & Silandiva (Pali, an ancient Indian language) <= Sihalam, which means 'place of jewels'(Pali). Another theory says that Sihalam comes from Sinha, Sanskrit for lion.

At some point of time in history, Sri Lanka was known as Serendib/Serendip in Arabic and Persian. By the way, Serendib doesn't mean anything in colloquial New England Arabic today. I guess Serendip must've been derived from Sanskrit in which Saran means shelter and dip or dvip means island. South Indian fishermen, if they ventured too far out to sea, must've found the Sri Lankan coasts a safe harbour, especially during rough weather.