Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Lexicography
- The Cambridge World History of Lexicography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editor’s Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The Ancient World
- 1 Ancient Mesopotamia
- 2 Ancient and Coptic Egypt
- 3 Ancient China
- 4 Ancient India
- 5 The Greco-Roman World
- Part II The Pre-Modern World
- Part III The Modern World: Continuing Traditions
- Part IV The Modern World: Missionary and Subsequent Traditions
- Appendix 1 The Language Varieties
- Appendix 2 The Lexicographers
- Primary Sources
- Secondary Sources
- Index
4 - Ancient India
from Part I - The Ancient World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2019
- The Cambridge World History of Lexicography
- The Cambridge World History of Lexicography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Editor’s Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The Ancient World
- 1 Ancient Mesopotamia
- 2 Ancient and Coptic Egypt
- 3 Ancient China
- 4 Ancient India
- 5 The Greco-Roman World
- Part II The Pre-Modern World
- Part III The Modern World: Continuing Traditions
- Part IV The Modern World: Missionary and Subsequent Traditions
- Appendix 1 The Language Varieties
- Appendix 2 The Lexicographers
- Primary Sources
- Secondary Sources
- Index
Summary
The story of Sanskrit lexicography starts with the sacred texts of the Brahmanical tradition such as the Ṛgveda (c. 1500 BC), the earliest extant Indian literature. Ṛgveda contains hymns or prayers addressed to various deities for the fulfilment of desires. In the Vedic tradition, the utmost importance was given to the exact pronunciation of the hymns. It was believed that even a minor change in accent while chanting the hymns would not yield the merit which the sacrifice was supposed to bestow upon the sacrificer. This belief made it extremely necessary to commit the Vedas to memory with inordinate fidelity. In order to achieve this goal, several methods of recitation were invented. In a saṁhitāpāṭha ‘continuous recitation’, words are pronounced following the rules of euphonic combination, whereas in a padapāṭha ‘word-by-word recitation’, they are pronounced using their original form, thus suppressing the euphonic combination. In the padapāṭha, words are also analysed, thereby helping the interpretation of a verse. As Sumitra Katre rightly points out, the ‘analysis of the continuous text into its constituent word forms was one of the major steps which led to the development of Indo-Aryan lexicography’.
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- The Cambridge World History of Lexicography , pp. 67 - 83Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
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