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Vedic Bhūṣ-; Iranian Būš-, Bauš-

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

J. Gonda's study The meaning of Vedic bhīṣati (Wageningen, 1939), republished in Four studies in the language of the Veda ('s-Gravenhage, 1959), has failed to convince scholars, and seemingly the author himself, that a basic meaning ‘strengthen’ is tenable.

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Articles
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1962

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References

page 287 note 1 cf. e.g. Schmidt, H.-P., Vedisch vratá, 1958, 18Google Scholar, ‘bhūṣ- sich aufhalten’; Renou, L., JA, CCXLVII, 1959, 387Google Scholar, ‘On peut toutefois demeurer perplexe sur la position du sens de base’; Mayrhofer, EWA, s.v.

page 287 note 2 L. Renou, Études sur le vocabulaire du ḳgveda, avant-propos; cf. Hymnes spéculatifs du Véda, 7, ‘des valeurs secondaires, implicites, strictement injustifiables …’.

page 287 note 3 ḳV 8.22.5 ráthó yó vām … pári dyvāpṛthiv bhṣati ‘strengthens traversing’.

page 287 note 4 7.92.1  vāyo bhūṣa śucipā úpa naḥ ‘strengthen approaching’.

page 288 note 1 Probably also without preverb in 3.34.2.

page 288 note 2 See also below ad vibhūṣ- 6.15.9 and my remarks on māy, vratá, and dhman below, p. 415.

page 288 note 3 The post-Gāthic term *fravrti retains the sense ‘choice’, ‘Sichbekennen’ (Bartholomae) in Y 13.8 fraonitīmdaēnayå māzdayasnōiš, although more usually found in a transferred sense and spelled fravaši. In Indo-Aryan we find *durvrata(deducible from VS daúrvratya, saúvratya, ḳV suvratá) corresponding to Avestan dužvanna ‘übelwählend’ (Humbach), ‘missgläubig’ (Bartholomae). ŚBr. substitutes for the Indo-Iranian terminology (*ṛtáṃ vavrire, *drúham vavrire) a more modern mode of expression in a passage (9.5.1.13) comparable with the Gāthic text cited: tédevḥ…satyám anvlebhiré'surā u ha … ánṛtam anvlebhire.

page 288 note 4 The translation of this phrase depends upon the measure of comprehensibility one imputes to the whole. This version allows the passage to make sense, taking acištā vw9zyō and acištvm manō as equivalent to druj and relating mainivå to the activities aša and druj (as in v. 3; H.Humbach, Die Gathas, ad loc.) as required by the yaēcā clause and ayå nōi*t* sentence.

page 290 note 1 ‘ Oh sons of heaven, with the mental-creations of the (daily, reflecting the cosmogonic,)creative-sacrifice, you establish, oh kings, kingship for ever, you perpetuate in the sacrifice the three, the many, all the sites (the worlds and individual dwellings). I saw, going there with my mind, the wind-haired Gandharvas at the creative-act.’

page 290 note 2 ‘ (The gods, -whostrengthen the good creation) who established (bound firm with the bond of good-ṛtāsya raŚmíb, 1.123.13) the three creative-sacrifices (metonymy: the worlds) by mental-creations, all the creative-sacrifices (metonymy: the dwellings) by powerful (creative) actions; who created (delimited) the year, month and day, the sacrifice, aktú and , Varuṇa, Mitra, Aryaman, the kings, attained unassailable kingship.’

page 290 note 3 Ad 3.38.6, note: ‘ … wahrscheinlich, dass nicht vom Opfer, sondern von den drei bez.vielen Gottersitzen in der Welt die Rede i s t ’. 7.66.10 ‘Die, welche durch ihre Einsicht die drei Erkenntnisse, durch ihr übergewicht alle (Erkenntnisse) lenken’, note: ‘Hier könnte es auf die drei Opferwissenschaften sich beziehen ’.

page 290 note 4 ‘…when all the gods worshipped-with-sacrificethe God…. With that (cosmogonic sacrifice as prototype) the human ṛṣis, our forefathers, acted at the sacrifice when it had been so instituted. I seem to see them with my mind's eye, the ancients who performed this sacrifice.’

page 291 note 1 L. Renou, Études védiques et pāṇinéennes, IV, 51, ‘ suppléer un régime à úpa “Je m’approcheen…”, but v, 14, ‘Corroborant ainsi les vceux des dieux (jeproclame)…’. H.-P. Schmidt,Vedisch vratá, 71, ‘mögen sie (the dawns) nun pflegen’.

page 291 note 2 ‘ Agni being kindled, we would express ṛta’. Cf. also v. 8‘(Agni) sees all that is to come faceto-face, as to a close-fighting warrior; thought communicates with the source of the cow (Vāc);this is the one great Godly deed of the gods’.

page 291 note 3 We have here already a cosmogony of the type found Ait.Br. 5.32: prajāpatir akāmayata prajāyeya bhūyān syām iti, sa tapo’tapyata, sa tapas lokān asṛjata pṛthivīm antarilcṣaṃ divam, lokān abhyatapat, tebhyo’bhitaptebhyas trīṇi jyotīṃṣy ajāyanta, agniḥ…vāyuh…ādityah. Cf. 3.55.3 ví me purutrā patayanti kāmāh, Śámy ácchā dīdye pūrvyṇi (sámiddhe agnvrtám id vadema); the similar expression of Prajāpati's desire in the Ait.Br. version supports the interpretation of v. 3ab as an utterance of Agni on heating himself. Compare 3.1.1 váhniṃ cakartha vidáthe yájádhyai, ácchā dīdyat…Śamāyé agne tawoàṃ juṣasva, where an utterance of Agni prior to making fire at the creative-act (ácchā ddyt…Śamāyé) has been incorporated and apparently interpreted as the words of a worshipper since the words ádrim inserted before Śamāyé do not appear in the other versions and are perhaps more appropriate to the worshipper. For the applicability of the rest to Agni, cf. the only other attestation of ácchādī;-: 3.15.5 ácchā ddyānaḥ (agníḥ). The three passages with ácchādī- refer to the re-creation of Agni at the sacrifice by a creative effort (Śámi), establishing a link with the original creation (pūrvyṇi). It is likely from the appropriateness of the incubation theme and the vocabulary that the myth is Agni's own, a monotheistic rival to the dualist ṛta/druh cosmogony, and like the latter a fossil embedded in the prevailing Ṛgvedie yajna mystique. In 3.1.1 and 3.55.3 it is probable that the poet is transferring Agni's actions to himself as the re-creator of the re-creator Agni.

page 292 note 1 Unfounded doubt still P. Sgall, Die Infinitive im Ṛgveda (Acta Univ. Carol., 1958, Philol. 2), p. 157, n.

page 292 note 2 Geldner, , Renou, ,Éltudes védiques, v, 89, Sgall, op. cit., 227Google Scholar.

page 292 note 3 cf. P. Sgall, op. cit., underlining the nominal aspect of these formations, although he regards them as predicative only and retains the assumption of an imperatival nuance. The present example is not alone in showing that this assumption is as wrong as it would be in the case of the declined forms (parṣáṇim, etc.).

page 292 note 4 Probably based on a *gūrtāvas/-vant.

page 293 note 1 The unity of sense in the passages in question makes it certain that they should be taken as examples of word-order displacement for reasons of emphasis, etc. (‘Spaltung, disjunctieș:J. Gonda, Enlceleopmerhingen over syntaxis en versbouw, 9 ff.) rather than as amplification(J. Gonda, Four studies,[study]i,‘On amplified sentences’). Gonda's translation of 8.90.1 clearly assumes‘prepositional group amplification’(p. 34).

page 293 note 2 cf. 7.74.3  yātam úpa bhūṣatam. The word-order in 8.90.1 (postposed preverb and object)is not significantly different from that in 3.31.8 sáfchā nír avadyt, cited in Four studies, 35.

page 294 note 1 cf. 3.55.6 dvimāt (agníḥ) abandhánaŚ carati.

page 294 note 2 cf. e.g. 7.1.14 agníḥ… yátra vāj tánayaḥ…saméti. majmán with Bailey, H. W., BSOAS, xxi, 3, 1958, 524.Google Scholar

page 294 note 3 In 8.41.10, probably the only occurrence, it is not impossible that we have a construction similar to that of 6.15.9: Śvetn ánu, vrat calcré (vrat kṛ-, 1.36.5).

page 297 note 1 Use of asya, etc., as reflexive pronoun is more doubtful than Renou maintains in Grammaire de la langue védique, p. 342: in the case of one of the examples cited there, wiser counsels have prevailed in Études védiques, v, 77, re 1.152.3 gárbho bhāráṃ bharaty  cid asya where Geldner's‘dieser (Welt)’in agreement with theAV reading (asyāḥ.-non-reflexive) gives the only physiologically acceptable sense.

page 300 note 1 For bhūṣ- ‘strengthen (acclaiming)’, see pp. 287–8.

page 301 note 1 Interpreted as uŚádah (n.sg. uŚádhak, hapax)—an impossible form—with trasádasyu accent if a compound.

page 305 note 1 Av. may represent a thematicization either of *bauš or *baušan; similar doubt in the case of AV Śīrṣám.