Sarasvati drowned: rescuing her from scholarly whirlpools (Aklujkar,A.15 May 2012)

7/28/2019 Sarasvati drowned: rescuing her from scholarly whirlpools (Aklujkar,A.15 May 2012)

1/73

Sarasvat^ Drowned: Rescuing Her from Scholarly Whirlpools*

Ashok Aklujkar

N.B. Since this essay is rather long, readers may find it convenient to read the following sectionsfirst: 2.1, 3.1-2, 4.8, 5.2-3, 8-9, 14 and 20.

The current state of research regarding the issue discussed requires that reference be made todiscussions not available in the traditional print media, that is, also to discussions in the form of postsmade to electronic discussion lists and research papers, short or long, made accessible on websites.Since the availability, contents and wording of the posts and papers may change in the future, I shouldclarify that I have rechecked the accuracy of my attribution in the last phase (01-10 April 2012) of finalizing the text of my essay below.

I have cited the statements in Wikipedia articles only when they happened to give summaries thatagreed with my sense of the reading of specialized literature I had done or provided a relevant newdetail.

The information about non-traditional publications is not repeated in the "References and

Abbreviations section.Multiple author last names, as distinct from hyphenated last names, are shown by putting the sign"-&- in between.

Due to a practical difficulty, I have not reproduced the accents of Vedic words, but I have takenthem into account in providing and discussing the different possibilities of translation.

Normally, I do not capitalize the initials of Sanskrit proper names when the names are quoted ordiscussed (the reason being that the original scripts do not contain the 'upper case : lower casedistinction). In this essay, however, I have, again, out of a practical consideration, used capital lettersfor the initial sounds of all river names, except when such names appear as parts of passages.

Many river names have old as well as new forms, I have employed diacritical marks while citingthe names from Sanskrit sources and when the modern pronunciation or writing is the same or virtuallythe same as the Sanskrit one (e.g., "Gag, "Yamun etc. carry the diacritics). I gave adopted this

practice to facilitate computer searching and indexing. For the same reason, I have extended thepractice even to my citations from others (except in the case of "Ghaggar). Reproducing the electroniccommunications exactly even in the spelling of names would have led to much unnecessary variationand confusion.

* I prefer to make the reading of compound Sanskrit words easy by marking off their component words thhyphens. In doing so, I try to retain the sandhi seen in my sources. Therefore, in some cases, I succeed omaking the second or last member of the compound stand out. The hyphens should not be seen as invariably oguidance regarding the syntactic relationship of the words involved.

Further, I use a dot/period inside a word to separate two consecutive vowels (rare in Sanskrit but commPrakrit, Hindi etc.) or to indicate that the nature of the following consonant has changed due to sandhi.

In my statements as well as in the statements I cite, I italicize only those non-English words whicmentioned (as distinct from used). The titles of book length texts/works, volumes, journals, etc. are mostly itaonly in the bibliography at the end.

The abbreviations employed are explained in the "References and Abbreviations section below. I have usame abbreviations also in the passages I quote from other scholars, just as I have made the transliteration quoted passages consistent with mine.

Where traditional commentaries are quoted, boldface type indicates commentandum words.My thanks to Professor Hans Henrich Hock for providing copies of some of his relevant writings and t

Marko Geslani for catching typographical errors and awkward sentence constructions in an earlier draft.


2/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 2

Preliminary clarifications1.1 Some readers may be alarmed or disturbed by my title. Others, if they notice the w

"scholarly in it, will realize that I am unlikely to have any real drowning in mind. They mthe most be intrigued by my title. To assure both these groups, let me add right away thasubtitle of my paper, made invisible like the well-known river itself, is "Linguistic evidencSarasvat^ in the g-veda. ("Sarasvat^ and "g-veda will be abbreviated to "S arespectively, in the following discussion.)

Apart from the consideration that some relief from the constant talk of "lost S andisappeared is overdue, what motivates me in going for a reference to drowning icontention that some observations that should be at the forefront in the case of S have overlaid by the scholarly writings available at present. A river cannot obviously be drownedliteral sense, but researchers are quite capable of achieving that feat metaphorically.

In the study of ancient India, it frequently seems that researchers try to make up foruncertainty created by the paucity of explicit and definitely dated evidence by adding a toncertainty to their writing. The writing comes across more as fulfilling their psychological

than an accurate reflection of what the evidence justifies.The mass of secondary literature to which this characterization can be attached has grover time. It is growing exponentially since it became possible to publish research electroniScholar-1 depends on the conclusions of scholar-2, partly misled by the assertiveneslanguage, when scholar-2 has done the same in the case of his or her predecessors. The lsuch predecessors can sometimes be so long as to defy a determination of its source or exWhile this is unavoidable to a certain extent, given that no scholar can be an expert in almethods or bodies of information involved in a field of historical research such as Indologyobvious that every effort should be made to minimize the extent of the phenomenon anrecheck the primary evidence again and again and question the validity of the frame(s) w

which the relevant discussion(s) take(s)/take place.My claim in this essay will be that something similar to the phenomenon I have triecapture in the preceding lines has indeed taken place in the research on the river S. I wtherefore, revisit the primary sources of our current historical understanding(s).1 I hope that, as aconsequence, the textual S submerged in the spirited exchanges regarding which riverevealed by or to be revealed by Landsat imaging etc. should be chosen as Ss bed will come to the surface that the choking weed of wrong leads and misconceptions spread ovtextual S by secondary literature will be removed and the river really expressed by the textagain find it possible to raise its head for normal breathing.

1.2 Scholars generally agree that, although S is spoken of also in the Epic, Pur ic, lateVedic and Classical Sanskrit literature, what the RV has to say about it is of crucial importaNot only is the RV anthology, by scholarly consensus, the oldest document we have (contacompositions from different times), it contains more factual details about the river S than

1 Many of the primary sources are utilized in Khan 1978 and Radhakrishna, Chatham and Nantahala 1999 separate articles in the same volume). Habib 2001 also cites translations of several Sanskrit passages. The diffbetween their approach and coverage and my approach and coverage will become apparent as the essay procee


3/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 3

other text. In the RV, the wordS occurs in at least 75 passages. Acceptance of one moreoccurrence (8.54.4) would depend on whether the composition concerned is accepted genuine part of the anthology.2 In addition, we come across passages in which forms of threlated lexemessarasva(n)t and srasvata occur. All these passages are collected in theAppendix below. Translations of those passages which bear directly on the main concern oessay are also given and selectively discussed in the Appendix.

1.3 ThatS in the RV refers to both a river and a divinity (deity or goddess) has been knoat least from the time of Yska, the author of the Nirukta, unlikely to be later than the 6th ceB.C. Yska (2.23) observes:sarasvat^ty-etasya nad^vad devatvac ca nigam bhavanti."TheVedic expressions indicative of S are as they would be in the case of a river and also as would be in the case of a deity. If we leave aside the verses collected in the Appendix thnot inform us about the river even indirectly that is, not even through a word meaning 'wor through words, acts and characters we would associate with rivers or waters then our lpassages that can help us, at least potentially, as primary sources would consist of the follo

(all verse numbers not preceded by the name of any other source should be understooreferring to the RV text; where my reason for the inclusion in river-referring passages islikely to be immediately clear, a hint is provided in parentheses; if that proves to be insuffithe Appendix should be consulted for the full text of the verse):

1.3.12, 2.41.16, 3.23.4, 5.42.12, 5.43.11, U6.52.6,3 U6.61.1, U6.61.2, U6.61.3, U6.61.8,U6.61.9 (cf.svas in the context of S in U6.61.10), U6.61.10, U6.61.12 (one expects peoplesbe settled around river banks in the ancient world), U6.61.13 (cf.vibhva-ta ain 4.2), U6.61.14,7.36.6, 7.95.1, 7.95.2, 7.95.4 (cf. other passages such as U6.61.9 that speak of svass of S;7), 7.96.1, 8.54.4, 10.30.12, 10.64.9, 10.65.13, 10.75.5.

1.4 Of these, the two specified below should be set aside as containing too indirectindication of a river (I have given those words in parentheses which initially made me entethe 'river possibility):

U6.61.1 ( pa im): Just because the Pa is are sometimes said to be water-faring persons, wemay think that the verse is associated with S, the river. However, there is no other word iverse that would give the impression that the verse speaks about or addresses a river. The a

2 The composition I have in mind here is a Vlakhilya hymn. The Vlakhilya group of hymns, totaling 1added after RV 8.48, that is, numbered 8.49-59, is not universally recognized as a genuine part of the RVtraditional commentators, Sya a and others referred to by me in this essay do not comment on it. It shoulhowever, be noted that the MBh (3.88.9) sees a close association between the Vlakhilyas and the S:sarasvat^ nad^ sadbhi satata prtha pjit / vlakhilyair mahrja yatre am ibhi pur // "O son of Pth, great king, the Sriver, where the Vlakhilya seers performed sacrifices in the past, has been worshipped continuously by good m

3 (a) "U stands for "unordered, which, in turn, refers to those hymns which Hermann Oldenberg (188to be out of the expected order in the ma alas, 'books, of the RV. The characterizationcan be taken as indicatingrelatively later accommodation in the development of the RV as a collection, but it does not imply that the hycharacterized or every verse included therein is indeed late; cf. Talageri 2008: 117, 153-162. Each case needsdetermined by studying the stage of language reflected in it and external evidence if any.

(b) In the case of some of the following verses I have briefly indicated in parentheses why they shouthought of as concerned with the river S.


4/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 4

giving Divo-dsa to Vadhry-ava (as a son, according to the traditional commentators SkVekaa-mdhava and Sya a), in fact, will suit S as a deity better.

10.65.13 (sindhur pa samudriya ): The verse mentions several individual deities or theirgroups (most probably as manifestations or aspects of the divine) and requests all of them tattention to the composer's words. The S appearing in the list of deities gives no indicatiobeing a river. If we decide to understand it as a river, the only thing we would know abouthat it is distinct from the Sindhu or Indus and from the referent of samudriya pa 'oceanic orunited waters, since the latter are listed separately in the verse. We would not come to anything beyond the obvious, anything distinctively useful for the present purpose.

1.5 Our list of verses that can be considered truly informative about S, the river, then shrto the following (the non-conclusive nature of some entries will become clear later):

1.3.12 (maho ar a ),2.41.16 (ambitame nad^tame),3.23.4 (ni tv dadhe ... d advaty ... payym),

5.42.12 (v a patn^r nadya),5.43.11 ( no divo bhata parvatt ),U6.52.6 (sindhubhi pinvamn ),U6.61.2 (snu gir^ tavi ebhir rmibhi prvataghn^m),U6.61.3 (k itibhyo van^r avindo viam ebhyo asravo vjinivati),U6.61.8 (ar ava ... roruvat ),U6.61.9 (svas),U6.61.10 (sapta-svas ),U6.61.12 (triadhasth sapta-dhtu pa~ca-jt vardhayant^ ),U6.61.13 (mahimn mahinsu ... ratha iva vibhvane),

U6.61.14 ( payas ... sakhy vey ca m tvat k etr y ara ni ganma),7.36.6 (saptath^ sindhu-mt sudhr payas p^pyn),7.95.1 ( pra k odas dhyas sasre ... viv apo mahin sindhur any),7.95.2 (nad^nm ... giribhya samudrt ),7.95.4 (uttar sakh^bhya ),7.96.1 (asury nad^nm),8.54.4 (sapta sindhava, po vta parvatso vanaspati ),10.30.12 (pa ... amta ca),10.64.9 (sarayu sindhur rm^bhi maho mah^ ... pa ... payo madhumat ),10.75.5 (gage yamune...)These are the verses I have put in boldface type in the Appendix. But the criterion appli

putting them together is still rather too broad. Given the intention to extract as much informabout the geographic aspects of the S, I have purposely decided to err on the side of 'moreon the side of 'less. Any RV verse that contains a possibly useful detail in understandinnature of S as a river has found inclusion in my collection. Naturally, some verses contain dthat can be applicable to other rivers just as to the S and therefore are not very helpful in reaour goal in as definite a way as possible. Consequently, in the following analysis, we nenote the less than specifically applicable phrases and to ensure that such phrases do not p


5/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 5

decisive role in our understanding.

What the attestations in the RV collectively and generally convey2.1 As can be inferred from the list above, references to S as a river are found in all book

the RV, except 4 and 9, (in 4, it does not occur at all; in 9, it occurs only as a deity name). Cthere be any message in the absence in the two specified books? Absences are useful in rainteresting questions but almost never capable of pointing to a definite conclusion in historesearch. The possibility that the non-mention of S was due simply to non-relevance in boand 9 increases if we note that book 4 is credited to a single-author (Vma-deva Gautama) efor three hymns (42-44) and that book 9 has a single-theme (Soma). In such narrowly abooks, the scope for touching upon diverse things will naturally be less. Therefore, we shouread any particular significance in the fact that S does not figure in the specified books.

The positive fact that S occurs in 8 out of 10 books should be taken to indicate that, ovlong period of time, S was a widely accepted part of the geographical and cultural landscathe physical foundation of the RV. That it appears in the numerically earlier parts of books

3, 7, 8 and 10 (just at appears in the numerically later parts of some of these books, whereadditions usually take place) also points in the same direction. The inference just made, howmay be countered by drawing attention to the fact that, in the oldest book (if Talageris eviis so interpreted), that is, in ma ala 6, the hymns 49, 50, 52 and 61 in which S appears (witunmistakable prominence) are all compositions that appear out of the usual order;4 they must be alate addition to an old book. But the counter-inference is not as strong as it may seem atsight. The diction of hymns 49, 50, 52 and 61 carries no clear signs of being rooted in a stage of the language. While it does not abound in obscure words, it does have, as the discuin 4.1-9 will show, some presence of not-so-clear words that make us consult the occurrenc

4 Talageri (2000: 38-93, 2008: 149) determines the relative chronology of RV books as follows: Early bo 3 7. Middle books 4 2, Late Middle [or Early Late] book 5. Late books 8, 9,10. Book 1 is spread acroperiods of 4, 2, 5, 8, 9, 10.

Talageris assignment of book 10 in its entirety to the final period needs to be qualified. Just becaucompositions of the descendents of the composers are nearly totally missing from it, it does not become thecollection. Also, there could have been 'unrelated composers whose compositions found a place in the 10thThe archaic language of some 10th book hymns bears this out.

On the whole, researchers would do well by taking into consideration Talageris observations along withof Oldenberg (1888), while leaving their eyes and ears open for other considerations that may call for circumscof what emerges from the applications of their observations. Talageris should not be set aside simply becauare based on traditional sources beyond the RV text proper. Oldenbergs should not be followed without exbecause in anthology making there can be purposes which call for deviation from the mechanical applicatinumber-based and prosody-based criteria. Yet the observations of both the researchers should be taken as a spoint in the chronological determination of RV hymns, because those observations stem from objective data.

Witzel (1999: 360) expresses the view that books 3 and 7 are products of a time later than that of books 2and 6. Since in a 1997 paper one of his conclusions is that "the bulk of the RV represents only 5 or 6 generatikings (and of the contemporary poets) of the Pru and Bharata tribes (p. 263), it seems unlikely that he puts a gretemporal distance between what he, too, considers to be the oldest book, namely the sixth, and book 3 or 7 not such a distance as would be required to change the view of S significantly for the community or group ofas a whole. We should also note in 2.41.16, 5.42.12 and 5.43.11, which come from the oldest or older booWitzels reckoning, S is praised as a river and a deity quite unambiguously.


6/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 6

other books if they are to be understood in a reasonably satisfactory way. Where a hymn msuspected of being composite, at least the diction of the verses that matter for our present pudoes not come across as closer to later Sanskrit. It is also possible that certain hymns or valthough old and known when the individual ma alas were taking shape, were put in theconcluding parts of all or most ma alas because they, through their content, had a closerrelationship with the purpose(s) of theanthology as a whole. There are hints in the Indiantradition that the Veda was preserved on the banks of the S (see 6.5, last paragraph, below)

Even if the counter-inference is allowed to stand, it will at the most necessitate a morephrasing of my initial deduction. It will still leave me free to say: "S was a widely acceptedof the geographical and cultural landscape or physical foundation of the RV over a long pbut not so long as would go back to the very first formation of the oldest ma ala. Further, anydetermination of how much later the addition of hymns 49, 50, 52 and 61 to the sixth ma alawas must be in keeping with the fact that there is an unexceptionable presence of S hymbooks that are closest in time to book 6, namely in books 3 and 7 or in books 2 and 5 (cf. not

2.2 In the 23 verses that potentially have a direct role to play in the depiction and modidentification of the river S, we find very few verses in which S is merely a geographphysical entity. The statements we come across commonly contain thoughts like the followWhile revealing an impressive body of water, S stimulates all (pious) thought (1.3.12). Wbeing a prominent or best river, it is also the best mother and best goddess, capable of bestorespect/praise on the unrespected/unpraised (2.41.16). Along with the Dadvat^ and pay, it iseligible to hold the sacred fire (3.23.4). It descends from a mountain and also from the wolight or heaven (5.43.11). It receives waters from other streams, but can, like Indra, comecherished guest at sacrificial worship (U6.52.6). Attributes such as stimulating pious thobestowing honor or holding the sacred fire do not belong to a river unless the river

transcended the stage of simply being a flow of water. The attributes are only slightly indconfirmations of what the passages with "best goddess (2.41.16) or "world of light (5explicitly state. In the case of 5.42.12, the commentator Sya a even says that the verse could beabout the river or the goddess (sarasvat^ etan-nmik nad^ vg-dev^ v ).

Words that describe S as a part of the physical environment and also asstomya 'one to bepraised (U6.61.10) orhavya 'one to be invoked, 'one worthy of sacrificial offerings(U6.61.12) are likewise found in the remaining verses. In a few of these, (U6.61.13-14, 7the divinity element is not obvious, but personification that logically precedes the divelement is undeniable; notesuvkti"excellent song of praise in U6.61.2,roruvat 'making a loudsound (of the type usually associated with a living creature) in U6.61.8,svas 'sister in U6.61.9and U6.61.10;duduhe nhuya 'milked, i.e. produced for the progeny of Nahua in 7.95.2,sakhi 'companion in 7.95.4,dh^ti'(ritual) deed, action in U7.96.1, otu havam 'may listen tothe call in 8.54.4;dhibhi purandhy 'discerning with thoughts in 10.65.13 and uhi 'hear,pay attention to in 10.75.5). No wonder, the commentator Skanda, before he draws attentU6.61.2 as an additional instance, reports kap i as observing that only four Vedic passages(3.23.4, 8.21.18, 10.64.9 and 10.75.5) use the wordS in the sense of a 'river and that some cite2.41.16 as the fifth passage doing the same. The paucity of passages in which S was mexclusively or predominantlyas a river had obviously struck the traditional commentators.


7/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 7

2.3 The divinity of S is thus well-settled in the time of the RV hymns. But this does mean that S is merely an imagined river in heaven or was originally or primarily a deity. Inin no verse is the S spoken of asflowing inheaven; one may at the mostinfer such flowing asSya a does under 7.96.1 and 10.75.1, but there, too, it isas a devat/dev^ 'divinity, goddessthat S is spoken of as descending from heaven. There is no detail mentioned that we could uinfer that she descends in her riverine form or that the form in which she descends is mfundamental than the riverine form. There is, in other words, evidence for a dyau-dwelling called S but no explicit evidence for a divine stream calledS that led to the conception of a riveron the earth. Even if such a stream were to be assumed, just because there is in one pas(5.43.11) the talk of S coming from dyau, it would not follow that that stream takes precedin the conceptual scheme of the composers over the S stream they witnessed in their region.

Furthermore, while Ss deification can most sensibly be viewed as resulting frompresence on the earth (see 6.5 below), there is no indication that she, as a deity, has a nconsisting only in the glorification of the water stream known to the RV composers. Her div

is not exhausted by the attributes that are directly reconcilable with her self as a river. She ionly associated with I and Bhrat^, the association is presented as a well-known or rmatter (see 1.13.9, 1.42.9, 2.1.11, 2.3.8, 3.4.8, 5.5.8, 10.110.8 cited in the Appendix). She iassociated with practically every other deity mentioned in the RV. Her association withVive-devas, the generalized multitude of all divinities, a kind of corporeal yet unspecifbrahman, is especially pronounced. She can be one with all or anyone of the deities. deification process must have either taken a long time to evolve or must have taken place wframe for deification, minimally a pattern for incorporating the veneration of especimpressive natural phenomena, was already in place. Either way, I find no RV-internal reashypothesize that a divine S stream gave rise to the conception of an earthly S stream. Nor

find it justifiable to give priority to the divinity reading because the Avesta has a relatconcept (see 5.14-19 below).

2.4 Another implication of the fact that the mention of S only as a divinity or also adivinity is more frequent than the mention of S purely as a river that the passages collect1.5 are outnumbered by passages in which words not immediately reconcilable with the 'rnotion appear is that S had an entrenched presence as an item in religious life definitely btime the RV anthology was put together and almost definitely even by the time of whagenerally take to be the older part of the anthology. I cannot enter here into a detailed analyall the 'non-river verses to establish Ss entrenched presence or carved niche. I will rest cwith drawing attention to the fact that verses like U6.52.6, which probably come from the operiod or at least cannot be far removed from the oldest period (see 2.1 above), invoke S icompany of Indra, Agni and Parjanya. The first two of these are undoubtedly the most cesacrificial deities in the RV. The fact that S as a deity occurs in all books of the RV excepfourth also points in the same direction.


8/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 8

2.5 Some scholars have discussed the entire nine-verse hymn of which 10.75.55 is a part asif it has a special role to play in determining the nature of S as a river. We do learn fromhymn that the S must be between the Yamun and the utudr^, but the hymn has little elconvey about the S. Its verses 10.75.1-4 and 10.75.7-9 are about the river Sindhu or about Sas a deification of rivers, perhaps as a deification of all known and useful rivers. The addresseven verse 6, which comes across as a continuation of verse 5, is Sindhu. On account osimilarity of some words and concepts (e.g.,sapta, tredh, snu) which occur also in thestatements about the S (see 3.3-7, 4.6 and 5.20 below), one may feel that the verses arreally about the Sindhu but about the S. In fact, there have been scholars who proposed thatwas not distinct from Sindhu6 or that the S in the family books of the RV is different from the in the tenth book.7 But the fact of the matter is that RV 10.75 is a Nad^-skta or, even modefensibly, a Sindhu-skta, 'a hymn dedicated to the Indus or the personification/Spirit of sevor all rivers. A more general name seems to have been given to the hymn because a list ofis its distinctive feature.

Putting back the picture 3.1 Focusing on the physical river as distinct from the deified river or S the deity, we piece together the following picture of the gvedic S as definite (see the Appendix for conand mostly inconsequential alternatives in translation):

(a) The S flowed between the Yamun and the utudr^ (cf. 10.75.5), that is, in the sgeneral area as the rivers Dadvat^ and pay (d advaty ... payy , 3.23.4).8

5 RV 10.75 has nine verses according to the kalya recension. In the valyana recension, there iadditional verse between verses 5 and 6 of the kalya recension:sitsite sarite yatra sage tatrplutso divamutpatanti / ye vai tanva vi sjanti dh^rs te vai janso amtatva bhajante //"Those who immerse themselves atthat place where the white river and the black river come together ascend to the world of light (or heaven). wise persons who cast off their bodies (at that place) attain immortality. That the verse is a composition of ain which the confluence of the Gag and the Yamun had come to be regarded as an unusually important sacreplace is evident. This period is commonly held to be later. The diction of the verse is also not as archaic as thatother verses in 10.75. Its pluralsaplutsa and jansa seem to be more a result of imitation of Vedic Sanskrit thangenuine. Further, the verse does not connect with the neighboring verses in the manner in which the remainingverses connect. In any case, the verse makes no difference to the argumentation in the present essay.

6 Cf. Chattopadhyaya 1976: 138-140 for a list of the earlier proponents of the "S = Sindhu view ansubsequent pages up to 194 for his own defense of that view a defense arising more out of a historians rationalize the (real or apparent) oddities in the evidence than out of the evidence in the text itself.

7 The reasoning adduced for both the 'S = Sindhu thesis and the 'S of ma alas 2-8 = Sindhu thesis is not at allconvincing. It frequently rests on the hypothesis of Aryan invasion or migration into India, which itsincreasingly standing in need of adequate justification. In Chattopadhyayas case in particular, the argfrequently consists of mere assertions. What he declares to be obvious or evident is rarely so. That Habib (200who has made several perceptive remarks about the Vedic S and who does not present 'Sindhu = S as hiposition, should not see through the holes and strains in Chattopadhyayas argumentation is surprisingincongruent with the critical acumen he shows elsewhere.

In RV 10.65.13,sindhur samudriya pa appear in addition toS. See also note 19 below.8 Cf. MBh adhyyas 3.80-81 and 9.7. For the relative nearness of the S and Dadvat^, see Mnava-dharma-

stra (= Manu-smti) 2.17; MBh 3.6.2 (note the sequence in which the P avas moving from Jhnav^/Gag toKuru-ketra cross the rivers), 3.81.175, 12.148.12, 13.105.47 and Supplementary Passages 03*0389_03 (dak i enasarasvaty d advaty-uttare a ca, which I could not actually locate) and 14.4_2496 (= critical edn vol. 18, p.43


9/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 9

(b) It received waters from several streams or rivers (sindhubhi pinvamn, U6.52.6),enumerated as six or seven (see 3.6).

(c) It issued forth from a parvata ( no divo bhata parvatd , 5.43.11) or from giris ( yat^ giribhya, 7.95.2; cf. U6.61.2; see 5.20) and flowed to a samudra ( samudrt, 7.95.2; see5.12-13.

(d) Its noticeable aspects were surging waves (rmibhi, 10.64.9), movement (cariu ...carati, U6.61.8), sound (roruvat, U6.61.8), force or strength (amas, U6.61.8,asury, U7.96.1)and brightness (ananto ahnutas tvea , U6.61.8,dyumnebhi , U6.61.13).9

(e) It had the ability to cut into mountain ridges and (hence, naturally) into its banks, (iyaumebhir bisakh ivrujat snu gir^ tavi ebhir rmibhi | prvataghn^m, U6.61.2;possibly alsok odas dhyas ... prabbadhn in 7.95.1; see 4.2-4 below).

(f) Overall, it was a great wavy water mass (maho ar a, 1.3.12), the most prominent river ora member of the group of very prominent rivers (nad^tame, 2.41.16,ati ... svasr any, U6.61.9; pra y mahimn mahinsu cekite dyumnebhir any apasm apastam,U6.61.13;apo mahin sindhur any, 7.95.1;uttar sakhibhya, 7.95.4;asury nad^nm, U7.96.1;maho mah^r,

sarasvat^-d advatyor deva-nadyor yad antaram).For the relative nearness of the S and pay ( paj pag), see MBh 3.81.55,154.9 (a) Since some of the aspects specified below can exist in other rivers as well, the intention of the h

composers must be that the specified aspects are particularly prominent in the S. Thus, "movement stands fomovement or 'non-straight movement, "sound for 'loud or resonating sound, and so on. This commoinference is confirmed by the actual expressions used elsewhere in Sanskrit literature, particularly in the MBhfollowing notes will show.

(b) For surging waves, cf. MBh 9.35.46:tatra cormimat^ rjann utpapta sarasvat^ / (c) For speedy movement, cf. MBh 9.37.4:sarasvat^ oghavat^ (sandhi not observed in the original). 9.37.13:

vega-yukt sarasvat^m ...Although here the adjectives are employed with respect to the realizations of differentin a mythical context, they must apply to the original or historical source of the realizations as well. That should be a primary association with the S even while narrating stories about how the disappeared S re-applater at various sacred places at the invitation of gods, seers and ascetics indicates that the association was strong and widely shared over a long period of time.

Note also that Oghavat^, 'speedy, as an incarnation of the S is located in Kuru-ketra in MBh 9.37.25, which,from all indications, should be the main running area of the Vedic S. The same adjective is applied todisappeared or Vinaana-lost S in MBh 3.130.3. Thus, even the later name for the main constituent streamearlier Vedic S could have beenoghavat^.

As for the non-straight or crooked movement, possibly caused by the deltas or islands between the conststreams, notekubjimat^ in Pa~ca-via-brhma a 25.10.11.

(d) As a confirmation of the forceful flow of the primary S, we have MBh 9.35.46tayotk iptas trita ... In thisstory, Trita, who had fallen in a well that was deep, dry and full of dirt, stones (see 6.2) and vines on all of itswas thrown all the way up to the periphery of the well when the S re-appeared.

(e) The noticeably high sound of the S stream might have been conveyed also by the class namenad^, 'onewhich makes a (deep, repetitious and resonating) sound, applied more than once to the S in the RV and theWords which become synonyms in later Epic or Classical Sanskrit frequently have precise shades of meanVedic Sanskrit as is shown in 4.8 (saras) and 5.20 ( parvata, giri). These shades are frequently in keeping withtheir etymologies or with their Indo-European cognates.

(f) The brightness of the flow of the S is emphasized in the MBh names of its constituent streams:suprabh,k~cank andvimalodak/vimalod (9.37.3-4, 12-26 quoted in note 14). Recall also the constant depiction of thgoddess S as wearing white clothes, which, however, may also be due to whiteness associated with puritknowledge.


10/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 10

10.64.9), regular or truthful (under either interpretation, dependable, tvar^ U6.61.9; cf. 2.4.18),one that made itself known through its noticeable or extraordinary greatness ( pra y mahimn mahinsu cekite, U6.61.13).10

(g) It had human settlements along (at least a part of) its course (cf.k itibhyo avan^ avinda, U6.61.3; pa~ca jt vardhayant^ , U6.61.12; note also the use of iyam 'this,su 'in/amongthese, ande 'this in U6.61.2, U6.61.13 and 7.95.1, respectively, indicating that the compwas near the S and hence, most probably, in a community near its banks).

(h) It provided sustenance to the settlements (cf.ghtc^, 5.43.11;vjin^vati,U6.61.3;rya cetant^ bhuvanasya bhrer ghta payo duduhe nhuya, 7.95.2;ghtavat payo madhumat 10.64.9).11

(i) This sustenance made generation and promotion of culture possible. ( praastim,2.41.16;saha dh^bhi purandhy,10.65.1, which indicate awareness of the use of mind and speech fwhat we would consider expressions of culture).12

3.2 Above, I have stuck as close to the literal meanings of words in an ancient text as I c

in the light of contexts of individual verses and the information available from the traditicommentators and modern specialists. I will discuss, in 4.1-9 below, the few expreswhich are not clear in themselves but can yield plausible meanings that have a bearing onature of S as a river. At this point I will simply ascertain if any justifiable extensions odeterminants collected so far are possible. The value of these extensions as evidence wilcourse, be one notch below that of the evidence in 3.1, but it will still be significant as lowe show preference for those understandings which fit the observations in 3.1 andinformation gleanable from the remaining passages in the Appendix and as long as we domake arguments that presuppose certain modern historical views about the S, that is, engaarguments that ultimately become circular in nature.

10 Here I have deliberately restricted myself to only one translation, 'great, of maha/mahas. See 5.8 for myreason. Through usage, "great has become indifferent to the various areas or ways (size, volume, quality,etc.) in which something can transcend smallness, ordinariness, lack of conspicuity etc. We can have any usag"great height to "great person or "great soul.

11 Understandably, we get more frequent evidence of the S providing material things in those ks in whichdeified:vja 'strength, vigor, 1.3.10, 2.41.18, U6.61.3, U6.61.4, U6.61.6; 7.95.6;sani 'gain, acquisition, U6.61.6;rdha/rdhas 'gift, wealth, U7.96.2; praj 'progeny, 2.41.17;rai/rayi 'riches, goods, property, 3.54.13, 10.17.9;ara a 'refuge, house, 6.49.7;dhana 'booty, treasure, property, U6.61.5;k ra sarpis madhdaka 'milk, butter,sweet water or honey and water, 9.67.32;anam^v ia 'diseaseless food, 10.17.8.. See (b) in the next note.

12 (a) In the closely related 'S-as-dev^ ks, the indications of Ss association with concepts we wouldindicative of cultural concerns naturally abound:dh^ 'intelligence, devotion, 2.3.8,svasti 'state of well-being,U2.32.8;unahotra (if not intended as a proper name for a family) 'auspicious offering,v^ra 'hero, brave persons insociety, 3.54.13, 6.49.7;m^humanto ... pipyatmia 'rich in kindness or grace, U6.50.12;bhadram ... bhadr k avat, "blessed, fortunate, U7.96.3.

(b) In the case of some words, the meaning cannot easily be separated along the 'sustenance : culture linr^ 'wealth, glory, beauty, 1.188.8;vasu 2.1.11, 8.21.17;mayas 'weal, congenial or productive well-being, 1.13.9,1.89.3, 1.164.49, 5.5.8;vrya 'to be chosen, precious, 1.164.49, 10.17.7.

(c) Cf. MBh 1.90.25:matinra khalu sarasvaty dvdaa-vr ika satram jahra "Matinra a sourcesays (khalu) brought about a twelve-year sacrificial session on (the bank of the river) S.


11/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 11

(a) The number of streams thought of 13 as forming the S was seven; cf.sapta-svas 'onehaving seven sisters in U6.61.10 and perhaps alsosapta-dhtu 'having seven bases inU6.61.1214 (see 3.3-7 below).

(b) The feeding streams, because they are spoken of assvas in U6.61.9-10, most probablyhad their sources in approximately the same area as the S (see 3.5).15

(c) At least to a significant extent, the other streams flowed along with the S streOtherwise, their description assakh^ 'companion in 7.95.4 will not be a matching metaphor.(d) S was a nad^ considered to be superior to or more important than the other same-s

streams; she seems to have been treated as more equal among the potential equals; cf. U67.95.4. In other words,S was a name of streams moving in the same direction and taken togethas well as of one of the streams that was, for some reason, viewed as more prominenimportant (see 3.6-7 for the usefulness of this point in understanding another RV phrase).

The prominence could be due to its (relative) size, centrality, being the recipient of the wof other streams, speed or appearance (or any combination of all these attributes). It is possible that the S was given a higher status among kindred and adjacent streams because i

more dependable; it showed less seasonal change. The anxiety implicit in U6.61.14 points idirection. In addition to the material reasons, the Ss prominence could have had its basis place it occupied in the communitys culture or historical memory.

3.3 Against the points in the preceding section, two observations made (in differcontexts) by earlier scholars may be presented:saptan or 'seven is just an auspicious or favorednumber in the RV; it only means 'several; the specific numerical value is not inten

13 I use "thought of, because, in matters such as the one here, we can, at best, reconstruct only a domcontemporary perception through textual evidence. A community can miss or ignore some streams as tribueven when they happen to unite with the waters of the river taken as the main flow. On the other hand, a hiscan proceed only with what seems dominant, probable and reasonable. The diversity or complexity in an situation of the past is rarely, if at any time, accessible to him/her.

14 (a) Cf. MBh 9.37.3-4:rjan sapta sarasvatyo ybhir vyptam ida jagat / ht balavadbhir hi tatra tatrasarasvat^ // suprabh k~cank ca vil mnasa-hrad / sarasvat^ oghavat^ suve ur vimalodak //.Two of thesenames occur in a slightly different form in MBh 9.37.12-26. The list in that passage reads: Suprabh at Pukara,K~cank at Naimia, Vil at Gaya, Mano-hrad at Uttara Kosal-bhga, Oghavat^ at Kuru-ketra, Suve u atabha-dv^pa and Vimalod at Gaga-dvra in Haimavata Giri. Since the context here is one of accounting throug(what we would call) myths for rivers at different places of pilgrimage, we cannot assert that these very namein the minds of the gvedic composers who speak of Ss sisters, but we are not forced to deny that a tradseven sister streams existed. Note also MBh 9.37.27-28:ek^-bhts tatas ts tu tasmis t^rthe samgat / sapta-srasvata t^rtha tatas tat prathita bhuvi // iti sapta sarasvatyo nmata parik^rtit / sapta-srasvata caivat^rtha pu ya tath smtam //

(b) Vekaa-mdhava U6.61.12:sapta-dhtu saptabhi chandobhi sahit saptabhir v svasbhi.See note21.

15 As specified in note 14, the MBh speaks of various realizations of the S at different places. Yet whmentions the source of the S in 3.82.5 and 9.53.11, it speaks only of Plaka or Plaka-prasrava a (= prsra in someearlier texts). This may be taken as indicating that, in the perception or imagination of the MBh composers, tappearing seven Ss corresponded to the seven streams mentioned by the RV in the context of the S and thsources of the seven were fairly near each other; otherwise, they would not have been depicted as moving togea band. (Unlike the MBh, however, the RV speaks only of appearance, not of re-appearance.)


12/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 12

Secondly, the referent of sapta svasra should be the same as that of sapta sindhava16 or saptasindhu-mtara,17 since all these expressions occur in the context of streams or rivers and twordsindhu has also been used in the context of the S in U6.52.6, 7.36.6, 7.95.1, 8.54.4 10.64.9. However, the locations of the seven covered by the phrasessapta sindhava andsaptasindhu-mtara are too distant from each other to be thought of as sisters or as parts of a sinriver system. If, as in their case, the phrasesapta svasra refers to seven major rivers, of whichthe S was one in all currently known enumerations (see note 20bc), the assertion in 3.2b thS had relatively minor streams noticeably flowing alongside must be withdrawn.

Also, there are indications to the effect that the S was not always thought as associated seven streams. The Vjasaneyi-sahit 34.11 speaks of five rivers joining the S:pa~ca nadyasarasvat^m apiyant sasrotasa / sarasvat^ tu pa~cadh so [= s u] dee bhavat sarit //"Fiverivers sharing the same source (i.e., arising in the same general area) (or along with theircontributing flows) close upon (i.e., form a confluence with) the S. To speak from the othe(tu), the S in that region verily became a stream in five ways (or, after the confluence, contias five streams). Here, the number of contributing streams is five instead of seven.18 Similarly, if

the interpretation of sapta-svas in 3.2d is allowed to stand, the S will actually have six streamassociated with it; it will itself be the seventh stream. Let me now comment on these couconsiderations one by one.

3.4 Alexander Cunningham observed as early as 1882 (pp. 88-89) that to speak of a grof rivers as having seven members was a common practice in India. This probably valid geobservation, however, should not be taken to imply that any group said to consist of smembers should be considered ultimately imprecise (as a group consisting, in realityapproximatelyseven members) and historically suspect or that an attempt should be made,Cunningham (1882: 87-88) himself made in one instance, to bring the number down to s

More specifically, it should be noted that the talk of seven sisters of the S is historicallyearliest we have. It occurs in the oldest book of the earliest available text, that is, in RV U6.(and possibly verse 12 of the same hymn). It is confirmed by a book very close to the o

16 Cf. Geldner on 8.59/103.4 (p. II.380 note 4b): "Die 7 Schwestern (9.86.36) sind die 7sindhava und die 7dhenava (9.66.6c; 86.25), die Zutaten zum Soma.

17 I will not deal with the Sapta Mts separately in 3.5, for it does not seem to be the case from the partavailable about them that they were viewed as different from the Sapta Sindhus; cf. 1.34.8 (trir vin sindhubhisapta-mtbhi ...), which Sya a explains as:ima me gaga[RV 10.75.5]ity-di mantrokt sapta-sakhykgagdy nadyo mtara utpdik ye jala-vie te sapta-mtara tai sindhubhi syandana-sva-bhvai jalai vasat^var^-nmabhi ... sapta-mtbhi bahu-vr^hi-svara ; also, 8.85/96.1 (asm po mtara sapta tasthurnbhyastarya sindhava supr ), for which no traditional commentary that paraphrases the meanings of the worinvolved is available.18 The Vjasaneyi-sahit commentator Uvaa specifies the five rivers as Dadvat^, utudr^, Candra-bhg,Vip/Vip and Irvat^ (= Paru ), that is, as four of the five usual Punjab rivers plus the Dadvat^. This listoverlaps considerably with MBh 2.9.19 quoted in note 19 but cannot be considered as definitely receconfirmation from the latter. A significant omission is Vitast. Uvaa seems to be making as best an effexplaining the verse as he could within the limitations of his individual circumstances (residence in distant Mor Gurjara-dea in the eleventh century, probable renaming, due to Islams spread, of Vitast as Jehlum/Jheluso on). As a consequence, Dadvat^, with or without a contemporary identification, could have taken Vitasts pin his listing.


13/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 13

book, namely the seventh, in 7.36.6. We do not know and in fact cannot determine convention of making the number seven convey the sense of "several had come into existethe time. Further, it is unlikely that two lists of seven streams or rivers will be distinguishe3.5) if "seven is not meant in its distinctive numerical sense.

Secondly, as far as I know, it has not been proved thatsaptan is used in the sense of 'several,many in the RV itself. In the usages I studied, it seems precise enough, with no indicationmention of various groups of seven that more or fewer than seven were meant. Having a hafondness for grouping with seven does not in itself imply that the number had lost its semspecificity. Similarly, we may not know what the seven members intended in a group weeach case, but this absence of knowledge on our part could be due only to the obvious realitnot every thing presupposed by the hymn composers has come down to us.

Thirdly, as recorded in note 14a, a list of the seven streams of the S is available in the Malthough not in the RV itself. The listed items in the MBh do not give any indication of bmade up at a later time, although the accounts of their appearance or re-appearance are foundmythical context. There is no symmetry or any other sign of artificiality in the formation o

item names. The impression one gets is that the MBh is trying to account for existing namefor the tradition current in several parts of western and central North India about the (represumed) re-appearance of the S. Even if the individual names are set aside, the kernel otradition that there were seven streams associated with the S will retain its validity.

Also, the expressions sapta-svas and sapta-dhtu (note 14b) are consistent with theetymological meaning of S 'one possessing streams (see 4.8-9 below); there would be npoint in giving a river a name that meant 'one possessing a stream; every river obviously hleast one stream. In the case of a river whose name, like the name D advat^, can only be aproduct of actual observation, it would be particularly odd if the componentsaras did not refer toa distinguishing feature of the stream.

Thus, whilesaptan may occur in some RV passages in references not allowing us tdeterminw fully the items meant (or even in the indeterminate sense that "several has), it to argue that it is not intended in its usual precise numerical value in the phrasessapta svasra and sapta sindhava. For the former, see RV 1.164.3, 7.66.15, 8.41.02, 8.59/103.4, 9.669.86.36 and 10.05.5. In all these instances, as in the S passage U6.61.10, the use is metaphosvas stands for some other object such as mares pulling the Suns cart or seven thoughts, por deeds (dh^ti) that the composers clearly presuppose as known groups of seven. Otherwise,riddle-style composition will simply not work. The gvedic culture, like the later ClasSanskrit culture, must have been interested in classification, although the nature of its interclassification, the categories to which the classified items belonged and the extent to whicclassification was carried out were probably different.

The same is the case withsapta sindhava. While one could, sticking to the literal meaningsof phrases amounting to 'seven streams, embrace the possibility that there was more thaenumeration of seven rivers in existence (possibly at different times or in different regionthat the culture was in the habit of making groups of seven, one will not be able to claim ethat the absence of precision in the use of saptan is proved or that the S was not thought of as


14/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 14

having seven constituent streams or as being one of the seven recognized rivers.19

3.5 In RV 1.71.7 and 1.102.2,sravat andnad^,accompanied by the contextually appropriatecase form of saptan, take the place of sapta sindhu. The juxtaposition of the wordssapta andsindhu themselves occurs in 1.32.12, 1.34.8, 1.35.8, 4.28.1, 8.24.27 and 8.96.1. In the case ofirst five of these ks, Sya a consistently draws attention to 10.75.5 as specifying which severivers are meant, and, in the case of 4.28.1 (sapta sarpa a-^l sindhn ari t prairayet ) and8.24.27 ( yad v sapta sarpa a-^lsu sindhuu tat-klev ity artha, gagy ghoa itivat ), hedoes not say anything that would contradict what he says elsewhere; he simply opts forgeneral meaning 'one which flows of sindhu (see note 18 for the remaining k, 8.96.1). Unde10.75.5, although it does not contain the phrasesapta sindhu,he informs us that Gag, Yamun,S, utudr^, Paru , Marudvdh (with Asikn^ as its triburary) and rj^k^y (with VitastSom [ Suom] as tributaries) form a group of seven.

It is significant that the Sindhu/Indus was not a part of the 'Sapta Sindhu concept, althphysically it must have been a part of the area covered by the sapta sindhus it could not

been missed, since so many rivers that join it or are likely to be to the west of its source appthe Sapta Sindhu list. See also 5.14-17 below.The procedure of Sya a and other traditional commentators suggests that they were qui

sure about the validity of their received understanding. Further, the absence of the Indus i'Sapta Sindhu concept, despite the presence of sindhu in the concept name and the importanceof the Indus explicitly borne out by many RV passages, creates a situation similar to the onelectio difficiliorsin textual criticism create. Both these points favor acceptance of the receivlist of seven rivers as reliable (and serve, as we will see, like the portrayal of S, as an indicof how far-ranging and well-settled the self-concept of the gvedic community was).20

19 (a) Macdonell-&-Keith (Vedic Index p. II.424) write that only in RV 8.24.27sapta sindhava is meant as adesignation of a country and that, everywhere else in the RV, the seven rivers themselves are meant. Actuallspecial claim made for 8.24.27 is problematic. It seems to rest only on the wordsryt anddsasya in the verse (andhence indirectly on assuming a conflict between the natives of a country and the newcomers). But the formryt found in the verse is not that of the nounrya. As the accentuation and syntax suggest,ryt is a finite verb derivedfrom the root /ar. This is also how Sya a and other traditional commentators have taken it.

(b) My observation in (a) should not be taken as implying thatsapta sindhu/sindhava could not have had thevalue of a country-denoting noun or phrase. The ground occupied by the seven rivers could not, after all, havphysically different from the country in which they flowed. It is also a common practice to name an area afriver or rivers which flow in or through it.

(c) In view of 3.5, the strongest possibility is thatsapta sindhu, as a country designation, originally or primarilystood for the region between the Gag and the rj^k^y with the former in the eastern part of North India and latter in the western. It was a designation that had in its formation a pattern similar to the one in ( pa~cp 'five waterflows/rivers ) "Panjab/Punjab.20 (a) Induss non-inclusion in the list, however, is not an indication of its lack of importance. In fact, likeit had a special importance.

(b) A list of seven rivers comprising the five rivers of the Punjab and the Sindhu and the S exists in MBh 2vip ca atadru ca candra-bhg sarasvat^ / irvat^ vitast ca sindhur deva-nadas tath //However, the verse isa part of a larger listing and does not characterize the ones it lists as coming to number seven. While in this the western boundary of the region involved is not significantly different, because the rj^k^y cannot, unplausible identification of that river, be very distant from the Sindhu, the eastern area does not extend bPunjab.


15/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 15

Do sapta svas in U6.61.10 andsapta sindhu (or sapta mt ; see note 17) refer to the samegeographical phenomenon? In RV 1.164.3, 7.66.15, 8.41.02, 8.59/103.4, 9.66.8, 9.86.3610.05.5,sapta svas is a metaphor whose covert or latent correspondent (upameya) can bdifferent according to the context. In U6.61.10, with the context furnished by verses 8-9 an14 and no clear contradiction coming from verse 11, there can be no doubt that the referenceentities that are similar to the S, that is, to entities which are streams. In other contextsentities meant come from some other groupings of things or concepts. However, the properresembling each other or having something in common, sharing a source, remains constantis as one would expect, given the employment of svas 'sister in the phrase, that is, in keepingwith the basic or most common meaning of the lexemesvas . But such is not the case withsaptasindhu. It contains no suggestion of a metaphor at the level of its primary meaning, but thethatsindhu of the phrase can be replaced withmt (cf. note 17) or thatsindhu andmt can becombined in a genitive tat-purua or karma-dhraya relationship (cf. 3.7) indicates, that isindhu was to be connected with a metaphor, the one that the RV composers found suitable the metaphor of 'mother. This evidence and the contexts of the occurrence of the ph

wherever they are transparent enough, suggest that the major consideration behind being growas ability to sustain and/or nurture. Such ability is unlikely to lead to inclusion in a group uit was reasonably widely recognized, that is, unless the community concerned had taken a of its geographical situation beyond its immediate environs, had analyzed itself as a command arrived at some generalizations about where and how it lived. This means that proximitynot be the principal criterion behind grouping and that geographic information alone wilsuffice in putting forward groups. Some sense of how that geographic information is relatcommunal living and what the communitys history has been like will be a prerequisirelative ranking in terms of importance (vis-a`-vis the streams or rivers not to be included) thusultimately setssapta sindhu apart fromsapta svas.While the former has a necessary diachronic

component in its formation, the latter is primarily a synchronic concept. One is more tied tearth, and the other is free for movement in the world of abstractions. It also follows tharanking involved in the former may not be uniform. It may change according to the regionthe (sub-)community involved (compare the lists in note 19). Thus it should not surprise ueven the Indus, the undisputed major river of the area, does not in the context at hand makethe 'league of seven.

3.6 The issue of whether the RV S had exactly and/or uniformly seven streams associwith it can be discussed in a better way if we maintain awareness of the following two point

(a) A specific number of streams associated with a river is commonly a matter

(c) Another list of seven rivers, which is indicated to belong to the post-disappearance period of the S, is in MBh 6.7.45-47:vasvokasr nalin^ pvan ca sarasvat^ / jamb-nad^ ca s^t ca gag sindhu ca saptam^ //Heresindhu probably refers to a Madhya Pradesh river mentioned in Klidsas Megha-dta. Although the nuinvolved is seven, the phrasesapta sindhu is not applied.

Note also MBh 3.212.021:sindhu-varja pa~ca nadyo deviktha sarasvat^ / gag ca ata-kumbh ca arayrga a-shvay // and MBh 6.10.13a:nad^ pibanti bahul gag sindhu sarasvat^m / godvar^ narmad cabhud ca mah-nad^m // In this case, 'seven is only implicit, and the combinationsapta sindhu is again missing.Once again, we get a negative corroboration of the special import of sapta sindhu.


16/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 16

contemporary local perception and convention. Not all contributing streams are necessarirecognized or included in the 'official or common public perception. Even whether a flowater is to be viewed as just a stream (with or without some proper name) or as a river depon the nature of the stream and its local perception, which is inevitably relative and is frequconditioned by conventions.

(b) It is possible that one or two of the streams known to RV composers had disappearelost recognition as Ss streams at the time of the Vjasaneyi-sahit (see 3.3 and note 18)language of the Vjasaneyi-sahit verse contains no signs of being as old as the RV versesallude to the constituent or associated streams of the S.

Interpreted literally, the bahu-vr^hi compoundsapta-svas occurring in U6.61.10 withreference to the S in the sense 'one which has seven sisters should imply that the S is oveabove the seven.21 However, the MBh references (notes 9c and 14) indicate that the S wthought of as a collectivity of seven and the stream calledOghavat^ was more strongly associatedwith the nameS than the other six streams. In other words, six streams were viewed as joinand the 'joinee was known both asOghavati andS, or the nameS referred to a system of seven

flows and also to the major or most impressive flow of the system.22

3.7 The last observation has a possible bearing on a phrase that has been interpreted in two

different ways. Rajaram (1995, reference through Hock 2000+) translatessindhu-mt in 7.36.6as 'mother of the Sindhu He evidently takessindhu-mt to be a genitive tat-purua meaningsindho mt 'mother of the Indus, i.e., more important than the Indus. This understandingmake the S the largest river known in the RV universe. But, as Hock (2000+: 4) points ouaccent favors a bahu-vr^hi,sindhur mt yasy '(that seventh) of which the Sindhu is themother, which reverses the meaning and makes the Indus the mother of the S.23 Since thisdifference of understanding would affect the picture of the S that we are trying to construct,

an understanding of sindhu as 'one that flows, a stream cannot be ruled out in the conteconcerned and since the number 'seven recurs in the form of the ordinalsapath^, it may bethought thatsapath^ sindhu-mt should also be taken into account while we try to determine th

21 Similarly insapta-dhtu 'having seven roots, causes or bases of U6.61.12, the S would be a product oroutcome over and above the seven bases.

22 (a) Since the MBh (3.80.118, 3.130.3-4, etc.) explicitly speaks of the Ss disappearance, we cannot ruthe possibility that a constituent stream of the gvedic S had been lost in its time (or that it did not have exacsame seven streams as S constituents as the RV). However, since we have positive evidence for the conclreached in the preceding paragraph and no confirmation of the possibility implicit in the preceding sentence namely the possibility 'S was an entity over and above its seven constituents resting on a particular comdissolution, we should go with the conclusion, that is, choose to think of the MBh as thinking of the S as a sysseven rivers but understanding the bahu-vr^hi compoundsapta-svas if its authors were aware of the bahu-vr^hinature of the compound as they probably were differently; the stream system signifierS, while being semanticallyover and above the seven constituent flows, was factually one of the seven.

(b) A similar slippage of literal meaning occurs in bahu-vr^hi compounds such assapta-par a; cf. Vkyapad^ya / Trik ^ 3.14.56.

23 In order not to complicate the discussion, I have assumed at this stage thatmt stands for 'source or causeand thatSindhu is a proper name. Other understandings of both the words are possible (sindhu occurs also in thegeneral sense of 'flow, stream in the RV). Under the tat-purua alternative, thinking of the compound as a karma-dhraya is also possible.


17/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 17

intent behindsapta-svas precisely. However, it is not necessary to do so. Under eithedissolution of sindhu-mt , the item referred to insapath^ sindhu-mt will not be over andabove the seven that are presumed to form a group with Sindhu as the central concept, becthe element 'seven comes fromsaptath^,which is external to the compound. The justificationprovided above to distinguish the svas group of streams from the mt group of streamremain unaffected.Still, for the benefit of future research, it should be noted that the argument presentedHock is not conclusive. For the S to be the seventh under the bahu-vr^hi assumption, we nimagine a list of seven items (such as the ones in note 19) in which the S appears in the position,24 and, since a list of seven rivers of which the Sindhu is the mother or source is available either in the RV or in the reconstructions of RV specialists, we make no progressthe bahu-vr^hi derivation. If, to avoid this uselessness, we takemt in some such sense as 'onewithout which the others would not exist, one which is most essential, the most importantwill be presuming what we seek to prove by insisting on the bahu-vr^hi dissolution; we wilhave a circular argument to our (dis)credit.

A further problem to which Hock has not referred is that the commentators Vekaa-mdhavaand Sya a have assumed the compoundsindhu-mt to be a tat-purua. The former writesa nad^n saptam^ sindhn mt . The latter explains: yat ys ga gd^n madhyesindhu-mt p mt-bht sarasvat^ etad-khy nad^ saptath^ saptam^ bhavati.

As these commentators are elsewhere attentive about interpreting the RV in accordance the accent, it is unlikely that they did not notice that the accent on the first syllable madesindhu-mt a bahu-vr^hi compound. Therefore, we have to entertain two possibilities: (a) They diassign as decisive a role to accent as scholars like Hock do; if there was a conflict betweemeaning the context (of the specific hymn or of the RV as a whole) supported or required anmeaning the accent made possible, they assigned greater weight to the context. (b)

accentuation of sindhu-mt was different in their time.25

The text the traditional commentators knew antedates ours by centuries (in the caseVekaa-mdhava by about twelve hundred years). The tradition of manuscripts and the traof recitation were in all probability in a better shape at their times. The meaning 'seventh mother, seventh among the sustaining (and therefore important or prominent) rivers, makindirect reference to the notion of sapta sindhu-mts (= sapta sindhus; cf. note 17) fiimmediate context and the context furnished by the RV as a whole most naturally (see note

24 We will also need to assume that the principle behind the order of items isgar^yo yad yad uttaram 'eachsubsequent item is more important than or superior to the preceding item or 'later the better. Otherwisewould not receive the contextually intended praise. Note also the use of saric.chre ha mentioned in 5.9). Thisconsideration, too, indirectly supports the tat-purua dissolution.25 (a) As far as I know, only the RV edition of r^pda Dmodara Stavaekara (the last name is also prin"Sntabalekara") has been checked against the memorized text of the reciters. It, too, has accent on the first syof sindhu-mt favoring a bahu-vr^hi understanding of the compound. It should, however, be noted that Stavacould consult only the RV reciters from Maharashtra.

(b) I am aware that emendations, especially in Vedic texts and particularly in the RV, should be avoided as possible. However, I do not subscribe to the extreme view that the RV text as we have it now is exactly as put together for the first time, either as individual hymns or as an anthology that it is literally a 'tape recoSee also note 28.


18/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 18

It does not lead to the handicap of list absence to which Hock's probable preference wouldas pointed out in the preceding paragraph. This conclusion also implies thatsaptath^ sindhu-mt has no special role to play in our attempt to construct a picture of the gvedic S; it does nous anything more than what an early list of seven rivers containingS, such as the one in note 19a,would. Neither the scholars who think that the S was the mightiest river of the RV time noscholars who wish to pull the rug from under them and transfer the honor to the Indus shoulit as a piece of evidence favoring their position. One can, by takingsindhu in the sense of 'stream, flow regard it as another articulation of the sapta svas concept, but one can aindicated already, reconcile it with the sapta sindhu concept (which alternative I prefer, sinctext hasmt ). That it is thus amenable to placement in two groups, again, indicates that it hasparticular value as evidence in the sub-issue with which we are concerned at this point.

Unclear parts of the evidence4.1 We have now arrived at a stage at which we should consider a few not-so-clear RV c

to the nature of S as a river. Their value as evidence will naturally be lower than that of

observations contained in 3.1-2, but, since in historical research cumulative evidence has to play, we should try to ascertain the extent to which they can help us in our quest.A phraseyas^ p, which we have left out of consideration until now, occurs in 7.95.

Taking it as a simile (upam) or metaphor (rpaka), we can make sense of the verse containing it in a plausible way: "This S, (virtually) a metal protection or enclosure that hflowed/flows forth with turbulent nourishing/refreshing water.26 The suggestion would be that of weight (or force) and compactness of the flow, something comparable to "It hit like a hamand "It came down like a huge block of cement. However, except for strengthening what winfer from 3.1d-f, there is unlikely to be any gain in determining the intention behind the uthe expressionyas^ p more precisely. We can, of course come up with such guesses as 'the S

did not allow the tributaries to overcome its own flow, or 'there was a dam on the S, or glowed as a copper/iron fortification would, but, lacking corroboration, the guesses will r just that.

4.2 The phrasesnadyo vibhva-ta (5.42.12) andvibhvane kt (U6.61.13) present achallenge of another kind. Of the first, Sya a givesbh madhyamena kt 'fashioned byVibhvan, the middle of the bhus as the meaning. Vekaa-mdhava opts formahatm apitan-kartrya 'those who make even the great ones slender. In the case of the second phrasefind renderings such as (Skanda and Vekaa-mdhava:)mahattvyaiva kt , (Sya a:)vibhutvya pariv h, gu air adhik kt, prajpatin nirmit , all amounting to saying 'madebig/great (literally or metaphorically).

There is support for understandings of vibhvan both as a proper name (1.161.6, 3.49.1,4.33.3, 4.33.9, 4.34.1, 4.36.5-6, 5.46.4, 5.58.4, 7.48.1-3) and as an adjectival agent noun me'one who/which goes far, extends, is able to penetrate/occupy (1.113.1, 1.190.2, 5.10.7, 9

26 Vekaa-mdhava:dhrayant^ lokasya lohamay^ ca nagar^ iti aupamikam."She is the one who bears theworld. (The wordyas^ meaning) lohamay^ ('made of iron/steel) and (the word p meaning) nagar^ ('town, city)are (a phrase of) comparison. Although some modern specialists of the RV takeayas as signifying 'copper,Vekaa-mdhava seems to have taken the word in its sense attested in later Sanskrit.


19/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 19

10.3.6). Given the occurrence of the same wordvibhvanaccompanied by a past passive participlein the context of the same S andapas,27 one would expect the consideration (or legend or myth)involved to be the same in both the passages. If this expectation is justified, one could entthe possibility thatvibhvane in the second phrase is a dative intended in the sense of aninstrumental, a case of vibhakti-vipari ma,28 or the possibility that a change of vibhvan tovibhvanehas come about later in transmission (see note 25b). Even if these possibilities areaside, the common factor of the two phrases will be that broadening of some kind took plawas brought about in the case of the S. We may think of this as a record of the S breathrough (or between) hills (cf. 3.1d-f) or being enabled to do so at some point, or as a giving credit to Vibhvan that arose out of a noticeable physical feature of the Ss course. Othree bhus, it is Vibhvan who is singled out for fashioning, carving and/or chiseling in3.49.1, 4.36.5 and 5.58.4.29

27 (a) Sya a on 5.42.12:apasa camasva-ratha-gavdi-obhana-karmavanta 'who have to their credit suchpraiseworthy acts as (creation or fashioning of) ladels (or cups, flat dishes), horses, chariots and bovines.

(b) Under U6.61.13, Skanda explains the phraseapasm apastam with anys karmavat^n sakt apastam v y-di-karmabhir atiayena karmavat^ 'More efficacious (i.e., more beneficial) through rain etc.compared to other efficacious (i.e., beneficial) (rivers). Vekaa-mdhavas explanation of the same isvegavat^nnad^n madhye atyanta vegavat^ "(S) is exceedingly speedy among the speedy rivers. Sya a, writingapas vegavat^n nad^n madhyepastam vegavattam follows Ve kaa-mdhava. All three available commentatorshave takenapas (with accent on the second syllable) as an adjective meaning 'one associated with action, one pto action, efficacious and adjusted that general meaning to the context of water streams. To make this possiblhave read an element of possession in the meaning of the wordapas.

(b) What Udg^tha writes on 10.75.7, in whichapasm apastam recurs, contains a more detailed account of theexplanations reproduced in (a):ubhayam etad antar. ^ta-matv-artham. apasm apasvat^n svdhikra-karmavat^n nad^n madhye apastam apasvitam atiayena svdhikra-karmavat^."In both (the words) themeaning of (the suffix)matu[P] (that is, the meaning element 'possession) is included. (The river Sindhu) is owhich performs the actions in its domain better than how the (other) rivers perform actions in their domains.

(c) A reflection of Vekaa-mdhavas understanding in the case of U6.61.13 is found in what he writes u10.75.7:atyanta vegavat^ vegavat^bhya.

28 A change of one case ending into another is called for by considerations of syntax in many Vedic passTraditional commentators recognize this need. Also in the paraphrases offered by the modern interpreters of than awareness of the need to accept vibhakti-vipari ma is occasionally seen. The phenomenon is consistent withwhat we find in the folk or popular verse compositions of pre-modern India. The metrical texts included ingenres as saint poetry, bhakti poetry or Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit also display a certain laxity of syntax thdeviation from the established case suffix employment as a relatively frequent feature. As Vedic verse arises ospoken, fully living language, its sharing this feature with the later vernacular literatures should not surprise uVedic texts are a case of marvelous and unique preservation. They are far more uniformly preserved than the tthe other genres to which I have just made a reference (because of a certain philosophy about their sound). Yealso have links with the folk tradition and the tradition in which the compositions of saintly (or otherwise imppersons have been preserved in India for centuries. To take liberties with grammar for the sake of meter andthe context lend its full might to making the text intelligible is one linking convention.

29 (a) Habib (2001: 50) refers to medieval attempts to join other streams to the (possible) remnants ofdigging canals. It is conceivable that memory of the broadening of the S or one of its later place-takers had suand that the medieval government mentioned by Habib got the idea from the folk or learned traditions oinhabitants of the Haryana, Punjab or Himachal Pradesh areas.

(b) In RV 1.110.4, the bhus are said to have attained immortality (martsa santo amtatvam nau) becausethey registered an impressive achievement in one year (vi v^ am^ tara itvena vghato ... savatsare samapcyantadh^tibhi ). To those who hold that the RV contains compositions of nomadic people, however, the possib


20/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 20

4.3 Another possibly problematic expression of which I have not taken any explicit above is prvataghn^m, occurring in U6.61.2. If, taking the usual meanings of prvata 'pigeon, dove and -ghn^ (ghna ghanhan 'to smite, to strike), we render the word as'striker/killer of doves, the meaning will not fit, unless we also assume that a story or inciddove-striking/killing (unknown or lost to us) is being utilized by the composer. Approximthe same will be the outcome if prvata is taken to mean 'turtle, in which sense it is said tooccur at Vjasaneyi-sahit 24.25 (Suryakanta 1981: 426). Prvata as the name of a people(Macdonell-&-Keith p. I.518-519) will also suffer from non-corroboration by any story ahow these people were killed. The other words of the verse do not indicate any indubireason for alluding to people killing. Although the possibility of punning cannot be enteliminated, it does not at all seem necessary to invoke it.

Even the occurrence taken by Macdonell-&-Keith as referring to a specific people can sibe understood as 'a people from distance or the other shore. parvat commonly occurs in thesense of 'associated with (the) outward, away or beyond (idea) distance in the RV.30 The

patterm seen in it (a prefix followed byvat ) is also seen in words likeudvat, nivat and pravat that, too, are attested in the RV. Particularly instructive in this regard is 1.35.3: yti deva pravat, yty udvat ... devoyti savitparvato... // As a secondary adjectival derivation(taddhita) from it, prvata occurs, besides RV U6.61.2, in RV 5.52.11, 8.100.6 and Atharvaveda 20.135.1131 in the sense 'one situated at a distance, one from afar, one on the other/opoosside. This sense suffices also for Pa~ca-via-brhma a 9.4.11 that Macdonell-&-Keith andsome scholars before them have cited as definite evidence of the words reference to a distipeople. Further, the presence of the river Yamun in the context of the passage is favorablemeaning like 'those on the other shore. Understandably, therefore, Vekaa-mdhava explainsthe word prvataghn^ as prvraghn^ 'destroyer of both banks, one who cuts through this and

the yonder shore. Sya a, similarly, says: parvati dra-dee vidyamnasypi vk der hantr^, 'one which destroys even distant trees etc. This meaning suits the statement about a river nand agree in spirit with the references in 3.1d-f and the broadening detail discussed in 4.2.

While the absence of clarity about the meaning of prvataghn^ can thus be removed on amore certain basis than is possible in the case of many other rare RV words, what rempuzzling is the historical closeness of prvata to prvara/rvra that the commentaries seemto suggest: Yska (Nirukta 2.24), a considerably ancient authority, right away gi prvraghtin^m as the gloss of prvaraghn^m. His commentators Skand-&-Mahevaraelucidate the second part of this withavram avara klam, avara sad avatam, rephasyatakrpatty. "avra means that bank which is avara (i.e., lower/closer). That which isavara is

suggested toward the end of 4.2 will, understandably, seem laughable.30 RV 1.34.7, 1.35.3, 1.36.18, 1.39.1, 1.47.7, 1.48.7, 1.53.7, 1.73.6, 1.92.3, 1.112.13, 1.119.8, 1.128.2, 1.1

1.130.9, 1.134.4, 3.9.5, 3.37.11, 3.40.8, 3.40.9, 4.21.3, 4.26.6, 4.30.11, 4.50.3, 5.30.5, 5.53.8, 5.61.1, 5.73.1,6.44.15, 6.45.1, 7.97.2, 8.3.17, 8.5.8, 8.5.30, 8.6.36, 8.7.26, 8.8.14, 8.12.6, 8.12.17, 8.13.15, 8.30.3, 8.32.22, 88.45.25, 8.50.7, 8.53.3, 8.82.1, 8.93.6, 8.97.4, 9.39.5, 9.44.2, 9.65.22, 9.68.6, 9.111.2, 10.58.11, 10.63.1, 1010.95.14, 10.137.2, 10.144.4, 10.145.4, 10.180.2, 10.187.2. parvat occurs also in Atharva-veda 3.4.5, 3.18.3,4.13.2, 5.30.1, 6.34.3.

31 The last number is given as "14 in Macdonell-&-Keith p. I.518-519, which must be an oversight for "1


21/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 21

avata, through the transformation of r into t. RV commentators mentioned above also show anunhesitating readiness to move from prvata to prvara/rvra. Were they proceeding on theassumption that the'vata : vara/vradifference was only dialectal? Were at least some of themtrying to account for the contextually well-supported meaning of prvata in the Nirukta way?32 Our inability to remove uncertainty in this respect should, however, not come in the waunderstanding prvataghn^mas conveying that the S had a flow that could dislodge even distanformidable objects.

4.4 One more expression, potentially problematic in the present 'S-as-a-river contexratha, found directly inratha iva bhat^ vibhvane kt (U6.61.13) and indirectly inrathyeva ytiviv apo mahin sindhur any || (7.95.1). The use of ratha in these sentences should bedistinguished from the one found in 3.54.13 (vidyud-rath maruta), 10.17.8 (sarasvati y saratha yaytha ), 10.75.6 (tva sindho kubhay gomat^ krumu mehatnv saratha ybhir^yase), 10.75.8 (svav sindhu surath suvs ) and 10.75.9 (sukha ratha yuyuje sindhuravina). There, the usual meaning 'cart, vehicle, car attested in many RV verses, fits

straightforward way. In U6.61.13 and 7.95.1, however,ratha andrathy appear as qualifiers of the S, not as means of transportation.In the case of rathy, one possibility is to take it as the nominative singular of a feminin

stem rathy, joined toiva in sandhi. It would then go well with the remaining words of thsentence with the meaning 'like a cart road, like a road used for swift movement. Alternatrathy can be taken as the Vedic equivalent of the Classical Sanskrit instrumental singurathin, as Sya a does in his second explanation. However, then it is not clear how the idinvolved is to be precisely understood as far as the relation between therath^ and rathena isconcerned (see below).

Of U6.61.13, we have the following explanations available:

(a) Skanda: yath ratha sajt^yebhyo nyebhyo yuddhopakara ebhyo mahs tadvat 32 (a) Sya as comm on the Pa~ca-via-brhma a passage specified above reads: parav nma kacit. tat-

sabandhina prvat . This should be corrected to read parvan nma .... Cf. Vekaa-mdhava on 8.89/100.6: parvan-nmna kasyacit sva-bhtam. Sya a on the same verse: parvan-nmakasya kasyacic.chatro sva-bhta yad vasu dhanam asti ...The explanation will, nonetheless, be without any corroboration in the gvedic traditand will conflict with what Sya a says on several of the RV verses mentioned in note 30. But the conflict need nbe viewed as a serious problem, since the author designation "Sya a is probably a short form for the severalscholars who, under Sya as leadership or general editorship, tried to save the explications of the Veda in the tof the Vijaynagara empire. The scholar who commented on the Pa~ca-via-brhma a may not be the one whocommented on the RV, although he, too, was referred to as Sya a.

(b) As can be seen from (a) and note 30, the evidence in the Indian tradition for taking Prvata as a ptribe or clan name is slim. It consists of a comment each from Vekaa-mdhava and Sya a about one deed of Indra(making available to arabha some wealth that originally belonged to someone else). Even in the statement odeed it is not necessary that prvata be taken as a proper name. 'The wealth of a person living at a considerabldistance will fit the context equally well. Nor is it necessary that we should move from a single distant persorelations. Only in the comment on the Pa~ca-via-brhma a sabandhina is added as a plural. In the other twocomments, no need has been felt to go beyond the singular number. In view of these facts, the suggestiHillebrandt reported in Macdonell-&-Keith (p. I.518-519) that prvata is related to Paruetai or Paroutai of Ptolemy should not be preferred, although a connection of the Ptolemy terms with parvata ( Prvata 'mountainpeople) in Vedic vocabulary will still remain defensible.


22/73


23/73

SARASVAT DROWNED 23

all other waters. This distillation is in agreement with what we learn from the passages spein 3.1.b-f 34 and should suffice for our present purpose.

4.5 As is frequently the case with any ancient literature, we come across a few expressin the case of which we have to accept more than one meaning or uncertainty as the best pooutcome. According to my count, there are two expressions that fall into this categtri.adhasth in U6.61.12 andvak a ^ in 10.64.9. Fortunately, none of the plausible explanationsof all of these poses a serious challenge to our effort to reconstruct a picture of the S in theWhat they can reasonably be said to convey can be viewed as conveyed or easily implied bor more expressions in the references to S as a river studied above.

4.6 Thattri.adhasth is to be split astri andsadhasth , not astri.adha andstha (comingfrom rootsth ), is indicated by the Pada-pha of the RV as well as the AV. Bhtlingk-&-R(1889: VII.618) inform us thattri.adhastha as an adjective means 'an drei Stellen befindlich,

dreifachen Stand habend and is found in that sense in 1.47.4 with respect to barhis 'sacrgrass, in 1.156.5 with respect to Viu, in 4.50.1 with respect to Bhas-pati, in 5.4.8, 6.8.7 an6.12.2 with respect to Agni and in 8.83/94.5 with respect to Soma, and, as a neuter noun me'dreifacher Ort, in 5.11.2 and 10.61.14. What could be translations of the same meaninggiven by Macdonell (1924: 114) with 'being in three places and Suryakanta (1981: 326)'having a triple seat and 'threefold place.

As far as I could check, Monier-Williams does not deal with the compound stem beginwith tri. However, he (1899/1951: 1140) listssadhastha with the meaning 'standing together,present as occurring in the RV and AV and with the meaning 'place where people stogether, place of meeting, any place, spot, abode, home, region, world as occurring i

Vjasaneyi-sahit. The attestations mentioned here are given in a more specific and, theremore helpful way in Bhtlingk-&-Roth (1889: VII.618): "Stelle, Standort, Aufenthalt, HeiRaum ... hier vorhanden, anwesend: RV 3.12.8, AV 6.123.1-2; vgl. VS 18.59-60.

Support for what the modern lexicographers and translators have given as the meaning

34 (a) I am not sure if the MBh Supplementary Passage 8.2.74 (75cd)adhi hna mana cs^t parirathy sarasvat^ , in which alsorathy (ratha) occurs, should be connected with the RV passages discussed here.

(b) Witzel 2003: 114: "... the fact, known even to beginning Vedic students, that Vedicbhat does not normallymean 'big as in Epic/Classical Sanskrit ... but 'high just as in related words in Avestan and other IE langIn its context this remark (confirmed on p. 138) is preceded and followed by sentences which give the imprthat the researcher whom Witzel is criticizing at this point has no choice but to accept a translation like 'high, the wishes to be correct. However, 'high, tall is not the exclusive or invariable meaning of bhat even in VedicSanskrit as the entries in standard dictionaries show and is Witzels inclusion of the qualification "normimplies. However, "normally may be hyperbolic if the expressions withbhat recorded in the dictionaries are takeninto account in their entirety;bhat seems to have a basic sense such as 'expanding/expanded, taken to the next ofurther degree that is to be rendered with a word appropriate to the accompanying notion. So, all translations'high/higher (sky), 'taller (mountain), 'raised/sharper (pitch/accent) are possible, depending on the contetraditional commentators whom I have cited in this section should not, therefore, be faulted for their glossesuch words asvibhutva, pariv ha, adhika, mahattva andvist^r a. The cognates in other IE languages do not seem tolack this semantic elasticity either.


24/73

ASHOK AKLUJKAR 24

sadhastha and tri.adhastha can be read in the explanations offered by the traditionacommentators.

I have some difficulty in accepting the meanings assigned, especially in acceptingsadhastha as a signifier of a concrete object (place, home etc.). I think that Whitney (1905: 373), offered "associates (?) as a translation of sadhasth in Atharva-veda 6.123.1 was closer to theoriginal meaning of the word. Yet I will not suggest at this time that the meaning 'one who together in the three worlds who pervades the three worlds, which Skanda and Sya a assignto tri.adhasth in U6.61.12 should be set aside. The meaning fits more naturally to S, tdivinity, and the commentators do indicate that they are aware of the possibility of takingverse as applicable to the goddess S. However, 'one which has three stand-togethers, one whas three co-occurrents35 would be closer to the etymological meaning of tri.adhasth . It can beapplied to S, the goddess, in some such sense as 'one who has a presence on the Earth, inmid-region and in the celestial sphere (essentially the same meaning as the one given by Sand Sya a; also compare Gag as Tripathag) or 'one who has presence in the forms of IBhrat^ and (in a narrower or more specific sense) S. The same etymological meaning

applied to S as a river may refer to 'three confluences, 'three stages (source, descent thrhills, streaming on flat surface) of its course or 'three branches (in its lower course; seebelow).

4.7 In the case of vak a ^ (10.64.9), the difference in what the commentators and translatosay pertains to how the meanings they attribute to the word are to be derived, not to whetheword makes sense to them. Vekaa-mdhava and Sya a may be viewed either as leaving theword unexplained or as taking it as a synonym of "river, since they use onlynadya and im nadya at the point where one expects them to offer a gloss or paraphrase of vak a ^ . Theyprobably connected the word with rootvah, but we cannot be sure. Udg^tha, glossing with

vahantya is more helpful, but the word he has used can be understood as signifying eit'flowing or 'carrying, transporting. Bhtlingk-&-Roth (p. VI.616) explain with "etwa sterfrischend. Suryakanta (1981: 570) indicates that he takesvak a ^ as a feminine of vak a a attested in the sense 'strengthening, refreshing,

Date post:	03-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	srini-kalyanaraman
View:	217 times
Download:	0 times

Sarasvati drowned: rescuing her from scholarly whirlpools (Aklujkar,A.15 May 2012)

Documents