A bilingual RSi (RV X.106)

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Thanks to Sri. Vishal Agarwal, I came to know of

the latest reference of Kuiper about a Rsi in the

Rgveda.

 

Kuiper, F. B. J.; 2000; A bilingual Rsi (RV X.106); pp. 157-160

in Anusantatyai, ed. by Eva Tichy and Almut Hintze; J. H. Roll;

Germany.

 

The paper begins:

"Half a century ago, in An Austro-Asiatic myth in the in the Rigveda

(1950), attention was drawn to a curious Vedic myth of an archer god

who cleaves a mountain to win the odana. Although clearly of foreign

origin,it was grafted upon the Indra-VRtra myth and thus 'Aryanized'.

In the Rigveda there are no references to it in the family books

(II-VII), but they are, with one exception (I.61.7), confined to the

eigth maNDala. [...] The attempt to etymologize these words on the

basis of MuNDa was clearly mistaken and I withdraw it entirely. ...

There is no indication of an 'Austro-Asiatic' origin."

[...]

"Note 1: As for the retroflex N in KaNva, it does not prove that Old

MuNDa had a retroflex .n (left open as a possibility in 1967, see

Kuiper 1997, 86). Since Old Aryan at that time had both /n/ and /.n/

(a 'reduction' of the Old Dravidian tripartite system of dental,

alveolar and retroflex /n/), it could render a foreign non-dental n

by /.n/, as later happened in Greek loanwords, e.g. paNaphara -

'name of an astrological house' (= Gr. epanphora)."

 

Just glancing the paper, what strikes me is the very famous and oft

quoted family myth of Pandya Kings of Madurai (I heard Prof. Parpola

has just submitted a paper on MBh. Pandavas and Pandyas.).

For example, in MadurApuri Ambikai Maalai, (which I put it in the

Project Madurai website), a king of the Pandyas by name Kulashekara

Pandiyan proudly tells that he belongs to a family that hit the

mount Meru with a weapon called "ceNTu" - a type of boomerang archery.

Probably to obtain food for his people. Kulashekara says about

himself: "vaTakun2Raic ceNTAl aTittOn2". Often, Pandyas and VishNu

are compared in Devaraja concept (see F. Hardy for quotes from sangam

texts). I don't know whether all the data from Tamil texts have been

compared with the RV myth.

 

ceNTu is etymologically related with "kaNi" (axe), kaNai (arrow),

etc., Dr. Palaniappan wrote on kaNi, kulkarNi a while ago:

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9803&L=indology&P=R1433

8

 

(The editor breaks the line, To read the URL, one should

add 8 to the line starting with http).

 

valai 'net' gives birth to valaiyar/valaivar (fishermen) in sangam

texts using y and v as glides respectively. In similar lines, karai

'shore' gives birth to karaiyar, a tamil speaking caste and karava,

a sinhala speaking caste in Sri Lanka. So, easily tamil etymology

for kaNva is kaN- => kaNva (in tamil literature, kaNva rishi

is kaNuva munivar).

 

Odana is related with tamil word uL-('inside'), tamil uNA, uNavu

(food), UN ('meat') are related with uL- ('to put inside (stomach)').

oDa-(related with tamil uLa-/uNa-) is odana (Cf. yATu 'goat' > yAdava,

-na suffix as in tamil candu/cAndu > candana).

 

Any comment is appreciated.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan