vratam, pratisru, sap vacanam

[Guest guest]

Dear list, it seems to me that in the Mahabharata at least, words like

vratam, pratisru, sap, and various vac and vad words meaning more or

less to declare or state, are used unsystematically, and that often

acts that are in nature similar or identical are described

indiscriminately with one or the other of these words. I was expecting

to find a statistical analysis of, say, the use of vratam, in

Brockington's Brill epic book, but I find that he takes the meaning of

vratam for granted and does not compare its use with that of these

other words. Apte's dictionary does not make such distinctions any

clearer to me. Why is vratam used to describe Bhisma's renunciation,

but not Bhima's promise to break Duryodhana's thighs and drink

Duhsasana's blood? The latter is often called a vow, in english

literature on the Mahabharata. I was expecting to find, in

dictionaries or works like Brockington's, that the difference would be

found in an essential negativity, a significance of renunciation, in

the word vratam, but the dictionaries do not say so, and certainly

vratams are positive as well as negative. So I suppose my confusion

may not be due to an unsystematic use of the english word vow to

describe vratams and similar but not identical acts? Is the vagueness

in the sanskrit itself? Do Indians think of Bhima's promise as a

vratam, even though I have not found this very word in the vulgate text

of the Sabhaparvan?

 

I am told that there is not much scholarship on

distinctions between types of statements and claims about futurity,

prophecies, promises, vows, declarations, and so on. What studies do

exist, preferably on usage in the epics, but anything would be a good

beginning, if there's anything to begin with.

 

Many thanks.

 

Phillip

Ernest