Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-fmk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-06T01:34:17.402Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Indo-Aryan and Dravidian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Alfred Master
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A. A. Macdonell in his commentary on RV. IV. 50.5 (Vedic Reader for Students) remarks: “The exact meaning … does not clearly appear from its four occurrences; but it must have a sense closely allied to receptacle—in three passages it is spoken of as being rent or pierced, and twice is associated with Valá; and in the Naighaṇṭuka it is given as a synonym of megha cloud.” Grassmann (Wörterbuch) similarly translates as Behälter, Wolke. The four passages in which it occurs are I. 62.4, phaligam, Indra śakra, valaṃ raveṇa darayo, “Rend, O mighty Indra, the ph. cage with a crash”; I. 121.10, tam, adrivaḥ, phaligaṃ hetim asya, “At that ph., O thou of the thunderbolt, hurl thy missile”; IV. 50.5, sa … valaṃ ruroja phaligaṃ raveṇa, “He hath burst with a crash the ph. cage”; VIII. 32.35, ya udnaḥ phaligaṃ bhinan nyak sindhūṃr avāsṛjat, “Who split the ph. of the water and let the streams rush down.” Phaligam is here a valam, cave, prison or cage, but is not always used as such, otherwise there would be no need to complete its meaning by valam. It shares with the rock and the cloud the function of imprisoning the waters, but, unlike the twin aśman (cloud above and rock below), is not mentioned as a producer of fire. The cloud, like the rock, must be hard, so that the clash of the upper with the nether aśman may yield fire, and phaligam is probably hard also. It may be white, like the bright cloud or the snow-capped mountain, grey or even black, like the rain-charged cloud or the stark rock.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1944 , pp. 297 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1944

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 297 note 1 A paper on this subject was read at the International Congress of Orientalists in September, 1938, at Brussels. As it has not yet been published, it has been revised and a note added on sphaṭ and phal.

page 297 note 2 Darayo in view of dṛti “water-skin”, Gk. δέρω and δέρμα “skin”, Eng. “tear”, Ger. zerren “pull”, has a root-meaning of “pull apart, pull away”.

page 297 note 3 Nāyādhammakahā, ed. Steinthal.

page 297 note 4 Setubandha.

page 298 note 1 Vikramôrvaśīya.

page 298 note 2 Mṛcchakaṭika, Vararuci comm. Bhāmaha, Pāialacchī, Hemacandra, adhyāya VIII.

page 298 note 3 Waokernagel, , Altindische Grammatilk, IGoogle Scholar.

page 299 note 1 The grammarians' etymology, however, might well have been suggested by the bursting of the phaligám in the RV.

page 299 note 2 Grammar of the Sinhalese Language.

page 299 note 3 Persian palak, polk, pilk, pulk “eyelid” is therefore a loan-word, probably literary in origin. Palak or palakh (Guj., Mar.) is from *palākṣa “flashing eye” viâ *palakkha; cf. kaṬākṣa, kaḍakkha “side-long glance”, Guj., Mar. kaḍak “angry” (i.e. scowling, as if from kaḍu).

page 299 note 4 Firth, J. R., App. to Arden's Grammar of Common Tamill, p. ivGoogle Scholar, and Emeneau, M. B., JAOS., December, 1939, p. 505Google Scholar.

page 300 note 1 A. C. Woolner, Introduction to Prakrit.

page 301 note 1 Phalaka any flat surface (Śi., Kādambarī), buttocks (Apte).

page 301 note 2 Hittite has palhas, palhis “broad”, palhastis, palhatar “breadth” (E. H. Sturtevant, Hittite Glossary), which suggests IE. *palh “broad, level” with a floating h. The interpretation of Hittite, however, has not sufficiently advanced to permit any but the simplest of comparisons.

page 301 note 3 Perhaps pala-ayana “going like a flash”.

page 301 note 4 Following the commentator for dagdhāyāṃ of the text.

page 302 note 1 There is no IE. type for paṭa “cloth”, and the IA. words may be of Drav. origin. Drav. *-art-, which, itself secondary, gives different results in different languages, occurs in MKan., Tulu, Kui parti “cotton-fibre or plant”, O.Kan, paḸti, Tel. pratti. Kan. Pampa Bhārata (A.D. 941) has paḸi “raiment”. Tam, parutti is a l.w. from parti, the inherited word being pañci (Nālaṭi). Tam. pañcu “cloth, cotton fibre”/ (*paḸ-cu > *paṉ-cu). Parti > paṭṭa in Pk. is regular, but it is not known how paḸtu would be reproduced in Sk. Sk. amṛta becomes Tam. amiḸtu (Kuṟaḷ, Nālaṭi), Kan. amardu. Here Sk. ṛ > iḸ, and similarly aḸ might be considered as ṛ before a consonant. Cf. ? Tam. puḸuti “dried earth” and Sk. pṛthvī. Tam., Kan., Tel. puṭavi, poḍavi, puḍami “earth” (poṭi, puḍi, poḍi “dry earth, dust”, being possible contaminators) are loan-words from Pk. puḍhavī, or, alternatively, southern or Drav. Pk. = northern puhavī.

page 303 note 1 Cf. PG., 303, 304.

page 304 note 1 Apte's comparison of Lat. opedus with upala is illusory. In RV. the meaning is “millstone”.

page 304 note 2 Hultzsch translates: die Lampen ausgelöscht “extinguished the lamps”, deriving niśāmya from śam “quench”. The difference in meanings is here unimportant.

page 305 note 1 M. R. Kale, p. 69.

page 305 note 2 IP., p. 102.

page 306 note 1 The inscription of the Ganga king Durvinīta, c. A.D. 500, has both names (MAR, 1916 p. 36).

page 306 note 2 B for initial v is found in the earliest Kanarese: bāḸ “sword”, in the Halmidi inscription, c. A.D. 470.