Etymology of kSatriya

DR.S.KALYANARAMAN MDSAAA48 at giasmd01.vsnl.net.in
Thu Oct 12 07:23:42 UTC 1995



On Wed, 11 Oct 1995, L.S.Cousins wrote:

For> example many Sanskrit words were created on the basis of mistaken
> backformations from Prakrit. In some cases the correct Sanskrit form was
> not recognized; in others the Prakrit form did not derive from
> Indo-European at all, but from languages of other  groups, some of which
> are probably no longer extant.

Isn't Sanskrit but the refinement of prakrt? The many phonetic peculiarities
of thousands of head-words (for e.g. recorded in Turner's magnum opus) 
recorded in the so-called indo-aryan tongues attest to this. 

Cousin's point is well made. Lexemes have to be accepted not with a grain
bt a bag of salt. Take the attempts at the translation of the Rgveda; aren't
many words explained based on prakrt forms (apart from contextual, 
sentence-based, internal consistency tests etc.)?

Dr. S. Kalyanaraman
 






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