beef eating in RV 8.43.11

[thompson at jlc.net]

>At 23:51 +0000 2/13/97, George Thompson wrote:
>>
>>Do you interpret these differently?
>>
>
>I saw the bahuvrihis there. I just wondered, for precision, whether there
>could be an alternative reading or that was the only one.
>Someone could also say that old, barren cows are cremated, for example.
>Regards,
>Beatrice

Beatrice,

There are three problems with saying this:

1. there are also [virile, young] bulls

2.  vaZA' cows are strictly "non-pregnant" rather than "old, barren" [cf.
Falk, Jamison]

3.  both are explicitly "food"

So, I take the passage to be a little ambiguous [i.e., metaphorical],
admittedly, but about "beef-eating" in some sense.

George