chAndogya upaniSad 1.1.8 and 8.3.5

[Vidyasankar Sundaresan]

On Thu, 2 Oct 1997, DEVARAKONDA VENKATA NARAYANA SARMA wrote:

[..]

>
>         "tAni ha vA EtAni trINyakSarANi satIyamiti...."
>
> Sankara comments
>
>         "...trINyEtani satIyamiti sakArastakArO yamiticha. IkArastakAra uchchA-
> raNArthO~nubandhah. hrasvEnaivAkSarENa punah pratinirdEzAt."
>
> I am not able to locate the form sattiyam. Can you
> please be more specific about the location.
>

The form sa(t)tiyam is not denied by the commentary - The i-sound is an
anubandha for pronouncing (uccAraNArtham) the t-sound. If you take into
account that the vedic tradition puts great store by oral transmission,
this is significant. Another important instance where an i-sound needs to
be added is in the famous gAyatrI mantra - tat savitur vareN(i)yam. You
cannot count 8 syllables in this line without the i-kAra.

As for Palaniappa's question, it is important to remember that the
language of the upanishads, especially chAndogya and brhadAraNyaka, is
much older than classical Sanskrit. It is not bound by Paninian rules.
Compared to the vedas and these upanishads, classical Sanskrit is a much
more recent development. Secondly, the upanishads give a number of
supposedly etymological explanations, which are really designed to teach a
philosophical/doctrinal lesson. In this example of sat-ti-yam, the goal is
to talk of the mortal and the immortal. The mUrta-amUrta brAhmaNa of the
brhadAraNyaka gives another explanation for the word satya, in terms of
sat and tyad, without introducing the i-kAra. Elsewhere, the same
upanishad does introduce the i-kAra. So, analyzing such upanishadic
constructions in terms of the later forms in Sanskrit and Prakrit may not
be very sound, either chronologically or philologically.

Vidyasankar