potters, brahmins, and RSis (contd.)

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

In a message dated 97-10-02 02:40:41 EDT, thillaud at UNICE.FR writes:

<< But backed bricks are too common if you have a lot
 of wood and workers. That can't be a proof. Informations on similar shapes
 would be better. >>
F. Staal in his description of Agnicayana ritual cites Converse (1974) as
saying,"The bricks of the Harappa civilization in its mature phase were
beautifully made, well fired, and standardized in size. The basic size for
the bricks was 11 1/2 inches long, 5 3/4 inches wide, and two or three inches
thick. There were also double bricks 11 inches square, and special bricks for
well copings, drain covers, corners, etc.
       Now in the whole of the Rg-Veda there is no word for brick, nor any
descriptive phrase for bricks.....Thus, in the BrAhmaNas, when references to
bricks begin to appear, their use is confined to one specialized rite, and
the rite itself is found only in the Yajurveda tradition......
       The size of the bricks to be used in the rite was one foot square, and
half-bricks were also to be used (ZB vii, 5,3,viii,7,2,17). This size ans
shape corresponds very closely to that of the Harappa bricks described
above..."

There seems to be several problems for deriving an IE etymology for "aGgiras"
. Considering that "agni" is frequently called "aGgiras" and first "aGgiras",
I wonder why nobody looked to see if Classical Tamil could help in this
regard. In CT texts, there are two instances when "agni" is referred to by
the word-form "aGgi" (paTTin2ppAlai 54, and paripATal 11.7). (In fact, this
form "aGgi" can be seen in later texts also. Here there is an alternation
much like nuclear vs. nukelar or ask vs. aks in American English.  n before g
in Tamil becomes a homorganic nasal.)Thus aGgiras could be related to a
Dravidian group borrowing "agni" to give themselves an Aryan name, in that
process altering it to aGgi. Then the name could have been re-Sanskritized to
aGgiras.

While I do not know what processes could takeplace in this
re-Sanskritization, out of curiosity I applied what we saw in the change from
"agni" > "aGgi" to a possible suffix that might have been added to "agni"
when it was first borrowed to create a name for this group of people in
Dravidian.

agni+ ar > agni+y+ar  ,
where y is a glide and ar is a suffix denoting people, meaning people of agni

agniyar > agnisar
( intervocalically y alternates with "c" pronounced as "s" in Tamil. For
instance, the form "kuyavar" (potter) alternates with "kucavar" pronounced as
"kusavar")

agnisar > aGgisar (based on agni > aGgi)

If the second part of the word "sar" undergoes a similar process, we get

aGgisar > aGgiras

This is interesting. Is it  not? I am not a subsriber to the theory of
deliberate inversion in Dravidian. But we know that the exigencies of trying
to get themselves elevated in the Aryan/brahminical hierarchical social
structure has led many groups in India to concoct for themselves far more
etymologically fanciful names and histories. So who knows if this could not
have happened even in the pre-historic times?

Regards

S. Palaniappan