kuyava in RV

[Arlo Griffiths]

A small addition to what Jan just said on kuyava: the Vaajasaneyi SaMhitaa
yajuS to which he refers occurs in the MS (2,11,4), KS (18,9), KapKS
(28,9) and TS (4,7,4,2) and the KANva recension (VSK 19,4,4) as well, and
with a variantin the TS the relevance of which I cannot judge: kUyavAs

Note also that a list of grains and other foodcrops (in fact one of the
longest ones I know of) follows in the same yajuS, and that the different
versions play around both with the order of the grains, and with that of
of the items akSiti and ku/Uyava/As.
        As to the fact that we would like to read akuyava: 'me' precedes
the word so abhinihita sandhi seems possible, also in biew of the
proximity of 'kSiti (WITH abhinihita sandhi). Mittwede ("Textkritische
Bemerkungen zur MaitrAyaNI SaMhitA") does not discuss this option,
however.

Arlo Griffiths





On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Jan E.M. Houben wrote:

> Am I right that so far no-one has reacted to:
>
> Date:    Sun, 4 Jan 1998 15:57:33 EST
> From:    Palaniappa <Palaniappa at AOL.COM>
> Subject: kuyava in RV
>
> I am intrigued by the following RV lines (Source: the Vedavid Web site), in
> which an enemy of Vedic Aryans is called "kuyava". . . . (ref. to RV 1.103.8,
> 1.104.3 etc.) . . . Does anybody know of any
> discussions related to "kuyava" in RV? This is interesting because "kuyavan" in
> Tamil means "potter".
>
> Some basic discussions can be found in Grassmann's Dict. and in Geldner's
> transl. Ku'yava occurs in VaajSamhitaa 18.10 where it must mean something
> related to food, acc. to Grassmann "bad harvest" [one would like to read a-ku-
> yavam in the series of desirable things enumerated at this place]. In the RV
> Grassm considers the word to be either an epitheton or a name of a demon
> bringing bad harvest. Geldner on 1.103.8 suggests the word is an abbreviation
> of ku'ya-vaac (which occurs RV 1.174.4), hence meaning "speaking
> unintelligbly". So far no reason to assume the meaning "potter" for this word
> in the RV (and VS), which does not resist an "intra-Vedic" etymology. Nor do I
> see a contextual justification for the assumption that the meaning "potter"
> played a (secondary) role in the language of the Vedic authors.
>
> Best wishes, JH
>