bhakti- etc

Yaroslav V. Vassilkov yavass at YV1041.SPB.EDU
Sat Apr 10 07:33:43 UTC 1999


>From yavass Sat Apr 10 11:11:00 MSD 1999
Dear colleagues,
        at last I have an opportunity to express my belated but heartfelt
thanks to Ferenz Ruzsa, Harry Spier, K.S.Arjunwadkar, C.R.Selvakumar,
Christian Lee Novetzke, Naseem Hines, N.Ganesan and Luis Gonzales-Reimann
(who addressed me privately) - for useful information and comments on
the historical semantics of *bhaga*, *bhagavat*, *bhakti* and *bhakta*.
        N.Ganesan (30 Mar) asks: "Does Bhaga have cognates with Old Iranian
and/or IE"?
        There are many cognates of *bhaga* in Iranian languages:
avest. bag- 'to be fixed as a share', bahsh 'to take as a share', 'to taste',
'to partake', 'to eat' (cf. Skt. bhakS-), avest. bahta- 'recieved as a share',
'lot', 'happiness' and also "god as giver of a share/lot/destiny"; avest. baga-
n. 'lot, share', m. 'god'; New Persian bag- 'god'. The element representing
the form *bahta- has been found in some Scythian names from North Pontic
Steppes. Russian and even common Pra-Slavic *bog "(happy) lot", "share",
"destiny", "god", "God" - is most probably a loanword from an Iranian
(*Indo-Iranian?) source (formally and semantically it is the closest parallel
to Skt bhaga/Bhaga and Av. baga-). The same word, but in its Indo-Iranian
form *bhaga-s, was borrowed by the Volga Finns (Mordovian-Erzja *paz*, *pas*
'god' Mordovian-Moksha *pavas* 'god', 'good luck', 'happiness').
        Contrary to the opinion of many linguists who think the Old Russian
term *bogatyr* "rich man; lucky man; the epic hero" is of Turco-Mongolian
origin, I suppose it is an Old Russian word meaning "one whose share is great"
(*bog* - "share, lot" - *-at* - a suffix, cf. *bogat*, *bogaty* "rich, lucky"
+ *yr'* - another suffix)  which provides the closest parallel both to
Skt *bhagavat* and Skt Epic *mahAbhAga- 'one whose share is great'.
        By the way, some of the "Mitanni names" contain the element *bhag-*:
*Bagarriti*, *Bagbartu*.
        Possibly relevant are Kafiri theonym *Bagisht* and Dardic (Kalash)
*Bagorai* (<Bhaga-rAjA?).
        A lot can be said on the subject. To sum up: *bhaga- 'lot, share'
and 'god as dispenser of the shares' - is surely a word of Indo-Iranian
origin. As for IE, there is the verb *bhag- "to eat, consume, devour; to
divide, to fix as a share; to take/eat as a share; to partake" - whose
sphere of meaning reveals probably its connection with the institution of
the "sacred feast".
        But at the same time I think that the interrelation of Skt *bhaga*,
*bhagavat*, *bhakti* and Tamil *paku*, *vaku*, *pakavan*, *patti* (see
contributions by C.R.Selvakumar and N.Ganesan) forms an
interesting problem and deserves investigation.
        Best regards,

                                                Yaroslav Vassilkov
______________________________

Yaroslav V.Vassilkov, Ph.D.
Department of South and SE Asian Studies
Institute of Oriental Studies
Dvortsovaya nab., 18,
St Petersburg, 191186,
Russia

Home address: Fontanka, 2,
kv. 617, St Petersburg,
191187, Russia
tel. +7 (812) 275 8179
e-mail: yavass at YV1041.spb.edu
        vassilkov at hotmail.com





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