Gentoo studies

[Michael Witzel]

To answer all the suppositions, expressions of conviction, allegations and
ad hominem attacks of SR would take far more than Dominik's 2 screens (and
more time: I am leaving town) . Thus, here  just one example of how his
firmly rooted convictions mishandle the texts:

More on methods separately.

 19:18 -0500 5/28/99, Shrisha Rao wrote:

< <notion of apaurushheyatva ...>>

> ... there is a
>self-referential statement which calls itself `nitya' or eternal.  The
>complete statement is something like: `tasmai nUnamabhidyave vAchA virUpa
>nityayA; vR^ishhNe chodasva sushhTutim.h' (RV VIII.64-6),

First of all, this is RV 8.75.6. --  I do not know from what Rgveda version
Srisha Rao quotes.  Certainly not the Mandala and also not the Astaka
division. His own?

Second, nitya does not mean 'eternal' in the RV. Even a look into the
dictionaryu of Monier Williams would have shown him that.

Again, a case of over-confidence of  someone inside the tradition and/or a
speaker(?) of Sanskrit with regard to the meaning of the Vedas.  First
check your sources & grammar and dictionary!

Language changes. The "Silly Old Wives of Windsor" would be "hip middle
aged women" now.
I would not dare to read Shakespeare and sent emails about him without such
aids.

Third,  the whole stanza  is not self-referent, but poet Viruupa
(Vocative!) addresses himself and "his own" (nitya) speech/poetry here.
And urges it on, for 'the heavenly bull' (Agi).

For   ni-tya   "one's  own" see Mayrhofer's  Etym.Dict., (1986-) , with
pertinent notes (Celtic helps here, not Yaska.)  And again, incidentally,
K. Hoffmann (on sa-tya, ni-tya etc.)

SR goes non:
> more commonly
>referenced just as `vAchA virUpa nityayA', which has been cited to my
>certain knowledge by Anandagiri (comm. on Sureshvara's bR^ihadvArtika),
>Madhva (multiple occasions), and Sayana (multiple occasions; see first
>part of his RV comm. for instance).

These medieval commentators  ( I cannot check them at home), like SR,
simply seem to understand nitya in its later sense 'eternal' .  Wishful
thinking. -- QED.


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Michael Witzel                          Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies
Harvard University                  www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs
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