Gentoo studies (another blooper)

[Michael Witzel]

SR has another mistake:

>difficulty of ... the understanding of the RV has been noted in the RV
>itself; Sayana cites
>`ko addhA veda ka iha pravochad devAM achchhA patyA kA sameti' (somewhere
>in maNDala X, I believe; I can get the exact reference if you're
>interested)

It is RV 10. 129.6, but  only for :   ko addhA veda ka iha pravochad; --
the whole quotation is in  RV 3.54.5 -- (NB: where did the poet of 10.129
get his line from? From the earlier poet of 3.54...)


(and patyA  is wrong for pathyA)
(achcha is wrong: RV consistently only has ONE consonant here)


> which is commented upon by him as `kaH vA addhA satyabhUtaM
>tAdR^ishamarthaM veda vetti?  kaH vA iha asmin.h praj~nAtamarthaM pra
>vochat.h pra bravIti?  kiM tattaduchyate?', etc.

Again wrong.  The 10.129  stanza deals with the origin of the world/gods,
not with the difficulty to understand the RV .

The hymn 3.54, addressed to the All-Gods,  deals with the secret path to
the gods,  not with the understanding of the RV text/ RV type speech.

Any reader of the two hymns will see that.

One cannot quote, like any Sunday preacher, isolated sentences from
"scripture" (and always untranslated!!  - which interpretation does SR
actually mean??? He needs to show us in English)  to make one's point.
Just as in the present example, context is VERY important.

If someone gets his basic facts wrong like this (see above exx., just as in
the  nitya case !) why should we believe him ?


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