Sindu river name

[N. Ganesan]

>Turner, CDIAL # 13415 mentions the Burushaski word but regards it as a loan
>into Burushaski. The Dardic languages generally have sin, si-n, si-nd, send
>for 'river'. Prof. Witzel, have you any comment?

On the clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia:
Prof. Witzel, Substrate languages in OIA, EJVS, 1999, p.24
"There are men with Melu.h.ha as a personal name, thus apparently
the Melu.h.han, several persons, among them Urkal and Ur-dlama
are called the 'son of Meluhha' [...] In total, there are some
40 "Indian" words transmitted to ancient Mesopotamia, some of which
may have been coined by Dilmun (Bahrain) traders. They include:
Sindh wood sinda (si-in-da-a, si-in-du), date palm,
the 'red dog of Meluhha', zaza cattle (zebu?), elephants etc.,
(cf. Landsberger, Die Welt des Orients, 3, 261, Possehl 1996a)"

The "Ur" in Urkal and Ur-dlama are interesting.

Are the si-in-du (compare ta. iindu = date palm)  and the date palm
one and the same? If true, sindu's meaning is the date tree
even during that hoary past!

River names with peNNA (ta. peNNai = palm tree) which later
are sanskritized as vENA/vENI have also been named on the pattern
like siindu (date palm) river. It is significant that
the Hindu deity for agriculture, balarAma/samkarSaNa holds a palm
tree (date palm?/palmyra?) and a goblet to drink palm toddy in
iconography/literature.

Regards,
N. Ganesan

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