Cerebral L in Rg Veda

[Harry Spier]

Dear list members,

Maurice Bloomfield in his concordance (both the on-line version and the
printed edition) does not change intervocalic cerebral D for cerebral L for
RV.1.1.1a (or for any other RV occurances of "agnim IDe..." ).  He has
"agnim IDe purohitam" for RV.1.1.1a . He does have the variation "agnim Ile
purohitam" for zAGkhAyana zrauta sUtra and for zAGkhAyana gRhya sUtra .  But
for this variation he uses "Ile" and not "ILe". MacDonell in his Vedic
Grammar section 52 d.(and at the end of section 11 in chapter one of his
Vedic Grammar for Students.) notes the variation "ile" (semivowel l) for
"iDe" (palatal d) but gives it for the Kanva rescension of the VS .

The exact entry in Bloomfield is: (I'm using "Sh" for the palatal sibilant)

agnim IDe (ShSh.ShG. Ile) purohitam # RV.1.1.1a; ArS.3.4a;
TS.4.3.13.3a; MS.4.10.5a: 155.1; KS.2.14a; GB.1.1.29a;
ASh.2.1.26; ShSh.6.4.1; 14.52.1; AG.3.5.6; ShG.4.5.7; N.7.15a.

Why would Bloomfield not give the reading "agnim iLe purohitam" for
RV.1.1.1a.  Would this have anything to do with the issues Madhav Deshpande
mentions in his "Rg Vedic Retroflexion" section 3.1 about the RV change of
intervocalic D to L ?

Also A.A. MacDonell in his Vedic Reader for Students for the next verse
RV.1.1.2 gives the following readings (both for the samhita text).

In devanagari:      agniH pUrvebhirRSibhir IDyo nUtanairuta
In transliteration: agniH pUrvebhir RSibhir ILio nUtanairuta

I.e. in the devanagari text he has "Idyo" but in the transliterated text he
changes vowel-D-semivowel for vowel-L-vowel.  In his notes for the verse he
says "IDyas: to be read as ILias".  Does he mean that the verse is chanted
with "ILio" and not "IDyo"?  This is confusing because in his "Vedic Grammar
I.3 footnote 5 he says "... ILe (but IDya)" . Nor does this agree with the
HOS metrically restored RV which has "IDio nUtanair uta" not "ILio nUtanair
uta".

Many thanks,


Harry Spier
371 Brickman Rd.
Hurleyville, New York
USA 12747

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