Black skin in RV (was: Black as Evil)

[Vanbakkam Vijayaraghavan]

On Mon, 4 Dec 2000 14:41:01 +0000, N. Ganesan <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM>
wrote:

>NG>With "kRSNa tvac"(=black skin) in RV 1.130.8 and 6.40.1
>NG>and .
>
>Vanbakkam Vijayaraghavan gives a *new* reading of RV:
>>Vac refers to speech and not skin. Hence it means bad speech than  bad
>>skin.
>
>This simply is not correct. The Rgveda has "black skin" (kRSNa tvac)
>in the mentioned location.
>
>Online Sanskrit Lexicon:
>tvac
>Meaning
>2 f. skin (of men , serpents &c.) , hide (of goats , cows &c.)
>RV. &c.  (%{kRSNA4}) , the black man "' , i , 130 , 8) ; a cow's
>hide (used  in pressing out the Soma) , i , iii ,   ix VS. xix , 82;
>a leather  bag RV. v , 33 , 7 ;  etc.
>
>Regards,
>N. Ganesan

RV has come from oral traditions to written traditions to translations
traditions to interpretation tradition. What we know, or rather what we
claim to know, is a complex picture with  a chain of events from the
original rendition to final interpretation. Hence one cannot claim
unambiguous and authoritative understanding, especially writing in English