Etymology of the words 'vedi' in ritual context

[George Thompson]

In a message dated 6/29/00 4:30:45 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
hbd at DDIT.ERNET.IN writes:

[snip]
>
>  Is not almost whole of RigVeda "esoteric" ?
>
[snip again]

>
>  WHat is the meaning of "fire"? and "oblations"? What does "grass" mean?
>  Do'nt you think INDOLOGISTs are making the same mistake as those who tried
> to
>  define the Botanical name for Somavalli and tried to search it out on face
> of
>  the Earth somewhere?

[snip snip snip]
>
>  (I read in a later posting by GT that he uses the name diirghatamasin, I
> really
>  liked that. But what is the etymology  and meaning of the word  *
> diirghatamas*)
>  Best wishes,
>  -- Himanshu

Dear Himanshu,

Perhaps we should resort to a division of labor.  Let us leave it to the
philologists and paNDitas to try to figure out what the RV says.  And we will
leave it to the philosophers and vipras to tell us what the RV means.

As for the name dIrghatamasin, it is not a name that I have presumptuosuly
chosen for myself.  No, it was, rather playfully, assigned to me by an
Iranist, after I had suggested that the Gathic hymns of Zarathustra might
well deserve comparison with the corpus of hymns attributed to dIrghatamas.
Both corpora are roughly the same size, and in my view roughly of the same
date, and not very far from each other geographically, too.  A RSi like
dIrghatamas is a good representative of the type of tradition that
Zarathustra was raised in, and eventually departed from.  This is a project
that I hope to return to and complete some day soon.

As for names, I am presently interested in the etymology of the second part
of yours.

Best wishes,

George