Saraswati: Atomic (Dr. Wujastyk)

[Michael Witzel]

Another classic by web-meister V.Agarwal who decrees:

>Advaita Vedanta
>which is the most important school of Indian philosophy,

well? Looks like a "construction of western Indologists" to me...  and,
ahem, who decides?

> Time constraints forbid me from
>showing similar follies in the articles of Herr Witzel, who discovered that
>the word 'sukha' meant axle holes.

Nope, not poor me, but virtually everybody,
ever since those two great agents of imperialism,  Boethtlingk/Roth, of the
great kingdoms of Saxony and Wuerttemberg respectively, who stole all
available Sanskrit words and  put them in their great  Petersburger
Woerterbuch (*)  = translated by  the Oxfordian M. Monier Williams, and
still repeated in the Vienna prof., M. Mayerhofer's etym. Dict.s.

I suggest Agarwal-Sahib read the Rgveda on su-kha (**) before talking about
follies.

However, his own predilection is for  duH-kha  "characterized by a foul
mouth",  from kha 'hole ' as someone suggested here, as is evident from his
constant lack of net etiquette, even in this very mssg.:

>Let me stop this email here lest Dr. Witzel says with his foul-mukha that I
>am indulging  hate-mongering

Well? ? ?

Just check 'foul' in the archives, you will discover its author.
Guess who who just wrote: "[HH Hock's writing] "is also a clear slander of
the Teacher. " (Sankara, with capital T as in Truth) ... ... Talking about
psychology, as Great Rishi Banerjee does so well...

And, finally, who cares whether Agarwal-Hazuur et alii  *like*  our
interpretations of texts or not? Our work is not a popularity contest.
There is, after all, the good old proverb: "Was kuemmert es den Mond, wenn
ihn der Hund anbellt?"

Ceterum censeo:

ye vaa bhadraM duuSayanti ...

========

* B-R. in PW (I translate for Kazi VA's benefit) :
"in the old language only (said) of the chariot, which has well-bored naves
(kha 'nave hole'), thus especially 'running well' (cf. eutrokhos in Homer),
RV 1.20.3"  etc. etc. etc.

**     NB: su-kha, always used of chariots in RV, plus cf. sukha-ratha!,
cf. these epithets of chariots:  su-cakra; su-ratha, su-razmi,  su-dhur(a);
 and for similar compounds: su-kratu, su-ksatra, su-ksiti,  su-gabhasti,
su-gava, su-gu,  su-caksus, su-jihva etc. etc. etc.

so,  su=-kha "having beautifully mouthed chariots", duH-kha 'having
foul-mouthed chariots' ???
------------------

Michael Witzel
Department of Sanskrit & Indian Studies, Harvard University
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge MA 02138

ph. 617-496 2990 (also messages)
home page:     www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm

Elect. Journ. of Vedic Studies:         www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs