Cakra-varti Rajah

[Gunthard Mueller]

Dear Dr Iyer,
afraid I have to disagree with you on your etymology of Indo-European
*kwe-kwl-o- (unfortunately no way yet to represent the correct IE
transliteration characters on an HTML list).
This word is documented in many Indo-European branches far away
from Mesopotamia. It is generally considered to be of Indo-European
origin, formed according to a well-known IE system of Ablaut and
reduplication. The linguistic and areal spread of the word makes the
IE origins of this word the simplest model, and therefore by ar the most
acceptable one.
Further, the use of the wheel, just like other features such as the use
of horses for human purposes, are cultural features that suit the
reconstructed nomadic origins of early Indo-European cultures very
well. This, coupled with the documented spread of artwork including
wheels and wheel-like abstractions seem to bolster the Indo-European
reconstruction of this word.

Your link with Sumerian gilgul is fascinating, though, because there
may well be a link there, i.e. Sumerian taking over this word in an
early stage of contact with Indo-European nomads. I wonder if some
comments can be elicited from Sumerian and IE linguists?

Yours,
Gunthard Mueller

gm at e-ternals.com

Venkatraman Iyer wrote:

> In the Monier-Williams dictionary, Caturvarti is not present.
>
> Wheel is gilgul in Sumerian > IE *kwe-kwl-o is said
> to be related to Vedic cakra. Aryans have also borrowed
> the term cakra that ultimately goes back to Mesopotamia.
>
> Indian use of chakravartin is very late compared to
> Naram-Sin. See the Jaggayapeta stupa panel of the
> Cakravarti Rajah at Govt. Museum, Chennai which
> is usually dated to First century BC. Published,
> for example, Roy C. Craven, Indian art, Thames
> & Hudson, p. 76.
>
> Best wishes.
>
> ------------------
> Mr. Narayan Joshi wrote:
>
> Naram-Sin(2291-2255 BCE) in his reign chose the path of war and, at
> least for a while, was rewarded by success. To the title of 'King of
> Agade', he could proudly add those of 'King of the four regions(of
> the World)'(shar kibrat 'arbem) and 'King of Universe' (shar
> kishshati). Here the word 'shar' means a king. Is not this title
> similar to the title of the ancient Indian kings, namely Cakra-varti
> Rajah or Catur(four)-varti Rajah? It appears that kibret means four
> (Catur)and kishshati means Universe (Cakra-varti). [snip] Now the
> Indian title Cakra-varti cannot be Dravidian because to the best of
> my knowledge sound combination like 'Cr' as in Cakra does not
> appear in Dravidian. So it appears that the title Cakra-varti was
> brought to India by Aryans. In that case Dravidians who knew
> Middle-east countries did not learn anything. It appears that they
> simply were faceless traders without any kings or titles like
> Cakra-varti Rajah. Could there be any explanation different from
> this? Thanks.
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