Dasa

[Madhav M. Deshpande]

Also in premodern times, right back into Vedic times, we have names with
Daasa referring to Brahmins.  One example is that of the Vedic expert
Pratardana.h Daivodaasi.h referred to in Zaa.mkhaayana Braahma.na (26.5),
the son of Devadaasa, a Brahmin who raises important questions regarding
sacrificial details.  So I would not take the prescriptive statements cited
by Apte too seriously.  Best,


Madhav

--On Tuesday, October 30, 2001, 8:47 AM -0800 George Hart
<ghart at SOCRATES.BERKELEY.EDU> wrote:

> Of course, in modern India, the suffix -daasa does not denote a
> Sudra.  But in premodern India, according to Apte and others, -daasa
> was a suffix meant for Sudras much as -sarma was (and is) for
> Brahmins and -varma for Ksatriyas.  So the question I'd ask Maadhav
> (who knows much more Sanskrit than I do) is: are there any known
> Brahmin names from before the 5th century AD that end in -daasa?  Of
> course, one could suppose that Kaalidaasa was not the poet's original
> name and that he took it as a sort of poetic name because of his love
> for the Goddess.  Still, it would be interesting to find parallels.
> I admit that, given the milieu of the Gupta court and its patronage
> of Brahmanical Hinduism, it is a distinct possibility that Kaalidaasa
> was a Brahmin.  GH.
> --



***************************************************************
Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor of Sanskrit and Linguistics
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
3070 Frieze Building
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1285, USA
***************************************************************