Kh instead of S in Yajur Veda

[Madhav M. Deshpande]

Just to be more specific, the change of .s to kh takes place in the
Maadhyandina trandition of the Zukla-Yajurveda, where the passage i.se tvaa
is recited as ikhe tvaa.  The Maadhyandinas are found mostly in north
India, their southernmost expansion reaching the region of northern
Maharashtra.  I think there is a likely regional/dialectal connection of
this pronunciation with northeastern regions, where in Prakrits/Pali one
often finds kh for Sanskrit .s, for instance lakkha.na for
lak.sa.na/lak.sma.na.  This mode of recitation in the Maadhyandina YV is
probably a relatively late development, as I see no reference to it either
in the Vaajasaneyi-Praatizaakhya or the Yaajnavalkya-zik.saa.  Best,


Madhav Deshpande

--On Sunday, February 24, 2002, 1:13 PM -0500 Madhav Deshpande
<mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:

> This happens in the Zukla Yajurveda recitation, where the RV line
> sahasraziir.sa.h puru.sa.h is pronounced as ...ziirkha.h purukha.h.  I am
> responding to this email away from home, and don't have access to my
> books, but if I remember correctly, the Zukla-YV Praatizaakhya deals with
> this feature.
>                               Madhav Deshpande
>
> On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, Dean Anderson wrote:
>
>> Madhav Deshpande mentions in "Genesis of Rgvedic Retroflexion..." that
>> some branches of Yajur Veda show 'kh' where the retroflex 's' is normally
>> expected. Where is this found? Is is associated with a particular Shakha
>> or geographical location? Are there any other aspects of the vedic
>> literature that show this?
>>
>> Dean Anderson, PhD
>>



***************************************************************
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
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