Fwd: [INDOLOGY] taxonomy question

[George Thompson]

Dear List,

Two days ago I sent this forwarded note to the list -- so I intended
-- but instead it was sent only to Artur.  Maybe it will be of some
small interest to others on the list, even though now it is quite
late.

Also, I would now add some words on another interesting aspect to this
taxonomy question: in Vedic we have a basic distinction between
domestic animals [pazus] and wild animals [mRgas]. Think of
Levi-Strauss [and I think that you really should].  But even more
interesting is the Vedic doctrine of the five canonical sacrificial
victims [i.e., domestic animals].  They are listed here
hierarchically, from the least potent sacrifice to the most potent:

5. sheep
4. goat
3. cattle
2. horse
1. human

I have presented a couple of papers on this hierarchy of sacrificial
victims in Vedic, but I haven't published anything yet.  I plan to
discuss this more fully in a forthcoming anthology of translations
from the Rgveda, which will include much of my most recent work on the
RV.  Regarding this sacrificial hierarchy, I will discuss the logic of
sacrifice in Vedic, the principle of substitution in Vedic [involving
two sorts of substitutions: substituting upward and substituting
downward].  I think that sacrificial substitution in Vedic implies
that substitution equals identity.  In other words, I have a new take
on the system of Vedic bandhus.  Note that sacrificing wild animals is
common in Vedic, but that sacrificing domestic animals is far more
powerful, as far as the Vedic clans and their gods are concerned.

Sacrificing domestic animals to the gods is much more powerful than
sacrificing wild animals to them.  Why?  Because we have invested so
much of ourselves in them than we have in the wild animal that we were
lucky to have taken down in a hunt.

I think that this work that I have been doing for years may eventually
help us to better understand Vedic metaphors [i.e., bandhus] in
general.

Note this: the human being in Vedic, while certainly the most valued
of all domestic ainmals, is still just a domestic animal.

I don't know about the rest of you, but for me this Vedic view rings true.

George Thompson
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: George Thompson <gthomgt at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 2:26 PM
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] taxonomy question
To: Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl>


The trope "both two-footeds and four footeds" is very old in Vedic.
It is frequent in the RV, mostly in this order [bipeds first], but the
opposite order is not uncommon.  This is a very ancient Indo-European
trope found in many Indo-European languages.  As far as I can tell,
from a quick glance at the literature, there is no clear preference in
Indo-European for one order over the other.  In Avestan and Latin
examples of the formulaic idea "two-footeds and four-footeds," the
more common order has the quadrupeds before the bipeds.

This is confirmed also in Avestan and Latin where we find the variant
expression pasu-viira [a dvandva compound] in Avestan, and pecudesque
virosque in Ovid.

There is an extensive literature on this "merism" [see Calvert
Watkins, *How to Kill a Dragon* and the earlier literature cited by
him].  I don't think that the word order is significant [maybe just
metrical, but I haven't been able to look at the meters].

Hope this helps [family health issues prevent me from being more
thorough right now].

George

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 6:51 AM, Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl> wrote:
>>> Girnar Rock Edict II: PaMthesU kUpA ca khAnApita, vrachA ca ropApitA paribhogAya pasu-manusAnaM.
>
>
>
>>> E. Hultzsch (1925, p. 4): "On the roads wells were caused to be dug , and trees were caused to be planted for the use of cattle and men."
>
>
>
>>> Jules Bloch (1950, p. 95) reverses the order, for him men must go first : "[...] à l'usage des hommes et des bêtes".
>
>
>> Is the order of the compound in the original based on any sort of priority, or merely on style, the presumption that in a dvandva longer words should come after shorter?
>
>
> Dear Allen,
>
> I do not feel competent enough to reasonably comment
> on your comment re word order in dvandva compounds. But would gladly
> learn from the panditas on the List.
>
> Artur
>