Vai.s.navaantara"suudraa.h and the like

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

The word -antara meaning 'others' in a compound usually refers to 
variants, extras etc. One has to check if a supplementary list is 
concerned where it will be appropriate to term the new entries as such. Will you check if any list of ;Suudras of the Vai.s.nava-, ;Saiva- etc. varieties has already been mentioned? I shall check the Kaa;syapa-Sa.mhitaa itself.  Perhaps, you too can yourself do that. But i will.
Best
DB

--- On Mon, 7/3/11, Lubin, Tim <lubint at WLU.EDU> wrote:

From: Lubin, Tim <lubint at WLU.EDU>
Subject: [INDOLOGY] Vai.s.navaantara"suudraa.h and the like
To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Date: Monday, 7 March, 2011, 3:21 PM

Dear all,

Reading the (unpublished) Kaa"syapottarasa.mhitaa (adhyaaya 18), I have been puzzling over the precise implications of some categories of "Suudra described therein, categories including the suffix -antara, as follows (in descending rank order):
Vai.s.nava vs. Vai.s.navaantara,
"Saiva vs. "Saivaantara,
Saamaanya vs. Saamaanyaantara,
Sa.mkara vs. Sa.mkaraantara.

An initial round of searches has not yielded any parallels that would suggest what distinguishes, e.g., a 'Vai.s.navaantara"suudra' from a 'Vai.s.nava"suudra'.  The text itself is not really explicit, except to suggest that the Vai.s.navaantara is a lower status.  In this case, the lower status may be implicitly attributable to association with "Saivas (despite having received the sa.mskaaras taught in the Puraa.nas and Paa~ncaraatra "saastras, noted in the preceding stanza): "saivaagamoktasa.mskaarisambandha.m samavaapya ca | svaya.m ced vai.s.navas ti.s.thed vai.s.navaantara iirita.h || 

Have others encountered similar status-titles in other works?  Does 'X-antara' simply imply 'a lesser' or 'not quite an' X?

Tim Lubin