[INDOLOGY] Brahmin Priestesses

[Suresh Kolichala]

On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:10 PM, <palaniappa at aol.com> wrote:

>  2. *c**ā-/**c**ē**ma-**nt-i**> c**ē**mantī > t**ēvanti *
> One problem with this is that it cannot explain the variant Tēvantikai.
> The second problem is that *tēvanti* is not attested in any literary or
> colloquial usage. In Tamil, the only forms known are *cāmanti*, *civanti*,
> *cevanti*, and *cevvanti*.
>

 *sēvantika *is listed in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary as
well as in Turner's
CDIAL<http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.4:1:884.soas>.


Problems with *devavandhyā *are several: Haplology involving -v- in the
Dravidian languages usually results in an elongated vowel (as *dev**ā**ndhyā)
*or a double consonant as in  *dēva-vacaṉam* > *tēvvacaṉam *(தேவவசனம்).
Furthermore, *devavandhyā *doesn't explain the spelling variation of
*t**ēvantikai
*and *t**ā**vanti. *Most importantly, a barren woman of gods doesn't make
much sense semantically.

Regards,
Suresh.


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