Re: [INDOLOGY] Patañjali's syntax

Wed Oct 30 19:40:49 UTC 2013

Dear Adriano,

However one wishes to explain yad here, this basic sentence structure -- [predicate noun/adj] [+/- ha/hi] [+/- vai] [demonstative pronoun as subject] yad [noun] is ubiquitous in Brāhmaṇa prose.  Just try a mechanical search of Vedic prose and you get many hits.  The meaning is pretty clear.  For what it is worth, Hans's explanation seems best to me.  Clearly all these yads cannot be glossed with yasmāt!

from KS:
utsannayajño vā eṣa yad agniḥ
devaratho vā eṣa yad yajñas
samṛtayajño vā eṣa yad darṣapūrṇamāsau   << note that eṣa agrees with yajñaḥ perhaps by attraction

TS:
mahān hy eṣa yad agnis  2.5.9.1
viprā hy ete yac chuśruvāṃsaḥ  2.5.9.2
purīṣāyatano vā eṣa yad agnis  5.1.2.4
vajrī vā eṣa yad aśvas 5.1.2.6
etc. etc.

JUB 1.22:
indra eṣa yad udgātā

ŚBM:
devapātraṃ vā eṣa yad agnis  (1.4.2.13)
devapātraṃ vā eṣa yad vaṣaṭkāraḥ (1.7.2.13)
prajāpatir vā eṣa yad aṃśuḥ (4.6.1.1)
bṛhaspatisavo vā eṣa yadvājapeyam (5.2.1.19)  << same lack of agreement
prajāpatir vā eṣa yad ajarṣabha[ḥ]  (5.2.1.24)
varuṇasavo vā eṣa yad rājasūyaṃ  (5.3.4.12)   << lack of agreement
etc. etc.

This is only a portion found from one search ("eṣa yad"; plus one found by chance); using all the other forms of eṣa-, and other sandhi for yad will produce a list of hundreds.

e.g., from KS:
sṛṣṭir vā etad had agnihotram

TS 2.4.11.1:
gāyatrī vā eṣā yad uṣṇihā
TS 6.2.10.4:
vajra iva vā eṣā yad abhrir

It would seem that setting off the subject by the intervening yad has the effect of relaxing the sense that the demonstrative pronoun must agree with it, allowing occasional attraction to the predicate.

Best wishes,
Tim

Timothy Lubin
Professor of Religion
Washington and Lee University
Lexington, Virginia 24450

http://home.wlu.edu/~lubint
http://wlu.academia.edu/TimothyLubin
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=930949

From: Adriano Aprigliano <aprigliano at usp.br<mailto:aprigliano at usp.br>>
Date: Wednesday, October 30, 2013 2:34 PM
To: George Cardona <cardonagj at verizon.net<mailto:cardonagj at verizon.net>>
Cc: Indology <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Patañjali's syntax

Dear colleague,

Still on the order matter, in the commentary you quote, the commentator understands eṣaḥ as bound to apaśabdaḥ, forming the subject part of the sentence (eṣo'paśabdaḥ), and mlecchaḥ as the predicate —if I understood it right– ("this deviant word is [indeed] barbaric, known as barbaric"). But if that is so, how to account, syntactically, for yad being in between eṣaḥ and apaśabdaḥ in the original text? Would it be possible with eṣaḥ as an adjective pronoun?

Best wishes

Prof. Dr. Adriano Aprigliano
Área de Língua e Literatura Latina

Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
Universidade de São Paulo
São Paulo, Brasil

Em 30/10/2013, às 13:00, George Cardona escreveu:

Dear colleague, If I understand you properly, you consider that the expected form should be yaḥ, construed with apaśabdaḥ, hence the syntactic problem.  On the other hand, yad can be adverbial, equivalent to yasmāt.  This is the syntax given in the Sūktiratnākara (ed. Vaman Shastri Bhagavat, p. 44.5-6): हवैशब्दौ प्रसिद्धिवाचकौ । यद् यस्मादेषोऽपशब्दो म्लेच्छो म्लेच्छतयातिप्रसिद्ध इत्यर्थः।
On Oct 30, 2013, at 8:38 AM, Adriano Aprigliano wrote:

Dear colleagues,

I have been having doubts on how to translate this MBhāṣ sentence (Kielhorn, p.2, line 8):

te'surāḥ. te surā helayo helaya iti kurvantaḥ parābabhūvuḥ. tasmād brāhmaṇena na mlecchitavai nāpabhāṣitavai. mleccho ha vā eṣa yad apaśabdaḥ.

The problem is on the last sentence, what to make of that yad apaśabdaḥ. I start with ' for this one/he is indeed a mleccha...".

Any suggestions?

best wishes

Prof. Dr. Adriano Aprigliano
Área de Língua e Literatura Latina

Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
Universidade de São Paulo
São Paulo, Brasil

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