[INDOLOGY] Female name Bhaayi?

[Ashok Aklujkar]

I see no problem with the manuscript reading 
śrīvatsa-saṃjñād dvija-puṅgavād yaṃ śrī-bhāyi-nāmnī suṣuve ca sādhvī |
śrī-yādavena vyaracīha tena sudhā-nidhis tājika-yoga-pūrvaḥ ||
(but I do see a problem with David Pingree, a scholar I respect very much, if there are other instances of him emending texts as in the present case).

The author Yādava/Śrīyādava is simply telling us that an eminent brahmin named Śrīvatsa was his father and an honorable woman Śrī-bāī (to use our present-day standard spelling) was his mother. Names like Lakṣmī-bāī, Tārā-bāī, Ahalyā-bāī were commonly heard in his time and in his part of the world (cf. Dr. Nagaraj Paturi: “śrībāī /śrībāi / śrībāy is a very much possible female personal name.”). On the whole, scholars were not as strict about the writing of non-Sanskrit words as they were about the writing of Sanskrit words (note, for example, the way the gāthās are quoted and accepted in Kāvya-śāstra works). It was not unusual to write the non-Sanskrit words as one heard them or as the metre required; approximation was acceptable. Therefore the writing of (our expected) bāī as bhāyī or bhāyi need not be viewed as presenting a serious problem. (again. cf. Paturi: “Shortening of the end vowel is not a hurdle …”)

The “ca” in the second quarter of the verse initially bothered me, but there could be justification for it in a preceding verse of the section, if . 

a.a. 


> On Apr 23, 2017, at 9:00 AM, Martin Gansten via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
> 
> One [ms.I have been able to examine so far] consistently has bhāyi, at least 17 times; the other alternates between bhāyi and bhāi. There is no b/v and no long ī. Therefore I am hesitant to accept this as a variant of the bāī suffix.


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