[INDOLOGY] A distraction from the Coronavirus

[Madhav Deshpande]

Professor Jha's citation from Mammaṭa's Kāvyaprakāśa calling the usage *bhāti
padmaḥ sarovare *was also on my mind.  Clearly, he knew that some poets
used *padma *in masculine, but considered it to be a *doṣa.  *If we
discount Mammaṭa's value judgment, his statement probably means something
like this: the neuter usage of *padma* is the mainstream usage, while the
masculine usage is marginal.  This is something like
Kiparsky's interpretation of Pāṇini's term *vibhāṣā* referring to marginal
usages.  On the other hand, the Amarakośa says: *vā puṃsi padmam nalinam *etc.
indicating that Amara knew the alternating genders and didn't see any
problem.  So we have Mammaṭa on one side and Amara on the other side.  An
interesting situation indeed.  नैको मुनिर्यस्य वच: प्रमाणम्?

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 7:33 AM Madhav Deshpande <mmdesh at umich.edu> wrote:

> Dear Roland,
>
>      Your observation that many of these masculine usages for *padma*
> come from Kashmir is interesting. I have no idea of how gender works in
> Kashmiri and particularly in old Kashmiri.  Just looking at Hindi, the
> three gendered words of Sanskrit get redistributed to two genders.  While
> Marathi has three genders like Sanskrit, the genders of words often change
> in Marathi.  Words like *svapna *and *vighna *that are masculine in
> Sanskrit become neuter in Marathi.  The Marathi users of Sanskrit will
> instinctively use these words in neuter, till they are corrected by a
> learned pandit.  मेरी आत्मा of Hindi has always shocked me as a Marathi
> speaker.
>
> Madhav
>
> Madhav M. Deshpande
> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
>
> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 7:24 AM Roland Steiner <
> steiner at staff.uni-marburg.de> wrote:
>
>> Dear Madhav,
>>
>>
>> > The norm in classical literature is to use *padma *in neuter gender,
>> like
>> > other words for the lotus.
>>
>> I am aware of this, but there is also evidence in non-epic and
>> non-puranic works, for example
>>
>> Kṣemendra's *Darpadalana* (7.30):
>>
>> *°śoṇaprabhārdrāv iva pādapadmau*
>>
>> Or, Somadeva's *Kathāsaritsāgara* (5.2.229):
>>
>> *ubhau kalaśapadmau ca śuśubhate sitāruṇau*
>>
>> Or, *Mokṣopāya* 5.65.29 (= "*Yogavāsiṣṭha*")
>>
>> *padmāv iva jaloddhṛtau*
>>
>> Perhaps it is no coincidence that these examples all come from texts that
>> originated in Kashmir.
>>
>> With best regards,
>> Roland
>>
>


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