Re: [INDOLOGY] Meaning of abhagnamānam in this verse

Roland Steiner steiner at staff.uni-marburg.de
Wed Mar 25 17:06:47 UTC 2020


> In other words, अभग्नमान is a bahuvrīhi – अभग्नो यस्य मान: सो ऽभग्नमान:
>
> So the BR gloss catches the spirit, even if not the exact grammatical
> construction.

When Böhtlingk records a compound with a substantive final element  
(here: -/māna/) as an “Adj[ective]” (= MW’s “mfn” = Aptes “/a/.”), it  
is a Bahuvrīhi; see also pw s.v. /bhagnamāna: /"Adj./ /dessen  
Ehrgefühl verletzt worden ist"  //(lit.: "whose sense of honor has  
been violated").

Accordingly, he translates the verse in his "Indische Sprüche" (No. 5023):

yaj jīvyate kṣaṇam api prathitaṃ manuṣyair
vijñānavikramayaśobhir abhagnamānam /
tan nāma jīvitam iha pravadanti tajjñāḥ
kāko ’pi jīvati ciraṁ ca baliṃ ca bhuṅkte //

“Wenn Menschen auch nur ein ganz kurzes Leben leben, das aber ob der  
Kenntnisse, des Heldenmuthes und des Ruhmes weit gepriesen wird und  
BEI DEM DIE EHRE NICHT LEIDET (lit.: in which/where honour does not  
suffer), so nennen die Kenner der Sache dieses ein wahres Leben: auch  
eine Krähe lebt lange und verzehrt die hingeworfene Spende.”

It (/abhagnamānam/) refers here to a neuter (/yad/). By the way,  
Böhtlingk conceives the instrumental /manuṣyaiḥ /as the logical  
subject to /jīvyate /(“Wenn Menschen [...] ein [...] Leben leben”,  
“When men live a [...] life“) and connects the instrumental  
/vijñānavikramayaśobhiḥ /with /prathitam /(“ob der Kenntnisse, des  
Heldenmuthes und des Ruhmes weit gepriesen”, “widely praised for its  
knowledge, heroism and fame”).

With best regards,
Roland Steiner


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