Re: [INDOLOGY] vekurañja

Dan Lusthaus yogacara at gmail.com
Sun Nov 22 12:21:04 UTC 2020 

Dear Prof. Slaje,

Thank you for those examples. However, as far as I can tell, the idea that aśvatarī is a hinny, rather than a she-mule, seems to be only in Steiner’s interpretation, not in the texts themselves. Bhāskarakaṇṭha only explains it as a female mule (khara = mule, strī = female animal). Similarly, dvijātīya similarly just means a mule, without specifying that the parents must be a male horse and a female donkey rather than the inverse.

Monier-Williams has around 24 terms that can mean a mule, several of which mean a she-mule (e.g., aśvatarī, kharī, etc.), typically by giving a word for mule a feminine form. For instance:

aśvatara b m. (Pāṇ. 5-3, 91 ) a mule, AV. iv, 4, 8 ; ŚBr.  &c. 	      
(compar. of aśva) a better horse, Pat.       
a male calf, L. 	      
one of the chiefs of the Nāgas, MBh. ; Hariv.  &c.	      
N. of a Gandharva, L.  	      
aśvatarā f. a better mare, Pat.     
aśvatarī f. a she-mule, AV. viii, 8, 22 ; MBh. &c.

But a she-mule is not a hinny. A mule has a male donkey and a female horse for parents. A hinny has the opposite: a male horse and a female donkey for parents. Mules and hinnies are physiologically different from each other as well. A hinny can be a male or a female.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule> 

The wikipedia entry for “mule” says the following about their fertility:
==
Mules and hinnies have 63 chromosomes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome>, a mixture of the horse's 64 and the donkey's 62. The different structure and number usually prevents the chromosomes from pairing up properly and creating successful embryos, rendering most mules infertile <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infertile>.

A few mare mules have produced offspring when mated with a purebred horse or donkey.[18] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-18>[19] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-Kay2002-19> Herodotus <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus> gives an account of such an event as an ill omen of Xerxes' invasion of Greece <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Persian_invasion_of_Greece> in 480 BC: "There happened also a portent of another kind while he was still at Sardis—a mule brought forth young and gave birth to a mule" (Herodotus The Histories <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histories_(Herodotus)> 7:57), and a mule's giving birth was a frequently recorded portent in antiquity, although scientific writers also doubted whether the thing was really possible (see e.g. Aristotle <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>, Historia animalium, 6.24; Varro <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varro>, De re rustica, 2.1.28).

As of October 2002, there had been only 60 documented cases of mules birthing foals since 1527.[19] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-Kay2002-19> In China <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China> in 2001, a mare mule produced a filly <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filly>.[20] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-FertileMule1985-20> In Morocco <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco> in early 2002 and Colorado <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado> in 2007, mare mules produced colts.[19] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-Kay2002-19>[21] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-Npr2007-07-26-21>[22] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-DenverPost2007-09-19-22> Blood and hair samples from the Colorado birth verified that the mother was indeed a mule and the foal was indeed her offspring.[22] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-DenverPost2007-09-19-22>
A 1939 article in the Journal of Heredity describes two offspring of a fertile mare mule named "Old Bec", which was owned at the time by Texas A&M University <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_A%26M_University> in the late 1920s. One of the foals was a female, sired by a jack. Unlike her mother, she was sterile. The other, sired by a five-gaited Saddlebred <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Saddlebred> stallion, exhibited no characteristics of any donkey. That horse, a stallion, was bred to several mares, which gave birth to live foals that showed no characteristics of the donkey.[23] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#cite_note-JHeredity-30-12-23>
==

The wikipedia entry on “hinny" has the following on fertility:
==
Hinnies are difficult to obtain because of the differences in the number of chromosomes <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome> of the horse and the donkey <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey>. A donkey has 62 chromosomes, whereas a horse has 64. Hinnies, being hybrids of those two species <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species>, have 63 chromosomes and are in the majority of cases sterile <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infertile>. The uneven number of chromosomes results in an incomplete reproductive system <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproductive_system>. According to the ADMS: "The equine hybrid is easier to obtain when the lower chromosome count, the donkey, is in the male. Therefore breeding for hinnies is more hit-and-miss than breeding for mules."[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny#cite_note-LongearLingo-2>
The male hinny or mule can and will mate, but the emission is not fertile <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility>. Male hinnies and mules <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule> are usually castrated to help control their behavior by eliminating their interest in females.[citation needed <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed>]

Female hinnies and mules are not customarily spayed, and may or may not go through estrus <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estrus>. Female mules have been known, on rare occasions, to produce offspring when mated to a horse or donkey, although this is extremely uncommon. Since 1527, sixty cases of foals born to female mules around the world have been documented.[4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny#cite_note-Kay2002-4> In contrast, according to the ADMS, there is only one known case of a female hinny doing so.

Namely, in China <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China>, in 1981, a hinny mare proved fertile with a donkey sire. When the Chinese hinny was bred to a jack, she produced the so-called "Dragon Foal", which resembled a donkey with mule-like features.[5] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny#cite_note-FertileMule1985-5> In Morocco <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco>, in 2002, a mule mare bred to a donkey sire produced a male foal.[4] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny#cite_note-Kay2002-4> DNA testing revealed the foal has a mixed karyotype <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karyotype> hybrid like the Chinese hinny offspring "Dragon Foal".[citation needed <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed>]

Hinnies are rare for many other reasons. Donkey jennies and horse stallions can be choosier about their mates than horse mares and donkey jacks.[citation needed <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed>] Thus, the two parties involved may not even care to mate. Even if they do cooperate, donkey jennies are less likely to conceive when bred to a horse stallion than horse mares are when bred to a donkey jack. Breeding <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse_breeding> large hinnies is an even bigger challenge, as it requires stock from a jenny of large size, such as the Baudet de Poitou <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudet_de_Poitou> or American Mammoth Donkey <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Mammoth_Donkey>. Mammoth donkey stock is becoming increasingly rare and has been declared an endangered domestic breed. Fanciers are unlikely to devote a Mammoth jenny's valuable breeding time to producing sterile hinny hybrids, when Mammoth jennies are in high demand to produce fertile purebred Mammoth foals

==

There is no mention of requiring caesarians.

Some of the mule terms in MW:

dvi—jātīya mfn. relating to the twice-born i.e. to the first 3 castes of twofold nature or mixed origin, mongrel. dvi—jātīya m. a mule.

mūka “the offspring of a mule and mare”

ruṇḍa m. the offspring of a mule and a mare (also means “maimed, mutilated; a headless body”)

vega—sara m. (cf. vesara) a mule.  	      
vega—sarī f. a female mule.

vesara m. (cf. vega-sara; also written veśara) a mule.  	      
vesarī f. a female mule.

sakṛd—garbha m. ‘having only one conception’, a mule.

saṃ-ka°rāśva m. ‘mongrel horse’, a mule.

While some refer to female mules, I don’t think any of these terms specifically indicate a hinny, which, again, could be male or female. The Chinese terms clearly differentiate between a mule (騾 luo, the result of mating a mare with a donkey) and a hinny (駏驉 juxu, result of mating a stallion with a female donkey). I remain curious what the underlying Sanskrit or prakrit term behind juxu might be.

with regards,
Dan

> On Nov 22, 2020, at 6:00 AM, Walter Slaje via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> > “A hinny is [...] the offspring of a male horse (a stallion) and a female donkey (a jenny)." 
> Is there a Skt term for a hinny?
> 
> Cp. Mokṣopāya  I.38.8:
> aviśrāntamanāḥ śūnyam āyur ātatam īhate |
> duḥkhāyaiva vimūḍho 'ntar garbham aśvatarī yathā ||
> 
> Bhāskarakaṇṭha explains it as follows:
> "aśvatarī" kharastriyām aśvāj jātā vaḍavā | tasyā "garbhaḥ" kukṣipāṭanaṃ vinā na niryāti (Mokṣopāyaṭīkā on I.13.8)
> 
> Cp. the translation by Roland Steiner (Wiesbaden 2014: p.52):
> 13.8 Ein innerlich verwirrter [Mensch, dessen] Denken (manas) nicht beruhigt [ist], strebt nach einem leeren, ausgedehnten Leben, [das einem] nichts anderes als Leiden [einträgt], wie eine Maul­­eselstute[1] <x-msg://6/#_ftn1> eine Leibesfrucht [begehrt].
> 
> [1] <x-msg://6/#_ftnref1> Eine Maul­­eselstute (Vater: Pferdehengst; Mutter: Eselstute) kann nach Bhāskarakaṇṭha nur mit Kaiserschnitt gebären; MṬ I ad 13.8: aśvatarī kharastriyām aśvāj jātā vaḍavā / tasyā garbhaḥ kukṣipāṭanaṃ vinā na niryāti.
> 
> pw offers a series of entries of Sanskrit words for "Maulthier" (= "mule"): 
> https://nws.uzi.uni-halle.de/search?lang=de&utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=&m=&t=maulthier&d=&type=&ntype=&cat=&ncat=&c=&v=&merge=on <https://nws.uzi.uni-halle.de/search?lang=de&utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=&m=&t=maulthier&d=&type=&ntype=&cat=&ncat=&c=&v=&merge=on>
> 
> and gives one entry for "Maulesel" (= "hinny"), namely dvijātīya. Schmidt adds "°pāraśama":
> https://nws.uzi.uni-halle.de/search?lang=de&utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=&m=&t=maulesel&d=&type=&ntype=&cat=&ncat=&c=&v=&merge=on <https://nws.uzi.uni-halle.de/search?lang=de&utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=&m=&t=maulesel&d=&type=&ntype=&cat=&ncat=&c=&v=&merge=on>
> 
> 
> Kind regards,
> WS
> 
> 
> Am So., 22. Nov. 2020 um 10:48 Uhr schrieb Dan Lusthaus via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>:
> I also found Dhadpale’s idea convincing.
> 
> As to whether there were āgama versions, the answer is yes, but not currently available in an Indic language, only in Chinese translation. In addition to the Madhyama-āgama passage I posted, there is a version of the Assalāyana sutta that was translated as an independent text: Fanzhi eboluoyan wen zhong zun jing, 梵志頞波羅延問種尊經 (Sutra on questions to Buddha about caste from the brahmin Ebulouyan=Assalāyana), translated by 竺曇無蘭 Zhu Tanwulan (*Dharmarakṣa, *Dharmaratna), a Central Asian monk in the late 4th c. Since it expands the discussion a bit, I translate it here. Like the Madhyama-āgama version, it omits the problematic word, unless the word was glossed instead of translated. But it adds an additional equine reproductive set:
> 
> 《梵志頞波羅延問種尊經》卷1：「頞波羅延言：「我種自說言勝餘種。」
> 佛告頞波羅延：「有驢父馬母，馬[7]為生子，名是何等？」
> 頞波羅延言：「名騾。父亦不字為騾，母亦不字為騾。」
> 「若何以字為騾？」
> 「我先祖呼作騾，我隨言騾。」
> 「有馬父驢母，驢[8]為生子，若名為何等字為駏驉？父亦不字為駏驉，母亦不字為駏驉，若何知為駏驉？」
> 「我先祖呼為駏驉，因隨言駏驉。」」(CBETA, T01, no. 71, p. 877, b29-c7)
> [7]〔為〕－【宋】【元】【明】。[8]為生…為＝生子名是【宋】【元】【明】。
> 
> Ebulouyan said, “Those of my type (= caste) say that we are better than the other types.”
> Buddha replied to Eboluoyan: “There is an ass father and a horse mother. The horse gives birth to a child. What is it called?”
> Ebulouyan said: “It’s called a mule. The father is not designated as a mule, nor is the mother designated as a mule.”
> [Buddha asks]: Why then do you designate it as a mule?
> [Ebulouyan]: “The patriarchs who preceded me called it a mule, and I follow them in saying it is a mule.”
> [Buddha]: “There is a horse father and an ass mother. The ass gives birth to a child. Would that be called a 駏驉 juxu (English: hinny)? [1] Neither is the father designated as a juxu, nor is the mother designated as a juxu. So how do you know it as a juxu?
> [Ebulouyan]: “The patriarchs who preceded me called it a juxu, so for that reason I follow them in saying it is a juxu.”
> 
> —
> 1. 駏驉 juxu “By some accounts a mythical horselike beast; other accounts give it as the offspring of a stallion and female donkey.” (CJKVE-D). In English this is called a hinny. “A hinny is a domestic equine hybrid that is the offspring of a male horse (a stallion) and a female donkey (a jenny). It is the reciprocal cross to the more common mule, which is the product of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The hinny is distinctive from the mule both in physiology and temperament as a consequence of genomic imprinting.” 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinny> 
> 
> Is there a Skt term for a hinny?
> 
> Dan
> 
>> On Nov 21, 2020, at 10:17 PM, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>> 
>> Along the lines of Professor Dhadphale's suggestion for vekurañja as coming from Skt. dvaikulajanya, there are expressions like dvaimātura, ṣāṇmātura etc. The term dvyāmuṣyāyaṇa refers to a son with two fathers, one legal and the other biological. The sons born out of the so-called niyoga "levirate" are described with this term.  The term kuṇḍa used in the passage has a meaning of "out of wedlock," but having a dual connection, suggesting something unnatural, illegal.   So dvaikulajanya sounds like a very possible source.  I wonder if there is a northern Sanskrit āgama version.  I read from earlier messages that the non-Pali versions translated into Chinese show that this term was eliminated from the text, possibly being considered some sort of an error.
>> 
>> Madhav M. Deshpande
>> Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
>> University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
>> Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
>> Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India
>> 
>> [Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
>> 
>> 
>> On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 2:58 PM Martin Straube via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:
>> Dear Artur, Rolf & Dan,
>> 
>> following a note in my files I see that M.G. Dhadphale has suggested  
>> an etymology of the word in question in 1974. Please find the article  
>> attached. This may or may not be helpful too.
>> 
>> With best wishes
>> Martin
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Martin Straube
>> Research Fellow in Pali Lexicography
>> Pali Text Society
>> 
>> Philipps-Universität Marburg
>> Indologie und Tibetologie
>> Deutschhausstrasse 12
>> 35032 Marburg
>> Germany
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