Re: [INDOLOGY] vekurañja, Turner's article

[Dan Lusthaus]

Thank you for this additional information. My own initial search for hinnies yielded similar impressions, which is why I was surprised to see hinnies explicitly mentioned in the 4th c. Chinese translation of the sutta. As we suspected, the terminology was fluid, not fixed.
best wishes,
Dan

> On Nov 24, 2020, at 6:45 AM, Walter Slaje <walter.slaje at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> There is an essay by Wilhelm Rau, which I have briefly skimmed over:
> A note on the donkey and the mule in early Vedic literature. Adyar Library Bulletin 44-45 (1980-1981): 179–189 [= Kl. Schr. II 987–997].
>  
> As its title suggests, it deals only with donkeys and mules in Vedic literature.
> However, and this seems important and somehow enlightening to me, any crossbreeding product different from the mule is not mentioned anywhere in this paper. Also conceptually, the hinny is entirely missing. For Rau, “the mule [(aśvatara/°ī) ...] is the offspring of a donkey and a mare” (p. 994 in his Kl. Schr.).
>  
> This is certainly not wrong, and Rau rightly refers to Rudradatta’s commentary on Āpastambaśrautasūtra 13.5.3 (gardabhād vaḍavāyāṃ jāto ’śvaraḥ) to substantiate his claim. Incidentally, it would also confirm Nīlakaṇṭha’s previously cited comment.
>  
> I just chanced upon an interesting passage, which suggests that in India, too, at least in early modern times, there seemed to be no agreement about what was mule and what was hinny. Thus Jagannātha quotes the following two opposing views in his Dīpikā on Madhva’s Brahmasūtrabhāṣya (1,3.9.5):
>  
> "gardabhād aśvāyāṃ jātā aśvataryaḥ" iti tattvapradīpe [would be “mule”]
> "gardabhīṣu aśvair jātā aśvataryaḥ" iti vyāsatīrthīye [would be “hinny”]
>  
> Unfortunately and for obvious reasons, I cannot verify the quoted passage in any printed edition, but the quote does offer quite a revealing view with regard to conceptual uncertainties as they seem to have prevailed.
>  
> Another essay on this topic, which is also not accessible to me, is:
> Gildemeister, Johannes: Açvatarî. Orient und Occident, insbesondere in ihren gegenseitigen Beziehungen 2 (1864): 172–174.
>  
> Kind regards,
> WS
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> Am Di., 24. Nov. 2020 um 11:22 Uhr schrieb Tieken, H.J.H. via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info <mailto:indology at list.indology.info>>:
> Turner's article is mainly about the type of compound seen in aśva-tara, and, among other forms, mentions vyāghra-tara, which ended up in Kipling's Jungle Book as Bagheera. As to aśvatara, Turner writes that it is of pre-Indo-Aryan origin. It would be supported directly by Persian astra and indirectly by Khotanese khaḍara "mule", from hypothetical khara-tara (with reference to H.W. Bailey, BSOA 10, 590).
> Herman
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> Herman Tieken
> Stationsweg 58
> 2515 BP Den Haag
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