[INDOLOGY] The term vakharī

[Madhav Deshpande]

Dear Jim,

For what it's worth, Bhartr̥hari uses the term Vaikr̥ta Dhvani for the
diversely manifested phonetic output. So Ollett's suggestion that "an
origin from *vikr̥ta- might be entertained as well" may be on track.
Bhartr̥hari also uses the expression vyavakīrṇa in the sense of scattered
or disfigured. This is what happened to the divine speech at the hands of
incapable speakers - "daivī vāk vyavakīrṇeyam aśaktair abhidhātr̥bhiḥ". So
in my opinion Skt vi+kr̥̄ > vikirati is also a possible candidate for the
origin of vaikharī via some MIA transformation returning back to Sanskrit
like the word -geha.

Madhav

Madhav M. Deshpandete
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 Tue, Oct 26, 2021 at 10:54 AM Jim Ryan via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I wrote to Andrew Ollett (U. Of Chicago) regarding  “vaikharī” in Prakrit.
> He replied as below. I got his permission to post his reply as it adds to
> the discussion (and may in fact show that we might not be able to track the
> proper history of this word with current knowledge.)
>
> Jim
>
>
> Dear Jim (if I may),
>
> I saw the discussion on INDOLOGY but didn't have too much to add.
> Mayrhofer interprets it, sensibly, as if it had come from a hypothetical
> Middle Indic form (I don't say "Prakrit" for reasons that will become
> clear) *vi-kṣarati, which is also the etymology of the Hindi word bikharnā
> "scatter." The Pāiyasaddamahaṇṇava
> <https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdsal.uchicago.edu%2Fdictionaries%2Fsheth%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cjryan%40ciis.edu%7Ca5bf7e180e1048c9f82308d998a58739%7C34d667e31c5d4101b901e5d9fd8d69d9%7C0%7C0%7C637708658969521889%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=uMi946zgBY9cYLnoHkGauScJiAFFrP%2FU17lVDxs0DJo%3D&reserved=0>,
> an early dictionary of Prakrit, does give vikkhara- as a verbal stem,
> meaning to "scatter" or "spread," attested apparently in the Uvāṅgadasāo,
> an early Jain text. But in fact the usual "Prakrit" form of the root that
> appears in Sanskrit as *kṣar is jhar-. In fact, in the Prakrit texts I have
> (i.e., literary Prakrit, produced between the second and the twelfth
> centuries), I find neither vikkhara- or vijjhara-. While we're at it, an
> origin from *vikr̥ta- might be entertained as well.
>
> None of this, in any case, would explain why Bhartr̥hari should have
> chosen to use a Middle Indic form, or a form derived from Middle Indic, for
> a major element of his theory, especially when there was a Sanskrit term
> easily to hand. I know of no citations of vaikharī or similar words
> (*vēkharī, *vekkharī, *vaïkharī, *veharī, *vikkharī*, etc.) in Prakrit.
>
> I hope this helps, although I suspect it won't!
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On Oct 24, 2021, at 6:38 AM, Rolf Heinrich Koch via INDOLOGY <
> indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Yes, it has a Prakrit origin as Madhev suspects. See
>
> Mayrhofer, A Concise Etymological Sanskrit Dictionary, vol 3,p. 267
>
> "vaikharī f. Name eines best. Lautes / name of a particular sound (Up.,
> u.a.): nach Wright, NCSL 24 falsch sanskritisiertes Patronym. von mi.
> *vikkhara- < ai. viksarä- m. „Abfluß44 (AV), „Beiname Visnus44 (ep.,u.a.)".
>
> Heiner
>
>
>
> Am 24.10.2021 um 02:11 schrieb Jim Ryan via INDOLOGY:
>
> Hi,
>
> I’m curious about the term Vaikharī for articulated speech. In the *Encyclopedia
> of Indian Philosophies *volume on the Grammarians, judging from the
> index, it seems this term was first used  by Bhartṛhari (at least in a
> grammatical context.) V. S. Apte cites the Mallinatha commentary on
> *Kumārasaṃbhava *for an authoritative reference of the word, but that is
> quite late (15th century.) Firstly, are there instances of this word used
> with any frequency before Bhartṛhari? Secondly, the lexicons give no good
> verbal root or root word for it. I note that the word *vaikṛtī *as
> “alteration” has a similar shape (and wouldn’t fit badly in the
> “articulated speech” category of Vāc), but I’m presuming that the word
>  vaikharī is not a Prakrit-derived form.  So… where and how do we get to
> this important term in language theory in India, which seems unrelated to
> any other common root or word?
>
> Jim Ryan
> Asian Philosophies and Cultures (Emeritus)
> California Institute of Integral Studies
>
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> --
> Dr. Rolf Heinrich Kochwww.rolfheinrichkoch.wordpress.com
>
>
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