[INDOLOGY] Short and sweet?

[Walter Slaje]

Hello Martin,

even if a concept with an Arabic-language term is hidden behind that, it is
by no means certain that the author also understood it in Arabic (unless he
was an expert). He could well have associated something Persian with this
wording (tājikabhāṣāyāṃ!) and made up a vague meaning, which he then simply
translated literally into Sanskrit. Anyway, I would rather understand it as
Karmadhāraya, i.e. as a kind of "subtle sweetness". In any case, it is
striking that saha-masāda could perhaps conceal a truncated Persian مازه
māzah/māze ("taste") as well as a truncated Persian سهل sahl ("soft,
easy"). The Persian experts on this list will be able to judge this
immediately.
Suppose this were possible, the sentence could come to mean that in the
Tajik language, a wording like saha-masāda (~ ~ "soft taste") is the
equivalent of sūkṣma-svādu ("subtle sweetness").

So much for my amateurish guesswork.

Best wishes,
Walter


Am Sa., 12. Feb. 2022 um 17:12 Uhr schrieb Martin Gansten via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info>:

> In a Sanskrit text probably originating in 13th-century Gujarat, I just
> came across this line:
>
> yas tājikabhāṣāyāṃ sūkṣmasvāduś ca sahamasāda iti |
>
> This is a reference to the Arabic term *sahm as-saʿāda* (the Lot of
> Fortune, an astrological concept). But I am puzzled by the designation
> sūkṣmasvādu, which I have never seen before that I can recall, and
> certainly not applied to an abstract concept. Does it ring a bell with
> anyone? Is it an idiomatic expression that I have failed to pick up?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Martin Gansten
>
>
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