[INDOLOGY] dvandva → bahuvrīhi?

Thu Mar 20 10:10:00 UTC 2025

Dear colleagues,

Thank you again for your replies. I should have specified that I’m 
looking for bahuvrīhis like /akṣamālāṅgulīyakaḥ /might be one, that is, 
bahuvrīhis directly based on copulative dvandvas – not bahuvrīhis 
derived from karmadhārayas containing dvandvas (such as 
/aneka-vaktra-nayana/ and /vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodha/) or bahuvrīhis formed 
with affixes (/a/-, /sa/-, /nis/-; -/vat/, -/mat/, -/in/). Those are 
indeed very common.

Joel Brereton and Walter Slaje referred me to Wackernagel’s /Altindische 
Grammatik/ (II/1: 280), according to which dvandva-bahuvrīhis are rare. 
A number of examples are given there. I had a quick look at them:

– /somapṛṣṭha /could also mean “carrying Soma on their back”
– /somendra /“belonging to Soma and Indra” has the alternative, regular 
form /saumendra /(as well as irregular /somaindra/)
– /dīrghābhiniṣṭhāna /“having a long (vowel) or a visarga” has the 
alternative form /dīrghābhiniṣṭhānānta /“having a long (vowel) or a 
visarga at the end”
– /cakramusala /in Harivaṃśa 47.29*586:2 does not seem to be a bahuvrīhi 
to me (/bhaviṣyanti mamāsrāṇi tathā bāhusthitāni te / / 
/śārṅgaśaṅkhagadācakramusalaṃ śūlam eva ca/ /)
– /bhūtabhautika /can be derived from /bhūtabhauta /“beings and those 
related to beings.”
– /devāsura /“between /deva/s and /asura/s” and /narahaya /“between men 
and horses” are used with reference to fighting. Perhaps they were 
supposed to be tatpuruṣas with the first member in the instrumental? The 
fight “of the /asura/s /with /the /deva/s”?
– /ayānaya /“right-left” is the name of “a particular movement of the 
pieces on a chess or backgammon board” (MV). To me, this seems to be a 
product of metonymical thinking; interpreting it as a bahuvrīhi is not 
really necessary.
– I have not succeeded in finding a passage where /saccidānanda /“being, 
consciousness, and bliss” is used as an adjective.
– There remains /balābala /“at one time strong at another weak” (MV) 
from the Mārkaṇḍeya-Purāṇa. According to lexicographers, /bala /can be 
an adjective, but maybe this is an actual case of a dvandva-bahuvrīhi.

This does not look very promising. As long as no further examples are 
available, I assume that my intuition was correct and that, unlike 
karmadhārayas and tatpuruṣas, *copulative cannot be regularly used as 
bahuvrīhis* without further modification.

Best regards,
D. Haas

P.S.: /akṣamālāṅgulīyakaḥ /is used in an appendix passage of the 
critical edition of the Ādiparvan:
01,210.002d at 113_0011 tridaṇḍī muṇḍitaḥ kuṇḍī akṣamālāṅgulīyakaḥ
01,210.002d at 113_0012 yogabhāraṃ vahan pārtho vaṭavṛkṣasya koṭaram
01,210.002d at 113_0013 praviśann eva bībhatsur vṛṣṭiṃ varṣati vāsave

Am 19.03.2025 um 22:40 schrieb Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Thank you for your replies! It would make a lot if sense if 
> /akṣamālāṅgulīyakaḥ/was a dvandva-bahuvrīhi. Neverthesss, if I haven’t 
> overlooked it, the possibility of dvandva-bahuvrīhis is not mentioned 
> in the grammars of Whitney, Müller, Macdonell (Vedic & Sanskrit), 
> Kale, Mayrhofer, or Gonda, nor do I find it in Tubb’s and Boose’s book 
> on scholastic Sanskrit. I would therefore be very grateful if you 
> could provide examples. (The examples from the Bhagavad-Gītā beginning 
> with /aneka /are karmadhāraya-bahuvrīhis.)
>
> Thank you again,
> D. Haas
>
>
> Am 19.03.2025 um 19:26 schrieb Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA:
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> I have a question: Can dvandvas become bahuvrīhis? Specifically, I’m 
>> looking at the compound /akṣamālāṅgulīyakaḥ/. Does it just mean 
>> “wearing an /akṣamālā /as a finger ring,” or could it also mean 
>> “wearing an /akṣamālā /and a finger ring”? I don’t recall ever seeing 
>> a dvandva-bahuvrīhi, but in this case it would make much more sense, 
>> which is why I wonder if this is perhaps a rare, non-standard form. 
>> Of course, it’s also possible that it’s just a misspelling of 
>> /akṣamālo ’ṅgulīyakaḥ/.
>>
>> Thank you for your time and best regards,
>> Dominik A. Haas
>>
>> __________________
>> *Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA*
>> dominik at haas.asia | ORCID 0000-0002-8505-6112 
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>> Transformations” (2024–)
>> Gonda Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden (2024)
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>> https://doi.org/10.1553/978OEAW93906 (Roland Atefie Prize 2023)
>> – Vom Feueraltar zum Yoga. Kommentierte Übersetzung und 
>> Kohärenzanalyse der Kaṭha-Upaniṣad, https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1329
>> – Puṣpikā 6. Proceedings of the 12th International Indology Graduate 
>> Research Symposium (Vienna, 2021), https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1133
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