[INDOLOGY] dvandva → bahuvrīhi?

Thu Mar 20 13:44:06 UTC 2025

Dear Dominik,

I am confused by the last sentence in your email:

'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.'

I would argue that karmadhārayas and tatpuruṣas can also never be used as
bahuvrīhis; but rather that, when looking at just a compound without
context (say: mahāratha-), you often cannot decide whether what you are
looking at is e.g. a karmadharaya or a bahuvrīhi. Is that what you mean?

I'd argue that when you see an (unaccented) compound like rājaputrau in
isolation, you cannot know for certain whether it is a KDh, TP, BV or DD.
You can of course see in dictionaries in which uses it is indeed attested.

All my best,
   Antonia

On Thu, 20 Mar 2025 at 11:11, Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA <dominik at haas.asia>
wrote:

> 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
> <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8505-6112> | academia.edu DominikAHaas
> <https://univie.academia.edu/DominikAHaas> | hcommons DominikAHaas
> <https://hcommons.org/members/DominikAHaas/>
> ÖGRW <https://www.univie.ac.at/oegrw/> | DMG
> <https://dmg-web.de/page/home_en> | SDN
> <https://stb.univie.ac.at/publikationsreihen/sammlung-de-nobili-sdn/> |
> WPU <https://philology.org/>
> Postdoctoral Researcher, Austrian Academy of Sciences / COE “Eurasian
> Transformations” (2024–)
> Gonda Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden (2024)
> Post-DocTrack Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2023)
> Lecturer, University of Vienna (2023)
> Doc Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2020–2022)
>
> Books:
> – Gāyatrī: Mantra and Mother of the Vedas,
> 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
>
> <https://foasas.org>
> The Initiative for Fair Open Access Publishing in South Asian Studies
> foasas.org <https://foasas.org> | contact at foasas.org
>
> <https://foasas.org>
> The International Indology Graduate Research Symposium
> iigrs.wordpress.com <https://iigrs.wordpress.com/> |
> iigrscontact at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing listINDOLOGY at list.indology.infohttps://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing listINDOLOGY at list.indology.infohttps://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20250320/e7d8c3af/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: foasaslogosmall.png
Type: image/png
Size: 57488 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20250320/e7d8c3af/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: ovFmRQJyDFgRMqIh.png
Type: image/png
Size: 249915 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20250320/e7d8c3af/attachment-0001.png>