Thanks
for the responses. Here are my thoughts on the etymologies proposed.
1. devāntikā
One problem with this etymology is the long 'ā' as the first vowel while the Tamil form has short 'a'. The second problem is the semantics. 'Rākṣasa or daitya'
does not fit either as a proper name or a class name for a brahmin girl or a temple priestess.
2. cā-/cēma-nt-i> cēmantī
> tēvanti
One problem with this is that it cannot explain the variant Tēvantikai. The second problem is that tēvanti is not attested in any literary or colloquial usage.
In Tamil, the only forms known are cāmanti, civanti, cevanti, and
cevvanti.
3. devavandyā
This is indeed the most attractive of the three. Indeed I too gave this a lot of thought before settling on devavandhyā. The reasons are these. vanti or vantiyai or
vantikai is not attested as either as a proper name of a woman or a generic name of a praiseworthy woman in Tamil usage. The Tamil compilers of the Tamil Lexicon made up an amazing brain trust of Tamil scholarship that existed at that time, but with an overwhelming
majority from upper caste - Aiyars, Aiyangars, Sastris, Pillais, Mudaliars, Chettiar, etc. While Iyodhi Doss and Abraham Pandithar were exceptions in terms of caste background, they were also highly informed with respect to Sanskritic usage. If
vanti/vantiyai/vantikai had been used in the Tamil domain either as a proper noun or as a generic/class name to refer to a praiseworthy woman, they would have most probably listed it in the Tamil Lexicon with that meaning. The fact that Tamil Lexicon
does not list it suggests that there is no attestation of such usage. That is my reason for rejecting it in favor of
vanti/vantiyai/vantikai in the sense of 'childless woman'. All three of these usages are listed in Tamil Lexicon.
As for barren/childless woman, one may not give a newborn child that name. But if the author has a tendency to use a generic/class name, such as the name for the
childless woman in the Tiruviḷaiyāṭal Purāṇam in some cases (possibly because he did not know the real name if the story had been already popular as possible in the case of the Cilappatikāram), then the name 'childless woman' fits very well especially if other
sources such as Puṟanāṉūṟu 372 specifically mention that attribute of a priestess. (Another such usage is the case of Tarumi in the Tiruviḷaiyāṭal Purāṇam, where as an Ādiśaiva brahmin bachelor, he has to get married to be a priest but lacks the necessary
money. But he is already given the name Tarumi meaning 'temple priest.) This is like naming a girl who is going to become a nun later in life 'childless woman'. There is nothing pejorative about it. It is merely descriptive. That is how some of these authors
named their characters.
Regards,
Palaniappan
-----Original Message-----
From: Whitney Cox <
wmcox@uchicago.edu>
To: Suresh Kolichala <
suresh.kolichala@gmail.com>
Cc: indology <
indology@list.indology.info>
Sent: Thu, Nov 14, 2013 12:45 pm
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Brahmin Priestesses
Equally, and by a set of sound changes essentially identical to those described by Palaniappan, the second element in tēvantikai could be referred to -vandyā ('praiseworthy'). Skt. Devavandyā, I find, occurs in list of 1008 names of the Gāyatrī
mantra: this slightly obscure place notwithstanding, it also makes better sense semantically: "she who is to be praised by the gods" rather than "a barren woman of [?] the gods", thus "a divine barren woman".