---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Corinna Wessels-Mevissen <corinnawessels@yahoo.de>
Date: Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 12:31 AM
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Translation of yaṣṭihastaya
To: Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha@gmail.com>

Hello Harry Spier,

I did my PhD on the early iconography of the aṣṭadikpālas (book is available on Academia: https://www.academia.edu/3029535/The_Gods_of_the_Directions_in_Ancient_India_Origin_and_Early_Development_in_Art_and_Literature_until_c._1000_A.D._), and Vāyu is very often seen as holding a flagstaff. This is in fact his most prominent attribute. As far as I remember, yaṣṭi was not mentioned in those texts, but only dhvaja or patākā, and the respective images show the god with a banner – mostly with the flag portion being a long streamer.

Hope this helps somehow.

Corinna Wessels-Mevissen

Von: Harry Spier <hspier.muktabodha@gmail.com>
An: Indology <indology@list.indology.info>
Gesendet: 2:22 Samstag, 29.Oktober 2016
Betreff: [INDOLOGY] Translation of yaṣṭihastaya

Dear list members:

A gāyatrī mantra mantra to Vāyu is:

sarvaprāṇāya vidmahe
yaṣṭihastāya dhīmahi
tan no vāyuḥ pracodayāt

I've seen a translation of yaṣṭihastāya as "holding the mace" but are statues or pictoral representations of Vāyu, and if so with a mace?

but Monier-Williams also has a meaning of yaṣṭi as "sacrificing" which he says comes from a commentator on Panini 3-3-110 .

By any chance could someone point out the commentator and point me to the passage MW refers to.

Also based on that definition of yaṣṭi does a translation of yaṣṭihastāya as "to the one who sacrifices with his hands" make sense. refering to the wind fanning the flames of the sacrifice.

Thanks,

Harry Spier

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