It is
perhaps worthy of note that Scheftelowitz in his critical Khila edition of the
RV has recorded a number of variant readings:
śrī° for śrīr
°varcasyam for °varcasvam
āvidhāc chobhamānaṃ, āvidhāt pavamānaṃ and āyudhāt pavamānaṃ
for āvidhāc chubhamānam.
(Die Apokryphen des Ṛgveda (Khilāni). Hrsg. und bearbeitet von J. Scheftelowitz. [Indische Forschungen. 1]. Breslau 1906, p. 78.)
The variant reading āyudhāt is of particular interest here, as āyudha (“weapon, implement”) seems to have been regarded as semantically closely related to āvidhāt, if we derive the meaning of āvidha with Indian grammarians from ā-√vyadh (cp. Āpte, and Patañjali below). The emergence of the explanatory variant āyudha is most likely to be explained from this background.
This, then, would rather result in the meaning of “eine Art Bohrer” (pw), “an awl, a drill“ (MW) for āvidha.
vyadhi | āvidhyanti tenāvidham | vyadhi || hani [...] || yudhi | āyudhyante tenāyudham ||
(Patañjali’s Mbh, ed. Kielhorn, 3rd ed., Vol. II. Poona 1965, p. 150, 22ff)
The idea of extracting shining beauty (śobha°/śubhamāna) by "drilling" with an instrument (similar to the well-known “churning”) is perhaps not too far-fetched in the context of the Śrīsūkta.
Regards,
WS
_______________________________________________Here’s my take, Madhav; I hope it’s helpful
The crux seems to be āvidhāt. While most dictionaries, following Monier Williams, give meanings like ‘drill’, the addenda to the Petersburg dictionary (at http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/6_sres/2_dict/schnzsw_u.htm) add the meaning udreka, i.e. ‘abundance’ etc.
With this meaning the line can be interpreted as varcasvam āyuṣyam ārogyam (subject), āvidhāt (ablative) ‘on account of abundance’, sobhamānam (quasi-predicate participle) ‘shining, beautiful’, mahīyate ‘prospers, is exalted'
All the best,
Hans/Hans Henrich
On 9 Aug2019, at 20:34, Madhav Deshpande via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Can someone explain to me the grammar of this line from the Śrīsūkta of the R̥gveda Khila?_______________________________________________
śrīḥ.varcasvam.āyuṣyam.ārogyam.āvidhāt.śobhamānam.mahīyate./ RvKh_2,6.24b
Madhav M. DeshpandeProfessor Emeritus, Sanskrit and LinguisticsUniversity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USASenior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]
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