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

Am Sa., 10. Aug. 2019 um 05:25 Uhr schrieb Hock, Hans Henrich via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info>:

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. Deshpande

Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]

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