Thank you for that suggestion, Hans Henrich. Indeed, the ca should be taken seriously. And as Walter Slaje reminded me privately, dyumna is, of course, a noun (unlike dyumat, which I suppose was subconsciously at the root of my off-the-cuff translation), so something like 'wealth and fame' would be a better translation.

My gut feeling, as I said, is that nigadan is the better reading. It is also from a MS that, if Bhandarkar is correct, is some 200 years earlier than the one giving gadituṃ. I suspect that what may have happened is that, in the phrase śubhāśubhāni nigadan, one ni was accidentally omitted in an earlier witness, leaving the verse one syllable short and leading a later, semi-literate copyist to emend gadan to gadituṃ. I just wanted to check first if I was missing some obscure use of the infinitive, but so far it seems not.

Best wishes,
Martin

Den 2024-01-18 kl. 17:20, skrev Hock, Hans Henrich:

Hi, Martin

One possible solution is to take the _ca_ before _āpnuyāt_ seriously and to construe the verb with two complements, one being _dyumna.m yaśa.h_, the other _śubhāśubhāni gaditum_. In that case there would be no problem with the interpretation of the infinitive

Best wishes

Hans Henrich

On Jan 18, 2024, at 06:37, Martin Gansten via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

The Sanskrit infinitive is commonly used in the sense 'for the sake of', much like the final dative of a noun. Recently, however, I came across a phrase where, if the reading is correct, it can only be understood in something like the opposite sense, that is, 'on account of' (corresponding more to the use of the ablative or instrumental):

... atra śubhāśubhāni gadituṃ dyumnaṃ yaśaś cāpnuyāt

'[The astrologer], on account of predicting good and evil, will attain bright fame.'

There is a variant reading nigadan, which would be entirely unproblematic and, I suspect, preferable; but I should like to know if any sort of case can be made for the lectio difficilior. I haven't come across such a use of the infinitive before. Has anyone else?

Best wishes,
Martin Gansten

_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology__;!!DZ3fjg!9KuuCiowvl6042xHbd4HN81stFEuNGi0GVyrDwQZe1t6yyCWVDofkSnK8H6cPdjFGkm-S1Lssj8rdZBDJk7Cvy6VGDLA$