Ancient Vedic and Classical Composers and Writers Were Extremely Illiterate in Textbook Etymology

 

Ancient Vedic and Classical Composers and Writers Were Extremely Illiterate in Textbook Etymology

 Shrikant G Talageri 

 

I have written a lot about textbookworm etymologists who raise objections about identifications on textbookworm grounds. Although I am not really interested any more in endless and pointless discussions and debates, I thought it perhaps appropriate to give one example to specifically illustrate the case.

A few days ago, someone wrote me the following mail. Who wrote it is not important since, as I said, I have no intentions of indulging in any more endless and pointless discussions and debates.

The mail was as follows:

“Respected sir,

Please tell me where you got the name Kaoša in Avestan (which you suggest is recorded in the Rigveda under the name Kavaṣa RV 7.18.12). Is it a proper name? I haven't been able to find it today. Also the cognate of Kaoša in Indic is Kōṣa, not Kavaṣa. 

Thank you”

About the first part, I pointed out that a simple question on google gave the following:

“Inthe Avesta (the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism), Kaosha is a minor historical figure mentioned in the Frawardin Yasht (Hymn to the Guardian Angels). [1, 2, 3]

Specific details regarding the mentions of Kaosha include:

·         Lineage: Kaosha is explicitly named as the father of a devout, righteous follower (an ashavan) named Fraora-ostra.

·         Context of the Text: His name appears in a long, recited list of ancestral and early heroes, priests, and devoted adherents. In the Frawardin Yasht (Yasna 13, verse 123), followers invoke and worship the guardian spirits (Fravashis) of these early holy men, including the "Fravashi of the holy Fraora-ostra, the son of Kaosha”.

About the second point, that “the cognate of Kaoša in Indic is Kōṣa, not Kavaṣa”, I tiredly wrote back: “As for what is the cognate of what, I have long ago given up replying to textbookwormish challenges to identifications”.

However, it would perhaps be right to be a bit more specific, since there is a whole host of names regarding which textbookworm objections have been raised claiming that such-and-such non-Sanskrit names cannot have been Sanskritized in certain ways because as per the textbook rules of comparative cognate etymology, the Sanskrit forms should have been something else. So let me deal with this specific point in this short one page article.

When a person takes a name from another language and pronounces it in his own language, he does not go by textbook rules of cognate etymology and decide that he must be politically or etymologically correct in his pronunciation so that the resultant form (in his own language) is exactly as per the textbook rules of what it should be as per rules of “cognate” forms. He simply takes the name as he hears it and pronounces it in his own language in his own way.

When Indians writing in the second century BCE took the Greek name Menander and made it Milinda, it is not because they were following some textbook rule that a Greek “men” was cognate to a Sanskrit/Pali “mil”, because I am sure it is not. They simply pronounced the Greek name in their Sanskrit/Pali writings in the way that the name sounded to them on entirely arbitrary grounds. Likewise, when Greek Alexander became Iskandar and later Sikandar, it was not because there were textbook rules of cognate etymology which made a Greek “Alex” into “Isk’ or “Sik” in any language. These changes took place on purely arbitrary human grounds.

Likewise when Sanskrit writers accepted Iranian names like Mihira (by itself as well as e.g. in names like Varahamihira) they did not reason that Miθra/Mihira was actually a cognate of Sanskrit Mitra and therefore convert the name Varahamihira into Varahamitra. They simply accepted the Iranian name and pronounced it, then and later, in their own new Sanskritized way.

Similarly, when the Vedic composers referred to the Anu-Iranian Kaoša in the Rigveda, they did not open out their textbooks of cognate etymology and decide that they should pronounce the name as Kōṣa: they simply relied on their ears. It is sad that these illiterate Vedic and Sanskrit composers and writers did not have modern textbookworms to guide them.

As I said: just putting in my word on this textbookworm disease. No intentions of participating in endless and pointless discussions and debates on this point.