Ishwa helper Reged: 03/03/02 Posts: 553

Re: Which is older, R^ig or taittiriiya sa.nhitaa? [Re: rajsand] #15175 - 04/21/02 08:24 AM Edit Reply Quote

Dear Raj, I wonder which "La" you are talking about. The 'da' (13th consonant) is a dental. The 'la' is a semivowel. From dental 'da' you need retroflex 'd.a', then retroflex 'l.a' before you have semivowel 'la'. So the sequence is : dental --> retroflex (two stages)--> semivowel kadevara --> kad.evara - kal.evara --> kalevara meaning dead body. The western languages retained the older kadevara in 'cadaver' This is actually the linguistic history of Prakritisms. Of course the RkSamhita has Prakrtisms, which you see clearly in the word 'tita-u' for sieve. Between the a' and the 'u' we miss a consonant. Sandhi or compound rules also played a great role in retaining or losing vowels and consonants. For instance we know the word 'hita' (also in sam-hit�) from the verbal root 'dha=to establish', which retains its older dental character when compounded with tad: tad-dhita. Or e-dhi losing its verbal 'as=to be' character. It first becomes az-dhi because the voiceless 's' has to become a voiced 'z'. Then the sibilant is lost. To mark this loss the vowel is changed in 'e'. Somewhat similar is the change from as in o instead of e: manas +bhis becomes manazbhis and then manobhis (manobhih). Another point to consider is the area where the books were composed. The Rk for instance has more 'ra' than 'la' semivowels, where in the Yajus and Brahmanas this is more balanced. One thing you could say though, that the Taittiriiya and other collections have retained archaisms in sounds which were lost or changed in the Samhit� period, but were part of the Rch� period. The Taittiriiya Samhita is a Yajus collection, which is far later not only in language but also in content then the RkSamhita. The Yajus is from the time of the Kuru-Panchalas using Rk material whereas the Rk is from the Puru-Bharata period, where the Kurus didn't exist. The last great emperor of the Bharatas was Sudas who figures in the older Family Books of the Rk. About the syllable meanings I can't say anything, yet. It doesn't sound improbable to me.