Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute

AN INDIC ETYMOLOGY
Author(s): M. B. EMENEAU
Source: Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 48/49, Golden Jubilee
Volume 1917-1967 (1968), pp. 55-57
Published by: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41694223 .
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AN INDIC

ETYMOLOGY
BY

M. B. EMENEAU

Severalreviewershave asked questionsas to the principleson which

Manfred Mayrhofer, in his KurzgefasstesetymologischesWrterbuchdes
Altindischen
, reliedin includingor omittingSanskritwords. The principles
have not yetbecome entirelyclear,but human frailtyis probably the most
inclusivereason thatcould be alleged.
Some itemsincludedin our lxica mightwell be omittedentirely,
as
being wordswithno real existence( voces nihili). Such a one is mgham
' a femalecrab ', whichMayrhofer listed with no
(
etymology
) as an epic
word; in myreviewof the pertinentfasciculein Language 39. 102 f., I examined the word philologicallyand showed that it, and segava- ' young of
crab ', are creationsof the commentators,
who failed to understandseveral
epic passages.
Otherwords are registeredin Westerndictionariesas onlylexical,but
since manyof theseare in facttakenfromthe lxica foruse by late Sanskrit
authors,theyachievea certaintypeof life. For themetymologiesshould be
provided. The membersof one verysmall subclass of lexical items( with or
withoutlate literaryuse ) have good Indo-European etymologiesand live on
in later Indie ( Middle Indo-Aryan or Modern Indo-Aryan or both ). A
numberof thesehave meaningsof the ' vulgar' sortthatmake themunsuitable foruse in Sanskritliterature. In a review of Mayrhofer in Language
34. 416 f., I mentionedgotha- as one such word,and mighthave noted also
pardate( both theseare treatedby Mayrhofer ) ; hadati has literary,though
fairlylate, attestation( Mayrhofer has not yetreachedthisword). But the
'
'
great majorityof lexical items are withoutIndo-European etymologies.
Perhapsin principleno such lexical itemshould be omitted,sincein principle
everyone of themmay achievelimitedliterarylife. It is forthisreason that
I recordan etymologyfortaravata-,the name of the plant Cassia auriculata.
The major St. Petersburglexiconquoted taravata- onlyfroman early
19th century Sanskrit lexicon, Bp Gagadhara's Nighantuprakka
(Bombay, 1839). The minorSt. Petersburglexicon added a referenceto
the 13th centuryKashmirian Narahari's medical dictionaryRjanighantu
(dates givenby Keith as 1235-50).

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56

ATT
M. B. EMENE

Sit R. L. Turner, A ComparativeDictionaryof the Indo-Aryan Languages, entry5705, underthe head of this Sanskrit word, lists the Prakrit
word taravatta-, for which Sheth's dictionarygives as meaning Hindi
cakwar, i.e. Sanskritcakramarda-Cassia tora. The Prakrit referencesare
two lxica, the Pialacchinamamlof Dhanapla ( A. D. 972 ) and thesomewhat laterDe'snmamof Hemacandra( 12th century). Turner quotes
fromthe modernvernacularsHindi tarwar,tarwar( Platts tarwar,tarwar)
Cassia auriculataand Marthtarvad, tarod Cassia auriculataor tora.
Since the Prakritreferencesare earlier than the Sanskrit,all being
lexical only, and since neitheris earlierthanthe earlystagesof the vernaculars, it is at least possible that we are dealing with a medieval vernacular
word whichwas Sanskritizedand Prakritizedby lexicographers.
Burrow and Emeneau, A DravidianEtymologicalDictionary( D ED ),
has numerousforms,Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu,
2433,
entry
all apparentlynon-literary,with meanings C. tora and occidentalis. The
formsalmostall begin with tak/gar-. E.g. Ta. takarai, Ka. tagarce,Te.
tagirisa. A DravidianEtymologicalDictionary: Supplement( DEDS ; forthcomingin 1968) adds from Burrow's collectanea Kannada taragasi and
taruvasa, whicharise by metathesisof g and r. It is in all probabilityfrom
some such Kannada formthatthe vernacularIndo-Aryanformsarose.
It would be pleasantlysimplisticifwe could posit that the numerous
well-attested
Kannada-Marthborrowingswerethe matrixwithinwhichthis
Dravidian word penetratedinto Indo-Aryan.r However, this becomes less
than certainwhenwe attemptto findan explanation for the ending ( Skt.
-vata-, H. -war, Mar. -vad. ) of the Indo-Aryan words. If we were to
assume thatthiselementis due to contaminationwith the ' banyan' words,
Marthvad, Sanskritvata-wouldlook in the direction of Marth as the
source of the form; the Hindi element -war is less close to its ' banyan*
word bar. But thisseemsbotanicallyless thanprobable ; the Cassia species
and the banyanare not closely similar. We should notice again Sanskrit
cakramarda-Cassia tora( in Susruta), whichalso is based on the words in
DED 2433, specifically
on Kannada formswithinitialc- (Burrow, BSOAS,
'
12.378, derived-marda- fromthe Dravidian ' tree words of DED 3856).
For thisword Turner recordsin Modern Indo-Aryanonly Hindi formswith
considerableminorvariation,e.g. cakwd, cakwar, cakr. Sheth ( as was
noted above ) uses cakwaras the Hindi equivalentforPrakrittaravatta-. It
seemsmore reasonableto assume the element-war,? -war in these Hindi
factorthatproducedthe second element of the
formsas the contaminating
taravata- words, even though this destroysthe possibilityof regarding
Marth as their' port of entry' into Indo-Aryan.

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ANINDIOETYMOLOGY

57

We have probablypostulatedthe correctdirectionof the borrowing,

i.e. Dravidian to Indo-Aryan,ratherthanthe other way around. On this
theorywe arriveat an explanationof more details than if we should start
withIndo-Aryantaravata- or tarwarand attemptto reach the Dravidian
commonelementtak/gar-and the Kannada forms with c-. No trace of
-vata- is to be foundin any of the Dravidian forms,but our hypothesisgoes
a considerabledistancetowardsexplainingits originin Indo-Aryan.
It should be noted thatTurner lists also Prakrittadavad ' a small
kind of myrobalan'. This, whichdenotessomethingthat is ratherfarbotanicallyfroma Cassia species, hardlybelongs here.

A90BI8

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