The fat pasture: Greek Βοιωτία and Vedic gávyūti

Pandanus ’13: Nature in Literature, Art, Myth and Ritual, vol. 7.1., 2013

Summary: On the basis of recent contributions where different figures of Keśins are put in relation with the vrātya warrior/ ascetic, the present paper is an attempt to spot additional pieces of evidence of this connection. For this purpose almost 500 passages involving the plant names darbha, kuśa, śara and iṣīkā have been surveyed and analyzed, starting from the coincidence of the proper name Keśin Dālbhya with the first phytonym here listed. Furthermore, the epithet keśin has been put in relation with some realia on the vrātya, so that in the former part, a fresh interpretation of the ascetic imagery involved in ṚV 10.136 has been advanced while in the latter, through the study of the abhicāra usage of the reeds, the famous episode of Bhīṣma dying on his ‘bed of arrows’ (śaratalpa) is supposed as being the consequence of a specific ascetic and heroic aspiration to heaven.

Numen-international Review for The History of Religions, 2001

Semantic etymologies are to be distinguished from historical etymologies. A historical etymology presents the origin or early history of a word. Semantic etymologies do something completely different. They connect one word with one or more others which are believed to elucidate its meaning. Semantic etymologies are practically universal in pre-modern cultures, and there are treatises in some cultures -such as Yāska's Nirukta in ancient India, Plato's Cratylus in ancient Greece -that specifically deal with them. This article addresses the question how modern scholarship should try to understand semantic etymologizing. It is argued that, being a universal phenomenon, semantic etymologizing is in need of a universal explanation. Drawing inspiration from certain pre-modern philosophies,it is proposed to study this phenomenon in the light of another category of phenomena that is often called "magical". * I thank the editors of Numen for useful criticism.

2021

in F. Giusfredi, Zs. Simon, E. Martínez Rodríguez (eds.), Studies in the languages and language contact in Pre-Hellenistic Anatolia (Barcino. Monographica Orientalia 17 – Series Anatolica et Indogermanica 2), Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2021, pp. 67-80.

Pūrvāparaprajñābhinandanam. East and West, Past and Present. Indological and Other Essays in Honour of Klaus Karttunen, 2010

My academic career in comparative Indo-European linguistics began with Classical Philology (Greek and Latin) and Indo-Iranian languages (Sanskrit and Avestan). In this regard I have much common in with Klaus Karttunen, my former teacher and a supervisor of my dissertation, now celebrating his 60th birthday. It is my utmost pleasure to contribute to this volume a paper on Indo-European etymologies, related in various ways to Italo-Greek and Indo-Iranian, and dedicate it to Klaus Karttunen. 1

This study embarks on an exploratory journey into the agricultural lexicon common to Old Turkic and Greek, focusing on terms such as 'bull', 'honey', 'apple', and 'mow'. Central to this research are pivotal questions: Are these linguistic similarities the result of borrowing processes, or do they signify a deeper connection through shared etymons? Employing a comparative linguistic analysis, the paper investigates both the phonetic and semantic aspects of these terms to unravel their historical trajectories. This inquiry delves

FCM = first compound member, SCM = second compound member. Nikolaev, Vedic gabhīrá-, page 2

-

India is the land of sacred trees and plants, since time immemorial. In the Vedic literature, the trees or VªkÒas were always regarded to be the object of great reverence. The earliest mention of the trees is found in the ègveda, the oldest repository of human knowledge. A long hymn (X.97) of the ègveda is devoted to worshipping the trees and plants with special reference to their healing properties. In the Atharvaveda or Brahma Veda trees and plants are also mentioned with special reference to their healing properties and their capacity of warding of the demons (rākÒasas). In the ègveda, the cult of trees is well recognized. Therefore, the trees were implored to bestow for good offspring, various worldly amenities and also for long life without any disease. The word VªkÒa is the general term for tree in the Sa¿hitās and post Vedic literature. There are twelve synonyms of VªkÒa (VéÐchyate chedyate iti VªkÒa—that which is cut) found in the AmarakoÐa (IV.25) such as: Mahīruha (that which grows on the earth), Ïākhī (that which has branches), Pādapa (that which drinks sap with roots), Taru(taranti anena ātapam—that by which people overcome heat), Anokaha (anasa½ ÐakaÔasyākaï gatiï hanti—that which obstructs the pace of a cart), KuÔa, Ïāla, PalāÐa (that which have leaves), Dru, Druma (– that which has a part of the tree), and Agama(na gacchati iti agama— that which does not move). From the following ègvedic mantra 1 : ‚taÒÔeva vªkÒa¿ vanino ni vªÐcāsi paraÐveva ni vªÐcāsi " , the etymology of VªkÒa can be assumed. So, the term vªkÒa could be derived from the root vraÐc-meaning 'to crash down or cut down' (vªkÒo vraÐcanāt 2). The names of different VªkÒas are found in the

After a brief overview of studies that correlate the Burushaski language with Indo-European, the article goes on to examine the close and specific semantic and phonological correspondence between eight plant names shared by Burushaski and the Indo-European languages of the Mediterranean and Southern Europe. On the strength of this correlation it is proposed that these plant names may point to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans as the original area of inhabitation of the Burushaski people.

The Traditional Trees of Bharat, 2024

This is a brief survey of references in Vedic literature to various trees and plants pointing to the scope and necessity of further research in the field. The analysis, which follows this, is confined to some selected aspects such as ritualistic, religious, literary and socio-cultural. Given the remote age in which the Vedic literature evolved, the identification of these flora does pose a challenge especially due to limited descriptions of their characteristic features. However a thorough study of this literature by locating multiple references or descriptions of trees and plants across both Vedic and post-Vedic literature and analyzing facts from multifarious angles such as geographical, botanical, and cultural ones could indeed be much beneficial. It could throw up a mine of information and insight useful to researchers of Botany, Agriculture, Cultural Studies, Ecology, and Indic knowledge.