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________________ The Problem of 'Apadha in the Rgveda Dr. Smt. Y. S. Shah Ahmedabad Interpretation of Vedic hymns in general and of individual words in particular, has been a knotty problem right from the day of Yaska and not all the ingenuities of the commentators of the Rgveda and scholarly labours of the Western and Eastern Orientalists have been able to unveil the mystery about a number of obscure Vedic words. One of them is the Vedic word 'Apadha' in the RV. II, 12, 3. The word occurs in the second quarter of the above Rk which is as follows: yo gA udAjadapadhA valasya / Yo'ga' Udajad apadha valasya. The Pada text traditionally handed down to this day runs thus : 4: TI: I Bars&TITI 3TT SETT | COEU Sayana interprets this quarter in the following manner :yazca valasya valanAmakasyAsurasyApadhA tatkartRkAnniruddhA gA udAjat niragamayat / Here in his rendering of 29EUR faal:, he unwittingly reveals that the ultimate sense is 'imprisoned' and the word is an adjective of Te:. But while grammatically analysing, he seems to derive it from the root 3+ to which the termination 375 is applied in the impersonal sense. The word thus becomes 2719 3 is added. Thus it is supposed to be the ablative singular. Venkata Madhava too renders the word as fast atfefeat: and takes it as an adjective of gAH, which he renders as pazUn. Western scholars have created more confusion in trying to identify the exact grammatical form. Thus Roth takes it to be the instrumental of 379 + ET Ludmiga suggests that this word is instrumental in sense and we must take it to mean wedge or key (quasi reserator). Hillebrandt3 thinks that fe is a locative from 37f8. Grassman4 translates it 1. Sanskrit-Wor, St Pt, 1855, p. 282 2. Peterson, Hymns from the Rigveda, Second Selection, Notes, p. 116 3. Veda Chrestomathic, p. 70 4. Worterbuch Zum Rigveda, p. 71 itihAsa aura purAtattva : 115
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________________ as 'a hiding place'. Griffithi translates it as 'from the cave'. Peterson remarks that this word is a Vedic locative of the same kind as 'guha' in the next verse and translates it as 'cave': Zimmerman translates it as 'from the enclosure'. He compares it with II, 14, 3 ; UT TI SITT E qua: Macdonell4 also translates it as 'by the unclosing', 'On the basis of feminine forms, he remarks that it can only be the instrumental singular of Apadha'. He takes 'Valasya' as objective genitive i.e. by opening (the cave of ) Vala. Velankar seems to follow Roth when he takes 'Apadha' as instrumental singular of Apadha on the analogy of ekayA pratidhA-pratidhAnena in Vill; 77, 1, Sayana took it as irregularity for the ablative, by goi agt 441 34: Durga,? the commentator on Nirukta explains the form by 3194199 as meaning 369a by the enclosing. As has been seen above, Venkata Madhavas too while explaining it as fargefafgar: has indicated indirectly to the feminine base with 'a' ending. It seems that 379er is really 3T99T: accusative plural of 31491, feminine form from apa + dha by applying the affix 'an' in accordance with the Paninian rule III, 3, 106. An analogous case it that of the word fags occurring in the form of fagur in R V, X, 73, 11 : vayaH suparNA upa sedurinduM priyamedhA RSayo nAdhamAnAH / apa dhvAntabhRNu hi pUdhi cakSu'-mumugdhya_ 'smAn nidhayeva baddhAna / / The word far is found in the Naigamakanda of the fourth chapter of Nirukta. Mukund Jha Bakshi in his notes on Nirukta explains nidhA as "Atazcopasarga" sfa ( 91. 309.87EUR) # TETA 3 ( 41. 3.3.808) ar Erfa fafa yafai This supports our thesis about the nature of the form of 299. In point of accent too, the form te resembles fate. 1. Hymns from the Rigveda, Vol. II, p. 273 2. Peterson, op. cit, 3. Vedic Selections, Notes, p. 124 4. Vedic Reader, pp. 46 ff 5. Rksukta vaijayanti, p. 72 6. Sayana's commentary on 11/2, 3: 37781-3T cafgetra: 'alataTt' (ar. 3.3.80EUR) iti bhAve'GpratyayaH / supAM sulugiti paJcamyA AkAraH / 7. Durga's commentary on Nirukta, Adhyaya, 8, 1. 8. Rgarthadipika, Vol. III, p. 75. 9. Mukund Jha Bakshi, (Ed.) Nirukta, p. 160 116 : agaracanda nAhaTA abhinandana-grantha
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________________ Now the Padapathakara has noticed the form as 37TTT without the final 'Visarga'. Can it not be possible that in the Samhita-lPatha, there was elision of of original visarga of aper:, the originally intended form and anyhow the author of Padapatha missed it ? There are many instances in which the older authors of Padapathas differed from one another in splitting Samhita text into its component padas. This has been adduced to by Yaska himself. Thus Yiska takes note of difference of opinion of various authors of Padapatha with regard to the word Aditya :zAkalyAyaprabhRti vagRhItam, pUrvanirvacanAbhiprAyeNa / gAryaprabhRtibhiravagRhItamiti tadeva kAraNam, vicitrAH padakArANAmabhiprAyAH, kvacidupasargaviSaye'pi nAvagRha Nanti yathA zAkalyena "adhIvAsam" iti nAvagRhItama, AtrayeNa tu "adhivAsam'-ityavagRhItam / tsmaadvgrho'nvgrhH||| ___ Similarly with regard to the word bhAsakRta in R V I, 105, 18, Yaska takes it as an Upapada compound and hence as one word, thus : mAsakRt mAsAnAM cArdhabhAsAnAM ca kartA bhavati candramAH // 2 But Sikalya splits the word into two padas, as mA / sa kRt / / Thus this possibility of the presence of originally existent but morphophonemically elided Visarga sets at rest all the unnecessary efforts of the traditional commentators and modern orientalists. 1. Nirukta. II, 13. 2. Nirukta, V, 21 3. cf. Padapatha of RV I, 105, 18 in RV. Sathhita (Poona), Vol I, p. 649. itihAsa aura purAtattva : 117