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________________ Sanskrit Naka-s : Gothic Nehw-s VITTORE PISANI Nhis important review of Heinrich Luder's Varuna (' Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft' 101, 1951, p. 407 ff.) Paul Thieme defines the names of the parts of the sky in Rgveda (p. 412) : rocana-m means, according to him, the unvisible part, na'ka-s the part that is visible as the firmament; only later on this word ends by indicating the sky in general. In a foot-note (4) Thieme suggests that na'ka- may be formed, like upaka- and apaka-, from a na which exists no more in Sanskrit but is preserved in Slav na 'on' (from *no, as shown by its Lithuanian correspondence nuo). His further comparison with Greek noton back'is surely wrong; but the idea that na'ka- may be formed like upaka- apaka- (cp. further upanc-, apanc- etc.; s. also my paper : Latino provincia, etc., Rendiconti dell'Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere' LXXIV, 1940, p. 148 ff.) is doubtless an illuminating one. Manfred Mayrhofer, A Concise Etymological Sanskrit Dictionary II, 1963, p. 149 mentions further etymologies that deserve no attention. Now, if Thieme's etymology is right, then we must consider naoka- as originally an adjective : na'ka-, like upaka- 'approximate', apaka- distant', may have indicated, to judge from Slavna and according to the significance of na'ka- 'firmament' as opposed to rocana-, what is situated on something or near to something. And one cannot avoid to compare it with Gothic nehw-s (German nahe, cld English neah, Engl. nigh), of which Sigmund Feist, Vergleichendes Worterbuch der Gotischen Sprache, 3d ed. 1939, p. 373 rightly says that all extant
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________________ 186 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME comparisons are not reliable. Formally Skt. na'ka- and Goth. nehwacorrespond exactly to each other, as descendants from an Indo-European *nekwo-. It is possible that a formation of *no or better of I.-E. *ne, ne in apophony with it, is contained also in Sanskrit nediyan nedisthas, Avestan nazdyo adv. nazdista- (on which s. Mayrhofer, op. cit. p. 179), further in Oscan-Umbrian nessimo-, Old Irish nessam (cp. my Lingue dell' Italia antica, 2d ed. 1964, p. 138), etc. We might now ask : has this Indo-European adjective *nekwoacquired his meaning 'firmament, sky' at first in Rgveda? Or is it possible that this meaning did arise already in some Indo-European dialects? It is impossible to answer unhesitatingly this question; anyhow I would like to remember that Tokharian has a word, A nkat, B nakte which means 'god' and could be a derivation by suffix-to- from *nekwo-: the palatalisation to be seen in n indicates that after the original n there was originally a front vowel, e or e. In this case, nkat/ nakte would have meant originally celestial, inhabitant of the firmament', as a cast of *deiwo- (Sanskrit deva-s, Latin divus deus, Lithuanian dievas, etc.), which is a derivation of *dyew- (Sanskrit dyaus Greek Zeus, Latin dies etc.) 'sky, heaven'. . 1 TUISICISM I LOVE HEARDLARIN Ban 09 py