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Sanskrit bādha
203
that -dh- is secondary. But the Vedic evidence suggests that bādhá- is a very old participle. If the authors of the ritual texts did really intend to offer an etymological explanation of it from the root bādha-, they did so simply because that was the only root available to them which was phonetically and semantically close to būdhá-.
It is, however, possible to suggest two other etymological explanations. tādhá- 'dug out; river-bed' may be derived from IE *bhodh (bhedh) 15 'stechen, bes. in die Erde stechen, graben' (Walde-Pokorny II. 188). In this derivation we will have to assume an old Indic * badh, bah- 'to dig, etc.', which on the analogy of (*gh>)h + ta 16 > dha (cf. sah: sādha) gave rise to bâdhá-. For a similar analogical form one may compare vrudh, ruh: rūdhá-.
The other explanation is to derive badhá- (*bhngh-to-. In Avesta we have bązah- 'Tiefe' and in Sanskrit bādha- 'dug out'. On the basis of this evidence it is tempting to assume an IE root *//bhengh'to dig' which would explain satisfactorily Skt bāờhá-, both phonetically and semantically.
Poona (India)
1 H. Krahe (Beiträge zur Namenforschung 14.181, 1963) remarks: "Wie einige dieser Wörter, so besonders lat. f088a, gall. *bedu., auch nhd. Fhuse-bett zeigen, ist die Wz. *bhedh. geeignet, auch Wasserläufe zu bezeichnen".
16 H. Krahe, op. cit., p. 183 remarks on the river name Beste: „Es kann sich um eine Bildung mit einem t-haltigen Suffix handeln, wobei die Gruppo -d-t- (*bed-4-) zu -st. werden musste...."
Madhu Vidyā/358
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