Zend Avesta Part 03

SR No.: 007673
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: L H Mills
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1887
Total Pages: 2618
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 49 MB

Page 816

222
VEDIC HYMNS.
your lightning with boar-teeth tears.' In his Dictionary, however, he only says, 'krivis, perhaps the name of an animal, and dant, tooth.' Sayana contents himself with explaining krivirdati by vikshepanasiladantî, having teeth that scatter about.
My own translation is founded on the supposition that krivis, the first portion of krivirdatî, has nothing to do with krivi, but is a dialectic variety of kravis, raw flesh, the Greek Kpéas, Latin caro, cruor. It means what is raw, bloody, or gory. From it the adjective krūra, horrible, cruentus (Curtius, Grundzüge, p. 142; Kuhn, Zeitschrift, vol. ii, p. 235). A name of the goddess Durgå in later Sanskrit is krůradants, and with a similar conception the lightning, I believe, is here called krivirdatî, with gory teeth.
Note 4. It should be observed that in rádati the simile of the teeth of the lightning is carried on. For rádati may be supposed to have had in the Veda, too, the original meaning of râdere and rôdere, to scratch, to gnaw. Ráda and radana in the later Sanskrit mean tooth. It is curious, however, that there is no other passage in the Rig-veda where rad clearly means to bite. It means to cut, in
I, 61, 12. góh na párva vi rada tiraska. Cut his joint through, as the joint of an ox.
But in most passages where rad occurs in the Veda, it has the meaning of giving. It is not the same which we have in the Zend råd, to give, and which Justi rightly identifies with the root râdh. But rad, to divide, may, like the German theilen in zutheilen, have taken the meaning of giving. Greek dalw means to divide, but yields dals, portion, meal, just as Sanskrit day, to divide, yields dâyas, share, i.e. inheritance.
This meaning is evident in the following passages :
VII, 79, 4. tấvat ushah radhah asmábhyam råsva yávat stotrl-bhyah aradah grinânã.
Grant us, Ushas, so much wealth as thou hast given to the singers, when praised.
I, 116, 7. kakshỉvate aradatam púram-dhim. You gave wisdom to Kakshîvat. I, 169, 8. ráda marút-bhih surúdhah gó-agrah.
Digitized by
Digized by Google