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 829

NOTES. I, 166, 11.
235
feminine enî, of eta. There is, however, another word, eda, a kind of sheep, which, but for Festus, might be haedus, and by its side ena, a kind of antelope. These two forms pre-suppose an earlier erna or arna, and point therefore in a different direction, though hardly to apves.
Note 4. I translate kshurá by sharp edges, but it might have been translated literally by razors, for, strange as it may sound, razors were known, not only during the Vedic period, but even previous to the Aryan separation. The Sanskrit kshurá is the Greek fupós or Eupóv. In the Veda we have clear allusions to shaving :
X, 142, 4. yada te vấtah anu-váti sokih, váptâ-iva smásru vapasi prá bhấma.
When the wind blows after thy blast, then thou shavest the earth as a barber shaves the beard. Cf. I, 65, 4.
If, as B. and R. suggest, vaptar, barber, is connected with the more modern name for barber in Sanskrit, viz. nâpita, we should have to admit a root svap, in the sense of tearing or pulling, vellere, from which we might derive the Vedic svapů (VII, 56, 3), beak. Corresponding to this we find in Old High-German snabul, beak, (schnepfe, snipe,) and in Old Norse nef. The Anglo-Saxon neb means mouth and nose, while in modern English neb or nib is used for the bill or beak of a bird". Another derivation of nâpita, proposed by Professor Weber (Kuhn's Beiträge, vol. I, p. 505), who takes nåpita as a dialectic form of snâpitar, balneator, or lavator, might be admitted if it could be proved that in India also the barber was at the same time a balneator. Burnouf, Lotus, p. 452, translating from the Samañña-phala Sutta, mentions among the different professions of the people those of portier,' .barbier,' and 'baigneur.'
Verse 11. Note 1. Vl-bhatayah is properly a substantive, meaning
a Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, vol. iii, pp. 400, 409. There is not yet sufficient evidence to show that Sanskrit sv, German sn, and Sanskrit n are interchangeable, but there is at least one case that may be analogous. Sanskrit svang, to embrace, to twist round a person, German slango, Schlange, snake, and Sanskrit någa, snake. Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik, vol. ii, p. 364.
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