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lxxiv
VEDIC HYMNS.
Another idiomatic phrase in which sthâtúh occurs is sthâtúh gágatah, and here sthâtúh is really a genitive : IV, 53, 6. gágatah sthâtúh ubháyasya yah vasĩ.
He who is lord of both, of what is movable and what is immovable.
VI, 50, 7. vísvasya sthâtúh gágatah gánitrîh.
They who created all that stands and moves. VII, 60, 2. vísvasya sthâtúh gágatah ka gopah.
The guardians of all that stands and moves. Cf. X, 63, 8. I, 159, 3. sthâtúh ka satyám gágatah ka dhármani putrásya pathah padám ádvayâvinah.
Truly while you uphold all that stands and moves, you protect the home of the guileless son. Cf. II, 31, 5.
But although I have no doubt that in I, 70, 4, the original poet said sthâtúk karátham, I should be loath to suppress the evidence of the mistake and alter the Pada text from ka rátham to karátham. The very mistake is instructive, as showing us the kind of misapprehension to which the collectors of the Vedic text were liable, and enabling us to judge how far the limits of conjectural criticism may safely be extended.
Uloka.
A still more extraordinary case of misunderstanding on the part of the original compilers of the Vedic texts, and likewise of the authors of the Prâtisâkhyas, the Niruktas, and other Vedic treatises, has been pointed out by Professor Kuhn. In an article of his, 'Zur ältesten Geschichte der Indogermanischen Völker' (Indische Studien, vol. i, p. 351), he made the following observation: 'The Lithuanian laukas, Lett. lauks, Pruss. laukas, all meaning field, agree exactly with the Sk. lokas, world, Lat. locus, Low Germ. (in East-Frisia and Oldenburg) louch, lôch, village. All these words are to be traced back to the Sk. uru, Gr. evpús, broad, wide. The initial u is lost, as in Goth. rûms, O. H. G. rûmi, rûmin (Low Germ. rûme, an open uncultivated field in a forest), and the r changed into 1. In support of this derivation it should be observed that in the Veda loka is frequently preceded by the particle u, which probably was only separated from it by the Diaskeuastæ, and that the meaning is
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