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NOTES, 1, 85, 12.
If used by itself, vrishan most frequently means man, and chiefly in his sexual character. Thus :
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I, 140, 6. vrishâ-iva pátnîh abhí eti róruvat. Agni comes roaring like a husband to his wives.
I, 179, 1. ápi am (íti) nú pátnih vrishanah gagamyuk. Will the husbands now come to their wives?
II, 16, 8. sakrít sú te sumatí-bhih-sám pátnîbhik ná vrishanah nasîmahi.
May we for once cling firmly to thy blessings, as husbands cling to their wives.
V, 47, 6. upa-prakshé vríshanah módamânâh diváh patha vadhvak yanti ákkha.
The exulting men come for the embrace on the path of heaven towards their wives.
In one or two passages vrishan would seem to have a still more definite meaning, particularly in the formula surah drisîke vrishanah ka paúmsye, which occurs IV, 41, 6; X, 92, 7. See also I, 179, 1.
In all the passages which we have hitherto examined vrishan clearly retained its etymological meaning, though even then it was not always possible to translate it by male.
The same meaning has been retained in other languages in which this word can be traced. Thus, in Zend, arshan (the later gushan) is used to express the sex of animals in such expressions as aspahé arshnô, gen. a male horse; varâzahe arshnô, gen. a male boar; géus arshnô, gen. a male ox; but likewise in the sense of man or hero, as arsha husrava, the hero Husrava. In Greek we find åpony and ǎppnu used in the same way to distinguish the sex of animals, as ἄρσενες ἵπποι, βοῦν ἄρσενα. In Latin the same word may be recognised in the proper name Varro, and in vâro and baro.
We now come to another class of passages in which vrishan is clearly intended to express more than merely the masculine gender. In some of them the etymological meaning of spargere, to pour forth, seems to come out again, and it is well known that Indian commentators are very fond of explaining vríshan by giver of rain, giver of
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| SR No. | 007685 |
| Book Title | Grihya Sutras |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Hermann Oldenberg |
| Publisher | Oxford |
| Publication Year | 1886 |
| Total Pages | 2642 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 49 MB |