Grihya Sutras

SR No.: 007685
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

Page 1272

215
Note 2. Nítya, from ni+tya*, means originally what is inside, internus, then what is one's own; and is opposed to níshtya, from nis+tya, what is outside, strange, or hostile. Nitya has been well compared with nigá, literally eingeboren, then, like nítya, one's own. What is inside, or in a thing or place, is its own, is peculiar to it, does not move or change, and hence the secondary meanings of nitya, one's own, unchanging, eternal. Thus we find nítya used in the sense of internal or domestic:
NOTES. I, 166, 2.
I, 73, 4. tám två nárah dáme a nítyam iddhám ágne sákanta kshitishu dhruvasu.
Our men worshipped thee, O Agni, lighted within the house in safe places.
This I believe to be a more appropriate rendering than if we take nitya in the sense of always, continuously lighted, or, as some propose, in the sense of eternal, everlasting. VII, 1, 2. dakshayyah yáh dáme sa nítyah.
Agni who is to be pleased within the house, i. e. as belonging to the house, and, in that sense, who is to be pleased always. Cf. I, 140, 7; 141, 2; X, 12, 2, and III, 25, 5, where nítyah, however, may have been intended as an adjective belonging to the vocative sûno.
Most frequently nítya occurs with sûnú, I, 66, 1; 185, 2; tánaya, III, 15, 2; X, 39, 14; toká, II, 2, 11; âpí, VII, 88, 6; páti, I, 71, 1, and has always the meaning of one's own, very much like the later Sanskrit niga, which never occurs in the Rig-veda, though it makes its appearance in the Âtharvana.
Nishtya, extraneus, occurs three times in the Rig-veda : VI, 75,19. yáh nah sváh áranah yáh ka níshtyah gighâmsati. Whoever wishes to hurt us, our own friend or a stranger from without.
X, 133, 5. yáh nah indra abhi-dấsati sá-nâbhih yah ka níshtyah.
He who infests us, O Indra, whether a relative or a stranger. VIII, 1, 13. ma bhûma níshtyâh-iva índra tvád áranâh-iva.
a
Apa-tya; cf. Bopp, Accentuationssystem, § 138, π-σσa, Nach
kommen.
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