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The Problem of Apadha in the Rgveda
Dr. Smt. Y. S. Shah
Ahmedabad Interpretation of Vedic hymns in general and of individual words in particular, has been a knotty problem right from the day of Yaska and not all the ingenuities of the commentators of the Rgveda and scholarly labours of the Western and Eastern Orientalists have been able to unveil the mystery about a number of obscure Vedic words. One of them is the Vedic word 'Apadhā' in the RV. II, 12, 3. The word occurs in the second quarter of the above Rk which is as follows:
यो गा उदाजदपुधा वलस्य । Yo'gā' Udajad apadhā valasya. The Pada text traditionally handed down to this day runs thus : 4: TI: I Sara TTSETT FEUI Sāyaṇa interprets this quarter in the following manner :यश्च वलस्य वलनामकस्यासुरस्यापधा तत्कर्तृकान्निरुद्धा गा उदाजत् निरगमयत् ।
Here in his rendering of arqT fra:, he unwittingly reveals that the ultimate sense is 'imprisoned' and the word is an adjective of T:. But while grammatically analysing, he seems to derive it from the root 374+ to which the termination 35 is applied in the impersonal sense. The word thus becomes 399 is added. Thus it is supposed to be the ablative singular.
Venkața Madhava too renders the word as fara fren: and takes it as an adjective of T:, which he renders as 4267.
Western scholars have created more confusion in trying to identify the exact grammatical form. Thus Roth takes it to be the instrumental of 29 + ET
Ludmig2 suggests that this word is instrumental in sense and we must take it to mean wedge or key (quasi reserator).
Hillebrandts thinks that 34 is a locative from fa. Grassman4 translates it
1. Sanskrit-Wor, St Pt, 1855, p. 282 2. Peterson, Hymns from the Rigveda, Second Selection, Notes, p. 116 3. Veda Chrestomathic, p. 70 4. Worter buch Zum Rigveda, p. 71
इतिहास और पुरातत्त्व : ११५
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