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APPENDIX III
A few words about the meaning and derivation of the word himsā are called for since there is still some difference of opinions. In the last century the word was generally explained as an abstract noun derived from the verb himsati which was analyzed as a truncated desiderative of han 'to strike, slay, kill'. This interpretation is still upheld by some scholars (e.g. Biardeau, Malamoud, Dumont, Zimmermann, Schreiner). It is even assumed that the desiderative meaning is still present in the abstract himsā as 'wish to kill or hurt'. This attempt at literal precision is however ill-advised: the verb himsati does not show desiderative meaning anywhere. The grammarians who proposed the derivation had to assume that the verb had already lost the desiderative force. The derivation from the [208] desiderative of han was first rejected by Wackernagel nearly a hundred years ago and definitively demolished by Liiders (775ff.).
The main objection against deriving hims from han is the fact that the loss of the root syllable is simply inexplicable. Other truncated desideratives do not offer any analogy: They are all due to the loss of the initial of the zero-grade root due to reduction of an unpronouncable consonant cluster (dipsati < dabh, śikṣati < sak, sīksati < sah, lipsati < labh, ripsati < rabh, pitsati < pad, dhīksati < dah). A zerograde desiderative from han could only have resulted in *jighasati; moreover, we have already in the Rgveda the vrddhi desiderative of jighāṁsati. Bartholomae believed that a perfect analogy was found in Avestan jihāt (Nyāyišn 1.1) which he explained as a desiderative of gam, but this should rather have been *jijahāt, *jijayhāt; it is therefore preferable to adopt the variant reading jahāt which is regular sigmatic aorist (Kellens 398 n. 2).
Wackernagel and Lüders derive himsati from a root his 'to injure'. Although the present stem-form himsa occurs earlier than the expected older form hinás, it is the latter which is almost exclusively used in the rest of Vedic literature. The objection - still raised by some linguists - that from a root hiş one should expect *hináşti and *himşánti (cf. pináști, pimşánti), has plausibly been countered by Lüders: in the case of hinásti, the assimilation has worked in the opposite direction. The shift of accent in the RV form himsanti has parallels in invanti, jínvanti, and pínvanti, from which secondary present stems were formed just as from himsanti.
In the following I am giving a shortened version of my earlier paper with some changes and additions (in particular III); in VI-VIII I discuss some of the work published on the subject since 1968 and advance some arguments which may support my original thesis.
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