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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
DECEMBER, 1926
7 as 'by (his) own oblation, 'nityayd vdca in 8,75, 6 as 'with (thy) own voice,' nityad rdyah in 5,8,2 as from (his desirable wealth' and nityam sadah in 9, 92, 3 as beloved seat. In such passages, I have preferred one of them to the other and chosen what seemed to me to be the better, considering the context, of the two meanings. I believe, howover, that the poet must have had both meanings in his mind when he wroto' such passages, and that the more correct course to follow would be to make use of both of them together in the explanation-a course that is occasionally followed by Indian commentators. 8
I can not say how the (third) meaning dhruva came to attach itself to the word nitya (see, however, Max Müller, SBE., 32, p. 215); but it is easy to understand how the (second) muaping priya has developed from that of sviya, sahaja. What is one's own', is, in this world, generally, 'dear' to one, which explains how nitya originally meaning sviya, sahaja came to have the secondary meaning priya also.
It is remarkable that the converse also is true : what is dear' to one will generally be acquired and made one's own 'or at least, will be the object of endeavours to acquire and make one's own'. Hence it has also come about that the word priya itself which primarily means dear, pleasing, agreeable,' etc., has the secondary meaning own!
The number of passages in the Vedas where priya has the sense own' is indeed considerable ; but, so far, in two or three passages only have the Vedic interpreters recognised that priya = own. One such passage is 1, 82, 2: ákshann amimadanta hy a va priyd' adhushata where Sayaņa explains priyah as svakiyda tanith avadhushata akampayan; Ludwig, too, translates priyaḥ here as 'sich' while Grassmann (Translation) and Oldenberg (RV. Noten, I, p. 83) adhere to the meaningdear'. Another passage is 1,114,7: md nah priya's tanuò rudra ririshah (with which should be compared the parallel passage from AV. 11,2, 29: svá'm tanvam rudra ma' ririsho nah) where Sayana adheres to the meaning 'dear', but which has been correctly explained by Bergaigne (III, 152) as 'nos propres corps,' by Ludwig as 'unsere eigenen lieber' and by Max Müller (SBE., 32, p. 423) as 'our own bodies.' Max Müller has also (op. cit., p. 425) added the following note : "Priya, dear, used like Gk, philos., in the sense of our own. See Bergaigne III, 152". With these exceptions, the word priya is everywhere explained as dear,'' agreeable,' pleasant,' etc., by the exegetists, though, as said above, in & considerable number of passages, the word priya is used, not in that sense at all, but in that of own. This is specially the case in the passages which contain compounds with priya as a component word : 8, 27, 19: yad adyá sü'rya udyati priyakshatra tám dadhá
yán nimrúci prabúdhi visvavedaso yád vd madhyamdine diváh || “Whether you uphold yta, Oye that are independent, when the sun rises to-day, or when he goes down, or at midday or at daybreak (literally, at the time of awaking from sleep), O ye that possess all wealth". The hymn in which this verse occurs is addressed to the Visve Devah or All-Glods to whom therefore the vocatives priyakshatrah and vifvavedasah are addressed. Priyakshatrah here does not mean whose rule is agreeable (freundlich herrschend; PW, Grassmann, Ludwig); but priya here='own,' sva, and priyakshatrah=svakshatrah, ruling
8 I cite bere some instances of this kind from Sayana's Vedabhashya. Purtshamsudalam 8, 55, 5; purfahat=pdrakåt mandalat, 10, 27,21; purtahatearoakedmanda purakat udalodt, 1, 163, 1 (Ved. St. 1, p. vi); atlah-vydpta. 8, 41,7; atkamsrupam, 1, 122,2 ; at kam=vyaptarupam, 10, 123, 7(Ibid. 2, p. 193); irinamodharapradedam, 1, 186,9; irinamanist ruam tata leadedam, 8, 4, 3; irinamnistr nam daharashanam Batap. Br., 7, 2, 88: (Ibid. 2, p. 223); drapeam=drutagaminam, 8, 96, 14; drapean rasa 10, 17, 13; drapada= drutagamino road, 9, 106, 8; drvátsvisttdt, 4, 12, 5; Arabadabanalah, 3, 30, 19; Arasviantagne, TS. 5,10, 6 (Ibid., 2, p. 269). . Further, Oldenberg has suggested (SBE., 46, p. 62) that priya may have the sense own,' in 1, 67, 6. Not only in 1, 67, 6 but in 3, 5, 6:3, 7, 7 and 4, 6, 8 does priya, in my opinion, mean' own. The mense of these passages, however, is obscure and I have therefore been unable to include them in those that follow, where priya = own,'
