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AVESTAN yaowă (n. 1.)
221
From meadow' to 'herd' is not a difficult transition, nor is the reverse". Tarapore wala (Selections from Avesta and Old Persian, n. 20) also suggests the same etymology (w van 'to win, to conquer. to protect, to prosper).
The above etymology implies derivation of vafwa from Vran with the primary suffix -tva. But the words derived with the primary suffix -tva in Sanskrit and Avestan are adjectives. "Als Bildungselement für primäre Adjektive ist -tra- nur für das Induiranische sicher nachgewiesen”.! Such adjectives have the meaning of gerundives; e.g. Sk. hantun, Av. jalwa '(deserving) to be killed', Sk. vaktva, Av. vaxətwa 'to be spoken'. But since vabwa is a substantive and not a gerundive adjective, the above derivation remains doubtful,
It is therefore proposed to derive vriowa from *trantva, a compound formed with Sk. tva 'one, some, several' and comparable in formation with Sk. drandva ‘pair, couple'. In Sanskrit, when in a sentence, tva is repeated, it means, when used in the singular, "the one ...... the other', and when used in plural it means *these ...... those, some ...... some'. In such usage there is not always clear opposition implied by the use of tre ......tre. E.g. in RV 10.71.7 we read ādaghınāsa upakakşāsa u tre liradá iva snátunt u toe dadršre "Some of them (i.e. the sábhayal) appeared like ponds reaching upto mouth, (some like ponds) reaching upto armpit, and others like those fit to bathe in". Thus what are indicated by tve......tre are only different kinds of ponds. If an iterative compound like *fvantra is formed with trai 'some', it oun easily mean a group, a collection, a herd'.
Semantically, the derivation of vagwa from *trantra therefore does not seein to encounter any difficulty. The word can refer to a composite herd consisting of 'some' animals of one kind (e.g. cows) and 'some of the other (e.g. horses); or, it can refer to
1. Alt. Gr. II, 28 526, p. 711
Madhu Vidyā/193
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