Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 37

118
M. A. MEHENDALE
text should be interpreted as cakráṁ ná áśru vartayat. As already shown above the same interpretation is made more than probable by the parallel use of krand with cakrd in the Satapatha Brahmaṇa.
It is, however, not difficult to understand why we find the wrong analysis of the Samhita text just in these two verses when comparisons with a wheel were not uncommon in the Rgveda. For, from among the nine cases cited above, where cakrá is used as an object of comparison, the last four cases show the use of iva instead of ná, and hence in these cases the possibility of any misunderstanding is altogether excluded. In the 5th instance, ná precedes cakrám (áśúm ná cakrám), and so here also no mistake was likely. In the first four instances where cakrám ná occurs, it occurs together with vṛttám or varti. This fact, as well as the context, make it impossible that in these cases cakrám ná could ever be mistaken for cakrán ná. In our present case, however, vrttám is omitted after ná; and secondly, the context is that of a weeping child. That is the real ground for the mistake. The use of krandat in verse 13 has misled OLDENBERG to observe (Noten II.309)-"Mir scheint 13° unverkennbar auf Anschluss an krand- zu deuten redupliziertes Wzlnom, des Typus Wh. 1147". The way in which OLDENBERG has thought in the 20th. century seems to hold a pointer to the way in which the author of the Padapăṭha, at least some centuries before Christ, must have thought about our verses. He too seemingly felt that in the given context cakrán should be some form derived. from krand and hence he analysed cakránná of the Samhita into cakrán ná, which really should have been cakrám ná.
83. GELDNER in his Fed. Stud. 1.279 draws, and rightly, a different conclusion-" Ableitung von krand verbietet die nächste Strophe." His view regarding the meaning of cakrán as expressed there is, however, unacceptable.
Madhu Vidya/12