Madhuvidya

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

Page 60

UPANISADIC ETYMOLOGIES
M. A. MEHENDALE Deccan College, Poona
(1) A hitherto unnoticed etymology of púruşa.
This occurs as an implied etymology in the Mundaka Up. 2.1.5 where we read pumān retaḥ siñcati yoșitāyām bahvih prajāḥ puruşāt samprasūtāḥ. Here the wording seems to imply the derivation of príruşa as pu (pumān) + ru (retaḥ) + $a (siñcati). Although this etymology is based just on sound similarities between parts of the word púruşa and three other independent words, it is interesting to note that it reminds one of the etymology of púruşa once suggested by Uhlenbeck (Kurz. Etym. Wörter.): "Gehört es (=pírusa) vielleicht zur ind. wz. *pers- sprühen u.s.w., welche auch 'semine irrigare' bedeutet haben kann?"2 The Upanişadic etymology also has a striking resemblance with the passage in the Ait. Ār. (II.5.1) referred to by H. W. Bailey in TPS 1960. 84-86 while demonstrating the derivation of púruşa from the verbal base par. 'to nourish' attested in Khotanese. In order to show how púruşa 'a male' is thought of as 'the nourisher of the child' he cites the Ait. Ār. passage, a part of which runs as: puruşe ha vā ayam ādito garbho bhavati; yad etat retas tad etat sarvebhyo 'ngebhyas tejaḥ sambhūtam; ātmany evātmānam bibhrati; tad yadā striyāṁ sincaty athainaj janayati; tad asya prathamam janma. "This embryo is indeed in the man in the beginning. That which is semen is the strength created from all the limbs. (Thus) one bears in oneself his own self. When one emits that (semen) in a woman, then he begets him. That is his first birth.”
The well known etymology of púruşa in the Upanişads is of course the one which equates it with purićaya, thus suggesting its derivation from pur4 + śī.5 sa vā ayam puruṣaḥ sarvāsu pūrşu purisayaḥ Bp 2.5.18; sa etasmāj jivaghanāt parātparan purisayam puruşam ikşate Praśna 5.5.
The same etymology is also given in the sata. Br. 13.6.2.1 (where vāyú is identified with púruşa) and later in the Nirukta 2.3. The difference in the two forms puruşa and purisaya (cf. Nir. 1.13) is sought to be made good in the Gopatha Br. 1.39 under the usual concept of the parokşapriyatva of the gods. The Nirukta, of course, also mentions the other possible derivations of puruşa viz. pur +
sad (purişāda) and from pr 'to fill'.8
(purişāda) and fro possible derivations of wrukta, of cour
Madhu Vidyā/35