Madhuvidya

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

Page 605

REVIEWS
57
This interpretation is not quite convincing. In the first instance, it compels us to presume that nihato is a wrong translation of nighāde or a corruption of nikhäto. Secondly, on this presumption nihato through nikhāto is to be derived from niv khana-” which is not very natural, because it seems difficult to separate nihato from nihantvānas occurring in the first half of the verse (ayan so sārathi eti nihantvāna mam' atrajan) and LUEDERS does not seem to object to its derivation from nivhana. Of course it can as well be said that nihantvāna is also a corruption of nikhantvāna, but this LUEDERS does not do. Thirdly, in this construction nihato and bhumivaddhane (actual text vaddhano) which are brought together stand very much apart. It may, therefore, be suggested that Vvaddha is here used in its usual sense 'to increase'. vaddhana can then mean both increasing or causing to increase (Pā. 3.1.134), in the present instance the latter. bhūmivaddhana, lit. 'one who increases the earth', may have been used as an euphimistic expression for a person buried in ground as thereby he may be regarded to cause the earth of the ground to increase. This may have been specially said of a person who was regarded as deaf, dumb, and a fool, and otherwise of no use to the people. The expression pathavivaờdhanakakamma which comes at the end of the instructions given by the king to the charioteer can also have similar meaning, the act of increasing the earth (by burying the prince in the ground)'. Thus bhūmivaddhano as nom. sg. and adj. to putto seems quite satisfactory in the present verse.
6. $37, pp. 38-39 : $ 37-8 86 are devoted to showing the cases where l in Pāli may be traced to the eastern influence. In the beginning, however, LUEDERS examines those instances which seem to be doubtful and where forms with I could be regarded as regular Pāli forms. To begin with in $ 37 he takes the case of gilati: girati 'to swallow about which he concludes-"Wie im Sk. können aber auch im Pāli gilati und girati nebeneinander bestanden haben."
The instances examined by LUEDERS in this article, however, seem to show that the two forms were not promiscuously used. In fact they show that the two forms were used to express opposite meanings. Thus
2. Forms of vkhana occur many times in Gäthäs 3, 4, etc., and also in the prose narration. Hence it may be tempting to connect nihato with nikhana. It is, however, a little difficult to say why exactly here the corruption took place when forms of khana have been well preserved at other places in this Jätaka. But even if we regard nihato as a corruption of nikhāto or a wrong translation of nighāde (cf. nighaññasi in G. 8) it is not necessary to take bhūmivaddhano as a mistake for -vaddhane. With the meaning of bhūmivaddhana here proposed the line can be translated as 'Indeed is my son, the increaser of the earth, buried in the ground'.
3. nihantvāna occurs also in Gāthă 52 and nihaññamāno in Gāthås, 54, 55.
Madhu Vidya/580