Nahta Bandhu Abhinandan Granth

Author(s): Dashrath Sharma
Publisher: Agarchand Nahta Abhinandan Granth Prakashan Samiti

Page 604

The Problem of 'Apadha in the Rgveda
Dr. Smt. Y. S. Shah
Ahmedabad Interpretation of Vedic hymns in general and of individual words in particular, has been a knotty problem right from the day of Yaska and not all the ingenuities of the commentators of the Rgveda and scholarly labours of the Western and Eastern Orientalists have been able to unveil the mystery about a number of obscure Vedic words. One of them is the Vedic word 'Apadha' in the RV. II, 12, 3. The word occurs in the second quarter of the above Rk which is as follows:
यो गा उदाजदपधा वलस्य । Yo'gã' Udājad apadhā valasya. The Pada text traditionally handed down to this day runs thus : 4: TI: I Bars&TITI 3TT SETT | COEU Sāyaṇa interprets this quarter in the following manner :यश्च वलस्य वलनामकस्यासुरस्यापधा तत्कर्तृकान्निरुद्धा गा उदाजत् निरगमयत् ।
Here in his rendering of 29€ faal:, he unwittingly reveals that the ultimate sense is 'imprisoned' and the word is an adjective of Te:. But while grammatically analysing, he seems to derive it from the root 3+ to which the termination 375 is applied in the impersonal sense. The word thus becomes 2719 3 is added. Thus it is supposed to be the ablative singular.
Venkata Madhava too renders the word as fast atfefeat: and takes it as an adjective of गाः, which he renders as पशून्.
Western scholars have created more confusion in trying to identify the exact grammatical form. Thus Roth takes it to be the instrumental of 379 + ET
Ludmiga suggests that this word is instrumental in sense and we must take it to mean wedge or key (quasi reserator).
Hillebrandt3 thinks that fe is a locative from 37f8. Grassman4 translates it
1. Sanskrit-Wor, St Pt, 1855, p. 282 2. Peterson, Hymns from the Rigveda, Second Selection, Notes, p. 116 3. Veda Chrestomathic, p. 70 4. Worterbuch Zum Rigveda, p. 71
इतिहास और पुरातत्त्व : ११५