Prakrit Avvo

Author(s): Paul Dundas
Publisher: Paul Dundas

Page 5

Prakrit Avvo 167 contains several examples of the word, is a text traditionally associated with the Deccan, the intersecting point of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian culture, and the poets of the anthology might be expected to have been sensitive to the Dravidian word avva. Kinship terms are of some importance in the Sattasai, often helping to define the emotional context of a verse 29, and most of the verses in which avvo occurs are very similar in tone to those in which a girl addresses her mother or an older, more experienced confidante (the terms of address generally being mae, << mother! >>, maua, << mothers! >>, mami, << auntie! >>) about some problem which is vexing her. However, the occurrence of avvo followed by a masculine vocation in verse 273 30 shows that in one verse at least the word can only be an exclamation. Nevertheless, the chronology and circumstances of the composition of the Sattasai are still fairly obscure and it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that some of the verses preserve the original vocative sense of avvo. 29. Compare especially verses in which the brother-in-law (deara) and the mother-in-law (atta) are participants. 30. avvo dukkaraaraa puno vi tattim karesi gamanassa ajja vi na homti sarala venia taramgino cihura << avvo! doer of the difficult! you are preoccupied with going off again. Even on this day, the dishevelled hair of my braid does not become straight >>.