Re: Horses in South India

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 59742
Date: 2008-08-03

On 2008-08-02 10:41, Kishore patnaik wrote:

> In fact, the very word Aswa comes from the Sea, Aswat, the expanse.
> Saindhava , another name for horse, is directly connected to sea
> (sindhu)This again shows that horses owe their origin to south India.

As this is the only "linguistic" part of your message, let me inform you
that there is no such word as "Aswat, the expanse" in Sanskrit. If you
mean <ás'vat> 'swelled' (3sg. aor.), it's a _verb_ form related to the
Vedic pres. <s'váyati>, perf. <s'u:s'uvur> etc. The initial <á-> in the
aorist is not part of the verb, strictly speaking, but the so-called
augment, marking the past tense and used _only_ with verbs. Therefore,
<á-s'vat> (which, by the way, is a fairly late and structurally unclear
form, most likely analogical) can't have anything to do with <ás'va->
'horse' or any other IE word related to it.

As has already been pointed out, <saindHavá-> is not "another name for
horse" but a mere descriptive adjective meaning 'produced/bred in Sindh,
coming from Sindh' etc. (or 'having to do with <síndhu->' in any of the
senses of the word, hence the secondary "marine" meanings); in this
case, a 'Sindhi horse'. The adjective was used not only of (a breed of)
horses but also of the Sindhi people and even of rock salt imported from
the region. You could with just as much reason try to use such names of
horse-breeds as "Arab", "Barb", "Andalusian" or "Lipizzaner" to
determine the place of horse domestication.

Piotr