Re: [tied] Rigvedic horses

----- Original Message -----

From: VAgarwalV@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 9:29 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Rigvedic horses

VISHAL comments - You will be interested in knowing that the Vedic
texts enumerate 6 lumbar vertebrae in the sacrificial horse. To quote
the Taittiriya Samhita -

 

PIOTR: Good, so in this respect, at least, it's an anatomically "normal" horse by modern standards.

VISHAL remarks -  There is no need to presume a separate species when
horses have been imported regularly into India right upto our times.
The fact is however that with 34 ribs and 6 lumbar vertebrae, which
scenario has a greater chance of plausibility - that the Aryans
brought the horse with them around 1500 BCE, or that the horse was
imported even by IVC folks?

 

PIOTR: There's little to choose between on the rib-count alone. I'm glad _you_ don't invent a completely autochthonous "Equus rigvedicus" -- some enthusiasts do.

> As a linguist, I have to look at this question from a comparative
> perspective. Old English eoh, Latin equus, Greek hippos, Old Irish
> ech, Avestan aspa-, Lithunian as^va, etc., all cognate to Old Indo-
> Aryan as'va-, refer to horses, and there is no reason to assume a
> different original meaning of PIE *h1ek^wos. Of course secondary
> semantic extensions and metaphorical meanings could develop here
and
> there as language-specific innovations. None of them is traceable
to
> PIE.

VISHAL responds -
Other than the fact that the PIE *h1ek^wos is said to have resulted
from 'irregular' sound changes by some, there are numerous other
holes in the argument and time permitting I will summarize them later.
In Peter Raulwing's recent book on chariots, there is actually some
discussion on the secondary meanings of PIE *h1ek^wos (or the fact
that it itself has emerged from some roots. Interestingly, the
Sanskrit roots of the word 'Ashva' bear the same meaning!)

PIOTR: I'll be interested in that. What do you mean by *h1ek^wo- having resulted from irregular sounch changes? The cognate reflexes (with the exception of Greek hippos, which calls for special treatment) have nothing irregular about them. The number and distribution of the branches that show *h1ek^wo- indicate at least non-Anatolian IE origin of the word. The fact that it is possibly of adjectival origin ("the swift one") does not undermine the implications of this solid agreement. The question remains whether wild and domesticated horses were nomenclaturally distinguished -- I don't think they were.

 

Piotr