PIOTR WROTE:
<<Errr... Steve, are you into this "Indus _and Sarasvati_" terminology? ;-)>>
Egads!!! Little did I know the ramifications of an idle choice of words.
What I actually meant was that "dried up river" -- can I call it the
"Ghaggar" or does that start up something?
Piotr, I've got a question about this Sarasvati word. I read here :
<<...Prof. Michael Witzel has written that the etymology of the name
Saras-wati, viz. from PIE *selos, "pond", hence "the river having many
ponds....>>
Then, Daniel J. Milton quoted G. L. Pohssehl:
<<"The image created by the Rgveda for the Sarasvati River is of a powerful,
full flowing river, not easily reconciled with the literal meaning of the
name, 'Chain of Pools'."
Would someone explain this etymology? Have others been suggested?>>
Then Piotr replied
<<The suffix <-vati:> is the feminine form of <-vant-/-vat->, forming
adjectives of possession (< *-went-, fem. *-wn.t-ih2). "X-vant-" = 'abounding
in X', more or less. This means that <sarasvati:> has a natural
interpretation as 'having many "sarases"'. The neuter noun <saras> means
'pool, pond', and is usually reconstructed as *seles-, nom.sg. selos, because
of Gk. helos 'marshy meadow, backwater'. I have myself suggested an
alternative etymology, involving hypothetical *seros (*seres-) 'waterflow'
(from *ser- 'to flow', as in Skt. sisarti, sarati), but I have to admit the
usual one is better supported.>>
Piotr, I take it that <saras> appears elsewhere in Vedic and refers to pools
or ponds.
In Cappeller's, they define it as "trough, bucket; pool, pond, lake". In
Apte's Dictionary, it gives "a lake, water, speak [?]" <Sara> is given a
lot of fluid type of definitions including "waterfall", "brook" and "fluid".
(I looked up <svAti> and found "or {-tI} f. N. of a constellation" -- what's
that about? What's <svati> mean? Could <svati> be some kind of a star-based
directional reference, like Artic? "North River"?)
I also take it that <-vati> is being interpreted as "river" or "chain" in the
quotes above, though you have it as "abundance of". I assume there's some
justification for those other interpretations?
Anyway, a lot of these arguments about what kind of a river the Sarasvati
seemed to be based on what the name means (and I guess what "mighty" meant,
but that's another matter).
In past posts, I've tried to suggest that we might expect pre-literate names
for rivers to be local and ephemeral, rather than grand and permanent. So I
would naturally ask how sure we are that Sarasvati wouldn't be the name for a
location on a river that gave the river its name. Like a natural location --
a big marsh or pond -- that also applied to the Iranian or Afghan river?
Another thing that comes to mind is this supposed Greek cognate (Gk. helos
'marshy meadow, backwater'). That word is certainly used to refer to marshes
and swamps (not just meadows). But its also used by Herodotus to refer to
the old floodplains of the Nile and more importantly to the artificial "lake"
created by Nictoris to protect Babylon from the Medes, and the basin she
created to redirect the Euphrates. Flavus Josephus, Herodotus and Strabo use
the word to refer to hiding places where folks go for safety because they are
hard to access ("helê kai ta dusbata to:n cho:rio:n"). It has the implied
meaning of impassible in some contexts. On the other hand, Perseus actually
gives <potamos>, river, as a word commonly appearing with <helos>. It seems
that the Greek word has a lot more connotations than simply a marsh.
I don't know how that affects interpreting the older meaning of the Vedic
word. But I'd suggest it may help clarify the word as describing a river. It
might help bring it a little closer to the reality of the people who actually
"used" the river.
The idea of even a strong river that has "pools" would not be surprising to a
fisherman, a waterman or a riverboater. Even the hardest flowing rivers have
inlets where water leaves the main current and pockets (and that could be a
good "fishing hole"). Such "pools" on the big rivers like the Mississippi
are a good place to rest a riverboat or to put in a dock. On white water
rivers, "pools" are where you find your raft and supplies after you get
dumped.
A river that runs shallow in places can still be negotiated by boat if you
find the "trough" or channel. On the other hand, a "back channel" or
"backwater" formed by an inlet is often the best place to fish or find
waterfowl.
Maybe most important of all in the many ancient riverside economies were fish
weirs, which were often constructed by damming or redirecting current in the
river off towards a trap or pool where they could be harvested. Perhaps
Saraswati is a reference to this kind of fishing.
From a farmer's point of view, a river that heavily irrigates the shorelines
is an important point about that river. Rivers and their valleys are a bit
interchangeable in ancient languages and possibily Sarasvati is not about the
river but the shorelines. Roads have always paralleled the course of rivers
for obvious reasons. Perhaps Sarasvati is a original reference to the road
that ran along the river.
Another thing that occurred to me is also from the Greek. <haireo:> means to
take in hand, but has a specific meaning of hunting or catching things
(Homer: "zo:on helein"), and it comes in forms darn close to <helos>
("heloimi , heloime:n , helome:n , helon , v. haireo:"). I don't know if
there's any cognate in Vedic, but I'd imagine that a river with a lot of fish
or game to catch might be a great way to attract Indo-Aryan sportsmen. :)
All of this I hope suggests that the name may not indicate any grand meaning.
And of course that it might occur to someone else to describe another river
in the same way. Saying something like "chain of pools" or "river having
many ponds" sounds like somebody was describing some kind of NASA shot of a
river system. This kind of stuff always feeds the idea that the name was
somehow meant to communicate something precise (unlike the rivers names I
know that are mainly imprecise or named after things on land).
Piotr, how do you feel about translating Sarasvati as "a lot of water" or
"big river"?
Steve L.