Re: [tied] This Saravati Business

A river name in ancient India parallel to Saras+vatii is
D.r.sad+vatii probably referring to a river flowing through a rocky
region. There are other river names with the suffix -vatii as well.

Madhav Deshpande

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <x99lynx@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 11:16 AM
> Subject: [tied] This Saravati Business
>
>
> > 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?

>
> The suffix means 'rich in ...' or 'characterised by ...', a bit like

Eng. -ful in <beautiful> or <graceful>. It forms adjectival
derivatives from nouns but is _not_ a noun (or a separable word)
itself. "A chain of pools" is just a loose rephrasing of "pool-ful".

>
> > 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?

>
> Yep. Hence my comment about <sarasvati:> being a

descriptive epithet rather than a real "name" unique to one river.

>
> > [skipping some (very pertinent) examples for the sake of

space] It seems that the Greek word has a lot more connotations
than simply a marsh. ..... Piotr, how do you feel about translating
Sarasvati as "a lot of water" or "big river"?

>
> You're right about the Greek meanings. And it seems perfectly

possible to translate <sarasvati:> as 'having wide floodplains' or
'forming great pools of water'.

>
> Piotr