These three words for horse in Sanskrit -
aśva,
haya and
ghoṭaka - sound quite different. Were all these used in common speech? Do they all mean a horse in general or do they refer to different types (genus) of horses? Which word would have been used, say 2500 years ago, by the common man in ordinary spoken language in north India to refer to a horse? Could it be ghoṭaka because in modern Indo-Aryan languages ghoḍā is the word for horse in common spoken language? Are cognates available in other Indo-European languages for ghoṭaka?
Thanks and regards,
Radhakrishna Warrier