ardhaanaariishvara

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vsundaresan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> The more intriguing thing is the form vishvarUpAya, which is in the
dative
> case (caturthI vibhakti). I have never obtained a satisfactory
answer (to my
> critical mind) as to why only this word is in a different case. For
> example, vishvarUpAya vai namaH can be replaced with vishvarUpaM
namAmy
> aham, to satisfy both grammar and meter, but one can't take
liberties with
> the words of Vedic verses. Of course, one can't also expect Vedic
language
> to follow classical grammar rules, but I wonder if there is another
reason
> for the form of the verse as it stands.

This form of the verse is quite common even in late purANic verses,
i.e.,  a number of nominatives followed by one dative and a
salutation. Typically then, the verse is interpreted as

(yaH) R^itam, satyam, parambrahma, etc
(tasya) vishvarUpAya vai namo namaH

The relative pronoun is missing, but understood to be present there. I
am using yaH here, but it could well be yaM for that matter. Sometimes
either yaH (or some other drelative) alone might be present, with the
other pronoun missing. There is one example from the bR^iihadAraNyaka
like this. Such droppings of relative pronouns (or the other one) are
not uncommon in poetry. In any case, I don't think the R^itam etc are
accusative. That doesn't make any sense and doesn't gel with the
dative as you pointed out yourself.

The above interpretation via a relative clause construction is
straightforward and is the usual sense in which such verses are
interpreted. The dative infact argues for the relative pronoun, yaH
(yaM?), which has been dropped. I may be mistaken, of course, but this
seems much simpler to me. It would be interesting to see what shAyaNa
and bhaTTa bhAskara say. Anyone with access to these commentaries?
Please post relevant excerpts. Any comments from Anand, shubanu,
Jaldhar, etc?

Also, the tatittirIya AraNyaka is quite removed from the language of
the Vedic Sanskrit (or Vedic as per Indologists) which is almost
exclusively used to refer to R^ig-veda. I don't think this verse has
any such intricacies of the Vedic.

I shall answer Charles' mail later.

Rama

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

Archives : http://lists.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l.html
Help     : Email to listmaster at lists.advaita-vedanta.org
Options  : To leave the list send a mail to
           listserv at lists.advaita-vedanta.org with
           SIGNOFF ADVAITA-L in the body.