Sanskrit word-studies

Let us then try to open the intellectual treasure- house of our earliest forebears with the golden keys they left for our use : their words. We may not yet enquire what they did with them ; that they had them is their crowning glory and our gain, even greater than the wonders of literature in which they culminated. For, in the words of one of the  greatest masters of words, their histories and their uses,' “ our poets make poems out of words, but every word, if carefully examined, will turn out to be itself a poem, a record of a deed done or of a thought thought by those to whom we owe the whole of our intellectual inheritance. . . .” Take, for instance, the word PITAR — father, the meaning of which is threefold—“ feeder,” “ protector,” “ ruler ” : does not the underlying connection between these at the first glance different conceptions already warrant, by the subtlety and depth of observation which they betray, the same writer’s enthusiastic assertion 1: “ Wherever we analyze language in a scholar like spirit . . . we shall find in it the key to some of the deepest secrets of the human mind. . . And does it not speak for an already highly developed moral feeling that the root PA, from which is formed pitar, the most generally used word for “ father,” does not mean “ to give birth ” but to protect, to support, showing how entirely the Aryan father realized and accepted the idea of duty and responsibility towards those who belonged to him by the most sacred of human ties. Each duty gives corresponding rights, just as each right imposes a duty, that the eternal fitness and balance of things may be maintained, that universal dualism, moral and physical, which is the very root and soul of the world . 2 And thus it is that it has been admitted from all time as self-evident that he who fulfils the duty of supporting and protecting a family, has the undisputed right of governing it, of imposing his will as the law of those who depend on his toil and affection for their sustenance, comfort, and safety. Hence pati, “ master.” This is, in few words, a complete definition of the word “patriarch,” in which the Greeks, by a trick of language familiar to them, and, among the moderns, to the Germans, have deftly embodied the two indivisible conceptions: “father and ruler.” This word “ pitar ” we can easily pursue through most Aryan languages, ancient and modern, although, as is the manner of words in their wanderings, it now takes on a letter, now drops one, now alters a vowel or even some of its consonants, until it becomes barely recognizable to the trained eye and ear of the philologist. Thus Sanskrit pitar (Avestan pitar also), can hardly fail to beat once identified in pater (Greek and Latin), can easily be known in vater and father, the form derived by the two northern sister languages from the old Teutonic fadar; the relationship is not quite as obvious in padre (Spanish and Italian), and especially in the French pere ; indeed, the three southern Latin sister-tongues may be said to have adopted decided corruptions of the original word ; and when we come to Celtic athir, athar (Gaelic, Welsh, Irish, Americans), nothing short of scientific training will suffice to establish the identity.

The word for “ mother ” is even more generally  in use in the various Aryan languages, and has undergone fewer alterations. The Sanskrit viatar, unchanged in Avestan viatar, except in accent,scarcely deviates in the Greek meter and Latin mater, which abides in the Slavic mater, only slightly short ended by modern Russian into matt, very recognizable for once in the Celtic mathi, even more than in the German mutter, and English mother , from Old Teutonic muotar ; but corrupted in the Spanish and Italian vtadre, and the French mire, after exactly the same fashion as the word for “ father,”—evidently with conscious intention to establish a symmetry akin to alliteration—a rhyme—a trick of language by which it pleased a slightly barbaric ear and taste to couple together kindred objects or ideas. The root of this multiform word is MA, “ to make,” and also “to measure.” A combination particularly suggestive, since the mother, she who “ has given birth,” is also she who “ measures,” “ portions out ” the provisions, the food, and the other necessaries of life to the various members of the household. From the same root we have mas, the moon, the measurer of time, so that the same word means “ moon ” and “ month,” as it still does in its Slavic form, “ mesiats." The other words expressing near relationship are no less generally preserved in the several Aryan languages. To begin with: Sanskrit bhratar—svdsar; Avestan, bratar—hvanhar ; Greek, frater; (only the word, at the stage of which it comes under our ken, had become diverted from its original meaning andwas used in a political or social sense, to designate amember of one of the tribes or brotherhoods —fratrias— into which citizens were divided. For the family relationship of both brother and sister the Greeks adopted an entirely different word). Latin, frater —soror; Old Teutonic, brothar—svistar ; modern German, bruder schwester ; English, brother— sister ; Italian, frate, fratello—suora, sorella. (Frate and suora are used exclusively to designate religious brotherhood and sisterhood, “ monk ” “ nun.” Frate in this respect answers to the English friar.) Slavic and Russian, brat—sestra; Celtic, brdthir— suir ;French, frere—sceur. Take further Sanskrit, duhitar ; Avestan, dughdhar ; Greek, thugater ; German, tochter ; English, daughter ; Irish, dear ; Slavic, dushtcr (the pronunciation cannot be understood from the written word, but must be heard and imitated) ; Russian, dbtcher, dotch ; Latin and her chief daughter languages, Italian, Spanish, and French, have adopted another designation, filia—figlia—hija—file.

 The secondary family ties—those by marriage —are no less nicely determined—which in itself speaks highly for an advanced state of social order, —and the words denoting them also turn up in most Aryan languages, some in many, others in but a few. One example must satisfy us: Sanskrit devar, “brother-in-law,” is almost unchanged in the Russian de'ver and Lithunian deveris, and very recognizable in the Greek daer and even the Latin levir.

We will conclude with a word embodying bereavement as universal as the family relations, and therefore reserved even more faithfully than many others through most languages of Aryan stock : vidhavd, “ widow ” ; German, wittwe ; Russian, vdova; Latin, vidua; Italian, vedova, corrupted by Spanish into viuda and by French into veuve. A word of mighty import, especially to later and modern India, as it means “ husband less,” and so would, all alone, suffice to prove that in enforcing the horrible practice of widow-burning on the ground of sacred tradition, the Brahmans have been guilty of heinous misrepresentation ; for, if the custom had, as they assert, existed from the beginning of time, there would have been no vidhavds, no “husband less women.” Now they not only existed, but, as we shall see later on, are repeatedly mentioned, and once in the religious service attending the burial (or, later, the burning) of the dead, explicitly addressed, as returning from the grave or the pyre to stay among the living. All this in the book which the Brahmans regard as the holiest in all their sacred literature. Furthermore, in their law-books, also invested with sacredness, widows are provided and legislated for at great length. So that the Brahmans stand convicted of deliberately falsifying, at least in this one instance, their own most sacred and, as they believe and assert, revealed texts. And thus the English authorities, merely through ignorance of the natives’ literary language and their classical literature, were placed in the atrocious necessity of tolerating this abomination or breaking that portion of their agreement with the Hindus by which they engaged not to interfere with any of their religious observances. Now that the  texts themselves and their correct interpretation have been given to the world at large by the lifelong labors of our great Sanskrits, the Government’s hands are free to forbid and prevent, by armed force if necessary, these unnatural sacrifices. The abolition of the time-honored horrors of the widow burning or suttee (more correctly written sati), yields us one more convincing proof of what tremendous practical issues may be waiting on the mere study of z-vords, patiently, peacefully carried on by scholars in their quiet studies and libraries, so remote in space and spirit from the battle-places of the work a day world.  It would be easy to swell the list of such picturesque and tell-tale words.

These few instances,however, must suffice—only adding the remark that the absence of certain words can be at times as eloquently significant by the presumptive negative evidence it supplies. We called the Aryas’ primeval home an “ inland home,” and later stated that “ they had never beheld the sea nor the ocean.” This is suggested by the fact that no name for “ sea ” is found in their earliest known language. That name is of later growth and different in the various branches of the Aryan speech, this very difference showing most curiously how one tribe was affected by one aspect of the new element, and another by a totally different, if not opposite one. Latin and Greek call the sea “ a highroad ” pontos, poitus— from the same root as pons, pontis, “ a bridge,” and the Slavic pont(i), Russian put(e), “a road.” But the Slav does not apply this name to the sea ; that he calls morie (Latin mar, Italian and Spanish mare, b rench mer, German meer, hence English mere, “ a lake,” Celtic muir), from a Sanskrit root meaning “destruction.” A difference well accounted for, when we consider that the only seas the Slavs' and Teutons were acquainted with were the Black Sea, the Baltic, and the German Ocean, all rough and treacherous, all renowned for their fierce tempests, which must have been destructive indeed to small and imperfect craft,—while the fortunate dweller on the genial Mediterranean shores well could look at the sea, not as a barrier, but as a highroad, more useful for trade and travel than any other road.  Now as regards intellectual achievements and abstract speculation, we must not be too prompt to depreciate the efforts of our fathers on this ground on the plea that there is no common word for “ thousand ” in our languages,—or, more correctly in the parent languages of ours—Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Old Teutonic having each fabricated a word of its own, which their respective offspring dutifully adopted with the usual tribal alterations. As to our Aryan forebears, we cannot escape the inference from this fact that they could count only up to a hundred, the numerals so far coinciding in all Aryan languages with almost comical regularity. This, however, is no proof as yet that they had no conception of thousands, or never saw things assembled in so large a number—men, cattle, etc. They may have known of thousands as so many “ tens of  hundreds,” and counted as we ourselves still do up to a certain point: twelve hundred, eighteen hundred, and even twenty hundred, twenty-five hundred, and so on. Furthermore, the very fact of having invented a numeral system at all—and that a decimal one!—is an achievement which presupposes a longer growth and evolution both of the mind and language than all the wonders of abstract speculation which followed, and were a necessary deduction from it, astronomical calculations included. For every one who has learned and taught knows what aweary longtime the beginnings of any science or art take to master, and that, once the first principles are really and firmly grasped, the rest comes with a wonderful and ever-increasing rapidity, with a rush, as it were, partly owing to the training which the mind has undergone in the effort to step from “not thinking” to “thinking,” and partly because these same “first principles” really contain the whole art or science, which is only evolved from them, as the variations from the theme, as the play from the plot, or the plant from the seed

Uncertainty as to the Aryas’ primeval home.

One word to conclude this, on the whole, introductory chapter. We have come to speak quite familiarly of “the Aryas’ primeval home,” of their separations and migrations, as though we knew all about these subjects. We are, in a sense, justified in so speaking and imagining, on the testimony afforded by the formation and evolution of languages, of which we can, to a great extent, pursue the track over and across the vast continent which, though geographically one, has been artificially divided, in conformity with political conditions and school conveniences more than with natural characteristics, into two separate parts of the world : Asia and Europe. The division is entirely arbitrary, for there is no boundary line south of the Ural chain, and that chain itself, important as it is, from its position and the treasures it holds, is anything but separating or forbidding. Of very moderate altitude, with no towering summits or deep-cut gorge-passes, its several broad, flat-topped ridges slope down imperceptibly on the European side, and are by no means beetling or impassable on the Asiatic side either. This barrier, such as it is, stops short far north of the Caspian Sea, leaving a wide gap of flat steppe land invitingly open to roaming hordes with their cattle and luggage-wagons, with only the mild Ural River or Yai'k to keep up the geographical fiction of a boundary. Through this gap wave after wave of migration and invasion has rolled within the range of historical knowledge, to break into nations whose original kinship is demonstrated by their languages. The induction is obvious that many more such waves than we can at all be aware of must have rolled back and forward in times wholly out of the reach of our most searching methods. The diverging directions of such migrations—irregularly timed, of course—as we know of in Asia, and only a few of which can have taken the wray of the Uralo-Caspian Gap : to northwest, to west, to southwest, persuasively point to a center which, at some incalculably remote period, must have been the starting-point of these departing Aryan hives. Until within the last few years it was the almost universally accepted theory that this center,—which the lines of march of the several nations, as well as their confronted mythical and cosmogonical traditions, pretty consistently locate somewhere in Central Asia, towards the high but fertile tableland of the Pamir region,—was also has been lately reopened, and treated, with varying results, by many able and erudite scholars. But,although each of them, of course, honestly and triumphantly believes that he has arrived at the only rational and conclusive solution, it is, as yet, impossible to say when and in what way the question will be finally and un-answerably settled—if ever and at all. Fortunately, it is not of the slightest practical importance for general students ; in other words, for any but specialists in ethnology, craniology, etc., and least of all for the subject-matter of this volume.We do not need to pry into the darkness of an incalculable past beyond the center of departure just mentioned, which is the first landmark of Aryan antiquity touched with a golden ray of the historical dawn. It is sufficient to know that that center, no matter whence the primeval Aryas of all—the Proto- Aryas—may have come, has been a station on which a large portion of the race must have been sojourners for many, many centuries,—that portion of it, at all events, of which the two principal limbs, the leading sister nations of the Aryan East, Eranians and Hindus, divided almost within our ken, for reasons easy to conjecture, if not to establish with actual certainty, and some of which have been alluded to in a former volume.