English
The little daughter of a friend of mine had often heard, as part of a familiar church-hymn, the words ‘ The consecrated cross I’d bear, Till death shall set me free ‘ Father,’ she asked, ‘what is a consecrated cross-eyed bear?’ In English, ‘cross I’d bear* (= cross I would bear, crucem ferrem) and ‘cross-eyed bear’ (= ursus strabo) are phonetically identical. Such juvenile mistakes leave * Or, what is the same thing, of miscombination. XXXll Notes 071 the Extei'uals of Indian Boohs no trace save good-natured smiles. Others, not different in essence, have become part of the great fabric of our mother tongue.' Thus an ekename^ Icelandic auka-nafn, meant *an added name’ or * name of addition ’ (Hamlet i. 4). Misdivision gave us, as early as the Promptorium Parvulorum (1440), a neke namCj modem nickname. Similarly an evet (1552) or eiut gave us a newt: cf. ‘Eye of newt and toe of froggeMacbeth iv. 1. The Middle English Awdry (Anglo-Saxon iE]?eldryht, modem Etheldred) is the name of a sainted woman, foundress of a monastery in the Isle of Ely, A fair, held on St. Awdry’s day, was famous in Cambridgeshire, as was also the cheap and showy lace sold on such occasions. The two words of her name, Saint and Awdry^ under the domination of a single accent, became a true unit, and were doubtless pronounced Snidiudry, the accentless ai being lost and the n becoming syllabic.^ A natural result of further composition, as with fair or laccj would be the dropping of the unaccented first syllable. While the histori¬ cally correct division is Sni^diudry^ the phonetically natural one is Sn-tdwdry ; and the latter prevailed, as we see in the tawdry-lace of Spenser and Shakespere. Such is the story of the holy name, which, in the form tawdry^ as a word for cheap and vulgar finery, has passed into modern English. In nicknamCy newt^ tau'dry, the loss is from the prior to the latter element of a frequent combination. In riding^ adder^ auger, umpire, the reverse is the case. The Norwegian tridj-ung = Icelandic pridfwagr, ‘ third part of a thing * (cf. AS. feord-ing, ‘ farthing ’), is represented in Middle English by triding or tkriding, used to designate the three districts (North, East, West) of the county of York. The combination North thHding (the double spirant not being pronounced double) would naturally become Northriding. Similarly East triding, East'i'iding. The surviving spii'ant (mute) would naturally attach itself to the more familiar element of the compound, North (East), so that the second element would be felt as riding, and this is the form in which thriving or triding has now become part of our language. The cases of Middle English a nadder (German Natter), a nauger (AS. nave-gar), a noumpere (Old French non-pair) hardly need comment. Dr. Hertel cites the proper name Naschmarkt, the designation, both popular and official, of a market in Leipzig, and originating in the com¬ bination an Aschmarkt (=am Aschmarkt)-, and forais like aniKpovs ‘ These have been treated most interestingly by Charles P. G. Scott, Transactions of the American PhUological Association, vols. 23-25 (1892-4). For the examples that follow, see 23. 221; 224; 24.103; 25. 88; 23. 255-272. ® As in stcdin, hoat-stcain, pronounced hdsn : cf. sdil, idp-sail, pronounced tdpsl. Bij the Editor of this Scries xxxiii originating in phrases like roi;? fxiKpovi. In the Veda the s of askda, samshtat &c., is no survival of hoai’y antiquity; but rather the result of misapprehended forms ^ like nis-krta. This is evident from the phrase iskavtaram du-idcrtard^ RV. viii. 88 (99). 8, where the first word is a clearly intended antonym of the second, just as in verse 7, in the phrase prahctarain dprahitarfi. In like manner sura, has become part of the Sanskrit vocabulary as antonym of the misdivided asura : cf. the pendants Aditi and Dili, Word-division a real difficulty to the Hindus.—It is now clear, as I hope, that the dividing of unspaced English, if it were commonly so printed, would be an intolerable difficulty; and that correct division of frequent spoken English combinations has in fact often proved too difficult for English-speaking people. With greater reason, then, may the division of Sanskrit be deemed a legitimate embarrassment for an Occidental; especially if, as will appear, it was and is a real difficulty to the Hindus. To show that it was, I may cite the Paniniya 6iksa, which, in enumerating the factors of good recitation of the sacred texts, classes word-division^ with agreeable tone, distinct rendering of the syllables, correct accent, &c. (madhunjam ahara-vyaktih pada-ccliedas tu msvarah). This is signifi¬ cant. To show that it is, I well remember how, in looking over a lot of manuscripts in India with a native scholar whoso learning was highly esteemed in Europe, he paused and re-read attentively once or even twice a difficult passage before apprehending its import. I am convinced that he was indeed a ‘ pucka pundit ’; but, if any one doubts it, let us ask a Hindu scholar on whom no such imputation can rest, an ancient and most minutely learned one, the author of the Rig-Veda Prati^khya. Evidence of the Frati^ahhya,—The author just mentioned says (at xiv. 28=821): The limit of the mistakes arising from the combination of vowels is not to be got at by number, nor yet [that] of the others [arising from the combination of consonants]. But from this treatise it is quite possible for a man of suitable endowments ® to learn all the ins and outs of the matter. iTf7nrgwr<^ ii The prior half of his statement no modem is likely to deny. As for the latter, the treatise itself presupposes the existence of the Pada-patha of oakalya; and the history of Vedic exegesis, from Sakalya’s time until now, * Cf. Bloomfield, JAOS. 16, p. cxxvi; Hopkins, 17. 69,182. * Ind. Stud., iv. 270. ® So Uvata: JA., May, 1858, p. 376. e XXXIV Notes on the Externals of Indian Boohs makes it clear that it is quite beyond the power of any treatise or of any authority to settle all the uncertainties of division of the Veda. Evidence of the Pada-patha. —This work is, as Geldner ^ remarks, the first great running commentaiy on the Rig-Veda. It is a commentary made without one word of explanation and by the simplest conceivable means, and is essentially a setting forth of the individual words of the text in uncombined form. This fact alone is the most striking evidence of tho truth that the ancient Hindus realized the grave defects of their combined text as an unambiguous vehicle of thought. Geldner calls'*^ the Pada-patha a ‘masterpiece of Vedic learning*, ‘ without setting it up on the pedestal of infalUbiUty.* But, while empha¬ sizing again and again 3 the fineness of &kalya’s understanding of Vedic thought and diction, even Geldner admits an occasional en*or,^ and declares that a thorough investigation of the Pada-patha is a pressing necessity.^ It is hard to believe that eamudrina sindhavo yddamandh (RV. iii. 36. 7 a) is not a miscombination of samudre nd sindhavo ydda- mandh (vi. 19. 5 d) ; although it is quite possible (as Geldner might say) that Sayana is right in taking each of these texts at its face value. Pischel and Geldner hold that Roth went too far in oppugning Sakalya’s authority. The very fact of divergence of opinion among such eminent scholars is the best proof of the point which we are trying to make. Intentional ambiguities.— Unintended ones have thus fai* been con¬ sidered, but it is worth while to mention incidentally that the Hindus realized the possibilities of using Sanskrit for intentional ambiguities, skilfully devised for fun. To show the reader to what extreme lengths ^ey go we refer to the Rasika-ranjana, ed. by R. Schmidt, Stuttgart, 1896. ibis IS a poem on renunciation when divided in one way ; in another, it is a poem on sensual love. Such things are tours deforce, and hardly bear on our argument. For other instances, see Macdonell, Skt. Lit., p 331* Orientalische Bibliographie, ix. 258 ; Stein’s Rajatarahgini, TransL, i, p. 177.’ M&ny kuiam in Parab’s Subhasita-ratna-bhandagara (1886, p. 307) depend for ^eir point on double possibilities of division.® Professor Joseph Wriabt of Oxford calls my attention to the classical example in Ralph Roister Doister act m, scenes 4 and 5, Merygreeke’s letter to Dame Custance. Hindu devices for showing word-division.-That the resolution of combinations is a real difficulty even to the Hindus is shown, not only by ' Ved. Stud., iii. 144. 2 ^ J 44 3 Ibid., 1 . 267, ii. 189, simah; ii. 302, adhipaiuam. * Ibid., i. 122, kdre, notiaiuA. “ Cf. Hertel, WZKM. 22. 119 {srargatas, svarga-tas, &c.}. By the Editor of this Series XXXV Pada-patha^ and Pratisakhyas, but also by the fact that they often mark the word-division in their MSS. Weber,^ describing MS. no. 1558 of the Berlin Royal Library, says; Every word is separated from the others by a point, and the members of compounds by little strokes above the line. Pischel,2 describing no. 234 of the Tubingen Library, says: It is extra- ordinai'ily correct, and has been carefully revised, often with marking of the division of the words. For a large part of a fine MS. of the Bhagavati- sutra of the Harvard collection the words are divided by little vertical strokes, sometimes in coloured ink, above the line. The like is true of an old MS, of Sutrakrtaiiga-Dipika from Pathan, with the (copied?) date ‘ Samvat 1583 . Dr. Hertel writes me that his PCirnabhadra codex A very often separates the words by a danda, and that corresponding division is frequent in other MSS. used by him for this edition. Codex one of his best MSS., regularly separates the words by little strokes over the lino through 53 of its 102 leaves.