Essay name: Purana Bulletin
Author:
Affiliation: University of Kerala / Faculty of Oriental Studies
The "Purana Bulletin" is an academic journal published in India. The journal focuses on the study of Puranas, which are a genre of ancient Indian literature encompassing mythological stories, traditions, and philosophical teachings. They represent Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit and cover a wide range of subjects.
Purana, Volume 6, Part 2 (1964)
172 (of 234)
External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)
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422
啶啶班ぞ啶｀ぎ啷� - [pur膩峁嘺m - ] 笔鲍搁膧狈础
[Vol. VI., No. 2
as very few in number. Also these names in Sanskrit are
pre-inscriptional, since once we find inscriptions in India, the
material would far exceed what we can cope with here. Within
these limitations, we realize how unrepresentative the names
available are, being chiefly of ksatriyas and br膩hma峁嘺s, very few
vai艣yas, and almost no 艣奴dras. (Jana艣ruti is addressed by the
br膩hma峁嘺 Raikva as Sudra, but this may be a tribal designation,
cf. MBh., Gk. Oxydrakoi, or there may be a social sting in the
story (Ch. U. 4/2), as J膩na艣ruti is the Great-grandson, i.e. his
family had been established for some time; the suggestion would
then be that his mother was of lower caste, which would be
objectionable to the purists (only) of those days: the name
sounds aristocratic, parallelled by Gk. Demokles, -kleitos, famed
among the people). From the Pur膩峁嘺 king-lists, and the
br膩hma峁噄c literature, say c. 1500-0200 B.C., we have about 2000
names, obviously a fraction of 1%.
1 There are also plenty difficulties and uncertainties in the
names themselves. Oral corruption occurs even in the oral brahma-
nical tradition, e.g. the variation PREDI/PROTI/PRAVATI;
scribal corruption can be much worse in Pui膩峁嘺, MBh., and
pravara. However, a critical text can in the majority of cases
be established.
Even if we know the name, it may be explicable in more
than one way, or none; e.g. ALANDA, ULUNDA look non-Aryan
names: CANDHANA and upa-JANDHANA look Aryan by
phonology, but I have not etymologized them (there seems to
be a Prakritism in the hard/soft variation c/j in this pair, and
this is not unknown). Or, in AJA, have we a goat ?, a leader?,
or a god (epithet of Indra, Agni, etc, in RV) ? Again, in a single
element we may have a hypocoristic; e.g. is AJAKA an endearing
diminutive, or short for Ajap膩la, etc.? Time and again we do
not know the exact social context in which names were given.
1. Dates are based on our book (in process of publication) Dates and
Dynasties of Early India, and are subject to the limitations of accuracy there
expressed.
