The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c10.9

c10.9

I may, however, remark that the process which appears so simple according to the modern philological rules, was not recognized by the native grammarians. There are good many words in Sanskrit which can be thus easily derived on the principle of the insertion and omission of *h*. Thus we have *invakâ* and *hinvakâ* both meaning the stars on the top of Mrigashiras, and *atta* and *hatta* denoting a marketplace. But native grammarians, including Pânini, would not derive the words from each other, as we have done above in the case of *ayana* and *hayana*. Their method is to give two different roots for the two words, thus we have two Vedic roots *him* and *inva* or *hiv* and *iv*, both meaning to go, to please, the one giving us *hinvakâ* and the other *invakâ*. *At* and *hat*, *an* and *han*, *ay* and *hay*, *i* and *hi* are further instances of the principle adopted by the native grammarians in such cases. Really speaking this is not solving the difficulty, but only shifting it a stage backwards; for if any explanation is necessary to account for the double forms like *ayana* and *hayana*, it is equally required to explain why we should have the double roots like *ay* and *hay*, both meaning to go. But it appears that the native grammarians, having traced the words to their roots, did not push the matter further. With them *ina* is derived from *i* to go, *ayana* from *ay* to go, *hayana* from *hay* to go, and *hivana* from *hâ* to go.* Whether and how far we can dispense with some of these roots is an important philological question, but it is not necessary for us to discuss it here. It does not much affect the point under discussion whether *hayana* is derived from *ayana*, *i. e.*, *ay* to go, or from *hî* to go as Pāṇini has done. Etymologically both the words, *ayana* and *hayana*, mean "going" and when both came to be used to denote a division of time, it is natural to suppose that they soon acquired special meanings. Thus while *ayana* continued to denote the half year; *hayana*, which was comparatively a later word, might have been exclusively used to denote the complete year, and as the beginning of the first *ayana* was also the beginning of the year, *Ā(a)grayaṇa* would be naturally changed in'o *Ā(a)grahā(a)yaṇa* to express the beginning of the year. Whether we adopt Pāṇini's derivation or the principle of modern philology we thus arrive at the same result, and so far as our present inquiry is concerned we can therefore suppose that the various words, which may be represented by *Ā(a)gra(ā)yaṇa*, or *Ā(a)grahā(a)yaṇa*, are all transformations or derivations of *agra + ayana* = *Ā(a)grayaṇa*.