The Arctic Home in the Vedas c13.s2.4.2

c13.s2.4.2

and Yâska was probably the first Nairukta to formulate a good meaning for *shipivishṭa* by suggesting that *shipi* may be taken to mean “rays.” That is why the passage from the Mahâbhârata (Shânti-Parvan, Chap. 342, vv. 69-71), quoted by Muir, tells us that Yâska was the first to apply the epithet to Vishṇu; and it is unreasonable to infer from it, as Muir has done, that the writer of the Mahâbhârata “was not a particularly good Vedic scholar.” In the Taittirîya Saṃhitâ, we are told that Vishṇu was worshipped as *Shipivishṭa* (II, 2, 12, 4 and 5), and that *shipi* means cattle or *pashavaḥ* (II, 5, 5, 2; Tâṇ. Br. XVIII, 6, 26). *Shipivishṭa* is thus explained as a laudatory appellation by taking *shipi* equal to ‘cattle,’ ‘sacrifice’ or ‘rays.’ But these etymological devices have failed to invest the word with a good sense in Sanskrit literature; and this fact by itself is sufficient to show that the word *shipivishṭa* originally was, and has always been, a term of reproach indicating some bodily affliction, though the nature of it was not exactly known. The theological scholars, it is true, have tried to explain the word in a different sense; but this is due to their unwillingness to give opprobrious names to their gods, rather than to any uncertainty about the real meaning of the word. It was thus that the word *shipivishṭa*, which is originally a bad name (*kutsitârthîyam*) according to Aupamanyava, was converted into a mysterious (*guhya*) name for the deity.