History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c81.4

v6.c81.4

In the great St. Petersburg Dictionary the word vrata is derived from the root ‘vṛ’ (to choose) and the important senses of the word given in that Dictionary are: (1) will, command, law, prescribed order; (2) subservience, obedience, service; (3) domain; (4) order, regulated succession, realm; (5) calling, office, customary activity, carrying on, custom; (6) religious duty, worship, obligation; (7) any undertaking, religious or ascetic performance or observance, vow, sacred work; (8) vow in general, fixed purpose; (9) other specialized senses. Max Muller derived it from vṛ ‘to protect’ and held that it meant originally what is enclosed, protected, set apart, then what is settled or determined, law, ordinance and then ‘sway or power’. Whitney, in a note on this word in the Proceedings published in J. A. O. S. vol. XI pp. 29-31, after setting out the treatment of the word in the St Petersburg Dictionary, brushed aside Max Muller’s etymology as unsatisfactory and as possessing little plausibility and declared that he did not accept the derivation of the word from vṛ ‘to choose’, that ‘vṛ’ did not signify willing or command, but only choice or preference, though he admitted that there is a relationship between ‘choose’ and ‘command’. He objected that ‘*ta*’ as an affix (except in the formation of past passive participles) was very rare and that the only analogous word he could think of would be ‘marta’ from ‘mṛ’ to die. He preferred to derive the word from ‘vṛt’ ‘to proceed’ and, though he admitted that the form vrata from ‘vṛt’ with affix *a* would be exceptional, he thought that the words ‘vraja’ and ‘trada’ supported the derivation and put forward the ground that the word ‘vrata’ occurs frequently in the Ṛgveda with verbs of motion such as '*car*', '*saśc*' or '*sac*'.