Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s11.1152

v1.c3.s11.1152

Kṣura occurs three times in the Rigveda. The word appears to have the general sense of ‘blade’¹ in one passage,² possibly also in another,³ where it is said that the hare swallowed a Kṣura, and where the sense ‘blade’ is adequate. In the third passage⁴ there seems to be a reference to the sharpening of a razor on a grindstone⁵ (bhurijos, the dual denoting precisely, as Pischel⁶ points out, the two sides of the apparatus, between which the stone revolved like the modern grindstone). But Muir,⁷ following another view of Roth,⁸ adopts the sense ‘the edge of scissors,’ which, however, hardly suits the other passage, one in the Atharvaveda,⁹ where a Kṣura is described as moving about on the bhurijos,¹⁰ as the tongue on the lip. The meaning ‘razor’ is perfectly clear in the Atharvaveda,¹¹ where shaving by means of it is mentioned; in many other passages¹² either sense is adequate. A kṣuro bhrjvān occurs in the Yajurveda:¹³ it seems to denote, as Bloomfield¹⁴ suggests, a razor with a strop (in the shape of a small grinding apparatus). Kṣura-dhārā¹⁵ denotes ‘the edge of a razor,’ like kṣurasya dhārā.¹⁶ In the Upaniṣads¹⁷ a razor-case (Kṣura-dhāna) is mentioned. See also Śmaśru.