Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s21.496

v1.c3.s21.496

Paruṣṇī is the name of a river which is mentioned in the Nadī-stuti (‘Praise of Rivers’),¹ and in the song of Sudās’ victory over the ten kings,² which seems to have been made decisive by the rise of the river drowning the fugitives.³ In these passages and one of the eighth book of the Rigveda,⁴ where it is called a ‘great stream’ (mahenadi), the name is certainly that of the river later called Ravi (Irāvatī), as recognized by Yāska.⁵ Pischel⁶ sees a reference to it in two other passages of the Rigveda,⁷ where ‘wool’ (ūrṇā) is connected with the word paruṣṇī, and the allusion to the river is accepted by Max Müller⁸ and Oldenberg,⁹ though they are not fully agreed as to the exact sense of the passages in question. Pischel suggests that the name is derived from the ‘flocks’ (parus) of wool, not from the bends of the river, as understood by the Nirukta,⁵ or from its reeds, as Roth¹⁰ suggests.