Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s8.291

v2.c4.s8.291

Śaryaṇāvant occurs in several passages of the Rigveda,¹ in all of which Sāyaṇa sees a local name. According to his account, Śaryaṇāḥ (masc. plur.) is a district in Kurukṣetra, Śaryaṇāvant being a lake not far from it in the back part (*jaghanārdhe*) of Kurukṣetra. The unusual consistency of his statements on this point is in favour of the word being a place name; it is also to be noted that Kurukṣetra contained the lake Anyataḥplakṣā. Roth,² however, thought that in two passages³ the word denoted merely a ‘lake,’ literally ‘(water) covered with a thicket of reeds’ (*śaryana*), and in the others a Soma vessel. Zimmer⁴ inclines to this rendering. On the other hand, Pischel⁵ accepts Sāyaṇa’s view. Hillebrandt⁶ also sees in the word a place name, but he is inclined to locate it among the ‘five tribes,’⁷ which is not quite inconsistent with its being in Kurukṣetra, for the connexion of the Pūrus with the later Kurus is known;⁸ or perhaps, he suggests, Śaryaṇāvant is an old name for the Wular sea of Kaśmīr, which was only a reminiscence in Vedic times. This is not probable; still less so is Ludwig’s hypothesis⁹ that the Śaryaṇāvant is the later eastern Sarasvatī. Bergaigne¹⁰ regards the name as that of a celestial preparer of Soma.