Cognitive and Cultural Metaphors of Wholeness in the Ṛgveda

By

Sanjay V. Kumar

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty

of the California Institute of Integral Studies

in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy and Religion

California Institute of Integral Studies

San Francisco, CA
2010
 CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

I certify that I have read Cognitive and Cultural Metaphors of Wholeness in the Ṛgveda

by Sanjay V. Kumar and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a

dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of

Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

_____________________________________
James Ryan, Ph.D., Chair
Core Faculty, Asian and Comparative
Studies

_____________________________________
Steven Goodman, Ph.D.,
Internal Reader,
Core Faculty, Asian and Comparative Studies

_____________________________________
Shaligram Shukla, Ph.D.
External Reader,
Core Faculty, Dept. of Linguistics,
Georgetown University

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 © 2010 Sanjay V. Kumar

  3  
Sanjay V. Kumar
California Institute of Integral Studies, 2010
James Ryan, Ph.D., Committee Chair

Cognitive and Cultural Metaphors of Wholeness in the Ṛgveda

ABSTRACT

The concept of wholeness permeates ancient Indian philosophy perhaps

evidenced in the earliest literature of the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā. Using the linguistic
methodologies of the historical and comparative method, lexical semantics, and cognitive
linguistics, the study aims to identify the metaphors for wholeness in the Ṛgveda.
Specifically, how was the notion of wholeness expressed in the lexico-semantics of this
sacred corpus text? Additionally, can linguistic methodology identify the various
cognitive and cultural metaphors for wholeness in both the Ṛgveda and the earlier Proto-
Indo-European (PIE) lexicon? The research also explores the semantic contrast to the
notion of wholeness, the concept of otherness, in both Vedic Sanskrit and PIE language.

The main chapters of the research are outlined thematically with the first three
core chapters exploring how the notion of wholeness might have been cognitively
expressed as metaphor for words that connote oneness, sameness, individuation, and
inclusiveness. The following chapter outlines how the concept of otherness was in
semantic contrast to that of wholeness in the lexicon of the Ṛgvedic vocabulary. The final
two chapters explore how metaphors for wholeness were culturally expressed in the
Ṛgveda. The first of these chapters focuses on the Sanskrit word sarva- as a cultural
metaphor for wholeness that denoted health and wellness. The last chapter outlines how
the notion of otherness became a cultural metaphor for hostility and falsehood.

Using the theory of semantic fields and semantic continua, the work is congruent
with current scholarship in the field of Vedic studies. The research is a continuation of
works by other Vedic scholars who have created semantic fields for concepts such as
beautiful (Oldenberg), heat (Blair), light, soul, vision (Bodewitz), money (Hintze), man,
woman (Kazzazi), and femininity (Monc Taracena). While the work does not claim to
identify every metaphor for wholeness and otherness in the Ṛgveda, it strives to introduce
certain metaphors that express these concepts in the Ṛgveda. The intention of this
research is to reveal a deeper cognitive understanding behind the language of this sacred
text, as well as to offer possible insights into the early Vedic culture.

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 Acknowledgments

“Within man is the soul of the Whole.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

In memoriam to my mother, Dr. Kumud Kumar, whose love and dedication

indelibly permeates this research. This work is a legacy to her, a testament to her proud
Brahman heritage, and homage to my ancestors whom I honor and continue in the long
familial line of academics, priests, and scholars of the sacred ancient Indian traditions.

This research would not have been possible without the support, love, and belief
of many people. I first wish to thank my family–my father (Dr. Vijay Kumar), his partner
(Sheela Balsawar), her daughter (Peggy Balsawar), my brother (Sandeep Kumar) and his
wife (Molly McCracken) for your patience, faith, and reassurance, especially during the
period when this project seemed to be in peril.

I dedicate this research to my first teacher of Indo-European linguistics and

Sanskrit, Dr. Shaligram Shukla, whose mentorship and paternal guidance were the
inspiration behind this work. I am extremely grateful to Dr. James Ryan and Dr. Steven
Goodman for giving me the opportunity to complete my doctoral degree at CIIS after my
departure from UCLA. I acknowledge my professors of Indo-European linguistics at
UCLA–Dr. Ivanov, Dr. Vine, Dr. Puhvel, Dr. Anttila, and especially Dr. Scharfe for
imparting to me their wisdom.

I am indebted to Anna Fitzpatrick for her meticulousness and assistance in both

technical and copy-editing of the various drafts of the dissertation.

I am truly grateful to all of my dear friends, both near and far, for their years of
support and faith in my ability to complete this Herculean task. Lastly, I honor my canine
spiritual muse and best-buddy, Pico, whose love and presence next to my desk during the
summer of 2010 when I wrote the dissertation was unwavering.

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ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................ 4
List of Tables ................................................................................................................... 12
List of Figures.......................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
1) Introduction ................................................................................................................ 15
Wholeness in Ṛgvedic and Indo-European Language and Thought ......................... 16
Framing the Research Questions................................................................................... 18
Examples of English Whole ............................................................................................ 20
2) METHODOLOGY AND METHODS ...................................................................... 22
Methodology .................................................................................................................... 22
Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Method .................................................. 22
Diachronic and Synchronic Change.............................................................................. 23
Lexical Semantics............................................................................................................ 23
Semantic Fields................................................................................................................ 24
Semantic Continua.......................................................................................................... 25
Cognitive Linguistics ...................................................................................................... 26
Cognitive Metaphor ........................................................................................................ 27
Cognitive Metonymy....................................................................................................... 28
Similar Methodolgies in Vedic Studies ......................................................................... 29
Methods............................................................................................................................ 34
Inclusion/Exclusion of Texts .......................................................................................... 34
Data Collection: Lexical Algorithm for Inclusion/Exclusion of Data ........................ 37
Data Analysis and Interpretation of Meaning ............................................................. 40
Cultural Insights from Linguistic Methodology and Methods ................................... 43
Remarks on Transliteration and Phonetic Representation ........................................ 44
3) LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................... 46
Criteria for Inclusion/Exclusion of Literature ............................................................. 46
Search Engines and Parameters for Literature Review.............................................. 47
Objectives of Literature Review .................................................................................... 48
Framing the Questions for the Literature Review....................................................... 49
Review of Works ............................................................................................................. 50

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Books ................................................................................................................................ 50
Articles from Journals.................................................................................................... 56
Dissertation...................................................................................................................... 61
4) Chapter Overview....................................................................................................... 64
5) Wholeness as a Metaphor for Oneness ..................................................................... 68
PIE Concept of ‘One’...................................................................................................... 68
PIE *oi- and *sem- .......................................................................................................... 69
PIE *oi- ............................................................................................................................ 69
PIE *sem- ......................................................................................................................... 70
The Semantic Development of PIE *oi- and *sem- ...................................................... 71
PIE Concept of ‘Two’ ..................................................................................................... 74
PIE *sem- and *du- as Deictic Roots ............................................................................. 76
‘Wholeness/Oneness’ and ‘Otherness/Twoness’ as Semantic Fields ......................... 77
Reflexes of PIE *sem- and *oi- in the Ṛgveda .............................................................. 78
Saṃ- and Sa- in the Ṛgveda ........................................................................................... 79
Samvát- ‘whole direction, i.e. landscape’ ...................................................................... 81
Samvatsará - ‘one whole duration, i.e. year’................................................................. 82
Satrā́ - ‘in one whole place, by one whole manner, i.e. wholly, completely’ .............. 82
Sádā- ‘always, perpetually, wholly, continually’.......................................................... 83
Simá- ‘self, all, every, whole’.......................................................................................... 84
Archaic Morphology of Vedic Saṃ- and Sa- ................................................................ 85
Éka- in the Ṛgveda .......................................................................................................... 87
Tád Ékaṃ ........................................................................................................................ 88
Ékam Idám ...................................................................................................................... 89
Ékam Víśvam .................................................................................................................. 89
New Conceptual Model of ‘One’ and ‘Two’ in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit ................... 91
6) Wholeness as Metaphor for Inclusiveness and Being ............................................. 95
Inclusiveness versus Exclusiveness in PIE Language .................................................. 96
Reflexes of this Binary Pronominal Distinction in Vedic Sanskrit............................. 97
The Conceptual Distinction between the Dual and Plural Category ......................... 98

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The Dual as Late Innovation in PIE............................................................................ 101
Connection between Grammatical Inclusiveness and Conceptual Wholeness ....... 102
Binary Feature of Active versus Inactive in PIE Verbal System.............................. 104
Binary Feature of Active versus Inactive in Vedic Sanskrit ..................................... 106
Semantic distinction between Vedic Sanskrit √as- and √bhū- as Verbs................. 107
Semantic distinction between Vedic Sanskrit √as- and √bhū- as Nouns................ 108
The PIE root *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as- as Inactive Verbs............................... 110
The Morphosemantic Connection of PIE *Hes- with *Hēs- ..................................... 114
PIE *Hēs- and Vedic Sanskrit √ās- ............................................................................. 115
Vedic Sanskrit āsā́t ‘from the proximity, near’ as Inclusiveness and Wholeness... 117
Vedic Sanskrit dūrā́t ‘from a Distance, from Afar’ as a Metpahor for Exclusiveness
and Otherness................................................................................................................ 120
Vedic Sanskrit svāsasthá- ‘well-located nearby’ ........................................................ 121
Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................ 124
7) Wholeness as a Cognitive Metaphor for Individuation and Interiocity .............. 126
The Linguistic Features of Individuation and Interiocity......................................... 126
The PIE Concept of Wholeness as a Metaphor for Individuation and Interiocity. 128
PIE *Hes- ‘To Be,’ *H(e)su- ‘Good,’ and *Hsṷe- ‘Own’ as Lexemes of Individuation
and Interiocity ............................................................................................................... 131
Semantics of Vedic Sanskrit su- in the Ṛgveda .......................................................... 132
The PIE Reflexive Marker *(H)sṷe- and Vedic Sanskrit sva- ‘One’s Own, Oneself’
......................................................................................................................................... 133
Semantic Connection in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit between ‘One’s Own’ and ‘Dear,
Good, Beloved’ .............................................................................................................. 133
PIE Reflexive Markers as Innovation Replacing the Grammatical Middle Voice. 135
The Semantics of Vedic Sanskrit priyá- in the Ṛgveda.............................................. 136
PIE *(H)sṷe- ‘One’s Own, Oneself’ as a Morphological Derivative of *Hes- ‘To Be’
......................................................................................................................................... 137
Reflexes of PIE *Hes-, *(H)su-, and *(H)sṷe as Metaphors for Wholeness in Ṛgvedic
Language and Thought ................................................................................................ 139
PIE *sṷesor- and Vedic Sanskrit svásar- ‘sister’........................................................ 140

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PIE *sṷeḱuros- and Vedic Sanskrit śváśura- ‘father-in-law’.................................... 143
PIE *(H)sṷe- and Vedic Sanskrit sva- as a Cognitive Expression of Individuation
and Interiocity and Metaphor for Wholeness ............................................................ 144
Further Evidence of the Morphosemantic Connection between PIE *Hes- ‘To Be’
and *(H)su- ‘Good’ ....................................................................................................... 146
The Evidence in Archaic Hittite Texts ........................................................................ 147
The PIE suffix *-u- as the Missing Morphological Link ........................................... 148
Semantic Concatenation and Continuum of Wholeness and Being ......................... 149
PIE *Hsont- and Ṛgvedic sá(n)t- as ‘Being, Reality, and Truth’ ............................. 150
Semantic Concatenation from Hittite aš- ‘To Be’ to Hittite aššu- ‘Good, Dear,
Favorable’...................................................................................................................... 152
Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................ 155
8) Otherness as a Metaphor for Twoness ................................................................... 159
Binary Contrast between ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ in PIE Language................................. 159
The Morpho-semantic Relationship between PIE *du(H)s- ‘Bad’ and *du̯oH(u)-
‘Two’ .............................................................................................................................. 160
PIE *deuH(s)- ‘Lack, Be Distant, Deficient, Inferior’ ............................................... 161
The Morphological Relationship of PIE *deuH(s)-, *du(H)s- , and *du̯oH(u)-....... 163
The Semantic Relationship among PIE *deuH(s)-, *du(H)s-, and *du̯oH(u)-......... 165
Reflexes of *deuHs- in Vedic Sanskrit and other IE Languages .............................. 166
Ṛgvedic dūrá- ‘Far off, Remote, Distant, Separated’ as an Expression of Otherness
and Separation .............................................................................................................. 166
PIE *deuHs- as a Metaphor of ‘Secondness’.............................................................. 170
Homeric Greek deúteros ............................................................................................... 170
Hittite duianalli- and tūṷa-........................................................................................... 172
The Connection between PIE *dueHs- and *deuHs- as Schwebe Ablaut ................. 173
Vedic Sanskrit dávīyas- versus dvitā́ - and English farther versus further ............... 175
Morphosemantic Connection between PIE *du(H)s- ‘Bad, Foul’ and *du̯oH(u)-
‘Two’ .............................................................................................................................. 180
Twoness and Duality as Metaphors for Badness, Hostility, and Enmity................. 181

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Semantic Concatenation from PIE *deuHs- ‘Lack, Be Separate’ to PIE *du(H)s-
‘Bad, Foul’ ..................................................................................................................... 184
Reconstructing the Semantic Field of PIE *du- ......................................................... 185
Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................ 186
9) Wholeness as a Metaphor for Health and Salvation ............................................. 188
PIE *solṷos and Ṛgvedic sárva- ................................................................................... 189
Lexical Frequency of sárva- in the Ṛgveda................................................................. 192
Textual Evidence in the Ṛgveda .................................................................................. 193
Sárvam idáṃ as ‘the Whole, the All’............................................................................ 194
Sárva- as ‘Safety and Security’ .................................................................................... 196
Sarvátāti- ........................................................................................................................ 197
Sarvátāti- as a Desired State of ‘Wholeness’............................................................... 203
Sárva- in Compound Words......................................................................................... 204
Sárvāṅga- ....................................................................................................................... 205
Sárvavīra- ...................................................................................................................... 206
Sarvadhā́- ....................................................................................................................... 208
Vedic sarvátāti and Avestan haurvatāti -..................................................................... 210
Ásarva- in Vedic Texts – ............................................................................................... 211
Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................ 213
10) Wholeness as a Metaphor for Non-Duality and Truth ....................................... 217
PIE Semantics of Duality and of the Number ‘Two’ ................................................. 217
Duality as Metaphor for Fragmentation of the Psyche and Cosmos ....................... 219
PIE *du̯ō(u)- ‘Two’ as Metaphor for Falsehood in the Ṛgveda................................ 221
Dvayá-............................................................................................................................. 222
Dvayāvín-........................................................................................................................ 226
Dvayúm- ......................................................................................................................... 228
Dvayá- as ‘Duplicity’..................................................................................................... 230
Ádvaya- in the Ṛgveda .................................................................................................. 230
Ádvayaḥ-......................................................................................................................... 231
Ádvayant-........................................................................................................................ 232

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Ádvayāvin-...................................................................................................................... 233
Ádvayu-........................................................................................................................... 234
Ȧdvaya- as the ‘Whole Truth’ ...................................................................................... 235
Chapter Summary ........................................................................................................ 236
11) Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 238
Works Cited................................................................................................................... 243

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 List of Tables and Figures

Table 1 .................................................................................................................104  

Lexical Expressions and Reflexes of the Grammatical Features of Inclusive and

Exclusive in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit ...................................................................104  

Table 2 .................................................................................................................105  

Inactive versus Active Verbs in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit.....................................105  

Table 3 .................................................................................................................114  

The Inactive and Stative Grammatical Feature of PIE *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as-
..............................................................................................................................114  

Table 4 .................................................................................................................123  

Reflexes of PIE *Hēs- and *dṷ(e)H- in Vedic Sanskrit ......................................123  

Table 5 .................................................................................................................146  

Reflexes of the Grammatical Features of Individuation and Interiocity in PIE and Vedic
Sanskrit ................................................................................................................146  

Table 6 .................................................................................................................151  

Semantics of Vedic Sanskrit sá(n)t and ása(n)t- .................................................151  

Table 7 .................................................................................................................154  

Metaphorical Expressions of PIE *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as- ......................154  

Table 8 .................................................................................................................174  

Allomorphs of PIE *deuH- as Schwebe Ablaut ...................................................174  

Table 9 .................................................................................................................186  

Lexico-Semantics of *du- in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit .........................................186  

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Fig. 1. Sample Webpage of Online Monier-Williams Online Sanskrit-English Dictionary
http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/mwquery/ ............................................38

Fig. 2. Sample Webpage of Online Ṛgvedic Search Engine

http://meluhha.com/newrv/find.pl?q=sarv&acc=no&lang=ved&stratum=all&show=yes
................................................................................................................................40

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 1) Introduction

Throughout the nearly 4,000 years of Indian philosophy, scholars and

philosophers have discussed how the concept of wholeness has been an integral

component of religious thought in Indian literature and in the religious traditions of both

Hinduism and the earlier Vedic period. In Koller’s The Indian Way, part of the greater

Asian Perspective Series, he talks about the Vedic worldview by saying,

The world of distinct and separate things and processes is seen to be a

manifestation of a more fundamental level of reality that is undivided and
unconditioned…this undivided wholeness constituting the ultimate reality is
called by various names…developed initially in the Vedas and Upaniṣads, this
vision of undivided wholeness came to inspire the entire [Hindu] tradition. (6)

Koller advances that throughout much of classical Hindu thought this notion of

wholeness (additionally referred to as totality, oneness, thusness, nonduality, synthesis, or

the All) has been conveyed with certain lexical terms such as Brahman, Ātman, Tattva

and Puruṣa (6). In his “All, Universe and Totailty,” Gonda believes that it is in the

Upaniṣadic and the early Vedāntic literature where concrete lexical evidence of this

notion of wholeness begins to occur with regularity. However, scholars of Indian

philosophy conjecture that even the Upaniṣadic and Vedāntic concept of wholeness may

likely have evolved from a pre-existing Vedic notion. According to Gonda, Koller,

Mahony, and Miller this Vedic notion of wholeness was grounded in an intimate

alignment of the individual with the cosmic oneness, which can be identified in the

Ṛgveda by the phrases tád ékam and idám sárvam.

With regard to the early Sanskrit lexemes that expressed the concept of

wholeness, Elizarenkova, in her seminal work Language and Style of the Vedic Ṛṣis

  15  
states, “The semantic invariant in this series may be defined as ‘to create an ordered

universe, or Cosmos’ as opposed to Chaos…The isomorphism of the macro- and the

microcosmic levels can be manifested, for instance, in the identification of the units of

different levels, such as myth and ritual” (74). Mahony holds a similar position in his

Artful Universe when discussing his view of the Vedic universe when he says, “By using

the word universe I refer to the Vedic idea that all things in the various realms of a

sacred, meaningful existence are in some way connected to each other in a mysterious

and complicated yet systematic whole” (3).

Wholeness in Ṛgvedic and Proto-Indo-European Language

I believe that the Ṛgvedic concept of wholeness is not one that is limited to a set

of specific lexemes, but one that is also semantically vast and continuous that expresses

wholeness as metaphor. In private discussions with Shukla, he refers to this spectrum of

various metaphorical senses of a specific word as a sensuous continuum. Thus the

concept of wholeness in the Ṛgveda can be viewed as a sensuous continuum of

metaphors that become expressed through certain lexemes. As metaphors convey a

figurative, rather than a literal, meaning there expressions in language are contextual to

the language and thought of its speakers. Metaphors tend to be specific to a certain time

and place, which I believe reveal both the cognitive and cultural insights into language

and thought.

Alternatively, I also hold the view that the Ṛgvedic meaning of a word within the

greater semantic field of lexemes that conveys the meaning of wholeness cannot be taken

or established in isolation. Languages are living entities that evolve from previous forms

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and do not arise in isolation. According to the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) hypothesis,

Vedic Sanskrit, the language of the Ṛgveda, is but one of a number of descendent

languages (e.g. Ancient Greek, Latin, Hittite, Avestan, et al.) that evolved from a

common proto-language. Despite the span of millennia and vast geographic distance

scholars have established that these correlative languages share a common vocabulary,

mythology, cosmology, and culture. In addition to identifying the specific lexemes that

express the concept of wholeness as metaphor in the Ṛgveda, it is equally important, in

my opinion, to position how these possible terms for wholeness in the Ṛgveda may have

evolved lexico-semantically from their PIE source. This idea is not to say that all the

metaphorical lexemes for wholeness in the Ṛgveda exclusively have a PIE progenitor.

However, a fundamental component of this research places a substantial position on the

role that PIE had in shaping the lexemes of wholeness in Ṛgvedic language and thought.

I, therefore, believe that it is important to know the psycho-socio-cultural context

within which the lexemes for wholeness in the Ṛgveda evolved and became expressed

metaphorically. Fortunately, the abundance of ethnographic and mytho-religious data in

the Ṛgveda enables the linguist to establish the semantics of a lexeme and to place it

properly within a specific semantic field or continuum. Based on the PIE hypothesis, it is

possible that the lexemes for wholeness in the Ṛgveda are cognate with forms in other

Indo-European languages and, thus, provide an additional support for identifying such

lexemes in the language of the Ṛgveda. This process assists my attempt to reconstruct not

only the semantic meaning of lexemes for wholeness in the Ṛgveda but also within a

possible Indo-European (IE) semantic sphere for wholeness.

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 The question now arises whether it is possible to identify specific lexical

expressions of this concept of wholeness back to the earliest period of Vedic literature.

Specifically, can the methodologies of comparative linguistics, linguistic typology,

cognitive linguistics, and lexical semantics assist in reconstructing the notion of

wholeness and its corresponding lexemes in the earliest Indian literature of the Ṛgveda?

While there is no one specific lexeme in the Ṛgveda that fully connotes the concept of

wholeness, there is, in my opinion, a cluster of lexemes in the Ṛgveda that constitute a

larger semantic continuum. Some of the most noted scholars that have explored this topic

of wholeness in Vedic thought include Chosky, Gonda, Mahony, and Miller. Yet despite

the tremendous value that each of these scholars has contributed to the field of Vedic

studies and Indian philosophy, there currently appears to be no definitive work or

comprehensive study that explores the lexical terms for wholeness in the Ṛgveda as

metaphors from both a philosophical and cognitive linguistic perspective. This work

attempts to shed new light on the topic, where others have not, by regarding the various

lexemes for wholeness in the Ṛgveda as cognitive and cultural metaphors that perhaps

continued from an earlier stage of PIE language.

Framing the Research Questions

This study is both a linguistic and philosophical examination and identification of

possible lexical terms used to convey the concepts of wholeness, as well as its semantic

opposite of otherness, in the earliest Vedic Sanskrit text of the Ṛgveda. While previous

works on Vedic studies have identified the notion of and recognized the importance of

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wholeness within Vedic thought, there are newly posed questions that are integral to and

drive this research, its literature review, methodology, and data collection.

From the philosophical perspective the following questions arise.

1. What exactly is the Vedic notion of wholeness and how was it

conceptualized as metaphor in the Ṛgveda?

2. If there was a Vedic notion of wholeness, can it further be revealed by

comparing it to the semantically opposite notion of otherness?

3. How do the concepts of wholeness and otherness become cognitively

and culturally expressed as metaphor in Ṛgvedic thought?

From the perspective of cognitive linguistics and lexical semantics these other

questions become relevant.

1. Is it possible to identify a semantic field for wholeness, along with its

possible semantic counterpart of otherness?

2. If so, do specific lexemes exist in the Ṛgveda expressing the notion of

wholeness either explicitly or through conceptual metaphor?

3. Are these possible lexemes collectively contained within the same

semantic field for wholeness, or do they straddle more than one field?

4. Are the various lexemes for wholeness in the Ṛgveda possibly lexico-

semantic derivatives from even earlier reconstructed morphemes from

PIE?

  19  
Examples of English Whole

To help illustrate the various points and linguistic devices outlined in the previous

sections, I provide an exercise that explores how the English word whole is expressed

literally and metaphorically. In English the word whole exists as one point within the

greater semantic continuum of wholeness. I have collected a partial list of the various

connotations that the word whole can express in Modern English usage.

1. Expression of entirety, sum, totality, singularity, and oneness, e.g. ‘I saw the

whole movie from beginning to end.’

2. Expression of health and wellbeing, e.g. ‘It is a goal to be whole1 in mind,

body and spirit.’

3. Expression of purity, e.g. ‘Use whole milk, rather than 1%, for the recipe.’

4. Expression of extent, e.g. ‘Mary felt a whole lot better later in the day after her

nap.’

5. Expression of fullness, e.g. ‘I wholly support your decision.’

Similarly, as a metaphor, the word whole in Modern English applies to a number of

concepts that span more than one semantic field.

1. Health, e.g. ‘The doctor declared Jill to be whole and sound to go back to work.’

2. Truth, e.g. ‘The story you’re about to hear is whole and true.’

3. Purity, e.g. ‘The saint was said to have lead a wholesome and pure life, free from

sin and temptation.’

                                                                                                                         

1
The English word whole is actually cognate to the word health, heal, hale, and weal, all of
which have evolved from a proto-Germanic form *koilos. While the semantic relationship
between health and whole is no longer apparent to speakers of Modern English, the original
linguistic connection would have likely existed in the cognition of early speakers of the various
Germanic languages. As a result, the word whole has now become a metaphor for health.

  20  
 It is now possible to frame the English lexeme whole within the context of the

linguistic devices of semantic fields, continua, and metaphor. Based on the various

connotations expressed by Modern English whole, the semantic field within which it

resides can be conceptualized as wholeness. The sensuous continuum of the word whole

within the socio-cultural parameters of present day English encompasses the

metaphorical sense of wholeness, entirety, totality, fullness, health, safety, truth, and

purity.

Additionally, the Modern English word whole is just one word within the larger

semantic field of the concept of wholeness. English whole is further expressed

conceptually by the words ‘totality, all, integrity, unbroken, oneness, etc.’ that constitute

an ever-changing semantic continuum. At the same time, English whole also becomes a

metaphor to connote a variety of other concepts that straddle other semantic fields such as

health, truth, purity, etc. I believe that an analogous approach can now be applied to

studying the Ṛgveda in order to identify the cognitive and cultural metaphors of

wholeness evident in the lexico-semantics of the Vedic Sanskrit language.

  21  
 2) METHODOLOGY AND METHODS

There is an important conceptual distinction between the methodology and the

methods of research. At its most basic level, methodology is the theory or principle that

the research employs in conducting the research. On the other hand, the methods are the

direct ways in which the methodology is applied to the research. The methodology for the

research sets the general research parameters and the framework for interpreting the

methods. The methods for the research establish the plan and the specific techniques that

I use to apply the methodology.

Methodology

There are two distinct but interrelated methodologies utilized in this

dissertation—historical linguistics and cognitive linguistics. Furthermore, historical

linguistics is subdivided into the subfields of the comparative method and of lexical

semantics.

Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Method

Historical linguistics studies the various ways languages change—both across

time (diachronic) and within the same time period (synchronic). Specifically, both

diachronic and synchronic analyses provide the essential tools to explore how the concept

of wholeness is lexically and semantically conveyed in the Ṛgveda. As an aid to the

reader, the distinction between diachronic and synchronic change will be defined in

greater detail in order to demonstrate their effectiveness as tools of methodology.

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 Diachronic and Synchronic Change

It is helpful to define the key linguistic jargon used frequently throughout this

study. In the field of historical and comparative linguistics, an important distinction is

made between diachronic and synchronic approaches. First used by the famous

nineteenth-century Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, both of these approaches

distinguish two important aspects of language development. Diachronic linguistics

focuses on the development of language(s) over time, while synchronic linguistics

explores the state of language(s) at any given time in history. Both of these tools are

necessary when doing lexical and semantic analyses. Diachronic linguistics allows the

researcher to explore the semantic change and development of linguistic features over

various strata of time. Synchronic linguistics permits the researcher to examine these

same features limited to within the same temporal stratum.

Lexical Semantics

Another important and valuable tool for research is the field of lexical semantics,

which studies the meaning and connotation of lexemes, the basic lexical unit of meaning

of a word, whether they are tangible things or concepts. In Cruse’s introductory chapter

of his work Lexical Semantics he states, “…it is assumed that the semantic properties of a

lexical item are fully reflected in appropriate aspects of the relations it contracts with

actual and potential contexts” (1). The value of lexical semantics is its ability to relate

lexemes to sentence structure and syntax by identifying the function of the lexeme within

the semantic field, the greater context within which the lexeme occurs. Within the field of

  23  
lexical semantics are the two important concepts of semantic fields and semantic continua

that are of great value to the linguistic methodology of this research.

Semantic Fields

The notion of semantic fields has existed for nearly a century with de Saussure

and Trier being the first ones to introduce this concept into linguistics. It was in Trier’s

Der deutsche Wortschatz where the linguistic discipline of semantic fields arose, which

he identified by the term Wortfeld. Vassilyev’s “Theory of Semantic Fields,” provides an

elegant description of what exactly a semantic field is. He elaborates that a lexicon can be

structured into groupings or clusters of concepts and ideas that are very closely related to

one another. The meaning of a specific word within this grouping can only be determined

in relation to all the other words in the cluster. These clusters or grouping of words that

are conceptually and semantically related to one another are semantic fields (Vassilyev).

Gliozzo elaborates more on semantic fields in his Semantic Domains, where he

describes Trier’s original concept of a semantic field by saying,

Semantic Fields are conceptual regions shared out amongst a number of words.
Each field is viewed as a partial region of the whole expanse of ideas that is
covered by the vocabulary of a language. Such areas are referred to by groups of
semantically related words, i.e. the Semantic Fields. Internally to each field, a
word meaning is determined by the network of relations established with other
words. (2)

It was, however, Roesler’s article on the application of semantic fields into Vedic

texts that inspired the genesis of this current research that explores the semantics of

wholeness in the Ṛgveda. In Roesler’s “Theory of Semantic Fields” he demonstrates that

it is, indeed, possible to implement the tool of semantic fields specifically for Vedic texts.

He states,

  24  
 Linguistic theories can provide useful methods for examining the lexical
meanings and the possible usages of words within different settings. It seems to
me that especially the theory of semantic fields offers an interesting tool for
arriving at a more precise understanding of the Vedic vocabulary, the exact
meanings of the single lexical items and the contextual, stylistic and poetical
variations we find within the texts. (307)

Semantic Continua

Another valuable aspect to the field of lexical semantics is the notion of a

semantic continuum. According to Roesler, Trier’s original theory of semantic fields

includes the notion of semantic continua, which can be summarized in the following

manner:

In the synchronic perspective the semantic range of a natural language can be

regarded as a continuum that is internally subdivided by its single lexical items;
this model has been described by TRIER in the metaphor of mosaic. The words
that belong to a lexical field can often, but not necessarily, be subsumed under a
superordinate term, e.g., for the lexical field of the verbs of movement, the verb
‘to move’ would be the superordinate term, and ‘to walk, to run, to skip’, etc.,
would be the co-hyponyms that constitute the internal structure of the field. The
exact meaning of each co-hyponym becomes clear only in contrast to the other
co-hyponyms of the same field. (308)

Intimately connected to the notion of semantic continua exists the concept of semantic

componential analysis, where the meaning of a lexeme can be viewed as a grouping or a

cluster of sub-sets of shared semantic components within the greater semantic field or

continuum. As Roesler advances, in the Vedic texts the goal of using semantic continua

and semantic components is to establish the “distinctive features that constitute the

differences between similar words and expressions,” which he further states can be

“presented in the form of semantic ‘axes’ or scales that indicate the relative semantic

value of the lexical items” (309). In Schumann’s abstract Real Logic and Semantic

Continuum, he provides another definition of a semantic continuum as a structure

  25  
containing all meanings of a word or a concept that have to be considered in relation to

each other with those meaning being semantically marked from highest to lowest (1).

The intention behind semantic fields and the reason for their use as a foundation

of this research, is that they offer an approach to explore the lexicon of the Ṛgveda.

Semantic fields also provide the opportunity to determine the specific semantic

continuum and components regarding the notion of wholeness in Ṛgvedic thought and

language. Lexical semantics, along with semantic fields and continua, collectively

provide the researcher with the methodological tools to classify and analyze the

similarities and differences in meaning of lexemes, both diachronically and

synchronically.

Cognitive Linguistics

The study also enters deeply into the field of cognitive linguistics as a

methodological research tool. Evans et al. define cognitive linguistics as, “…a modern

school of linguistic thought and practice…concerned with investigating the relationship

between human language, the mind and socio-physical experience” (1). Cognitive

linguistics further provides support for the tools of lexical semantics semantic fields and

continua. While phonological and morphological shift within language can be easily

traced both diachronically and synchronically, the situation with semantic shift is less

tangible. When constructing the proto-form of a lexeme, its semantics are going to

change. Rather than constructing a single proto-semantic form of a word or concept, the

discipline of cognitive linguistics attempts to map out the full semantic continuum of the

lexeme in question.

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 Cognitive linguistics is intimately connected to the notion of semantic fields and

continua in the following manner. Whenever speaker(s) of a language perceive of a word

or a concept, its semantic meaning is not fixed but rather carries a plurality of meanings

along a semantic continuum that is bound within a defined and specific semantic field.

Thus while the semantic continuum may always be changing according to the cultural

and social parameters of the speaker(s) of a language, cognitive linguistics believes that

the semantic field, which encompasses the semantic continuum, is relatively fixed in its

structure.

Cognitive Metaphor

Within the semantic continuum, a word can be cognitively expressed both in a

literal and a metaphoric meaning. A cognitive metaphor can best be described as a

conceptual view of a lexeme or a group of lexemes that semantically connects one word

or idea for another. As a linguistic device, a cognitive metaphor transfers the meaning of

a word onto something else from a literal to a figurative sense. The semantic comparison

is, therefore, implied and not one where the lexeme can be taken literally. In the English

example ‘John is a pig when it comes to house-keeping,’ John is not literally a pig but is

characterized in a way that figuratively describes him to have the same conceptual

attributes of a pig.

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 Cognitive Metonymy

Related to, but distinct from cognitive metaphor, is the notion of cognitive

metonymy. According to Jurewicz, metonymy “is a strategy that allows one to replace

the concept of one thing with the concept of another thing, which both form a whole or

which are closely connected” (606). An example of a conceptual metonymy in English is

the phrase ‘The Pentagon announced the withdrawl of US troops from Iraq’ where

Pentagon replaces the concept of the United States government. There is, however, an

important distinction between cognitive metaphor and metonymy. Knowls and Moon in

their Introducing Metaphor differentiate between the two terms by saying,

Metonymy and metaphor also have fundamentally different functions. Metonymy

is about referring: a method of naming or identifying something by mentioning
something else which is a component part or symbolically linked. In contrast,
metaphor is about understanding and interpretation: it is a means to understand or
explain one phenomenon by describing it in terms of another. (54)

Both cognitive metaphor and metonymy are important semantic devices contained within

the fields of cognitive linguistics and lexical semantics. While metaphor and metonymy

vary slightly in their definitions, they both are linguistic devices that are vital aspects of

this research as part of the methodological approach to identify the terms for wholeness

in the Ṛgveda.

Related to methodological tools of historical linguistics and of lexical semantics,

cognitive linguistics attempts to provide an explanation behind the intimate connection

between a culture’s language and the conceptual socio-physical experience of its

speakers. As research tools the various linguistic devices of semantic fields, semantic

continua, cognitive metaphors, and metonymy facilitate the exploration into the lexico-

semantics of wholeness in the Ṛgveda. Roesler substantiates this position by saying that

semantic fields and continua, along with cognitive metaphors, enable the Vedic scholar to

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explore “relations like synonymy and antonymy as well as polysemy, and they can even

help to describe poetical figures like metaphor, where a semantic component of one item

is transferred to another….Moreover, it corresponds well to the findings of cognitive

linguistics that the words of a language are learned and remembered in fieldlike

structures. All this makes semantic field theories appear to be a promising approach for

describing the semantic structure of the vocabulary at large” (309).

Collectively, the disciplines of historical linguistics and cognitive linguistics

provide the important research tools to explore the intimate connection between language

and thought in human cognition. One of the primary tasks of this research is to

reconstruct conceptual and semantic meanings that lend themselves to various

connotations of wholeness that were expressed lexically in the Ṛgveda, and possibly to an

earlier stage of the PIE language. Both the methodological approaches of historical

linguistics and cognitive linguistics offer possible insight into how the lexico-semantics

of wholeness were shaped in PIE and Ṛgvedic thought, which in turn reflected in the PIE

and Ṛgvedic language. As the main objective of this research is to identify these lexemes

within their semantic fields and semantic continua that encompass the notion of

wholeness, the tools of lexical semantics and cognitive linguistics are appropriate for

such an endeavor.

Similar Methodolgies in Vedic Studies

The methodological tools of historical linguistics, lexical semantics, and cognitive

linguistics are relevant tools for the present research, which scholars of both Indo-

European and Vedic Sanskrit have employed in their respective academic works. In their

  29  
research, scholars have implemented one or more of these methodological tools in

dissertations, books, and research papers. A brief overview now follows of some works

specific to Vedic studies that have employed one or more of these methodologies.

In Gardner’s dissertation Terminology of the Self in Vedic India he relies heavily

on diachronic and synchronic linguistics and lexical semantics to present his findings. He

states,

By combining synchronic analysis of the occurrences of the terminology in a

given passage with diachronic comparison of these occurrences between texts and
over time this study shows that there are several developing—or even
competing—ways of discussing existential presence in the Vedic religion. The
most direct means to illumine these developing notions of the self with minimal
presupposition is to comprehensively analyze each passage which includes one or
more of the terms…” (32)

This dissertation adopts a similar approach to Gardner’s study of the specific lexemes and

meaning for the various terms for self in the Vedic texts by adapting it to the study for

terms denoting wholeness.

Another renowned academic scholar in Vedic studies who employs similar

methodologies as a framework for this research is Elizarenkova. In her pioneering book

Language and Style of the Vedic Ṛṣis, Elizarenkova also takes an integral approach in the

academic study of the poetic language of the Ṛgveda. While Elizarenkova is primarily a

Vedic scholar, she acknowledges the similar methodological techniques, utilized by the

larger Indo-European academic community, when studying the poetic languages of the

early Indo-European literature. Elizarenkova concurs with both Watkins and Campanile,

two specialists in Indo-European poetics, who share Elizarenkova’s premise. She states in

her work that each of these scholars agrees that simultaneous synchronic and diachronic

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study of the early Indo-European poetic language is necessary, performed in a manner

that is both historically comparative and analytically descriptive (5).

Elizarenkova’s methodology recognizes the importance and validity of

understanding the connection between the Vedic poetic language, along with the

antecedent Indo-European, with its society and culture. Using lexical semantics as her

primary methodological tool, Elizarenkova examines how the Ṛgvedic vocabulary,

morphology and syntax are intimately connected to the semantics of the Vedic poetic

language. Additionally, she demonstrates that the Vedic Ṛsis crafted the Ṛgvedic

language and used its linguistic and semantic components as sacred instruments of poetry

to express their cosmology and mythology. Elizarenkova successfully uses the linguistic

methodological tools of lexical semantics and diachronic/synchronic analysis to offer a

rare insight into the earliest realms of Vedic and Indo-European thought.

Roesler’s article “Semantic Fields as a Tool for Vedic Research,” which had the

greatest influence for this work, uses both the theories of semantic fields and continua as

tools for research. Regarding the usefulness of semantic fields as a methodological tool

Roesler states,

Linguistic theories can provide useful methods for examining the lexical
meanings and the possible usages of words within different settings. It seems to
me that especially the theory of semantic fields offers an interesting tool for
arriving at a more precise understanding of Vedic vocabulary, the exact meanings
of the single lexical items and the contextual, stylistic and poetical variations we
find within the texts. (307)

In Roesler’s research he explores the lexico-semantics of verbs that express the notion of

shining in the Ṛgveda. In his work, he uses the tool of semantic fields to construct a

semantic continuum of Ṛgvedic verbs that both literally and metaphorically convey the

  31  
meaning of shining. In this regard, Roesler also employs the discipline of cognitive

linguistics.

In a similar approach, Jurewicz in her article “The Rigveda, the cognitive

linguistics” utilizes the methodology of cognitive linguistics to explore the poetic

language of the Ṛgveda. Using the discipline of cognitive linguistics, Jurewicz focuses on

the single stanza 9,97,46 to Soma to demonstrate how cognitive and conceptual

metaphors are used as poetic devices in the Ṛgveda. As Jurewicz herself states, “…I

would like to propose a method of Rigveda interpretation which, in my opinion, sheds

some light on the thinking of the Rigvedic poets. The method applies cognitive linguistics

with its principal notions of conceptual metaphor and metonymy” (606). In the context of

the Ṛgveda, both metaphor and metonymy are frequently found as poetic devices in the

text. An example in the Ṛgveda that Jurewicz illustrates to employ metonymy is the

Vedic Sanskrit word soma. As she states,

The Sanskrit word soma is the name of a plant that was ritually pressed in the
Rigvedic sacrifices. This word also denotes the juice of the plant. The reason why
the same name can be used to denote the beginning of the process and its result is
metonymic thinking, which allows us to take one phase of an event for another
(and vice versa). This results in their conceptual identification and in the
possibility of constructing a general notion denoting them. The same thinking
underlies the usage of the word soma to denote the god of the plant: in this case
the divine essence of entity is identified with it. (606–7)

Thus in the Ṛgveda, the name of the actual plant soma by the semantic device of

conceptual metonymy is expressed as both the juice and the deity. Using the same

example of soma in the Ṛgveda, the distinction between metaphor and metonymy can be

further witnessed. In addition to the soma plant being conceptualized as the juice and the

deity, it is also metaphorically expressed as a sacrificial animal. In stanzas 10,101, 9–10

soma is perceived as a cow or bull about to be yoked and sacrificed. Additionally, the

  32  
soma plant also appears in stanzas 11–12 of the same hymn as a metaphor of sexual

fluids.

Jurewicz takes a similar perspective to Elizarenkova, Watkins, and Campanile,

who all concur that many of the poetic and cultural features of the Ṛgveda reflect the

earlier PIE poetic tradition. Jurewicz states,

It seems that the usage of cognitive linguistics in the investigation of the Rigveda
is justified not only because this method is useful in the analysis of texts of
different cultures and of poetical texts. The oral character of the Rigveda is the
next reason justifying the application of cognitive linguistics. It is generally
assumed that, since its final codification, the Rigveda was transmitted orally in its
unchanged form. It nevertheless preserved many features of oral texts that go
back to earlier times, beginning with Indo-European times, when it was not so
rigidly codified. (611)

Similarly, the premise of this current work adopts a congruent opinion that certain

aspects of PIE language remain as relics in early Ṛgvedic lexcion and as conceptual

metaphor. It is, therefore, possible that certain lexemes or metaphors for wholeness in the

Ṛgveda may have antecedents in the earlier PIE language. Furthermore, Jurewicz

demonstrates that the Ṛgveda’s usage of metaphor and metonymy reveals the hidden

cognitive and cultural expressions inherent in the Vedic culture. Just as the concept of

soma is subject to metaphor and metonymy, I believe that a similar situation might also

exist with the concept of wholeness to reveal its cognitive and cultural expressions in the

Ṛgveda.

While my goal is not to comment on every scholar that has used linguistic

methodology in Vedic studies, there are a number of other prominent works that have

employed the notions of lexical semantics, cognitive linguistics, metaphor, and

metonymy to map the semantic fields and continua of other Ṛgvedic concepts. In addition

to Roesler’s mapping of words for shining and the metaphorical interpretation of

  33  
Jurewicz with the word soma, other relevant works that examine Vedic lexico-semantics

include words for beautiful (Oldenberg), heat (Blair), light, soul, vision (Bodewitz),

money (Hintze), man, woman (Kazzazi), and femininity (Monc Taracena).

Based on the methodological approaches used in Vedic scholarship by Gardner,

Elizarenkova, Roesler, Jurewicz, and those of other scholars previously listed, the current

research continues this tradition by following a similar line of inquiry. My methodology

parallels their works by employing the various tools of historical linguistics, lexical

semantics, and cognitive linguistics to explore the lexemes and metaphors for wholeness

in the Ṛgveda and their possible development from earlier PIE language and thought.

Methods

In addition to discussing the various linguistic methodologies employed as a

framework for this research, it is important to outline the specific methods that are the

tools for this methodology. The methods to be discussed for this research specifically

determine why certain texts are to be included or excluded, what is the lexical algorithm

to collecting data, and how best to analyze and categorize the data.

Inclusion/Exclusion of Texts

This study is restricted to an intratextual analysis of the Ṛgveda. The primary

reason is to have access to a defined set of lexical data from a relatively monolithic but

sufficiently large text. While it is certainly possible to compare the lexical data of the

Ṛgveda to other Vedic texts, such as the Atharvaveda, Samaveda, or Yajurveda, doing so

would expand the nature of the study to variables beyond the scope of a dissertation. For

  34  
example, much of the language of these other Vedic texts is considered to be composed

in the Middle and Late period of Vedic Sanskrit, while the relatively homogeneous

linguistic structure of the Ṛgveda falls into the Early stage of Vedic Sanskrit.

Other Vedic scholars, specifically Roesler, substantiate this method of an

intratextual approach to the Ṛgveda. Roesler labels the language of the Ṛgveda as a

corpus language. Roesler believes, “That it is generally possible to conduct a semantic

field study in the case of corpus languages has been proved by the numerous studies from

the field of classical philology” (311f). It is the relatively synchronic feature of the

language employed in the Ṛgveda that makes it a corpus language.

Furthermore, the research is also limited to the lexical data found only in the

Ṛgveda Saṃhitā, and not in its ancillary texts of the Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and the

Upaniṣads. While the Saṃhitā reflects the original orally composed metrical language of

the Ṛgveda, the other texts were commentaries on ritual and meaning produced in prose

language. Additionally, the prose language of the Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and the

Upaniṣads are composed in a stage of Middle and Late Vedic Sanskrit, while the poetic

metrical language of the Saṃhitā belongs to the Early Vedic period. Roesler concurs on

this matter of confining the text to only the Saṃhitā. He states,

When studying a corpus language, we need a reasonable set of texts stemming

from (approximately) the same period, because field structures operate on a
synchronic level and may change during time. For my study, I have chosen the
corpus of the Ṛgveda. Though we cannot speak of a corpus that was composed
exactly at the same time, nevertheless, this choice has the advantage that we are
dealing with a stylistically rather homogeneous text collection (we do not, e.g.,
compare metrical language with prose, which might lead to incompatible results).
Moreover, the relative chronology of the Ṛgveda is quite well established, which
gives us the opportunity to notice and to describe diachronic changes. (311)

  35  
I am in accordance with Roesler’s statement that introducing the lexicon of the Saṃhitā’s

ancillary texts as possible data expands the parameters of inquiry to a broader diachronic

pool of lexemes that are beyond the scope of the current research. Furthermore, limiting

the study to just the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā and excluding the prose commentaries further

enhance the methodologies of cognitive linguistics and lexical semantics as tools for

exploring wholeness in the poetic metrical language of the Ṛgveda.

Another factor to mention is the different śākhā, the various recensions or

schools, of the Vedic texts. Among the five śākhā of the Ṛgveda that are believed to

have originally existed, only three (the Śākala, Aśvalāyana, and Kauṣitaki) śākhā are still

known to exist. Among these three versions, only the Śākala recension is believed to have

preserved the original content of the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā. It is also this version of the Ṛgveda

Saṃhitā metrically restored by van Nooten and Holland into the work Rig Veda: A

Metrically Restored Text With an Introduction and Notes that is available in

its entirety online at http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/RV/. It is this specific

recension of the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā that is the most widely excepted version used in Vedic

scholarship. Thus, the methods of determining the inclusion or exclusion of texts among

the entire Vedic corpus of literature now limit the lexical data specifically to the Śakala

Ṛgveda Saṃhitā.

Even though this study is an intratextual examination of the Ṛgveda, rather than

an intertextual one between different Vedic texts, synchronic and diachronic analyses can

still be used as part of the methodology. This approach is possible due to the

chronological layering evident within the Ṛgveda itself into early, middle and late

Ṛgvedic stages of the language. Based on notable differences in lexicon, morphology and

  36  
grammar, Witzel in “Tracing the Vedic Dialects” and “Development of the Vedic Canon”

has identified three distinct temporal strata within the Ṛgveda itself. His hypothesis

chronologically structures the language of the Ṛgveda into three linguistic strata.

1. Early Ṛgvedic/ Stratum 1 – Books 2, 4, 5, 6

2. Middle Ṛgvedic / Stratum 2 – Books 3, 7, 9; parts of 8.1-66 and 1.51-191

3. Late Ṛgvedic / Stratum 3 – parts of 8.67-103; 1.1-50; 8.49-59 and Book 10

Based on these points, the Ṛgveda stands alone among the Vedic literature as a

self-contained corpus text with its unique lexicon and poetic devices. This feature of the

Ṛgveda permits Roesler to state that, “But even if we cannot describe language as a

whole in all its aspects, nevertheless, semantic field theory may be useful for more

modest purposes, like the study of limited realms of vocabulary during a limited period of

time” (311). It is the bound lexical quality of the Ṛgveda composed in a corpus language,

the relatively synchronic perspective of the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā, and its retention in the

Śākala recension that substantiate this lexico-semantic inquiry on the concept of

wholeness.

Data Collection: Lexical Algorithm for Inclusion/Exclusion of Data

Another critical method is the lexical algorithm to determine the inclusion and

exclusion of certain terms that convey wholeness. There are two approaches by which the

lexical algorithm is achieved. The first method entails using established Ṛgvedic lexical

search engines to identify the possible terms for wholeness. The other involves a

thorough reading of the entire Ṛgveda in both the original Vedic Sanskrit and in both its

English and German translations.

  37  
 The first way in which the dissertation conducts this process utilizes the online

Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English dictionary (http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-

koeln.de/mwquery/) along with a secondary online Ṛgvedic lexical search engine. Both

of these online search engines are widely accepted electronic tools utilized by Vedic

scholars. For example, a search for the English word whole is placed in the search

parameter of the Monier-Williams dictionary, requesting all entries of Sanskrit terms in

the entire Sanskrit literary corpus that connote this concept. The search engine then lists a

total of 314 dictionary entries, i.e. 314 different lexemes, for Sanskrit terms that contain

the word whole in their definition. The online dictionary further indicates in which texts

the specific entries are located (refer figure 1).

Fig. 1. Sample Webpage of Online Monier-Williams Online Sanskrit-English Dictionary

http://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/mwquery/

  38  
 Next, I review all 314 entries and cross-reference each of them in both Lubotsky’s

2-volume work, A Ṛgvedic Word Concordance and in Grassman’s Wörterbuch zum

Rig-Veda. If the lexeme also occurs in either Lubotsky’s index and Grassman’s Vedic

dictionary, it is included as part of the data set. This process narrows the data field by

excluding all lexical entries for words that connote whole that occur outside the Ṛgveda.

Through this cross-referencing process, the 314 entries for lexical entries returned by the

Monier-Williams dictionary are narrowed down to about a dozen entries. From this

narrowed set of lexemes, the Sanskrit word sarva- is now used as an example to describe

the third step.

Once a specific lexeme has been defined using the online Monier-Williams

Sanskrit-English dictionary and cross-referenced in both Lubotsky’s and Grassman’s

sources, I use the following Ṛgvedic lexical search engine

http://meluhha.com/newrv/find.pl?q=sarv&acc=no&lang=ved&stratum=all&show=yes

This process now identifies all instances of the Sanskrit word sarva-, its morphological

variants, and the entire line in which the lexeme occurs in the entire Ṛgvedic corpus. In

order to capture all morphological forms of the word sarva- in the search engine, it is

necessary to type just the lexical stem sarv-, rather than the full word sarva- itself.

Simply typing in the word sarva- in the search parameter would result in the omission of

its variant allomorphs, such as sarve, sarvāni, etc. Typing in the lexical stem sarv- yields

a total of 126 instances of this lexeme in the Ṛgveda, ordered in each of the 10 books and

temporal strata, along with the line where the word occurs, as the figure below indicates.

  39  
Fig. 2. Sample Webpage of Online Ṛgvedic Search Engine
http://meluhha.com/newrv/find.pl?q=sarv&acc=no&lang=ved&stratum=all&show=yes

Data Analysis and Interpretation of Meaning

Once the word is identified and located in its specific line of stanza, the next step

is to read the entire line, stanza and hymn in the original Vedic Sanskrit to see if the

lexeme in question in this specific context connotes the meaning of whole. It is important

to remember that the word sarva-, like many words in the Ṛgveda, is multivalent: The

word sarva- conveys several meanings, only one of which is the notion of whole. Other

meanings of sarva- include, in just the Ṛgveda alone, the meaning of all, every, everyone,

everything, everywhere, and entire. An important aspect of the lexical algorithm is to

exclude all semantic meanings of sarva- that do not convey the meaning of whole. This

task is achieved by carefully reading all of the 126 original Ṛgvedic passages in which

the word sarva- occurs. Doing so not only narrow the lexical data, more importantly it

  40  
structures the methods of the dissertation to focus exclusively on the relevant Ṛgvedic

lexicon for words that connote wholeness.

The second approach for the lexical algorithm entails a thorough reading and

interpretation of the entire Ṛgveda through the methodologies of cognitive linguistics and

lexical semantics. While using various lexical search engines specific to the Ṛgveda

might prove helpful, it cannot yield possible undiscovered terms for wholeness in the

Ṛgveda. The main objective of this research is to identify terms for wholeness that have

not yet been revealed by previous scholarship. Furthermore, the lexical search engines

only identify the literal and relatively transparent connotations for wholeness in the

Ṛgveda and do not reflect their expressions as conceptual metaphors.

In addition to reading the Ṛgveda in the original Vedic Sanskrit, I employ the

German translation by Geldner and the English one by Griffith to determine the

semantics and connotation of a specific term. It is important to clarify that both of these

translations are rather outdated. While a modern English translation of the Ṛgveda began

in 2004 by Jamison and Brereton, their work was not published in time as part of this

research and is, therefore, not used. While the translations by Geldner and Griffith

assisted in the method of this research, I point out that they did not exclusively determine

the inclusion or exclusion of a specific lexeme.

The method for determining whether a term is included to connote wholeness is

achieved by examining its context within the specific stanza or hymn itself. Since this

research explores the cognitive and cultural expressions of wholeness in the Ṛgveda

evidenced in language and thought, it is the figurative and metaphoric connotations of

wholeness, rather than the literal, that I attempt to identify as part of the method. Just as

  41  
with previous translations of the Ṛgveda, much of them are based on individual

interpretation of the original text. In this same manner, the lexemes that I identify and

include in this research are those established from my own discerned and nuanced

interpretation of the Ṛgveda examined through the lens of conceptual metaphor and

lexical semantics.

The same lexical algorithm and interpretation of the data will be used for possible

words for whole isolated to the Ṛgveda. Additionally, terms that express concepts

semantically similar to the notion of wholeness, such as oneness, totality, sameness, and

inclusiveness, along with its semantic opposite of otherness and twoness will also be

searched using similar methods. While the Ṛgvedic lexical search engines provide the

literal interpretations for words that express wholeness, the translations along with my

own nuanced interpretation of the original text offer the undiscovered metaphorical

expressions of wholeness as part of the data collection methods.

Finally, a note on the English translations found in this research. As previously

mentioned, the current translations by Geldner and Griffith are anachronistic in their

language and do not reflect recent findings in Vedic scholarship. Furthermore, Griffith

and Geldner appear to have excluded the methodologies of cognitive linguistics and

lexical semantics when translating the original Ṛgvedic passages. For these reasons, I

provide my own English translations of the specific stanzas with single quotes cited in

this research that underscore the lexico-semantics of wholeness in the Ṛgveda. I wish to

make clear that these translations, while my own, are still adapted from and resemble

those of Geldner and Griffith. The translations also should not be taken as authoritative,

as they are my own based on the interpretation of the lexical data. Rather, the reader

  42  
should view the translations that occur throughout the study as an adjunct to the major

theme of this research and, is advised to consult Geldner or Griffith for alternative

translations. Lastly, what makes my own translations of value to the field of Vedic

scholarship and perhaps of interest to the reader is their unique interpretation through the

methodological tools of cognitive linguistics and lexical semantics that reveal how the

concept of wholeness is expressed in Ṛgvedic culture, language, and thought.

Cultural Insights from Linguistic Methodology and Methods

The question now arises how can the linguistic methodologies of cognitive

linguistics and lexical semantics along with the methods outlined in this chapter provide

any cultural insight into the early Vedic culture and the cognitive perspective of speakers

of the language? Jurewicz raises an interesting point regarding the application of

cognitive linguistics as an insight into Vedic culture. As there exists little physical

archaeological evidence of the early Vedic people, the primary piece of evidence used in

exploring the earliest records of the Vedic culture is the Ṛgveda itself. As the form of

Vedic Sanskrit evident in the Ṛgveda is considered to be a self- contained corpus

language, the various linguistic methodological tools themselves are the key that provides

the researchers the most effective means to examine its lexicon.

In addition to the cognitive expressions of wholeness evident in the Ṛgveda via

metaphor, the various linguistic methodologies provide a deeper cultural insight into the

way in which these cognitive metaphors were expressed. With regard to the cultural

revelations that methodological tools of cognitive linguistics and conceptual metaphor

offer Jurewicz states, “The poets refer to the mythological, ritual, and social contexts that

  43  
are now lost and not easy to reconstruct, except for their very basic features. Nor is it

easy to reconstruct the way the poets thought” (606). Jurewicz further elaborates that

tools of cognitive linguistics and conceptual metaphor “are mental strategies that enable

people to recognize the world and organize their knowledge about it” (606). These mental

strategies, in turn,

are based on experience and on cultural models, i.e. common beliefs about the
world shared by a community. They are manifest in language and its particular
expressions….According to cognitive linguistics, there is a tight connection
between the thought and the language. When we analyze the language and when
we get to know mental strategies characteristic of human thinking, we can begin
to understand, at least to some extent, what and how people who speak in this
language think. (606)

Similarly, in addition to identifying the ways in which the concept of wholeness

was cognitively expressed through metaphor in the Ṛgveda, the various linguistic

methodologies of cognitive linguistics and lexical semantics reveal the hidden extra

cultural dimension of the Vedic people. It is for this reason that the current research is an

exploration into both the cognitive and cultural metaphors of wholeness in Ṛgvedic

language, as the lexemes that express the concept of wholeness are manifest in both the

cognitive and cultural realms of Vedic thought.

Remarks on Transliteration and Phonetic Representation

I provide two important final notes regarding the transliteration of the Vedic

Sanskrit language and phonetic representation of the PIE roots. The first point is

throughout the study, I use the currently accepted Roman transliteration of the

Devanāgarī script for academic work. The second matter pertains to phonetic

representation of PIE words and roots. In current scholarship, the phonetic representation

of PIE roots and words can vary depending on the author or the particular school of Indo-

  44  
European studies. For example, I represent the PIE phoneme *-w- by its equally accepted

but alternate form *-ṷ- in this study. This option is merely stylistic based on the particular

school of Indo-European linguistics under which I was trained. Unless an author whose

work I cite uses the form *-w-, the form *-ṷ- is employed throughout this work.

Similarly, the phonetic representation of the PIE laryngeals has a number of variant forms

encountered within IE linguistics. While some scholars, like myself, use the generic

phoneme *-H- to represent all the reconstructed three or more laryngeals, other scholars

whose works I cite will use the alternative representations of the various laryngeals by *-

h1-,-h2-,-h3-,-ha- or additionally by the schwa symbol *-∂-. Unless I am citing an author

who employs a variant form, I opt to use the generic symbol *-H- to represent all

laryngeals in this study. These two points on transliteration are meant to alleviate any

confusion on part of those readers who are not familiar with PIE phonetic representation.

  45  
 3) LITERATURE REVIEW

This section explores and reviews the current, relevant academic literature

concerning the Vedic concept of wholeness as expressed in language and thought in the

Ṛgveda. There are many works within the field of Vedic studies that discuss this topic in

some form; however, most of the research on the topic is limited to just a single section

of a chapter or to a few sentences interspersed sporadically within works that survey the

greater scope of Vedic philosophy and Hindu religion. (Basham; Dandekar; Deshmukh;

Hopkins; Keith; Koller; Masih; Oberlies) There are relatively few academic works

dedicated to this topic, and those are the focus of this literature review. While many of

these works may not have the word wholeness in their actual title, authors use words such

as harmony, order, all, or matrix to connote the concept of wholeness. Additionally, there

are even fewer academic works that utilize linguistic analysis in exploring the lexical

terms of Vedic wholeness; those that do, focus on just one specific lexical term such as

ṛta, sat, sarvam, or ekam, thus limiting the many ways in which this concept of

wholeness is lexico-semantically expressed in the Ṛgveda.

Criteria for Inclusion/Exclusion of Literature

A number of criteria were used to define the parameters for the literature review.

First, while there is an abundant discussion of the notion of wholeness in Indian

philosophy, only works that pertain to Vedic studies are included. Second, works that are

neither scholarly in nature nor use accepted academic methodology are excluded. For

  46  
example, there are articles and dissertations that discuss the Vedic notion of wholeness

from a metaphysical or Hindutva perspective; while these works certainly discuss the

Vedic idea of wholeness and may be important pieces, they also tend to lack academic

objectivity. Therefore, such works are excluded from this dissertation. Third, only works

that have been published within the past 150 years are included, as prior to this, the field

of Vedic studies was not very well established from the perspective of utilizing linguistic

methodological research. Fourth, works that only dedicate a few paragraphs or sporadic

sentences on the topic are excluded. Fifth, original works written in English, French, and

German are included, due to the author’s knowledge of these languages.

Search Engines and Parameters for Literature Review

The first step employed various search engines to perform a Boolean word search

of key phrases such as Vedic wholeness; Veda wholeness; Ṛgveda wholeness; Vedic

cosmology; and Vedic oneness. The different categories of academic works required the

use of specific search engines.

For books, I used the Library of Congress, World Cat, and MELVYL. For journal

articles, I used a number of online journal indexes to find articles: JSTOR, JSTOR South

Asia Titles, the Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Papers First, Questia, the University

of Chicago Database, and Genamics Journal Seek.

In particular, I investigated articles in specific peer-reviewed academic journals

that are either dedicated to the field of Vedic studies or regularly publish articles on

  47  
Vedic studies: Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Annals of the Bhandarkar

Oriental Research Institute, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,

Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, History of Religions, Journal of Asian and African

Studies, Journal of Asian Studies, EJVS (online), Indo-Iranian Journal, International

Journal of Hindu Studies, Journal of the American Oriental Society (Univ. of Michigan),

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), Journal of the Benares

Hindu University, Journal of Indian Philosophy and Religion, Journal of the Royal

Asiatic Society, Orientalia, and Philosophy East West.

Dissertations were retrieved through Proquest and First Search.

Objectives of Literature Review

This literature review has a number of objectives and supporting reasons. First,

there is a need to differentiate research that has already been conducted on the topic from

that which needs to be conducted, as well as to determine if there are new variables and

challenges to the topic. Second, this literature review may offer a new perspective on the

topic, one that has not been previously explored. Third, this chapter will help to frame the

context and research question for the dissertation and to identify how the research intends

to contribute a significant advancement to the field of Vedic studies. Fourth, a thorough

literature review is necessary to argue the significance and importance of the topic as well

as the need to explore the topic in a new way. Fifth, this review will help to identify the

existing methodological perspectives and research methods, which will help in designing

the dissertation study; it will also position the research in a context that relates any new

  48  
findings to existing findings of previous research. Finally, this literature review is useful

in formulating a new theoretical framework in the field of study.

Framing the Questions for the Literature Review

In the course of this literature review, there are four specific questions that are

central to the research and are explored through the works that have been included and

critiqued in this review.

1. In the academic literature, how and in what way has the concept of wholeness

been studied in Vedic studies?

2. What research methods have been used previously to identify the concept of

wholeness in the original Vedic texts?

3. Are there any methodological recommendations from previous research that

require consideration?

4. What are the central theories that have been advanced in the academic

literature to demonstrate the notion of wholeness in the Ṛgveda?

  49  
Review of Works

The discussion of the academic literature begins with books, continues

with articles and finishes with the sole dissertation relevant to the research. The order in

which the works appear within each section is based on their relevance to the study.

Books

Mahony’s The Artful Universe offers a construct of Vedic thought and cosmology

with the central belief of an underlying, transcendent reality that binds the multifaceted

Vedic universe into a structured formless Absolute. It was the role of the Vedic seer, the

ṛṣi, to “image” this unseen and intangible order of wholeness as an expression of art via

ritual, myth, poetry, and sacrifice. Mahony introduces this idea by saying,

By using the word universe I refer to the Vedic idea that all things in the various
realms of a sacred, meaningful existence are in some way connected to each other
in a mysterious and complicated yet systematic whole. By artful I want to suggest
not only the general notion that Ṛta is universal truth and ritual order, but also that
this structure of being is one in which all things fit together properly, smoothly
and harmoniously—‘artistically,’ if you will. As the universal (artistic) principle
that gives rise to and joins all things together into a smoothly fitting whole, Ṛta
stands as the foundation of the world as universe rather than as a chaotic
multiverse. (3–4)

In the subsequent chapter, “The Priest as Artist,” Mahony presents the case that

the Vedic ritual was a sacred act of reintegration of the individual back with the

undivided wholeness of cosmic order. The role of the Vedic priest was that of an artist,

especially in the “self-purifying” Soma ritual known as the soma pavamāna. According

to Mahony, this ritual was of paramount importance to the Vedic people “because it

reintegrated what had become a multiverse; ritual transformed a fractured and disjunctive

existence into a unified and harmonious whole” (132). This notion is congruent with and

  50  
builds upon the works of other Vedic scholars, most notably B. Smith’s “Ritual and

Reality” chapter of his work Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion.

Although it is insightful and academically researched, there are some critiques of

Mahony’s methodology that are worth mentioning because they differentiate it from the

present study. As he does not claim to present a linguistic study of the Vedic literature,

Mahony is excused for only briefly (in the course of a single paragraph) exploring the

etymology of the Vedic term ṛta and explaining its semantic connection with the cosmic

wholeness. He rightfully states,

The word ṛta literally means ‘that which has moved’ in a fitting manner…It may
be of interest to note in this regard that the word ṛta is a distant relative not only
of the English rite and thus of ritual (both of which signify actions that lend or
establish dramatic order to the disorder of life as it is often experienced), but also
of the English harmony as well as of art and thus artful. (3)

Although what he states is accurate, he fails to explain that the Vedic word ṛta derives

from the Vedic Sanskrit root √ṛ-, which according to other scholars and Sanskrit

dictionaries (DeVries; Elizarenkova; Grassmann; Mayrhofer; Monier-Williams) had two

meanings, ‘to move, go’ and ‘to connect, fasten.’ As other books and dissertations on

Vedic ṛta demonstrate, one had to properly understand the context in which the term was

being used in order to determine if it conveyed “that which has moved” or “that which

has connected.” Mahony conflates the two semantic meanings in his work, not realizing

the distinction in connotation the word holds in certain contexts.

A second critique of Mahony’s methodology is confusing synchronic and

diachronic analysis of the texts. While his work claims to be a survey of the Vedic

literature, he does not classify his texts into early, middle, and later Vedic. Additionally,

  51  
he includes the Upaniṣadic and Tantric texts and even Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtrā in his data.

As scholars of Vedic studies are aware, the Vedic texts themselves span a period of

nearly 1,500 years of literature. One has to assume that the semantics of a specific lexical

term would change over the course of time, but Mahony’s translation of the word sarvam

remains fixed as ‘the All.’ As other scholars, such as Gonda (“All, Universe and Totality”

and “Reflections on Sarva- in Vedic Texts”), have accurately demonstrated, the

semantics of this specific word have evolved throughout the course of the Vedic

literature. Likewise, Mahony appears to take the position that the “artful imagination” of

the Vedic priests remained static throughout this period of over a millennium; however,

most scholars concur that Vedic thought was correlated to language both of which

considerably evolved from the earliest writings of the Ṛgveda to the later Upaniṣads.

(Elizarenkova ; Gonda; Miller)

When demonstrating a point of his central thesis, Mahony juxtaposes passages

from texts separated by over a thousand years; in his attempt to create a synchronic

perspective of Vedic imagination over the course of the span of Vedic literature, he

inadvertently takes a diachronic view of the texts. If Mahony had chosen to take just a

diachronic approach to his methodology rather than claiming to take a synchronic

approach, his findings and research would have been more accepted by other Vedic

scholars.

The five reviews that were located (Findley; Patton; Smith; Thompson; Werner)

offer a conflicting assessment of Mahony’s work. While Patton has nothing but praise for

the book, the other reviewers seem to be far more critical, with Smith and Thompson

exposing several errors in his research and methodology. Regardless of these issues,

  52  
Mahony’s efforts should be duly noted and his work is a good introduction for anyone

seeking to explore the concept of Vedic imagination and religion from a nonphilological

perspective. While this is a work of scholarship, it must be cautiously used for the

proposed research due to its methodological limitations and moderate lack of linguistic

analysis of the Vedic material.

A similar discussion on the topic of Cosmic Order in the Vedas occurs in Jeanine

Miller’s The Vision of Cosmic Order in the Vedas. In this well-written and nicely

researched book Miller expertly integrates diverse fields such as philosophy, psychology,

linguistics, and religion as methodological tools in her study. As in her earlier work on

the Vedas, The Vedas: Harmony, Meditation and Fulfilment, Miller demonstrates her

adeptness in using various approaches in a discussion of complex aspects of the Vedic

literature. More known as coauthor with Georg Feuerstien of many works of Yoga

philosophy, Miller skilfully advances the field of Vedic studies with this work.

Miller’s opening chapter presents her central hypothesis suggesting that the Vedic

vision was identified with the concept of ṛta in various manifestations—astronomy,

mythology, ritual, and language. In the subsequent chapters, she explains that ṛta is the

way in which order is achieved in the Vedic vision. Additionally, ṛta in the form of yajña

is the path toward restoring wholeness of man and of gods within the harmony of the

cosmic order.

Despite the various advancements the book offers in the field of Vedic studies and

on the proposed research topic, there exists some criticism of Miller’s methodology and

methods. Miller chooses not to do a full translation of the hymns that she uses to illustrate

  53  
her point; rather she isolates a certain phrase or line of a stanza without presenting its

greater context. Further, in the book she presents a notion that all aspects of Ṛgvedic

vision can be categorized into four distinct but interconnected modes of expression: sat,

asat, yajña, and ṛta. This concept is not new, as it is borrowed from the work of de

Nicolás in his book Mediations through the Rg Veda. While this is an interesting

taxonomy of the “Vedic vision,” it limits the discussion of other modes of expression in

Vedic thought and religion, such as dhī or vāc.

The sole review of this book by de Nicolás (89–91) is very laudatory, with only

limited criticism of Miller’s approach. While there are some relatively minor issues with

the work, what distinguishes Miller’s book from others that explore the concept of ṛta is

her methodology of using the texts themselves as the means to structure her thesis; other

works on examining ṛta and the idea of Vedic order tend to rely on conjecture and

assumption to arrive at a conclusion. However, her focus on equating the Vedic concept

of ṛta with cosmic order ignores other lexical terms that were also reflected in the Vedic

language to connote this concept, such as sarva- or tad ekam. Despite this matter,

Miller’s work remains a noteworthy piece of scholarship and greatly contributes to a

better understanding of Vedic wholeness and order. While her methodological research is

sound and her information very relevant, Miller’s work is distinguished from the

proposed research topic by her lack of comprehensive lexical analysis of the plurality of

ways in which Vedic language connoted the concept of wholeness.

Another work whose title would appear to contribute to the Vedic concept of

wholeness and to the current research is Ṛta: The Cosmic Order. Edited by Madhu

Khanna, the work is a compilation of articles from a seminar that focused on the origins

  54  
of the concept of ṛta and its relationship to the various aspects of sociocultural-religious

life in Indian culture, past and present. The articles tend to focus on how ṛta relates to the

cognition of order in temporal and spatial expressions of the arts. While some of these

articles touch upon aspects of Vedic studies, they do not have any significance for the

proposed research, as not a single article in the compilation delves into lexical or

linguistic aspects of Vedic language. Therefore, this book can be dismissed based on the

parameters of the review.

Similarly, the titles of Pitman’s The Nature of the Whole and of Mishra’s The

Cosmic Matrix: In the Light of the Vedas would appear to be relevant to this review, but

in fact they are not. Pitman’s book explores the concept of wholeness from the

framework of the Indian medical system of Ayurveda. There is no discussion of the

nature of wholeness from the viewpoint of the Ṛgveda or the earlier Vedic literature.

While Mishra’s work explores the notion of cosmic wholeness in Vedic texts, the book

focuses on Vedic cosmology and phenomenology, with no linguistic methodology. Even

though the titles of Pitman’s and Mishra’s works topically suggest the study of Vedic

wholeness, they provide no support to the current research.

  55  
 Articles from Journals

There are numerous articles that discuss the Vedic notion of wholeness through

various methodological perspectives—history of religions, philosophy, art, spirituality,

cosmology, etc. Only a handful of these copious articles focus on linguistic methodology,

of which the two most noted are by the famous Indologist, Jan Gonda. As these articles

are most relevant to the current research, the section begins with a discussion of both of

them. Another article by Schwarzschild, “Some Indo-Aryan Words Meaning ‘All’,”

similarly uses lexical evidence to explore the plurality of lexemes used to convey the

notion of “all” in the Indo-Aryan languages, ancient and modern. In Chosky’s article “To

Cut off, Purify, and Make Whole,” he uses linguistic evidence from the Avestan material,

closely related to the Ṛgveda in language and content, as his primary methodology. Even

though the focus of Schwarzschild’s and Chosky’s research do not explicitly focus on the

Vedic corpus, as do Gonda’s articles, their articles are included in the search criteria as

they provide valued insights into how the methodology of historical linguistics can be

successfully used as a tool for research in the examination of the Vedic texts.

In Gonda’s seminal article “Reflections on Sarva- in Vedic Texts” he produces

the first study on the nature of Vedic wholeness that uses lexical evidence to support his

argument. In fact, this piece inspired this inquiry into the notion of how wholeness was

expressed in Vedic Sanskrit. What distinguishes Gonda’s article and makes it valuable

for this research is the methodology that he undertakes by surveying the entire Vedic

literary corpus from both a synchronic and diachronic approach. Not only does Gonda

examine the lexico-semantics of the word sarva- in early, middle, and later Vedic, but he

also explores the meaning of sarva- in various texts of the same time period.

  56  
 In his research, Gonda declares that Vedic scholars have variously translated the

term sarva- and that it is not uncommon for even the same author to translate this word

differently in particular contexts. Furthermore, Gonda presents a cogent argument that

while there is polysemy of this lexeme in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts suggest that its basal

meaning was ‘whole, complete, undivided, safe.’ He continues that this meaning of

sarva- as ‘whole(ness)’ is a continuation of its common meaning in Indo-Iranian with

considerable semantic overlap with the Avestan term haurva-. In his final paragraphs,

Gonda stats that the shared Indo-Iranian semantics of Vedic sarva- and Avestan haurva-

point back even further to a common Indo-European form *solwo- whose reflexes occur

in Greek, Latin, and Balto-Slavic and whose meaning is ‘to become whole, being

complete.’

Gonda also arrives at a second important conclusion that in early Vedic there was

a clear semantic distinction between the two lexemes sarva- and viśva-, with the former

meaning ‘whole, complete’ and the latter meaning ‘all, entirely, each, and every.’ As

Gonda states in his article, “…viśva- pointing out the inability to proceed after a certain

number has been counted, sarva- emphasizing the idea of wholeness and completeness

and the inability to discern defectiveness” (54). In later Vedic and in Classical Sanskrit

the semantic boundary between the two terms began to erode, with sarva- eventually

becoming interchangeable with viśva- and subsequently developing into a pronoun.

Gonda’s conclusions connecting Vedic sarva- with Avestan haurva- with Indo-

European *solwo- and its original semantic distinction from Vedic viśva- are crucial to

the proposed research. Both points were arrived by using linguistic analysis and direct

  57  
evidence from the Vedic texts themselves, which is the primary methodological approach

of the proposed research topic.

There appears to be only one scant review of Gonda’s article by Fowler

(Language 288-289) in which Gonda’s work is limited to just one sentence among a

larger piece of several other articles that Fowler reviews. Fowler states, “Gonda, in a

long, not entirely linguistically reasoned article, brings evidence from many sources to

show that Vedic sarva- probably meant ‘complete, whole, sound, unhurt.’” (288–89) As

this review reflects, Gonda’s article may not meet the criteria of study for academics

within the field of pure linguistics, but his research is still very thorough and offers the

solitary academic work on the Vedic term sarva- and its connotation with the concept of

wholeness. Even though Gonda’s discussion of wholeness in the Vedic texts is

exemplary, it still only focuses on the lexeme sarva-, which is clearly the goal expressed

in the title. Based on these points, Gonda’s article is very relevant to the research and

offers a framework upon which a greater discussion can be built regarding the lexical

evidence for other words that connote the Vedic sense of wholeness.

In Gonda’s other noted work “All, Universe and Totailty,” he continues the

philological analysis of lexical terms within the semantic sphere of wholeness,

specifically in the early Indian text of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (ŚB) and in the later Vedic

language. The ŚB is the commentary prose discussion of the Śukla Yajurveda, a

compilation of mantras necessary to be recited at the Vedic yajña ceremonies. Expanding

on his research in his previous article “Reflections on Sarva-,” Gonda examines the

Vedic myth of creation in the famous Prajāpati myth. In the ŚB as well as in the other

Brāhmaṇas and Upaniṣads, Prajāpati is identified by the term idam sarvam ‘This All,’

  58  
which in turn is semantically distinct from sarvam ‘whole, totality’ as the desired state to

which Prajāpati returns.

Gonda does a thorough job using textual evidence to support his claim that the

term sarva- expanded its semantic meaning from the early Vedic period of the Ṛgveda,

where it predominantly meant ‘wholeness,’ to a larger meaning in the later Vedic and

Upaniṣadic literature to encompass a connotation of ‘all, totality, and universe.’ While

this is a tremendously resourceful article, its focus is again on later Vedic and post-Vedic

literature, whereas the proposed research topic is limited to the early Vedic text of the

Ṛgveda. Currently, no reviews of this article have been located; however, this article is

widely cited in subsequent academic works discussing the notion of wholeness in both

Vedic and post-Vedic literature of India.

  Another relevant article for this research is Schwarzschild’s “Some Indo-Aryan

Words Meaning ‘All’.” The study touches upon the Vedic concept of wholeness but

expands the lexical survey among all the Indo-Aryan languages, both past and present.

While the author does identify some lexical terms in Vedic Sanskrit (sama-, śaśvat-,

viśva-, sarva-) and in Classical Sanskrit (sakala-, samasta-, samagra-, akhila-,

sampūrṇa), the main body of the research identifies words in works later than the Vedic

period, which are not of interest to the proposed research.

There is, however, one noteworthy point in which Schwarzschild cites Brøndal’s

article “Omnis et Totus” that classifies the idea of “totality” in Latin into four distinct

semantic categories. In Brøndal’s hypothesis, each of these specific semantic notions of

totality is expressed in Latin by four distinct lexical items: completeness, or totus,

  59  
universality, or omnis, a distributive or iterative quality, or quisque, and generality, or

quisquam. Of interest to the proposed research, a similar taxonomy might be applied to

the Vedic concept of wholeness. As Schwarzschild states,

Languages do not necessarily distinguish between these notions, and even when
they do there are frequent transitions from one subsidiary meaning to the other
among words used to express totality. The liveliest, most expressive and on the
whole most easily replenished group of these words is that which expresses
completeness. Often adjectives of completeness tend to be used gradually to
express universality, and later they may become iterative or be reduced to a vague
general meaning. Such developments have taken place in Indo-Aryan as much as
in Romance and elsewhere. (13)

One of the central aspects of the proposed research is to classify the semantic

categories of the various lexical terms used to define wholeness in Vedic Sanskrit. This

article is relevant as Brøndal’s methodology of classifying Latin terms to connote totality

could also be applied to the Vedic notion of wholeness.

Another relevant article is Chosky’s “To Cut off, Purify, and Make Whole.” Even

though Chosky deals with Zoroastrian religion and Avestan language, there are aspects of

this article that apply to the Vedic notion of wholeness, specifically the concept of the

Comsic Order ṛta and the notion of purity. In particular, Chosky uses mythological,

theological, and linguistic evidence to advance a hypothesis that the role of the

purification ritual was to “make whole” that which is impure and unholy, which in turn

restored the Cosmic Order. Chosky argues that the possible connection between the

notion of wholeness, ritual purification, and Cosmic Order is an aspect of reconstructed

Indo-Iranian religion, as reflected in both Vedic and Avestan texts. In the early Vedic

texts, one finds the terms pāvaka and pavamāna used in the context of the Soma ritual to

connote the concept of ‘purification.’ Chosky elucidates by saying that “within the

architecture of ritual space, life is cut off (taš-, *teks-, *tem-) from death, made pure (pāk,

  60  
*peu∂-), and refashioned (taš-, *teks-) or rendered whole (kay-, *kailo-) again—actions

fundamental to the cognitive metaprinciple of order (aša-, *ar-)” (39).

While Chosky delves deeply into the concept of purification as an intimately

linked element of wholeness in Zoroastrianism, there is relatively little discussion of the

parallels to Vedic language, cosmology, and religion. This article sufficiently documents

Avestan linguistic evidence to support the ritualistic concept of purification as an act of

“making whole,” but it only does so from the ancient Iranian perspective. The proposed

research attempts to document if a similar component exists on the Vedic side of the

Indo-Iranian religion. Presently, no reviews of this article are available.

Dissertation

The only dissertation retreived from the search engines that demonstrated

relevance to the proposed research is DeVries’s Vedic Ṛta and Avestan Aša. DeVries’s

work is the most relevant study published on the topic of Vedic wholeness that employs

sound philological and comparative linguistic methodology. The central hypothesis of the

dissertation explores the linguistic, semantic, and conceptual connection of Vedic ṛta and

its Avestan counterpart aša. DeVries’s research is ambitious in its attempt to document

the complexities behind the meaning of the Vedic term ṛta and its hypothetical semantic

connection with the term sat(ya)-. His approach takes two important methods: first, he

uses an intra-Vedic analysis of passages from the Ṛgveda exploring how ṛta is conveyed

in various contexts; second, he uses a comparative philological approach of the Ṛgvedic

  61  
data with the Avestan material to extrapolate a common Indo-Iranian protosemantic

meaning.

In chapter one, DeVries questions the previously assumed semantic connection

between ṛta- and sat(ya)-. By using evidence from within the Ṛgveda and comparing

these concepts both etymologically and semantically with their Avestan counterparts, aša

and haiθya, he states that these two terms are not universally equivalent. Subsequent

chapters of the dissertation explain that in Indo-Iranian there were two homophones of

the verbal root √*ṛ-, ‘to go’ and ‘to connect.’ Thus, depending on the context, Vedic ṛta

could connote ‘connection’ or ‘movement’ in its original meaning. DeVries concludes his

analysis of the lexical data of Vedic ṛta and Avestan aša by stating that originally the two

terms held separate semantic meaning in the common Indo-Iranian language and religion.

Eventually the two distinct homophonic verbs collapsed into a larger, general meaning in

the Ṛgveda of a spatio-temporal connection of ordered continuity and movement between

the rodasī, the two faces of Heaven and Earth.

The methodology that DeVries employs in his dissertation is congruent with the

proposed research; what makes this work of great value is the philological and

comparative linguistic approach DeVries used to reach his conclusion. While DeVries

limits his discussion to the Vedic terms ṛta- and sat(ya)-, his methods can be applied to

identify other key lexical terms used to connote the sense of wholeness in the Ṛgveda.

Lastly, there is one important methodological critique of this work that requires

discussion. DeVries does not track the intra-Ṛgvedic semantic evolution of the word ṛta

nor does he correlate the data to the various ten books of the Ṛgveda. He is either

  62  
unaware of or perhaps wrote his dissertation prior to the currently accepted notion of the

chronological layering within the Ṛgveda. Vedic scholars, such as Witzel and

Elizarenkova have revealed there indeed exists polysemy and semantic variation of the

same lexical item within the various books of the Ṛgveda, attributed to both diachronic

and synchronic factors. It is necessary to incorporate this important component of

methodology into any work that examines the lexical and semantic aspects of the Vedic

language. The proposed work recognizes this chronological stratification of the lexicon

and will properly utilize it as part of the analysis of data. Overall, DeVries’s work offers a

tremendous resource in its similar approach to philological methodology.

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 4) Chapter Overview

The main part of the dissertation is structured in a thematic way into six chapters.

The first four discuss the cognitive metaphors of wholeness and otherness in the Ṛgveda

within the context of linguistic and grammatical features, while the last two chapters

focus on how the concept of wholeness and otherness became culturally expressed as

metaphors in the Ṛgveda.

The discussion begins by examining the PIE and Ṛgvedic notion of wholeness as

a metaphor for oneness. Specifically how the notion of ‘one’ became differentiated

cognitively, semantically, and lexically in PIE between ‘one’ as an existential concept of

wholeness with ‘one’ as a numerical concept. It utilizes Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s

framework of linguistic typology to explain the origin of ‘one’ as a numerical concept

due to a cognitive and grammatical reaction by the development of the number ‘two.’

This cognitive distinction in PIE between ‘one’ as wholeness with ‘one’ as the number

appears to have left relics in the lexico-semantic contrast between the Vedic Sanskrit

prefix sam- and sa- with the number éka- ‘one.’ The lexical data offer a new conceptual

model in the Ṛgveda that positions the semantic field of wholeness and oneness in

semantic contrast to otherness and twoness.

The second chapter continues the exploration of wholeness from the perspective

of the grammatical feature of inclusiveness, specifically reflected in the first person non-

singular pronoun and the dual category of PIE and Vedic Sanskrit. Specifically, it

examines how the grammatical binary feature of inclusiveness versus exclusiveness

might have become lexically expressed in the PIE deictic roots *sem- ‘one, here, now’

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and *du- ‘two, there, other.’ Another binary feature that Gamkrelidze and Ivanov point

out as a linguistic feature of PIE is inactive versus active verbs, an example of which are

PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ and *bhuH- ‘to become.’ As an inactive, stative verb PIE *Hes-

produced Vedic Sanskrit √as- ‘to be’ along with derivational morphemes in the Ṛgveda

that appear to connote wholeness as a cognitive metaphor of inclusiveness and being, in

contrast to exclusiveness and becoming.

The third of the main chapters explores the linguistic features of individuation and

interiocity as another way that possibly reflects the concept of wholeness in both PIE and

Ṛgvedic lexicon. The PIE root *(H)su- ‘good, dear, beloved’ appears to be a morpho-

semantic derivative of the PIE verb *Hes- ‘to be.’ In a cogent argument outlined by

Lehmann, he presents the case for the probable extension of PIE *(H)su- to produce the

PIE reflexive marker *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s one, oneself.’ The PIE morpheme *(H)sṷe- occurs

in an isolated number of kinship terms, reflected in Vedic Sanskrit, that possibly reveals a

deeper metaphorical meaning of *(H)sṷe- as a cognitive expression of individual and

collective intertiocity of one’s own group. If this assertion is correct, it provides the

semantic concatenation that cognitively links the ideas of being, existence, truth, good,

and one’s own as conceptual metaphors into a semantic continuum within the semantic

field of wholeness.

The last of the four chapters explores the concept of twoness as a metaphor for

otherness, in binary semantic contrast to oneness as a metaphor for wholeness. The

chapter cites lexical evidence throughout the IE branches that possibly attests to a deeply

grounded cognitive model that metaphorically equates the PIE concept of duality and

twoness as otherness, separation, exclusiveness, inferiority, and badness. This cognitive

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metaphor of twoness as otherness appears to reflect in a number of Ṛgvedic words that

derive from the PIE deictic marker *du- and the numeral *du̯oH(u)- ‘two.’ The evidence

suggests that the PIE deictic root *du- was the primary morpheme that possibly

encompassed a large number of derivational morphemes within a semantic continuum

and semantic field of otherness.

Having discussed the cognitive metaphors of wholeness and its semantic contrast

with otherness as a conceptual model embedded in Ṛgvedic language and thought, the

next two chapters focus on how wholeness and otherness were culturally expressed as

possible metaphors in Ṛgvedic perception. The first of these chapters explores the

concept of wholeness as a socio-cultural metaphor for health and wellbeing, reflected by

PIE *solu̯os and in Vedic Sanskrit by sárva-. Specific stanzas from the Ṛgveda

underscore this idea of how health and wellness is one cultural metaphor expressed

within the semantic continuum of wholeness.

The last chapter before the conclusion examines how the concept of wholeness in

the Ṛgveda was a cultural metaphor in semantic contrast with the metaphor for otherness.

This notion of otherness was primarily reflected by the Vedic Sanskrit word dvayá-,

which itself is a reflex of PIE *du̯o-iom that literally means twoness. The chapter

explores how the PIE lexemes for twoness and otherness became culturally perceived to

be a fragmentation of the individual human psyche and of the individual from the cosmic

whole. This notion is perhaps evident in various passages of the Ṛgveda that contain the

lexeme dvayá-. The discussion concludes with how the Ṛgvedic word ádvaya- became a

possible metaphor for truth and reality, semantically congruent with the other Ṛgvedic

words sá(n)t- ‘reality, existence’ and satyá-‘truth.’ This observation possibly reveals a

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deeper socio-cultural expression in Ṛgvedic language and thought of how truth might be

a semantic metaphor that explains an existential and cosmological concept of oneness and

wholeness.

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 5) Wholeness as a Metaphor for Oneness

The next three chapters of the study identify the ways in which wholeness

possibly manifests as cognitive metaphors in Ṛgvedic language and thought. One of the

ways the Ṛgveda possibly conceptualized the notion of wholeness was perhaps as the

idea of oneness. While the concept of oneness can be understood as a metaphor to convey

wholeness in a general sense, what this chapter attempts to demonstrate is the cognitive

and semantic distinction between oneness as a numerical concept versus oneness as an

existential, metaphorical notion in the Ṛgveda. This conceptual differentiation was

perhaps evident in the Ṛgvedic lexicon as a possible remnant from earlier PIE language.

To better understand the lexico-semantics of oneness as a metaphor for wholeness in the

Ṛgveda, an explanation of the PIE concepts of ‘one’ and ‘two’ is a prerequisite.

PIE Concept of ‘One’

The conceptualization of numbers, especially the numbers ‘one’ and ‘two,’ is a

linguistic process that occurs throughout many languages. The manner by which speakers

of a language conceptualize and semantically express the lexemes for numbers is

intimately connected to human cognition and socio-cultural experience. Gvozdanović

adheres to this point by stating in “Remarks on Numeral Systems” that

Numerals are language signs, with forms and meanings which fit in with the
language structures in which they occur. In most languages, numerals are
characterized by relatively transparent form-meaning relations, which enable us to
study patterning of numeral meanings (also referred to as “numbers”) in a
relatively straightforward way (1).

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This ability of numerals being ‘language signs’ offers a linguistic inquiry into the

semantics and development of the numerical concepts of ‘one’ and ‘two’ in PIE and its

development into Vedic Sanskrit.

PIE *oi- and *sem-

In Martínez’s “The Indo-European System of Numerals,” he concurs with

mainstream Indo-European scholarship that it is not possible to reconstruct a single word

in PIE for ‘one,’ as the ancient Indo-European languages attest to there being two

different roots—*oi- and *sem- (200).

PIE *oi-

Martinez posits that the root *oi- is a morphological derivative of the deictic

pronominal root *i- ‘it’ (207). The archaic PIE root *i- appears to have continued in

Vedic Sanskrit in a variety of forms. In Macdonell’s A Vedic Grammar for Students, he

believes that the pronominal root *i- is reflected in the Sanskrit pronouns ay-ám

(masculine), i-yám (feminine) and i-dám (neuter) meaning ‘this here’ (107–9). Added to

these forms, Macdonell conjectures, are also possibly the Vedic Sanskrit relative

pronouns yás, yā́-, yád, from PIE *i-o-, and the Sanskrit adverb i-ha, originally i-dha,

meaning ‘here.’ Martínez elaborates that the PIE form *oi- eventually became enlarged

with the derivational suffixes *-no-, *ṷo- and *-ko- (206). Pokorny also identifies the

numerous reflexes of these suffixed extensions of PIE *oi- that occur in the Indo-

European branches that I list below.

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 1. *oi-no-

a. Sanskrit—e-na, the unaccented pronominal form for the third person

singular ‘he, she, it’

b. Greek—oínē ‘ace’ (on dice)

c. Latin—OINOS (Archaic Latin inscription), ūnus ‘one’

d. Germanic—ains (Gothic), eins (German), one (English) ‘one’

e. Old Irish—oin ‘one’

f. Old Church Slavic—ino ‘one’

g. Lithuanian—víenas ‘one’

2. *oi-ṷo-

a. Greek—oí(ṷ)os ‘solitary, alone’

b. Avestan—aēva- ‘one’

c. Sanskrit—evá ‘truly, indeed, exactly, only, just so’; iva ‘as, like’

3. *oi-ko-

a. Mitanni Aryan—aika-vartana ‘one turn’

b. Vedic Sanskrit—éka- ‘one’ (639–46).

PIE *sem-

In addition to PIE *oi-, the root *sem- also appears in many of the Indo-European

languages to express the general concept of oneness. A sampling of the reflexes of PIE

*sem-, along with its allomorphs *som- and *sṃ-, are cited by Pokorny in the following

forms.

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 1. Vedic Sanskrit

a. saṃ- in sám-iti ‘also’; sambháraṇa- ‘bringing-together’; samúdra-

‘ocean, i.e. metaphor for meeting or coming together of water’; samá-

‘even, alike’

b. sa- in sakṛt- ‘once (and never again)’; satrā́ñc- ‘going together, united,

joined as one-whole’; sahá-, sadha- ‘together, along with’

2. Avestan

a. ham- in hama ‘equal, same’

b. ha- in ha-k∂r∂t ‘once’

3. Hittite

šanna- ‘once, one’

4. Homeric Greek

a. hom- in homós ‘common, identical’

b. ha- in há-paks ‘once’

5. Latin

a. sem- in sem-per ‘always’

b. sim < *sṃ- in sim-plex ‘simple’

6. Germanic

sam- in samana ‘together’ (Gothic); same (English) (2091–93).

The Semantic Development of PIE *oi- and *sem-

The lexical data gathered by Pokorny and from other IE resources suggest that the

distinction between PIE *sem- and *oi- among the major branches of Indo-European was

  71  
not geographical, as reflexes of both roots occur simultaneously throughout many of the

attested ancient languages. I conjecture that instead of an areal factor, there was likely a

cognitive or semantic distinction between PIE *sem- and *oi-. Additionally, this

development of two separate roots expressing the notion of ‘one’ possibly arose from the

roots originally being cognitively distinguished and conceptually differentiated in the

minds of the PIE speakers that necessitated two distinct lexemes. What then was the

semantic distinction between PIE *sem- and *oi- in the earliest stage of the PIE

language? Sihler attempts to clarify the distinction by saying that PIE *oi- denotes

…singularity and uniqueness, and unity in a counting sense, namely in the sense
that ‘nine’ is ‘one more’ than eight. This kind of ‘one’ is briefly called ‘one
alone’…PIE *sem- was ‘one-together, that is, several things taken as a whole, or
considered a unit for some purpose (as when several people ‘speak with one
voice’), or several things are regarded as interchangeable in some way (cf. NE
one and the same). (404)

Martínez takes a similar position with Sihler by suggesting that while the PIE root

*sem- developed as indefinite pronouns in the Indo-European languages, it was

predominantly used to express the basic meaning ‘together’ (206). This assertion is

further substantiated by Pokorny who advances a proto-semantic meaning of *sem- as

‘together as one, unified as one, one and the same’ (2091). In this regard, I believe that

PIE *sem- possibly connoted a deeply embedded meaning of conceptual, existential unity

and wholeness, while PIE *oi- was the lexeme that eventually expressed the idea of

numerical unity, distinct from the numerals two and higher.

Having conjectured a semantic and cognitive distinction between PIE *oi- and

*sem-, is it possible to determine which one of these roots was the original PIE lexeme?

Sihler, whose views are congruent with those of my own, is in the opinion that PIE *sem-

  72  
was the likely candidate for being the original form that expressed ‘one’ as unity and

wholeness. Sihler states,

The principal competing view of PIE ‘one’ is that *sem- is the original root in all
senses, and *oy(no)- is a later innovation. In favor of this view are two good
arguments. First, *sem- is an underived form with an archaic type of root
inflection (294,1), and an abundance of derivatives and combining forms of
ancient type, whereas *oyno- is a derived form—one of several such, in fact.
Second the geographical distribution of *sem- is characteristic of relics, as it
occurs in two widely separated areas (G/Arm. and Toch.) while *oyno- is found in
a large and contiguous area. (405)

What, then, is the importance of identifying *sem- as the proto-form to express the PIE

concept of oneness? By positing *sem- as the hypothetical original PIE lexeme that

expressed the idea of conceptual and existential (rather than numerical) ‘oneness,’ it

establishes a typological framework of understanding the cognitive process of the early

PIE speakers. Additionally, hypothesizing that *oi(no)- was a subsequent innovation and

semantically distinct root from *sem- explains why there was no single reconstructed

lexeme for ‘one’ in PIE. In my opinion the significance of this connotative and cognitive

differentiation between the two roots also possibly accounts for the semantic connection

between wholeness and oneness in the Ṛgveda, discussed in greater detail later in this

chapter.

The assertion of there not being a single word to express the concept of ‘one’ is

not unique or isolated to the Indo-European languages and to reconstructed PIE. In fact,

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov offer ample evidence that in the earliest attested written human

language, Sumerian, there also lacked a single word to convey the concept of ‘one’ (741).

Similarly, these same scholars suggest that the absence of a single lexeme to convey the

concept of the numeral ‘one’ occurs in other reconstructed proto-languages such as the

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Semitic and Proto-Kartvelian macro-family (741). Gamkrelidze and Ivanov further go on

to state,

The lack of a special numeral ‘one’ in the counting systems of these languages
becomes understandable if we consider counting from a typological perspective.
Counting or enumeration of objects per se begins with two or more, while ‘one’ is
not for counting but simply naming the object by means of its special designation.
Subsequently, such names become specialized words meaning ‘one’ and enter the
numeral series as the first numeral. This is the cause of the disparity in words for
‘one’ among related dialects. (742)

To put Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s academic explanation into a simpler language:

The concept and the word for the numeral ‘one’ cannot exist without the concept or word

for the number ‘two.’ This hypothesis infers that prior to the invention of counting and

enumeration by the human mind and its eventual expression through lexemes in language

as numerals, there appears to have existed a proto-semantic concept of wholeness and

oneness as an archetype of human consciousness. I suggest that in PIE this archetypal

concept of wholeness and existential oneness was originally expressed by the root *sem-

and not by *oi-. Before examining the lexical and semantic evidence in the Ṛgveda to

support my belief that the PIE root *sem- was the original lexeme that cognitively and

conceptually expressed the notions of oneness and wholeness, it is also necessary to

explore the origin of the PIE concept of ‘two.’

PIE Concept of ‘Two’

Based on lexical evidence from the extant Indo-European languages, Mallory and

Adams reconstruct the numeral ‘two’ in PIE as *du̯oH(u)- along with its allomorphs

*du̯eiH-, *du̯oiH-, and *du̯iH- (310). There is evidence to suggest, however, that PIE

  74  
 2
*du̯oH(u)- may itself have been a later development from an original root *du- , or as

Martínez believes possibly *d(u)- (206–07). Martínez continues to say that the original

semantic meaning of PIE *du- might have meant ‘the other one, i.e. not this one here’ as

evidenced in the Hittite words da-ma-a(i)- ‘(an)other,’ dan ‘second,’ and tu-wa ‘distant.’

Sihler cites further lexical evidence of PIE *du- conveying a sense of ‘the other,’ which

he believes is possibly reflected in PIE *deḱṃt-, the reconstructed form for the number

‘ten’3 (402). The PIE root ḱemt- appears also to reflect in the o-grade form ḱomt- in the

pan-Germanic word for hand. Sihler further states, “Among the most persuasive of these

suggestions is the connection of *penkwe ‘five’ with *penkw-to-, *penkwu- ‘all, whole’ (L.

cūnctus, Hittite pa-an-ku-uš,) that is ‘five’ = ‘the whole [hand]’” (402). This view is also

advanced by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, who deconstruct PIE *deḱṃt as a compound word

of *d(u̯)e ‘the other,’ + ḱṃt (zero-grade of ḱemt-) ‘hand’ (747).

Just as there was a conceptual distinction between PIE *sem- and *oi-, a similar

semantic differentiation may have also occurred between PIE *du- and *du̯oH(u)-. I,

along with Martínez, Sihler, Gamkrelidze, and Ivanov, conjecture that the forms *sem-

and *du- were originally lexemes to express spatio-temporal reference while *oi- and

*du̯oH(u)- were secondary developments that were eventually used exclusively for

enumeration.

                                                                                                                         

2
The PIE reconstructed form *du-, rather than the alternate form *d(u)-, is used in this study.

3
The PIE numeral *deḱṃt yields Sanskrit dáśa-, Avestan dasa-, Greek déka-, Latin decem
Gothic taihun, etc.

  75  
PIE *sem- and *du- as Deictic Roots

Martínez, is in general consensus with other Indo-European linguists, who suggest

that the numerals ‘one,’ ‘two,’ and ‘three’ were roots of deictic origin and meaning (206–

7, 210). Deixis is basically defined as a linguistic phenomenon by which the semantic

understanding of a word is contextually dependent on the referential perspective of the

position in time and space of the speaker(s). Examples of deictic words in English are

‘this,’ ‘that,’ ‘here,’ ‘there,’ ‘now,’ and ‘then,’ whose deictic semantic features can be

evidenced in the phrase ‘Where are you? I am over here. Okay, I’ll meet you there then.’

In this example the meaning of ‘here, there, and then’ are contextual and can only be

understood relative to the place and time of the speaker(s). Similarly, Indo-European

scholars posit that the PIE roots *sem- and *du- (and also PIE *tr(i)- ‘three’) may have

originally been deictic in nature.

The PIE deictic root *du- ‘that other one (not here and now)’ possibly was the

root that developed into the numerical lexeme *du̯oH(u)- ‘two.’ In contrast, the deictic

root *sem- ‘this one (here and now) whole’ never semantically developed into the

numerical lexeme ‘one’ but rather retained its semantic meaning of conceptual,

existential oneness, while the new PIE root *oi- became the semantic marker for

numerical oneness. Martínez, reiterating Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s hypothesis, states,

The lexicalization of ‘1’ as a numeral can only have taken place under pressure of
the roots *du ‘two’ and *tri-, to which it was opposed…It can be realized that this
process is relatively recent in Indo-European by the fact that the Indo-European
languages use two different roots for this numeral, and even two groups which are
otherwise so close, Indic and Iranian, do not completely coincide, since *oi- is
extended by means of *-wo- in Iranian while *-ko- is used in Indic. (210–11)

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 ‘Wholeness/Oneness’ and ‘Otherness/Twoness’ as Semantic Fields

In essence, I suggest that a model begins to unfold that semantically posits the

idea of wholeness, lexically expressed by PIE *sem-, as a concept in cognitive contrast to

the idea of otherness, represented by PIE *du-. This semantic framework can perhaps

better be understood by exploring the underlying concept of otherness and the lexemes

that connote its semantic opposite of non-otherness. In English, there is actually no one

specific lexeme in semantic opposition to the word other. Unlike with certain words that

have a pure binary semantic value such as ‘up, down,’ ‘left, right,’ ‘male, female,’ ‘open,

closed,’ etc., the same binary opposition does not exist with the word other. Instead, the

word other in English can better be said to be in semantic contrast to other words, rather

than in semantic binary opposition. In English, and possibly in other languages, instead of

there being just one word, there is a semantic continuum of lexemes in contrast to the

word other. Some possible words in English within this semantic continuum of non-

otherness might include ‘one, this, here, whole,’ as well as the first person pronouns ‘I,

we.’

The following exercise perhaps might help to illustrate the semantic contrast in

English between this set of words that connote other with those for non-other. Placing the

English word ‘not’ before the set of words ‘one, this, whole, I, we,’ it yields the

semantically contrasted set ‘not one, not this, not whole, not I, not we,’ all of which

convey a semantic meaning of something or someone that is ‘other.’ In this manner, the

concept of otherness in English, and possibly in PIE, can be seen to be in semantic

contrast to the idea of wholeness. Thus, whatever is not part of ‘the one whole’ is

conceptualized as being ‘the one other.’ Based on these lexico-semantic observations, I

  77  
have chosen the semantic field of otherness to be in contrast to the set of lexemes for

wholeness in the Ṛgveda.

I further conjecture that PIE *sem- and *du- are morphemes contained within the

respective semantic fields that contrasted wholeness with otherness. It is possible that PIE

*sem- was the morpheme that expressed the notions of wholeness, oneness, totality,

unity, integration, etc. Conversely, PIE *du- was perhaps the morpheme embedded

within the semantic field that connoted otherness, twoness, duality, separation, and

fragmentation. This conceptual distinction between the semantic fields of wholeness and

otherness became further expressed through lexicon in the descendant IE languages,

specifically within the Vedic Sanskrit language of the Ṛgveda. In the Ṛgveda the set of

lexemes that expressed the notion of wholeness were in possible semantic contrast to the

set of lexemes that conveyed the concept of otherness. Understanding this general

conceptual binarism between the idea of wholeness and otherness as distinct semantic

fields might provide a deeper understanding of the concept of wholeness in both PIE and

in Vedic Sanskrit. I believe that this conceptual model can now be extended to the

lexicon of the Ṛgveda, as it becomes possible to identify and define the set of lexemes of

wholeness by contrasting this set to the group of lexemes that expressed the idea of

otherness.

Reflexes of PIE *sem- and *oi- in the Ṛgveda

Having established the theoretical framework within PIE of the development and

cognitive distinction between *oi- and *sem- to express respectively ‘one’ as singularity

versus ‘one’ as wholeness, linguistic relics of this idea appear to have remained in the

  78  
Ṛgvedic lexicon. Within the Ṛgveda the morphemes samá-, saṃ-, and sa- possibly

connote the fundamental semantic concept of ‘oneness’ as wholeness and unity.

Conversely, the Vedic Sanskrit lexeme éka- expressed the concept of ‘one’ as a number

and as singularity, isolation and uniqueness, which in the Ṛgveda likely became

semantically distinct from those lexemes that expressed ‘one’ as wholeness.

Saṃ- and Sa- in the Ṛgveda

The PIE root *sem- ‘one whole, one together, etc.’ shows reflexes in the Ṛgveda

as the word samá- ‘equal, same, similar, like,’ the preposition sám ‘together with,’ and as

the prefixes saṃ- and sa- ‘co-, as one, together.’4 As an adjective and noun the word

samá- occurs 65 times in the Ṛgveda with a generally consistent meaning wherever it is

found to convey the sense of equivalency and similarity between two or more objects, as

evidenced in the following verse in a hymn to Puṣan.

paró hí mártiyair ási

samó devaír utá śriyā́
abhí khyaḥ pūṣan pŕ̥tanāsu nas tuvám
ávā nūnáṃ yáthā purā (6,48,19)

                                                                                                                         

4
The prefix saṃ- derives from the e-grade ablaut of PIE *sem-, while sa- derives from the zero-
grade ablaut of PIE *sṃ-. While Martínez and other IE linguists reconstruct the PIE forms *sem-,
it is more likely that the root was *semH-. This assertion is voiced by Sihler who states, “The o-
grade o-stem derivative *somo- is widely attested in the meaning ‘same’ as in Ved. samá-, Av.
hama-…(The InIr. forms point to *somH-o, as otherwise the reflex would have been xsāma-.)”
(406). Sihler substantiates his argument by citing Bruggman’s Law whereby PIE *o-grade roots
in open syllables yield Indo-Iranian -ā-, not -a-. The Vedic form samá- and Avestan hama- can
only be based on a morpheme with a closed syllable, i.e. followed by the laryngeal -H- in the
form *somH-o and not from som-o. Furthermore, *semH- adheres to proper CVRC morpho-
phonemics of the reconstructed proto-language. For the purpose of consistency and simplicity the
PIE form *sem- is used in this research.

  79  
 ‘You indeed are beyond mortals, in splendor equal to the gods. You, Puṣan, favor
us in battles, help us now just as in the past.’

In the preceding verse the word samó, in its sandhi formation of samás-, has the

semantic function of comparing Puṣan as being ‘equal’ to the gods in splendor. Here, as

well as in other instances in the Ṛgveda the word samá- expresses equality, similarity,

and shared likeness between different people or ideas. A similar situation occurs with

sám ‘together with,’ whose semantic function is prepositional and requires that the noun

it modifies be in the instrumental case. This point can be seen in the following verse of a

hymn to Indra.

ketúṃ kṛṇvánn aketáve

péśo maryā apeśáse
sám uṣádbhir ajāyathāḥ (1,6,3)

‘O mortal ones, (Indra) creating bright form to the unformed, creating shape to the
shapeless, you (Indra) were born together with the Dawns.’

While the meaning of the substantive samá- and the preposition sám are relatively

straightforward, the semantics of the prefixes saṃ- and sa- are more contextual and not as

readily transparent as with samá- and sám. The predominant meaning of the prefixes

sam- and sa- in the Ṛgveda conveys the sense of ‘co-, together, with, joined, united as

one,’ however this meaning is not universal. Certain instances of the prefixes saṃ- and

sa- in the Ṛgveda possibly reflect instances where they might convey a sense of

wholeness and, thus, are connected with the original PIE root *sem- expressing

wholeness and collective oneness. I choose the following examples of words in the

Ṛgveda to demonstrate a possible underlying original semantic quality of the prefixes

sam- and sa- that convey the sense of oneness as a metaphor for wholeness. For a full

attestation and frequency of the word sama- and the roots sam- and sa-in the Ṛgveda,

refer to Lubotsky (1454–55, 1459–60, 1463–64, 1467–68, 1473–74, 1481, 1485–1500).

  80  
 Samvát- ‘whole direction, i.e. landscape’

aṃhoyúvas tanúvas tanvate ví

váyo mahád duṣṭáram pūrviyā́ya
sá saṃváto návajātas tuturyāt
siṃháṃ ná kruddhám abhítaḥ pári ṣṭhuḥ (5,15,3)

‘(Their) bodies free from distress (they) present the great incomparable food (of
the sacrifice) to the ancient one. May He, (Agni) newly-born, spread out in omni-
direction (i.e. throughout the whole lands), like (those who spread out) standing
around an angry lion.’

The word samvát- breaks down into the word saṃ- + the suffix -vat to form the

feminine abstract noun samvát-, inflected here in this verse as the accusative plural

saṃváto < saṃvátas to mean ‘all, whole directions.’ As Macdonell states in his Vedic

Grammar the suffix -vat “forms a few f[eminine] abstract substantives, almost

exclusively from prepositions, expressing local position” (263–64). The semantic

meaning of saṃvát- as ‘omni-directional, whole direction’ can also be extrapolated by

examining the other Ṛgvedic words where the suffix -vat occurs–pravát- ‘forward

direction, i.e. slope, mountain,’ udvát- ‘upward direction, i.e. height,’ and nivát-

‘downward direction, i.e. depth.’ In each of these instances, the deictic roots saṃ- ‘whole,

all,’ pra- ‘toward, forward, ahead,’ ud- ‘up, above,’ and ni- ‘down, below’ occur in their

most fundamental morphological form when attached to the suffix -vat. This situation

likely implies a very archaic morphology of these words and indicates the fundamental

and original semantic meaning of saṃvát- as a noun that derives from the root saṃ-

expressing a locational sense of wholeness and omni-directionality from the referential

perspective of the speaker(s).

  81  
 Samvatsará - ‘one whole duration, i.e. year’

saṃvatsaráṃ śaśayānā́
brāhmaṇā́ vratacāríṇaḥ
vā́cam parjányajinvitām
prá maṇḍū́kā avādiṣuḥ (7,103,1)

‘After having lain (quietly) for a whole cycle (year) like brahmans performing a
vow of silence, the frogs have uttered forth (their) voice inspired by Parjanya, god
of rain.’

In this verse, the word saṃvatsará- literally means something that is saṃvat- but

is used metaphorically to signify the concept of a ‘year.’ As Burrows claims in The

Sanskrit Language, the word saṃvatsará- is comprised of the word saṃvat- plus the

suffix -sa + the heteroclitic marker -r/-n to produce the thematic adjectival affix -sara-,

which can also occur in its alternative allomorph -san (150). In this instance, the word

saṃvatsará-, which is often translated by the Sanskrit dictionaries as ‘year,’ has its

etymological origins traced back to the PIE root *sem- implying the concept of

something as ‘one whole, complete cycle,’ that is, an astronomical year. Rather than the

root sáṃ- conveying a meaning of ‘together, with,’ in the context of the words saṃvát-

and saṃvatsará- the form echoes the original meaning of wholeness and totality found in

the PIE root *sem-.

Satrā́ - ‘in one whole place, by one whole manner, i.e. wholly, completely’

tuváṃ tám indra párvatam mahā́m urúṃ

vájreṇa vajrin parvaśáś cakartitha
ávāsr̥jo nívr̥tāḥ sártavā́ apáḥ
satrā́ víśvaṃ dadhiṣe kévalaṃ sáhaḥ (1,57,6)

‘You, vajra-weaponed Indra, split that wide massive mountain piece by piece
with the vajra as weapon. You let loose the enclosed waters to flow. You have
wholly made for yourself all absolute power.’

  82  
 In this verse the word satrā́ appears as an archaic locative form in an adverbial

syntactic sense conveying the meaning ‘by one whole manner, i.e. wholly, fully,

completely.’ The breakdown of the word satrā́ is sa- + the suffix -trā́. According to

Macdonell, the suffix ‘forms adverbs with a local sense, mostly from pronominal or

cognate stems” (213). In the Ṛgveda, the suffix -trā́ (or sometimes as -tra) is additionally

evidenced in a handful of roots that express manner and location. Examples of these

words are á-tra ‘here in this respect, in this way, here at this time,’ anyá-tra ‘elsewhere,

otherwise, in another manner,’ viśvá-tra ‘everywhere, always,’ asma-trā́ ‘among us,’

puru-trā́ ‘by many means, many times, variously,’ and bahu-trā́ ‘in many ways or places,

amongst many.’ It is from the meaning of these other affixed words, formed by the suffix

-trā́ on to a base root, that a meaning of satrā́ becomes more visible. In the context of this

word satrā́ in the preceding verse, if the root sa- were to mean ‘joint, common,’ satrā́

would mean ‘by joint manner, in a common way.’ This meaning is not conveyed in the

hymn above, rather the sense is of Indra wholly and fully manifesting his own power.

From this context it is possible to see that the root sa- in the word satrā́ derives from the

PIE meaning of *sṃ- meaning ‘whole, as one.’

Sádā- ‘always, perpetually, wholly, continually’

nū́ me bráhmāṇi agna úc chaśādhi

tuváṃ deva maghávadbhyaḥ suṣūdaḥ
rātaú siyāma ubháyāsa ā́ te
yūyám pāta suastíbhiḥ sádā naḥ (7,1,20)

‘Agni, now lead up (to the gods) my prayers; you, O God, keep the munificent
ones aright. May you favor us both. You (gods), protect us wholly (always) with
well-being.’

  83  
 The word sádā- breaks down into the parts sa- + the suffix –dā. Just as with the

case of the suffix -trā́, the suffix -dā, again according to Macdonell, forms “adverbs of

time almost exclusively from pronominal roots” (213). Examples in the Ṛgveda of words

with the suffix -dā that express temporal adverbial meaning are i-dā́ ‘now, at this

moment,’ ta-dā́ ‘then, at that time,’ ka-dā́ ‘when, at what time,’ ya-dā́ ‘whenever,’ and

sarva-dā́ ‘at all times.’5 Similarly, it is possible to extrapolate a meaning of sádā- as ‘one

whole time, i.e. always, perpetually, continually.’

Simá- ‘self, all, every, whole’

tám ít pr̥chanti ná simó ví pr̥chati

svéneva dhī́ro mánasā yád ágrabhīt
ná mr̥ṣyate prathamáṃ nā́paraṃ váco
asyá krátvā sacate ápradṛpitaḥ (1,145,2)

‘They ask of him that one does not indeed ask oneself what the wise one grasped
with his own mind. He does not forget the first nor the last word, he continues
without carelessness by his own mental ability.’

In this final example of the PIE root *sem- reflecting in Vedic Sanskrit with the

sense of oneness as wholeness, there exists the very interesting and curious word simá-, a

pronoun that means ‘all, every, whole, entire.’ Its etymology is uncertain, but attempts

have been made to connect simá- with the other words samá-, saṃ-, and sa-, and

accordingly to the PIE root *sem-. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov demonstrate that there are

similar lexical instances in Vedic Sanskrit where PIE *e, in addition to yielding Sanskrit

a also produces Sanskrit i. Not only does this vowel alternation occur between Vedic

                                                                                                                         

5
There also exists in the Ṛgveda the word sádam, based on the root sá- plus the suffix -dam in a
similar temporal adverbial meaning of ‘always, wholly, perpetually’ as in pāhí sádam íd viśvā́yuḥ
‘protect (us) wholly lifelong’ (1,27,3).

  84  
Sanskrit simá- and samá-, other examples include sínam ‘provisions’ versus sanóti ‘he

obtains’ (from PIE *senH-); and śíkvan- ‘capable, smart’ versus śákvan- ‘powerful, able,

mighty.’ Gamkrelidze and Ivanov attempt to explain this peculiar root alternation by

saying that, “These forms may be interpretable as relics of another ablaut grade” (226f).

Thus, in addition to the full-grade of PIE *sem-, *som- and the zero-grade *sṃ-, there

may have also existed a PIE reduced grade of *sem-. While Vedic Sanskrit samá- derived

from PIE *som(H)-, saṃ- from PIE *sem-, and sa- from PIE *sṃ-, the word simá-

possibly may have derived from PIE *sem(H)-o. While the morphology of Vedic simá- is

still uncertain, what is clear is its semantic relationship to the words samá-, saṃ- and sa-

to express oneness in a pronominal reflexive sense. The meaning of simá- does not carry

the sense of ‘joint, common, together’ but rather expresses a reflexive meaning of ‘whole

self, each self, one’s self.’

Archaic Morphology of Vedic Saṃ- and Sa-

Having now cited lexical evidence of certain key lexemes in the Ṛgveda that

contain the forms saṃ- and sa-, a possible pattern emerges. In addition to the words

samvát-, saṃvatsará-, satrā́, sádā, and simá- sharing a semantic connection expressing

oneness as wholeness, there is another salient feature among this set of lexemes. What

these words in the Ṛgveda possess in common is an archaic morphological structure. In

the case of samvát-, saṃvatsará-, satrā́, and sádā the indeclinable deictic PIE root *sem-

or its zero-grade allomorph *sṃ- is directly affixed to PIE suffixes that are as equally

archaic. The numerous examples of words in the Ṛgveda where the forms saṃ- and sa-

appear as the first member of compound nouns (e.g. saṃvíd- ‘whole-knowing, i.e.

  85  
consciousness’; samudrá- ‘one-water, i.e. ocean’; and samád- ‘maddening-together, i.e.

battle’) are likely late derivational morphemes in PIE. Their respective PIE

morphological root structures are outlined below.

1. saṃvíd- < *sem-ṷíd-

2. samudrá- < *sem-udr-ó-

3. samád- < *sṃ-mad-

Additionally, the word samá- is also a late morphological derivative based on the

thematic o-grade root *som(H)-ó-.

A different situation results when the roots saṃ- and sa- occur in their original

deictic root form. In the words samvát-, saṃvatsará-, satrā́, and sádā, the forms saṃ- and

sa- are not prefixed first members of compounds, but are actually the original roots

themselves extended with suffixes.

1. saṃvát- < saṃ- + -vát < PIE *sem-ṷṇt

2. saṃvatsará- < PIE *sem-ṷṇt-so-r-o

3. satrā́ < PIE *sṃ-tro, *sṃ-treH (feminine)

4. sádā < PIE *sṃ-deH

With the matter of the Ṛgvedic word simá-, the situation also attests to a very old

root structure. If what Gamkrelidze and Ivanov suggest is correct regarding the origin of

simá- as the relic of a rare PIE reduced-grade root *sem-, this would place the word simá-

into the same archaic morphological category as samvát-, saṃvatsará-, satrā́, and sádā. If

this assertion is correct and these words are relics of the extremely archaic PIE deictic

root *sem-, it is now possible to understand why these words convey the meaning of

wholeness and oneness, rather than ‘co-, joined, together, with.’ Since PIE *sem- is

  86  
conjectured to be the original root to express the abstract concept of ‘one,’ remnants of

this original semantic meaning would likely be preserved in only those morphemes that

possess an extremely old morphological structure. Recalling Sihler’s assertion from

earlier in the chapter, he regards that the root formation of PIE *sem- “…is an underived

form with an archaic type of root inflection…and an abundance of derivatives and

combining forms of ancient type” (405). Only in the very archaic words samvát-,

saṃvatsará-, satrā́, sádā, and simá- has the original meaning of oneness as a metaphor

for wholeness likely been retained. The meaning of *sem- to express the sense of ‘with,

together, equal, similar’ is likely a later semantic development reflected generally in

lexicon with late PIE derivational morphological structure. This new semantic usage of

*sem- to express collectivity and similarity possibly occurred in late PIE after the

creation of the PIE numeral *oi- ‘one.’

Éka- in the Ṛgveda

While the Vedic Sanskrit word éka- had a general meaning of the numeral ‘one,’

there is an exception in the Ṛgveda where the word conveys a sense of oneness as a state

of wholeness and totality. The word éka- in its neuter form becomes ékam when used as

an adjective to modify a neuter noun. However, when the numerical form éka- is made

into a neuter abstract noun and occurs in apposition with the neuter pronouns tád and

idám as well as with the neuter abstract noun víśvam in the Ṛgveda it expresses the idea

of ‘The One.’ The possible semantic explanation for this lexical exception follows.

  87  
 Tád Ékaṃ

As a neuter adjective the word ékam occurs 79 times in the Ṛgveda, while the

phrase tád ékam as the concept to express wholeness is limited to only the following

instances–5,62,1; 7,18,17; 7,33,10; 10,129,2; and 10,129,3. Furthermore, even in these

relatively few stanzas, the phrase tád ékam does not exclusively express the meaning of

‘The One’ as Universal Being. Only in the following stanzas is there a clear connotation

of tád ékam expressing the sense of ‘The One (Universal Being),’ and even those

instances where they do occur are in the late Ṛgvedic language. In the Ṛgvedic hymn

10,129, the Hymn of Creation, one finds the concept of tád ékam beginning to express the

nascent philosophical concept of ‘The One’ as Universal Being, the precursor to the

concept of Brahman.

ná mṛtyúr āsīd amŕ̥taṃ ná tárhi

ná rā́triyā áhna āsīt praketáḥ
ā́nīd avātáṃ svadháyā tád ékaṃ
tásmād dhānyán ná paráḥ kíṃ canā́sa (10,129,2)

‘There was no death nor immortality, at that time. There was no distinguishing
sign of night and of day. The One, breathless, breathed by its own making. Other
than that, there was nothing whatsoever.’

táma āsīt támasā gūḷhám ágre

apraketáṃ saliláṃ sárvam ā idám
tuchyénābhú ápihitaṃ yád ā́sīt
6
tápasas tán mahinā́jāyataíkam (10,129,3)

‘Darkness was in the beginning hidden by darkness; indistinguishable, this Whole

was water. That which came into being was covered with the void, The One arose
through the power of heat.’

                                                                                                                         

6
In this stanza, the phrase tán mahinā́jāyataíkam contains the sandhi variant of tád ékam.

  88  
 Ékam Idám

The word ékam is also found in conjunction with the word idám in the following

stanza of the Ṛgveda.

éka evā́gnír bahudhā́ sámiddha

ékaḥ sū́ryo víśvam ánu prábhūtaḥ
ékaivóṣā́ḥ sárvam idáṃ ví bhāti
ékaṃ vā́ idáṃ ví babhūva sárvam (8,58,2)

“One fire burns in many ways; one sun illumines everything; one dawn shines
upon the All; This One verily becomes the Whole.”

Ékam Víśvam

In another verse, the word ékam is paired with víśvam.

mahó devā́n bíbhratī ná vyathete

éjad dhruvám patyate víśvam ékaṃ
cárat patatrí víṣuṇaṃ ví jātám (3,54,8)

‘(Heaven and Earth) do not waver bearing the mighty gods. The One All rules
over anything born differently that stirs, is fixed, moves or flies.’

In the examples cited the word ékam is used not as the numerical neuter adjective

but as an abstract neuter noun to express an existential state of oneness as unified

wholeness and totality. This notion is a noted exception that goes against the previously

stated position that Vedic éka- expressed numerical singularity and uniqueness, as

originally conveyed by PIE *oiko- ‘one alone.’ Based on the evidence in the Indo-

European languages for oneness as wholeness and totality being expressed by PIE *sem-,

it would be expected that the ancient Indian concept of ‘The One’ in the Ṛgveda would

be expressed by an allomorph of Vedic saṃ-. The use of ékam, rather than a Vedic

Sanskrit reflex of PIE *sem-, can be likely explained through usage of the abstract noun

ékam in post-Ṛgvedic literature.

  89  
 The process that is likely taking place with the noun ékam in the Ṛgveda is

ellipsis, where the phrase tád ékam ‘The One’ likely expresses the concept of ‘The One

(without a second).’ This assertion becomes plausible when considering the semantic

development of tád ékam in later Vedic literature. The phrase tád ékam becomes very

frequent in later Vedāntic texts to express the philosophical concept of Brahman as

witnessed in the line from Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6,2,1 sad eva saumyedam agra āsīd

ekam evādvitīyam ‘In the beginning, dear son, this was Being alone, one only without a

second.’ In this one passage the phrase ekam evādvitīyam suggests that ékam means not

‘one’ as part of a numerical series, but ‘one’ as something that is advitīyam, literally

meaning ‘(having) no second.’ As Pannikar reflects in The Vedic Experience regarding

the concept of ékam,

The ultimate object of any human experience is one…This One, this ekam, is
qualified in a very special way. It is in fact the qualifying word, advitīya, which
renders the affirmation of oneness fruitful and rescues it from being a barren
tautology.

The word advitīya or nondual has sometimes been considered to stem from a
monistic world view, but this is not necessarily so. Even grammatically the word
is painstakingly chosen to denote, not ekatva, kaivalya, ekātma, and the like, but
a-dvaita, that is, negation of all duality. It is also appropriate that the word should
be a negative qualification, for only in this way is it possible to qualify the eka
without destroying its internal unity…The eka of this Utterance is indubitably
without a second. This is a unique oneness, that oneness which has no second,
which has no other one at its side, and most important, which in itself, in its very
interior is nondual. (656)

It is now possible to understand how the concept of tád ékam as ‘the One’ falls

into the same semantic field of words that connote wholeness, totality, indivisibility and

unity rather than the semantic set of words that express one as numerical value,

singularity, and differentiation. As previously established, there was a semantic

distinction in the Ṛgveda between the words éka- and the groups of words samá-, sam-,

  90  
and sa- to distinguish between ‘one’ as the number and ‘one’ as wholeness. However,

when the root éka- becomes the abstract neuter noun ékam it expands its original

numerical meaning of representing the number ‘one’ to express the existential state of

‘Oneness,’ that is, wholeness and totality originally expressed by PIE *sem-. In this

sense, the phrases tád ékam, ékam idám, and ékam víśvam suggest that the idea of ‘The

One’ was a metaphor in the Ṛgveda and in the subsequent Vedic literature to express the

cosmological concept of wholeness. The use of the abstract neuter noun ékam to express

cosmological and existential oneness is likely late, as it occurs in the late Ṛgvedic

language of Maṇṇdala 10. Prior to the connotation of ékam to mean ‘The One,’ the

phrase that originally conveyed this meaning was likely (idáṃ) sárvaṃ ‘the (Undivided)

Whole.’ Only in the later period of the Ṛgveda did ékam become semantically congruent

with sárvaṃ, both of which in the post Ṛgvedic literature became synonymous with the

notion of Brahman, the Universal One Being.

New Conceptual Model of ‘One’ and ‘Two’ in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit

All of this evidence regarding the lexico-semantic evolution of the numerals ‘one’

and ‘two’ in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit allow a new conceptual model to be formed

regarding the concept of wholeness. It is now conjectured that the PIE root *oi- was

likely a later development than the root *sem-, both of which carried distinct semantic

meaning, respectively, as ‘one alone’ and ‘one together, whole, united.’ The root *oi-

became the lexeme in many of the IE languages to express the numerical concept of

‘one,’ while *sem- continued its essential conceptual semantic meaning of ‘together as

one, whole, united.’ Furthermore, the root *oi- was the result of a linguistic necessity in

  91  
semantic contrast to the newly created morpheme *du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’ which possibly

developed from the deictic root *du-. As Martínez, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov previously

stated, PIE *oi- as the number ‘one’ filled the conceptual ‘gap’ in the numerical series

with the semantic development of *du̯oH(u)- ‘two.’ Prior to the existence of *oi-

representing the number ‘one,’ there was no concept of ‘one’ as a number, but only as an

existential and conceptual state of ‘unity, wholeness, and oneness’ represented by the PIE

root *sem-.

This model now enables a better understanding of the semantics of wholeness

both in PIE and in Vedic Sanskrit, which can be summarized in the following way.

1. PIE *sem- was a root to express the concept of ‘one’ as a state of

wholeness, unity, collectivity, and totality. It was originally a deictic

root that denoted reference in space and time from the relative

perspective of the speaker(s) in the context of ‘here,’ ‘this one,’ and

‘now.’

2. Semantically contrasted to PIE *sem- was the root *du- also a deictic

root that denoted a contextual sense from the referential perspective of

the speaker or the group as ‘there,’ ‘that one,’ and ‘then (both past or

future).’

3. In this sense PIE *sem- and *du- were deictic markers denoting a

spatial, temporal and conceptual distinction that semantically

differentiated, respectively, between *sem- ‘whole’ as ‘this, here, now’

and *du- ‘not part of the whole’ as ‘that, there, then, other.’

  92  
 4. Both PIE *sem- and *du- were likely the morphemes contained within

the respective semantic fields that connoted wholeness and otherness.

PIE *sem- was the morpheme that cognitively expressed the idea of

wholeness as metaphor for oneness, unity, collectivity, and totality;

while the morpheme *du- cognitively expressed otherness, twoness,

separation, and division.

5. Eventually the deictic root *du- morphologically developed to the root

*du̯oH(u)- to express the numerical concept of ‘two’ as a metaphor for

‘the other (separate from this here and now).’

6. With the conceptual innovation of *du̯oH(u)- to express the numeral

‘two’ having now occurred, there arose a lexico-semantic void and the

necessity for a root to express the numerical concept of ‘one.’ This

numerical imbalance was resolved by usage of the PIE root *oi- ‘one,’ a

morphological extension of the PIE deictic pronoun *i- ‘this (one) here

and now.’

7. The root *oi- ‘one’ eventually became the predominant lexeme for

enumeration and counting in the IE languages by means of suffixation

of *-no-, *u̯o-, and *-ko-.

8. A semantic distinction now occurred in late PIE, which eventually

became reflected in the descendant Indo-European languages, between

the original PIE lexeme for conceptual ‘oneness’ as *sem- and the

newly created lexeme for numerical ‘oneness’ as *oi-.

  93  
 9. This demarcation is evident in Vedic Sanskrit by the words éka- as

‘one’ for counting and enumeration and by saṃ-, and sa- as ‘one’ in a

collective sense of wholeness, totality and unity.

10. The exception where the Vedic Sanskrit numeral éka- conveys a sense

of wholeness is in the neuter abstract noun ékam ‘The One.’ Similarly,

the lexemes in the Ṛgveda where the original semantic meaning of PIE

*sem- continues to express wholeness are those exhibiting the most

archaic morphological structure, not as compounds, but as deictic roots

with suffixes.

  94  
 6) Wholeness as Metaphor for Inclusiveness and Being

Having established the conceptual and semantic distinction in PIE and in Vedic

Sanskrit, between the idea of ‘one’ as wholeness and ‘two’ as otherness, it is now

possible to explore another fundamental and important linguistic feature of PIE–that of

grammatical binarism. The deeply embedded typological structure of binarism is one that

Indo-Europeanists believe permeated through various grammatical categories of the

original PIE language, relics of which are possibly evident in Vedic Sanskrit grammar

and lexicosemantics. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov believe that the typological feature of

binarism is very archaic and forms an essential foundation of PIE grammatical structure,

remotely evident in many of the descendant languages. They state,

When the earliest system of Indo-European grammatical categories — inflectional

and derivational — is studied it becomes obvious that features of binarism
penetrate the entire linguistic system, grammatical and lexicosemantic. The
binarism appears both in the presence of doublets in the lexicogrammatical
system and in binary opposition on the content plane of Proto-Indo-European.
(233)

This typological feature of binarism manifests in a variety of ways in PIE, two of which

are discussed in detail as part of this chapter. The first is the notion of inclusiveness and

exclusiveness, primarily evident in the first person plural pronoun. The second is the

binary feature found in the PIE verbal category between the inactive versus active

distinction of certain verbs. The objective is to determine if the grammatical binary

features of inclusiveness versus exclusiveness and of inactive versus active offer

important clues as to how the concept of wholeness, as contrasted to otherness, developed

in Ṛgvedic language and thought.

  95  
Inclusiveness versus Exclusiveness in PIE Language

I conjecture that the pronominal system of PIE is where the conceptualization of

wholeness versus otherness manifests as a binary distinction between the ‘inclusive’

versus ‘exclusive’ pronoun ‘we.’ As Gamkrelidze and Ivanov assert,

The binary classification of nouns into active and inactive classes reconstructed
for the earliest Proto-Indo-European can be seen with particular clarity in the
pronominal system. The personal pronouns of Indo-European are oriented not
toward grammatical gender oppositions, which arose only much later when the
individual dialects developed, but toward a classification based on two basic
groups, active and inactive…The evidence of these dialects coincides with the
Hittite data, where the pronominal system, like the nominal system, shows a
grammatical classification into two genders, common and neuter, reflecting the
Indo-European opposition of two noun classes, active and inactive. (253)

These scholars’ hypothesis is noteworthy as it now establishes a conceptual framework

within PIE language that extends this distinction between active versus inactive classes of

nouns as an important binary distinction between inclusiveness and exclusiveness within

the PIE pronominal system. As Gamkrelidze and Ivanov further state,

The original binary nominal classification of Indo-European is also evident in the

fact that the pronominal system has an inclusive/exclusive category…(as in most
Australian, Austronesian, and Dravidian languages, some African languages of
the Niger-Congo group, many Amerindian languages, and Caucasian languages).
The inclusive/exclusive category involves an opposition of two first-person plural
pronouns, one expressing first plus second person (inclusive ‘we’, where the
referents belong to the same class, as they are both speech-participants) and the
other first plus third but not second person (exclusive ‘we’, where the referents
belong to different classes). (253)

I believe that it is possible now to reframe Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s ideas into a

corollary hypothesis regarding the principle of wholeness–there perhaps existed in PIE a

grammatical, conceptual and semantic distinction by which speakers held a fundamental

notion of speech participants being ‘inclusive’ or ‘exclusive’ of one’s ‘whole’ group. The

following sections explore a possible alternative model to that of Gamkrelidze and

Ivanov. This new model proposes that the concept of ‘we’ in PIE was originally

  96  
contextualized in a way that distinguished speech-participants who identified themselves

as either included in the ‘one whole group or clan’ versus those who were excluded from

the ‘one whole group or clan.’ Lexical data from Vedic Sanskrit and from the other IE

languages might support this view.

Reflexes of this Binary Pronominal Distinction in Vedic Sanskrit

Gamkrelidze and Ivanov expand on their model of grammatical binarism by

stating that the “Indo-European linguistic system, with its binary classification of

nominals into active and inactive classes, should show traces of an inclusive/exclusive

opposition in the pronominal system” (253). This binary pronominal opposition between

inclusiveness and exclusiveness is what PIE likely indicates. Based on lexical evidence

gathered by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, this pronominal binarism in the first person non-

singular pronoun can be reconstructed as PIE *ṷei-/*ṷes- ‘inclusive we’ and *mes-

‘exclusive we’ (254). This original binary bifurcation and cognitive distinction of the first

person non-singular pronoun was not retained in Vedic Sanskrit, nor in the other IE

branches. Instead, what occurs in the extant IE languages is the predominance of either

one of the two root pronouns to express the concept of ‘we’ in both dual and plural forms.

Thus in Vedic Sanskrit, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov conjecture that PIE *ṷei-/*ṷes-

became the primary form reflected in the words vā́m ‘we two’ and vayám ‘we all,’ while

other branches favored PIE *mes, e.g. in Lithuanian mēs ‘we.’ Despite the fact that

different languages reflect only one of the two PIE roots to represent the first person non-

singular pronoun, linguistic fossils of this original grammatical and semantic distinction

of the PIE morphemes *ṷei-/*ṷes- and *mes- can be found among the IE descendant

  97  
languages. Certain lexical forms from Vedic Sanskrit suggest that both PIE roots appear

to have been retained in the Indic language branch. While Vedic Sanskrit vā́m and vayám

likely derived from the PIE root *ṷei-, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov posit that the PIE

pronominal root *mes- likely occurs in Vedic Sanskrit -asma-, the oblique stem of the

pronoun vayám, as in asmā́-n, asmá-d, and asmá-bhyam (254).

In addition to the PIE binary roots *ṷei-/*ṷes- and *mes-, reflected in certain

Vedic Sanskrit pronouns, I hypothesize that this binary root distinction might have also

left relics in the verbal endings of the descendant IE languages. It is possible that PIE

*mes-, or in its o-grade form *mos-, is the likely origin of the first person plural verbal

ending evident in Vedic Sanskrit -mas(i)- as in s-más(i) ‘we are’, bhávā-mas(i) ‘we

become,’ etc.7 Similarly, the PIE root *ṷes- may likely reflect in Vedic Sanskrit as the

verbal ending of the first person dual -vas as in bhávā-vas ‘we two become.’ Sihler lists a

more full attestation of this verbal root in the Indo-European languages (454).

The Conceptual Distinction between the Dual and Plural Category

Having established the possibility of the PIE roots *ṷei-/*ṷes- and *mes- co-

existing in the Vedic Sanskrit first person non-singular pronominal and verbal system,

what then is the possible connection of these PIE binary markers with the notion of

inclusiveness versus exclusiveness in PIE and Ṛgvedic language? There is no question

among Indo-Europeanists that the grammatical system of the earliest IE languages

appeared to have verbal, nominal, and pronominal categories to express the notion of the

                                                                                                                         

7
The o-grade root of PIE *mos-, if indeed the first person plural verbal ending, also becomes the
Latin ending –mus as in su-mus ‘we are’ and fuī-mus ‘we were.’

  98  
dual. Fortson cites this dual category in Vedic Sanskrit dev-ā́ ‘two gods,’Homeric Greek

anthrōp-ō ‘two men,’ Old Church Slavic grad-a ‘two cities,’ and Lithuanian výr-u ‘two

men’ as just few examples (115). In fact, in Fortson’s reconstruction of PIE *du̯oH(u)- as

d(u)ṷ-ō- ‘two’ he states that it is itself a dual nominal form (105). Similarly, evidence of

the dual abounds in the Ṛgveda with the category being used to refer specifically to

objects, body parts or deities that formed natural pairs such as the nouns padé ‘two feet’

and mitrā́-váruṇā ‘Mitra-Varuṇa.’

With regard to the PIE pronouns, an important aspect in linguistic typology is the

belief that in languages in which a distinction between inclusiveness and exclusiveness

occurs it is limited to the first person. According to Forschheimner, “only the first person

distinguishes a form for one and a form for a group of which that one is a part…with a

lexical plural in the first person and no plural in the other persons and in nouns” (65–66).

All of these points now indicate a possible model regarding the conceptual development

of the first person pronoun into two distinct grammatical categories–singular and non-

singular, with the non-singular category further differentiating the speech-participants as

being either conceptually inclusive or exclusive in the cognitive framework of the

speaker. This possible notion is outlined below.

1. PIE singular first person

2. PIE non-singular first person

a. Reference to speaker and speech-participant(s) whom the speaker

conceptualized as being ‘inclusive’ member(s).

b. Reference to speaker and other speech-participant(s) whom the

speaker conceptualized as being ‘exclusive’ member(s).

  99  
 This model now provides a possible explanation of the tripartite grammatical

distinction in the IE languages of singular, dual, and plural not from just linguistic

typology, but also from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. Rather than the IE

languages categorizing singular, dual, and plural as ‘grammatical number,’ an alternative

model is for languages to conceptualize speech-participants as being either inclusive or

exclusive. Cysouw believes that this conceptualization of the first person non-singular

pronoun into a further sub-division between inclusive and exclusive is far more accurate

based on his assertion that “semantically, the notion ‘plural’ is not suitable for words like

we, because we is not the plural of I” (296). It is now possible, in my view, to reframe the

above model based on Cysouw’s paradigm.

1. One speech act participant–reference to the speaker as the pronoun ‘I.’

2. Two or more ‘inclusive’ speech-participants–speech-participants conceptually

consider everyone, regardless of number, as ‘inclusive’ members of the

‘whole.’ This category likely produces the grammatical category of the first

person dual pronoun and verbal endings.

3. Two or more ‘exclusive’ speech-participants–speech-participants conceptually

consider some, regardless of number, as ‘exclusive’ members of the ‘whole.’

This category likely produces the grammatical category of the first person

plural pronoun and verbal endings.

  100  
 The Dual as Late Innovation in PIE

Despite the strong usage of the dual categories in many ancient IE languages,

Indo-Europeanists generally concur that the dual as a distinct grammatical category is an

innovation that occurred in late PIE prior to the separation of the major language groups.

With regard to the PIE pronominal system Shields believes “that dual forms were absent

in the early Indo-European set of personal pronouns” and “that the dual inflectional

category emerged at a very late date–an argument based, in part, on the attested

underdevelopment of specific inflectional forms and the variety of attested dual markers”

(58). In Lehman’s Pre-Indo-European he advocates a similar belief and states that the

dual category “was not consistently applied in late PIE and the early dialects.

Subsequently application became more regular, and number congruence was carried out

for both substantives and verbs” (201-202).

Another important piece of grammatical evidence that indicates the notion that the

grammatical category of the dual was a late PIE innovation is the lack of the dual in the

Anatolian branch of PIE. According to current IE linguistic scholarship, the Anatolian

branch of PIE was likely the first member to split off from the proto-language. As

Fortson declares,

The main difference posed by Anatolian for Indo-Europeanists is the fact that its
structure is quite different from that of PIE as traditionally reconstructed. One
would ordinarily expect that the older known languages of the family should
resemble the proto-language the most closely; and it’s true that Anatolian does
preserve a number of important archaisms…But most striking are the forms and
categories that it does not have. Absent are apparently such bedrock IE formations
as simple thematic verbs, the aorist…the dual…One interpretation of these facts is
that the forms missing from Anatolian were simply lost, and that the traditional
reconstruction of PIE is perfectly valid. But evidence has been growing that
Anatolian split off at a time when the development of some of these
categories…was only nascent. (155)

  101  
Given the commonly held opinion that the Anatolian languages diverged from the

common proto-language at an extremely early period, this scenario would now account

for the lack of the dual grammatical category in both Anatolian and in the very early PIE

language. If this assertion is correct, then the dual grammatical category expressed by

actual morphemes and roots is a much later innovation in PIE. This point adds to the

hypothesis that the dual grammatical category in PIE might have developed from an

earlier grammatical and conceptual model: One that, I advance, was based not on

grammatical number, but a category established on cognitive and conceptual binarism

inclusiveness and exclusiveness by speech-participants.

Connection between Grammatical Inclusiveness and Conceptual Wholeness

Based on the points presented in the previous sections, I suggest a possible

connection between the binary features of inclusiveness with the notion of wholeness, in

addition to a cognitive relationship between exclusiveness and otherness. The late

innovation in PIE of nominal, pronominal, and verbal categories of the dual marker

indicates the possibility that early PIE originally employed another way to express the

grammatical morphemes for the non-singular category. This feature was based not on a

tripartite grammatical distinction between singular, dual, and plural but one that

categorized all speech-participants into a fundamental conceptual inclusive/exclusive

distinction. I hypothesize that this binarism was perhaps grounded in a deeply rooted

cognitive paradigm of identifying and categorizing speech-participants as either inclusive

or exclusive of the speaker’s conceptual ‘one whole.’ If the speech-participant(s) was in

some way ‘joined with, united, at one’ with the ‘whole’ (reflected by the PIE morpheme

  102  
*sem-) to which the speaker belonged, the appropriate grammatical morphemes of

‘inclusive non-singular’ were used. Conversely, if the speech-participant(s) was

considered in some way ‘disconnected, separate, other’ from the ‘whole’ (represented by

PIE *du-) to which the speaker belonged, the ‘exclusive non-singular’ grammatical

morphemes were used. In PIE this ‘inclusive non-singular’ morpheme was perhaps the

root *ṷei-/*ṷes-, while the ‘exclusive non-singular’ morpheme was the PIE root *mes-.

Only much later after the divergence of the Anatolian branch from the proto-language,

did the PIE roots *ṷei-/*ṷes- and *mes- develop into a new grammatical function as the

non-singular first person pronouns of the dual and plural, respectively.

While this binarism between inclusive and exclusive is possibly evident in the

early PIE morphemes *ṷei-/*ṷes- and *mes-, the binary feature does not explicitly reflect

in lexicon or grammar of the descendant IE languages. However, I believe that relics of

this archaic grammatical feature might still appear in the Ṛgveda. Furthermore, the binary

category of inclusiveness and exclusiveness creates the basis for a possible deeply

embedded grammatical structure that conceptually unifies the notion of wholeness as a

metaphor for inclusiveness in early PIE language. Similarly, there perhaps existed in PIE

language the idea of exclusiveness as being a cognitive metaphor for otherness and

separation.

In essence, the PIE language may have reflected a cognitive process of PIE

speakers who perceived a conceptual distinction between inclusiveness and exclusiveness

to those who were ‘with the one whole group’ and those who were ‘other than the whole

group.’ As subsequent chapters discuss in greater detail, the factors that likely determined

if members were identified as being inclusive, part of the whole, or exclusive, separate

  103  
from the whole, were perhaps based on cognitive and cultural factors. The following

table now summarizes this hypothesis that describes the important feature of inclusive

and exclusive binarism and its semantic connection to the idea of wholeness in PIE and

Vedic Sanskrit.

Table 1

Lexical Expressions and Reflexes of the Grammatical Features of Inclusive and

Exclusive in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reflexes
Expression in Vedic Sanskrit
Grammatical Verbal
feature Cultural Semantic Lexical Pronouns endings
Inclusive Part of the Wholeness PIE root vā́m ‘we -vas
‘One Oneness *ṷei-/*ṷes- two’ ‘dual
Whole’ ending’
Exclusive Separate Otherness PIE root -asma- (the mas(i)-
from the Twoness *mes- oblique ‘plural
‘One stem of the ending’
Whole’ pronoun
vayám
 

Binary Feature of Active versus Inactive in PIE Verbal System

In addition to PIE having a binary opposition in the conceptual and grammatical

distinction between inclusive and exclusive, Gamkrelidze and Ivanov point out that

another deep binary grammatical split occurred in the PIE verbal system between active

versus inactive. These scholars theorize that this binary feature of the verbal system into

active and inactive is an expected linguistic extension of a similar grammatical opposition

in the nominal system between animate versus inanimate nouns. They state

  104  
 The division of verbs into two subsets implied by the binary noun classification
leads naturally to a semantic grouping of verbs into two classes based on whether
they expressed active or inactive semantics. The original semantic principle for
classification of the Indo-European verb forms was not transitivity, which is a
semantic opposition independent of nominal classification, but a semantic
classification into active and inactive, depending on the nature of the verbal action
or state expressed. (255)

The grammatical and semantic distinction between active versus inactive appears to have

been lost from the original PIE language, being replaced eventually by an opposition

based on transitivity or on aspect (active versus eventive) in the verbal system of the

descendant IE languages, a position outlined in detail by Sihler (443). However, remnants

of these binary sets of verbal roots in the extant IE branches support Gamkrelidze and

Ivanov’s notion that an opposition based on active and inactive did exist in the early PIE

verb. I have created the table below, adapted on lexical data by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov

(255) that lists examples of these binary verbal roots in PIE and their reflections in Vedic

Sanskrit.

Table 2

Inactive versus Active Verbs in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit

Verbal Meaning
Grammatical
feature ‘to be’ ‘to lie’ ‘to stand’ ‘to sit’
Inactive *Hes-> *ḱei- > *Hor- > *Hēs- >
Vedic Vedic √śī- Vedic √(a)r- Vedic √ās-
√as- ‘to ‘to lie’ ‘is fitted, ‘to sit down’
be’ supported’
Active *bhuH- > *ses- > *steH- > *sed- >
Vedic Vedic √sas- Vedic √sthā- Vedic √sad-
√bhū- ‘to ‘to sleep’ ‘to stand’ ‘to sit,
be(come) dwell’

  105  
 Before proceeding further, it is important to clarify a point of disagreement that I

take with one part of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s model. While these scholars

convincingly present lexical evidence demonstrating the grammatical and semantic

binary opposition between certain sets of verbs that are active or inactive, not all Indo-

Europeanists agree with their verbal categorization. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s

classification that PIE *Hes- is an active verb and that PIE *bhuH- is an inactive verb has

an opposing perspective. My opinion appears to match that of some other Indo-

Europeanists, who believe it is actually the contrary that is perhaps the likely case. Bader

in her research on the PIE roots for the verb ‘to be’ postulates that PIE *Hes-, in addition

to a handful of other archaic PIE verbal roots that grammatically and semantically behave

as active verbs, was originally inactive and developed into the active category at a later

period in the proto-language (108). It is for this reason that in the table above I contradict

the lexical data presented by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov by opting to place both PIE *Hes-

‘to be’ and *Hēs- ‘to sit’ in the inactive verbal category and not as active verbs.

Binary Feature of Active versus Inactive in Vedic Sanskrit

As with the collapse of the grammatical distinction in the PIE pronominal system

between inclusive and exclusive in the IE branches, a similar absence of an explicit and

overt semantic distinction occurs with reflexes of PIE active and inactive verbs in Vedic

Sanskrit. Even though PIE originally held a grammatical and semantic distinction

between binary verbs based on active versus inactive meaning, textual evidence suggests

that this demarcation likely became obscured in Vedic Sanskrit. Instead, it appears that

the Vedic Sanskrit verbal system developed binary opposition based on transitivity and

  106  
on aspect (stative versus eventive), a point evidenced with the semantic distinction of

√as- versus √bhū- in the Ṛgveda.

Semantic distinction between Vedic Sanskrit √as- and √bhū- as Verbs

The verbal roots √as- and √bhū- can both be generally translated as the verb ‘to

be’ in the Ṛgveda. However, the following two stanzas possibly demonstrate a semantic

distinction between Vedic Sanskrit √as- versus √bhū- as relics of the archaic PIE verbal

dichotomy between active versus inactive.

vā́stoṣ pate práti jānīhi asmā́n

suāveśó anamīvó bhavā naḥ
yát tvémahe práti tán no juṣasva
śáṃ no bhava dvipáde śáṃ cátuṣpade (7,54,1)

‘O Vastoṣpati, acknowledge us. You, remover of the amivā-disease, be(come)

dear and easy-going for us. Whatever we desire of you, favor us with it. Be(come)
auspicious onto us in (our) bipeds (humans) and quadrupeds (animals).’

vā́stoṣ pate pratáraṇo na edhi

gayasphā́no góbhir áśvebhir indo
ajárāsas te sakhiyé siyāma
pitéva putrā́n práti no juṣasv (7,54,2)

‘O Vastoṣpati, be our bestower increasing domestic wealth in cattle and horses, O

Indu. May we be ever-young in your friendship. Rejoice in us like a father toward
(his) sons.’

I purposefully chose both of these stanzas for two reasons. The first pertains to

both stanzas coming from the same hymn in Maṇḍala Seven, which as stated in the

Methods chapter is composed in older Ṛgvedic and thus likely reflects an earlier stage of

the Vedic Sanskrit language. The second is due to both verbal forms being identically

conjugated in the second person singular present active imperative. Both of these points

minimize any possible semantic variance, due to the forms belonging to the same

  107  
synchronic and stylistic period, and similarly diminish any likely grammatical variance,

due to the forms sharing identical inflection.

In the two stanzas presented, it appears that both bháva and edhi bear a subtle

semantic distinction in their respective usage. In the first verse, the imperative bhava can

translate as ‘become, come into being, generate, produce’ and has more of a transitive,

eventive quality. The use of bhava implies that the deity Vastoṣpati ‘become, generate’

śáṃ ‘happiness, auspiciousness’ and create the abundance into existence. Conversely, in

the second stanza the imperative edhi translates as ‘be, remain, abide’ and likely has an

intransitive, stative quality expressing a permanent state of existence. The archaic PIE

distinction between active versus inactive in the verbal roots *Hes- and *bhuH- is not

uniform in the Ṛgveda. However as the above example hopefully demonstrates, there still

exist certain, but admittedly rare, instances where this grammatical and nuanced semantic

distinction did occur.

Semantic distinction between Vedic Sanskrit √as- and √bhū- as Nouns

Further lexical examples in the Ṛgveda suggest a possible semantic distinction

between Vedic Sanskrit √as- and √bhū- occurring in nominal formations. The verbal

roots √as- and √bhū- occur in their root forms in the Ṛgvedic words sv-as-ti and bhū-ti,

both verbs being affixed with the suffix -ti directly on to the root. As with the verbal

forms cited above, the semantic distinction with the nominal reflexes is also subtle, as the

following stnazas of the Ṛgveda indicate.

índrāvaruṇā saumanasám ádr̥ptaṃ

rāyás póṣaṃ yájamāneṣu dhattam
prajā́m puṣṭím bhūtim asmā́su dhattaṃ
dīrghāyutvā́ya prá tirataṃ na ā́yuḥ (8,59,7)

  108  
 ‘O Indra and Varuṇa, grant comfort without arrogance, abundance of wealth on to
those performing sacrifice. Grant on to us progeny, nourishment, and fortune.
Prolong our lifespan toward longevity.’

aítu pūṣā́ rayír bhágaḥ

suastí sarvadhā́tamaḥ
urúr ádhvā suastáye (8,31,11)

‘Let Puṣan, the dispenser of wealth, come. Hail, the one best bestowing
wholeness. Wide is the road toward wellbeing.’

Again, both of these stanzas were purposefully chosen, due to their position in the

same Maṇḍala, to minimize diachronic semantic variance. While the stanzas implore the

Vedic deities for abundance, health and prosperity, there exists a distinction between the

characteristics of what is being granted. In the first stanza to Indra and Varuṇa the objects

of desire tend to be material and physical, e.g. póṣaṃ ‘abundance,’ prajā́m ‘progeny,’

puṣṭím ‘nourishment,’ and bhūtim ‘(physical) fortune’ for the performers of the sacrifice.

In the second stanza, even though Puṣan is called rayír bhágaḥ ‘the dispenser of wealth’

and suastí sarvadhā́tamaḥ ‘Hail, the one best bestowing wholeness,’ the sole thing being

requested is suastáye ‘for well-being.’ In this instance suastáye, the dative feminine

singular of suastí-, is not anything that is physical or tangible. Rather suastí- is more

conceptual and existential, while bhūtí- connotes material, physical, earthly concepts.

This semantic meaning of bhūtí- as something that is tangible is underscored by the

attestation of PIE *bhuH- being the root that yields Ancient Greek phúsis, originally

phútis, an exact cognate to Vedic Sanskrit bhūtí-. Ancient Greek phúsis is, additionally,

the origin of English physi-cal, which harkens back to the physical character of Vedic

Sanskrit bhūtí-. Furthermore, Vedic Sanskrit √bhū- also produces Ṛgvedic bhū́mi-

‘earth,’ further highlighting the earthly and worldly qualities behind the word bhūtí-, in

contrast to the existential, ephemeral connotation behind Vedic Sanskrit suastí-.

  109  
 I now believe that the semantic distinction between the verbal forms bhava and

edhi and between the root nouns bhūtí- (bhū-ti) and suastí (su-as-ti) may possibly reflect

an original PIE grammatical and semantic binarism. The PIE root *bhuH- was a member

of the active, eventive grammatical category and connotes transformation and concepts

attributed to the physical, earthly world. Meanwhile, PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ belonged to the

inactive, stative grammatical category to express concepts of ‘being’ and existence of the

non-physical world. The examples outlined in this section demonstrate that it is possible

to locate instances, although subtle, of a nuanced semantic distinction between Vedic

√as- ‘to be, remain, abide’ as the relic of the inactive PIE verb *Hes- in contrast with

Vedic √bhū- ‘to become, to grow, to come into being’ as the remnant of the active PIE

verb *bhuH-.

The PIE root *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as- as Inactive Verbs

Having established the linguistic framework of binarism in the PIE verb between

active and inactive, it is now possible to explore in greater detail the semantics of PIE

*Hes- and of Vedic Sanskrit √as- as inactive, stative verbs and their metaphorical

connection to the concept of wholeness. PIE *Hes- is a very prolific root with numerous

derivational morphemes, whose reflexes appear throughout all of the IE branches. I have

created the following list, compiled from lexical data by Pokorny (706-708, 2392) and by

Adams and Mallory (336), that enumerates the partial lexical reflexes of PIE *Hes- in

various IE languages and its derivational morpheme as the present participle *Hsont-

‘being.’

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 1. *Hes- ‘to be’

c. Sanskrit—√as-; ás-mi ‘I am’

d. Avestan—√ah-; ah-mi ‘I am’

e. Armenian—em ‘I am’

f. Homeric Greek—eimí ‘I am’ (originally *ēmí from PIE *es-mi)

g. Tocharian—ste ‘he is’ (originally from PIE *es-ti)

h. Hittite—e-eš-mi ‘I am’ (originally from PIE *es-mi)

i. Albanian— jam ‘I am’ (originally from PIE *es-mi)

j. Latin—es-se ‘to be’; s-um ‘I am’ (originally from PIE *s-om)

k. Germanic—im (Gothic), em (Icelandic), am (English) ‘I am’

l. Old Irish—am ‘I am’ (originally from PIE *es-mi)

m. Old Church Slavic—jesmь ‘I am’ (originally from PIE *es-mi)

n. Lithuanian—esmì ‘I am’ (originally from PIE *es-mi)

2. *(H)sent-, *(H)sont-, *(H)sṇt- (zero-grade form of the present participle)

‘being, truth, reality, right, goodness’

a. Sanskrit—sánt, sát- ‘truth, reality, being, existing’; satyá- ‘true,

right’

b. Avestan—hánt, hát- ‘truth, reality, being, existing’; haiθya- ‘true,

right’

c. Homeric Greek—eónt- ónt- ‘being’’; tà ónta ‘reality’

d. Hittite—aš-ša-an-za (assanz) ‘being’

e. Albanian—send ‘thing, being’

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 f. Latin—prae-sēns ‘presently’, ab-sēns ‘absent’

g. Germanic—*sanÞa- (Proto-Germanic), sōð (Old English), sand

(Old High German) ‘true’; soðian ‘show to be true’ (Old English)

> soothe (English) ‘to mollify, quiet someone back to one’s state

of being’

Referring to this vast set of words, Adams and Mallory state, “This entire

complex is usually derived from *h1es- ‘to be.’ The same verb provides the basis for a

word for ‘true’, *h1sónt-, the participial of *h1es- ‘be’…” (337). Even though Indo-

Europeanists concur that this set of words shares a common derivational morphology,

very little suggestion has been offered to explain their semantic connection.

Having earlier outlined the grammatical meaning of PIE *Hes- as having an

inactive, stative meaning, in contrast to the active, eventive meaning of PIE *bhuH-, I

believe that it is now possible to postulate a possible semantic distinction between the

two PIE verbal roots. This explanation can likely be based on the premise previously

stated that early PIE held a cognitive distinction between inclusive and exclusive, as well

as between active and inactive. Recalling the statement mentioned earlier by Gamkrelidze

and Ivanov,

The original semantic principle for classification of the Indo-European verb forms
was not transitivity, which is a semantic opposition independent of nominal
classification, but a semantic classification into active and inactive, depending on
the nature of the verbal action or state expressed. (255)

If the assertion that PIE *Hes- ‘to be,’ as an inactive verb, expressed the state of ‘being’

in contrast to its active counterpart, PIE *bhuH- ‘to become,’ I conjecture that the

inactive quality of PIE *Hes- can now be conceptualized to express a verbal meaning of

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‘in a state of being,’ in contrast to the active sense of ‘in a state of becoming’ reflected by

PIE *bhuH-.

This fundamental semantic nature that underscores the inactive, stative meaning

of PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ can now be defined by the phrase ‘in a state of being and existing

one and whole.’ It is the very connotation of the concept of ‘being, existing,’ as an

inactive verbal state, that implies something being ‘one and whole.’ In contrast, the

phrase ‘in a state of becoming one and whole’ implies that something is no longer ‘one

and whole,’ that it was once ‘one and whole’ but no longer is. According to the

observations stated earlier by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, proper PIE grammatical rules

state that the inactive PIE verb *Hes- ‘to be’ would, therefore, be the correct verb

required to express the inactive qualities of truth, being, oneness and wholeness. In

essence, the dictates of early PIE grammatical construction necessitate the usage of PIE

inactive *Hes- ‘to be,’ and not active *bhuH- ‘to become,’ as the corresponding verbal

form to produce the PIE derivational inactive abstract nouns to connote the concepts of

‘oneness, wholeness, truth, being, goodness, etc.’ This syntactic concordance of PIE

nouns and verbs requiring to agree in their inactive grammatical function now possibly

explains the semantic development of the PIE verb *Hes- from its original inactive

meaning of ‘to be’ to its derivational morphemes *(H)sónt- and *(H)sónt-io-. I conjecture

that the semantic expansion of PIE *Hes- to express concepts of ‘oneness, wholeness,

truth, being, goodness’ becomes evident by understanding the grammatical feature of

*Hes- as an inactive and stative verb in the proto-language. The following table

summarizes this hypothesis.

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Table 3

The Inactive and Stative Grammatical Feature of PIE *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as-

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reflexes
Expression in Vedic Sanskrit
Grammatical
feature Cultural Semantic Lexical
Inactive Being in a Being *Hes-‘to √as- ‘to be’
Stative State of Reality be’
‘One Truth
Whole’ *Hsónt- sát- ‘being,
‘being reality’
(real and
true)’

*Hsónt-io- satyá-
‘truth’ ‘truth’

The Morphosemantic Connection of PIE *Hes- with *Hēs-

Additional lexical evidence from Vedic Sanskrit and the other IE languages

provides another important semantic function of the PIE verb *Hes- and its derivational

morphemes *(H)sónt- and *(H)sónt-io-. Specifically, the PIE verbal root *Hēs- ‘to sit, to

remain, abide, be present, exist’ might likely be contained within a larger semantic field

of the proto-language, along with PIE *Hes- ‘to be,’ that collectively express the idea of

oneness, wholeness, inclusiveness, and being. The following sections present the case for

a possible semantic unity of these verbal forms that might reveal the archaic PIE

grammatical function of inclusiveness as a cognitive metaphor of wholeness in the

Ṛgveda.

  114  
 PIE *Hēs- and Vedic Sanskrit √ās-

Mallory and Adams claim that PIE *h1ēs- ‘to sit, etc.,’ which I along with other

Indo-Europeanists alternatively represent as *Hēs-, is a derivational verb with intensive

meaning based on the PIE verb *Hes- ‘to be’ (296). The same scholars continue by

saying, “Greek, Anatolian, and Indo-Iranian attest *h1ēs- (e.g. Grk ēsthai ‘sit’, Hit ēsa

‘sits’, āszi ‘stays, remains, is left’, Av āste ‘sits’, Skt ā́ste ‘sits’) which appears to be an

intensive of *h1es- ‘be’…” (296). If this assertion is correct, then there exists both a

morphological and semantic unity between the PIE concepts ‘to be’ and ‘to sit.’ Intensive

verbs in PIE are created in a specific derivational process and possess a nuanced semantic

meaning, attested in a number of verbal forms in Vedic Sanskrit and in the various

descendent IE languages. As MacDonnell attests, intensive verbs in Vedic Sanskrit, and

implied in the original PIE language, semantically “are meant to convey intensification or

frequent repetition of the action expressed by the simple root. They are common, being

formed from over ninety roots in the Saṃhitās, and about twenty-five roots in the

Brāhmaṇas” (201). The morphological derivation of intensive roots in PIE and in Vedic

Sanskrit is generally a result of verbal reduplication, a fact supported by Szemerényi.

Discussing the morphological and semantic development of intensive verbs in PIE he

states,

…with this type total (intensive) reduplication often occurs, in which the vowel
and first consonant are repeated…On the semantic side, a sense of repetition or
intensity was doubtless connected originally with reduplication in general. In the
historical languages, however, this is so only in the case of total or almost total
reduplication, as in the OInd. Intensives… (268–69)

To this point Kukilov in his “Reduplication in the Vedic Verb” states,

The semantics of verbal reduplication is particularly intriguing, as it is probably

the only morphological device which can be treated as iconically motivated by the
meaning. No wonder it has been subject of numerous speculations from the very

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 beginning of Indo-European comparative grammar. However, the only verbal
formation where the iconic character of the reduplication is unquestionable is the
intensive (note also the type of the intensive reduplication, which copies the root
in the most complete and transparent fashion). Both the intensive and
frequentative meanings (which are ascribed to this formation in Vedic) can be
readily associated with the repetition (redoubling) of the root. Much more
questionable is the iconicity of the other reduplicated formations. (441–42)

The intensive semantic quality of PIE verb *Hēs- ‘to sit’ deriving from the

original PIE verb *Hes- ‘to be’ can now be explained morphologically through the

process of verbal reduplication. While Mallory and Adams reconstruct *Hēs- ‘to sit’ by

the form *h1ēs-, the Lexicon der Indogermanischen Verben (LIV) reconstructs the PIE

form *h1eh1s- ‘sitzen, that is, to sit’ (206). The LIV version of the root *h1eh1s- now

reveals the original PIE reduplicative nature of the verb from the original PIE *h1ēs-. The

long vowel -ē- that appears in the root *h1ēs-, is likely the result of compensatory

lengthening. Sihler further elaborates on this process affirming,

The same phenomenon underlies G ēstai ‘sits’, Ved ā́ste, Av āste, Hitt e-ša, e-ša-
(a)-ri, from PIE *eH1s- ‘is sitting’; here the lengthening effect of the laryngeal
disguises the underlying short (full grade) vowel. (NB: this stem has also been
analyzed quite differently, namely as *H1eH1s-, an ordinarily-formed reduplicated
present exactly parallel to *dhe-dhH1- and, more to the point, to *ste-stH2-). (134)

In essence, the original PIE root *Hes- ‘to be’ reduplicates, according to the

formula explained by Sihler, to form *HeHs-. The newly created root *HeHs-

subsequently loses the second -H- laryngeal and compensates by lengthening the

preceding vowel resulting in -eH- > -ē-. The morphological and semantic connection

between the PIE verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to sit’ can be summarized as follows.

1. PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ reduplicates to form a root *HeHs- ‘to intensely be, to be

(again and again).

  116  
 2. The newly created reduplicated form *HeHs- through loss of medial laryngeal

and compensatory lengthening produces the new verb *Hēs-.

3. The semantic meaning of *Hēs- shifts from its original intensive connotation to

a new metaphorical meaning ‘to sit, abide, exist, etc.’

So how does the semantic connection between PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ and *Hēs- ‘to

sit, etc.’ relate to the greater concept of wholeness? Again, the common denominator is

likely the understanding of the inactive, stative quality that both of these verbal roots

convey. While the actual Vedic Sanskrit verb √ās- ‘to sit, etc.’ no longer explicitly

reflects the original intensive semantic quality of PIE *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as- ‘to

be,’ (and for that matter also lost its original inactive meaning) what the two verbal forms

still share is their greater semantic expression of ‘being, existing, remaining.’ Despite the

semantic obfuscation between Vedic Sanskrit √ās- and √as-, the archaic semantic

connection between PIE *Hēs- ‘to sit, etc.’ and *Hes- ‘to be’ may have left a relic in the

Ṛgvedic words āsā́t ‘from the proximity, near’ and svāsasthá- ‘well-located nearby.’

Vedic Sanskrit āsā́t ‘from the proximity, near’ as Inclusiveness and

Wholeness

The Vedic Sanskrit word āsā́t occurs only twice in the following stanzas of the

Ṛgveda.

sá no dūrā́c ca āsā́c ca
ní mártiyād aghāyóḥ
pāhí sádam íd viśvā́yuḥ (1,27,3)

‘From afar and from near, (Agni) protect us life-long completely from the sinful
man.’

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 ā́ na índro dūrā́d ā́ na āsā́d
abhiṣṭikŕ̥d ávase yāsad ugráḥ
ójiṣṭhebhir nr̥pátir vájrabāhuḥ
saṃgé samátsu turváṇiḥ pṛtanyū́n (4,20,1)

‘O mighty Indra procuring help, whether from afar and from near, come in our
favor. (He is) the Lord of men, armed with the vajra-weapon (and) with the
mightiest ones, overcoming enemies in conflict and in battles.’

In both of these stanzas the word āsā́t, appearing here in its respective sandhi-forms āsā́c

and āsā́d, is joined with the Ṛgvedic word dūrā́t to form the stylistic couplet dūrā́t āsā́t

‘from afar and from near.’ I believe that this poetic phrase reveals a deeper semantic

structure and cognitive relationship among the PIE notions of being, wholeness, and of

inclusiveness. Additionally, it may provide the missing semantic link between the Vedic

Sanskrit roots √as- ‘to be’ and √ās- ‘to sit, remain, abide, exist.’

While the words dūrā́t and āsā́t exist in binary semantic opposition, they are in

morphological congruity. Both forms appear in the ablative singular case as thematic

nouns implying ‘separation, distance, from’ a locational place. In the case of āsā́t, it

conveys ‘separation from āsa-’ while dūrā́t expresses ‘separation from dūrá-,’ whose

meanings will now be explored.

Even though the Ṛgveda offers evidence of an adjective dūrá- meaning ‘far off,

remote, distant, separated’ from the position of the speaker, there is no lexeme in the

Ṛgveda for its semantic binary opposite, the unattested form xāsá- whose meaning might

have been ‘near, close, in the proximal location, etc’ of the speaker. It is important to

mention that the word āsā́t should not be confused as an inflected form of the Ṛgvedic

noun ā́s- ‘mouth’ that Mallory and Adams relate with Middle Irish ā, Latin os ‘mouth,’

Hittite a(y)is-, and Avestan āh-, all of which mean ‘mouth’ and reconstructs back to PIE

*h1óh1(e)s- (175). Additionally, for grammatical reasons it is unlikely for the word āsā́t

  118  
to derive from Vedic Sanskrit noun ā́s- ‘mouth.’ As Macdonell demonstrates, the noun

ā́s- ‘mouth’ is an athematic s-stem neuter noun, whose ablative singular form would have

to be āsás (58-59). The morphological shape of the word āsā́t would indicate that it

derives from an unattested thematic substantive xāsá-, again whose meaning of ‘near,

close, in the proximal location, etc.’ of the speaker can only be deduced from the word

āsā́t by its position in semantic contrast to dūrā́t.

Furthermore, Macdonell states that both āsā́t and dūrā́t are indeclinable words

formed from a rare set of Vedic Sanskrit nominal and pronominal stems that

grammatically function as adverbs. (210-211). While āsā́t and dūrā́t appear on the

surface as thematic ablative nouns, they are, in fact, substantive ablatives behaving

adverbially. Macdonell cites similar adverbial ablative formations in Vedic Sanskrit,

some of which include ārā́t ‘from a distance,’ uttarā́t ‘from the north,’ paścā́t ‘from

behind,’ and sanā́t ‘from of old’ (211). Based on Macdonell’s observations, the word āsā́t

would imply ‘distance from xāsa-’ while dūrā́t would express ‘distance from dūrá-.’

Since the meaning of Vedic Sanskrit dūrā́t is rather certain to mean ‘from the distance,

from afar,’ in addition to the position of āsā́t appearing in binary semantic opposition to

dūrā́t in the stylistic phrase āsā́t dūrā́t, it is possible to conclude that there likely existed a

Vedic Sanskrit word xāsa-. Although the word xāsa- is textually unattested in the actual

Ṛgveda, or for that matter in Vedic Sanskrit, it is possible to conjecture that xāsa- may

have been part of the spoken language in order to account for the adverbial ablative form

āsā́t in the Ṛgveda. Having established the semantic meaning of āsā́t as ‘from near, from

close by, from the proximity,’ it is possible to reveal the deeper semantic connection of

Ṛgvedic āsā́t with the PIE verb *Hes- and with Vedic Sanskrit √as- ‘to be.’ However, in

  119  
order to do so, it is necessary to discuss briefly the Vedic word dūrá- and its possible

semantic connection to the PIE grammatical category of exclusiveness and its cognitive

expression of otherness.

Vedic Sanskrit dūrā́t ‘from a Distance, from Afar’ as a Metpahor for

Exclusiveness and Otherness

The Vedic Sanskrit word dūrá- connotes the sense of something or someone

located ‘far off, remote, distant, separated’ from the position of the speaker(s). The word

dūrá- occurs in the Ṛgveda, along with the comparative dávīyas- ‘more far away’ and the

superlative adjective daviṣṭhá- ‘very far away.’ The etymology of this word, according to

both Pokorny (477) and Mayhrhoffer (56–57), likely derives from the PIE root *deu- or

from one of its allomorphs *deuH- and *deu̯(ā)-. Alternatively, Mallory and Adams

construct an etymology of Ṛgvedic dūrá- from either the zero-grade form of PIE *duH-

ros or from the e-grade root *dṷeH-ros8, the morpheme *dṷ(e)H- with the suffix *-r- plus

the thematic ending *-os. A detailed discussion on the morphology and semantics of the

PIE root *dṷ(e)H- occurs in a subsequent chapter on ‘Otherness as Twoness.’ For the

current discussion, I posit a basic definition of PIE *dṷ(e)H- as ‘be separate, distant,

remote (from the ‘here and now)’ of the speaker. The PIE root *dṷ(e)H- is likely

connected in form and meaning to the PIE numeral *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ and conveys

distance and separation from the speaker(s). Thus, Vedic Sanskrit dūrá- expresses a

                                                                                                                         

8
If dū-rá derives from either *duH-ros or *dṷeH-ros , the loss of the PIE laryngeal (-H-) would
in Vedic Sanskrit regularly produce the long vowel due to compensatory lengthening of -uHr- > -
ūr-. Regardless, PIE *duH-, *deu-, or *dṷ(e)H- are all valid reconstructed forms that can readily
account for the Vedic Sanskrit roots dū-/dav-.

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cognitive perspective in the mind of the speaker(s) of remoteness, otherness, separation,

and exclusiveness from the whole of the ‘here and now.’

Conversely, the PIE root *Hēs- ‘to sit, etc’ as a semantic and morphological

extension of the PIE root *Hes- ‘to be’ connotes a sense of ‘existing, being, residing,

abiding’ in the nearness, proximity, closeness, and inclusiveness of the whole ‘here and

now.’ This binary semantic contrast of inclusiveness, wholeness versus exclusiveness,

otherness underscores the semantic opposition in the PIE roots *Hes-, *Hēs- ‘to be, to sit’

with *dṷ(e)H- ‘to be separate remote.’ Furthermore, this semantic and cognitive polarity

between *Hes- and *Hēs- with *dṷ(e)H- ultimately reflects as the relic lexical couplet in

Vedic Sanskrit āsā́t dūrā́t.

Vedic Sanskrit svāsasthá- ‘well-located nearby’

In addition to the lexical evidence of Ṛgvedic āsā́t pointing to the conjectured

existence of a Vedic Sanskrit noun xāsá- ‘near, close, etc.’ there is another word in the

Ṛgveda that might support the existence of this form. The Vedic Sanskrit word

svāsasthá-/suāsasthá- has been translated by Grassman (1638) as ‘auf gutem Sitze sich

befindend, that is, situated on a good seat’ and by Monier-Williams (1284) as ‘sitting on

a good seat.’ Both of these Vedic scholars break the word into the components su-āsa-

sthā-, literally translated as ‘good-abiding/sitting-location,’ with this word attested only

once in the following verse of the Ṛgveda.

yamé iva yátamāne yád aítam

prá vām bharan mā́nuṣā devayántaḥ
ā́ sīdataṃ svám ulokáṃ vídāne
suāsasthé bhavatam índave naḥ (10,13,2)

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 ‘When you two came, like twin sisters, engaged (in the sacrifice), the devout
mortal worshipers brought you two forward. Knowing your own place, sit near
and be well-abiding locations for our Soma.’

In this passage to the Havirdhānas, the word suāsasthé is declined in the feminine

dual and is in apposition to the word yamé, the twin-sisters. The context of this particular

verse and hymn pertains to the Soma-ritual and represents a core practice of the Vedic

sacrifice. While translators have chosen to provide a general meaning of suāsasthé as

‘sitting on a good seat,’ I provide a different interpretation. Based on the semantic and

morphological evidence of Vedic Sanskrit √ās- as an original intensive verb of the root

√as- ‘to be’ and of the semantic opposition between āsā́t with dūrā́t, an alternative

translation of suāsasthé should take into account this new information. I posit that it is

not impossible to translate suāsasthé as ‘nicely located near, well-situated close (to the

sacrifice).’ While the traditional translation of suāsasthé as ‘sitting on a good seat, etc.’ is

not incorrect, it lacks the more nuanced semantic precision conveyed by Vedic Sanskrit
x
āsá- ‘near, close, etc.,’ which comprises the central morpheme of the word su-āsa-sthā.

Furthermore, the verb ā́ sīdataṃ in this verse derives from Vedic Sanskrit √ā́+sad- ‘to sit

near, sit toward.’ The verbal prefix ā́ functions as a prepositional morpheme to express

‘direction toward, near, etc.’ and can now substantiate the deictic expression of the root
x
āsá-‘near, close, in proximity to the speaker(s)’ in the Ṛgvedic word suāsasthé.

The following table summarizes the points presented in this section of the

semantic and morphological relationship between Vedic Sanskrit √ās- ‘to sit, reside,

exist’ with √as- ‘to be’ as reflections of the original PIE grammatical feature of

inclusiveness and as a cognitive metaphor of wholeness.

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Table 4

Reflexes of PIE *Hēs- and *dṷ(e)H- in Vedic Sanskrit

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reflexes
Expression in Vedic Sanskrit
Grammatical
feature Cultural Semantic Lexical
Inclusive Wholeness Here and *Hēs- ‘to √ās- ‘to sit,
now abide, abide,
Oneness In the remain, remain (in
whole exist’ the here and
now)’
x
*Hēs-ó āsá- ‘near,
close, etc.’

*Hēs-ōt - āsā́t ‘from

the
proximity,
from near’

Exclusive Otherness There and *dṷ(e)H- No explicit

then ‘to be verbal
Twoness distant, accounted
Away separate’ for in Vedic
from the Sanskrit
whole
*dṷ(e)H-r- dūrá- ‘far
ós off, remote,
distant,
separated’

*dṷ(e)H-r- dūrā́t ‘from

ōt the
distance,
from afar’

  123  
Chapter Summary

The main points of this chapter can be summarized in the following way.

1. There existed in the archaic structure of the PIE proto-language the concept of

grammatical binarism that, according to Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, was expressed

as a distinction between inclusive versus exclusive and between inactive versus

active. This grammatical binarism was reflected in both the pronominal and

verbal system of PIE.

2. A natural evolution of the grammatical binary features of inclusive/exclusive and

of inactive/active is their development into the lexico-semantics of PIE language,

which eventually came to express the concept of wholeness, as contrasted to

otherness.

3. The fundamental representation of the inclusive/exclusive grammatical feature

may be evident in the first person non-singular pronouns that cognitively

distinguish between the ‘inclusive we’ versus ‘exclusive we.’

4. The cognitive expression of inclusiveness in lexicon and grammar was

determined whether a speaker conceptualized the speech-participant as either part

of the collective one whole or as separate and other from one’s whole.

5. In the verbal category of PIE, a binary semantic opposition of inactive and active

might possibly reflect in the distinction between *Hes- ‘to be’ and *bhuH- ‘to

become,’ which later becomes evident in the Ṛgveda both verbally, between √as-

and √bhū-, and nominally, between su-as-ti and bhū-ti.

6. PIE *Hes-, as an inactive, stative verb semantically evolved to convey a

metaphorical sense of ‘being’ in an existential state of wholeness and oneness.

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 7. PIE *Hes- produced derivative morphemes with semantic expressions of

inclusiveness and wholeness, as reflected in PIE *Hsónt- > Vedic Sanskrit sá(n)t-

‘being.’

8. PIE *Hes- developed into a secondary verbal form as the intensive verb *Hēs-,

whose meaning evolved ‘to sit, remain, exist in a place of wholeness,’ reflected in

Vedic Sanskrit √ās- ‘to sit, dwell, abide’ and in āsā́t ‘from nearby, from the place

of wholeness and inclusiveness.’ The form āsā́t was in semantic opposition to

Vedic Sanskrit dūrā́t, from PIE *dṷ(e)H- ‘to be separate, to be in two.’ PIE *Hēs-

‘to be (part of the one whole)’ can therefore be conjectured to be in semantic

contrast to *dṷ(e)H- ‘to be separate (from the one whole).’

In summary, I hypothesize that the archaic PIE binary category of inclusive and

exclusive forms the cognitive and cultural basis for a possible deeply embedded PIE idea

that conceptually equates wholeness as a metaphor for inclusiveness and being one

whole. Similarly, there may have existed the PIE notion of exclusiveness as conceptually

linked to otherness and separation. The PIE language may have reflected the cognitive

process of PIE speakers who perceived a conceptual distinction between inclusive and

exclusive speech-participants as those who were ‘with the one whole group’ and those

who were ‘other than the whole group.’ This cognitive and semantic distinction between

inclusiveness and exclusiveness occurs in relic lexical fragments in the Ṛgveda.

Specifically, the notion of inclusiveness can likely be seen to reflect in the Vedic Sanskrit

verbs √as- and √ās-, and their derivatives, that mean respectively ‘to be,’ and ‘to sit,

dwell (in a place or state of oneness and wholeness),’ a cognitive state that the speaker

identified as ‘inclusive’ of the ‘one whole.’

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 7) Wholeness as a Cognitive Metaphor for Individuation and Interiocity

The previous chapters presented the case that the notion of oneness and

inclusiveness were cognitive metaphors of wholeness conveyed in both grammar and

lexico-semantics within PIE and Vedic language. This chapter explores another possible

metaphor for wholeness in PIE and in Vedic Sanskrit as an ameliorative semantic

connotation of ‘good, dear, beloved.’ Furthermore, textual evidence from both PIE and

Vedic Sanskrit explore the possible notion of how the concepts of ‘good, dear, beloved’

further developed semantically in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit to connote a reflexive and

possessive meaning of ‘one’s own’ in both an individual and collective sense. The way in

which these notions of endearment and reflexivity may have been lexically expressed was

by certain derivational morphemes of PIE *Hes- and of Vedic Sanskrit √as- ‘to be.’ This

chapter explores the grammatical features of individuation and interiocity in linguistic

typology to provide another explanation of how the PIE verbal root *Hes- and Vedic

Sanskrit √as- ‘to be’ became a possible metaphor for the notion of wholeness in the

Ṛgveda. Lexical evidence from Vedic Sanskrit and from other IE languages will be

provided to demonstrate the possible cognitive and cultural expressions of wholeness as

metaphors for individuation and interiocity in PIE and Ṛgvedic language.

The Linguistic Features of Individuation and Interiocity

An alternative hypothesis to Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s framework of

grammatical binarism based on an axis of animacy, is another one postulated by Comrie,

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whose comprehensive study on language universals and linguistic typology adds that

another distinction can be based on the grammatical feature of individuation. Adding to

Gamrelidze and Ivanov’s perspectives on animacy, Comrie states, “…the reason why

animacy is of linguistic relevance is because essentially the same kinds of conceptual

distinction are found to be structural relevance across a wide range of languages” (185).

However, Comrie also claims that the linguistic feature of animacy provides only a

partial understanding of the grammatical and lexico-semantic structure of a language. He

substantiates this point by saying, “animacy interacts with other parameters, rather than

being relevant entirely on its own, in many languages, so that a single phenomenon in a

given language…may require reference to both animacy and, for instance, definiteness,

or topicality (186). One of these linguistic parameters that Comrie identifies in linguistic

typology is that of individuation. He believes that instead of a classification based on

animacy,

A second possibility would be to try and reduce the animacy hierarchy to a

hierarchy of individuation or, what is essentially the same, a hierarchy of salience.
Salience relates to the way in which certain actants present in a situation are
seized on by humans as foci of attention, only subsequently attention being paid
to less salient, less individuated objects (199).

Connecting the linguistic process of individuation with human cognition, in

Ferreira’s abstract of her dissertation she discusses the nature of individuation in

language acquisition. Speaking on the nature of human cognition and language she states,

Human cognition is conceived here as a particular form of cognition, one that

characterises organisms that in the course of their interactions, produce symbolic
forms, defining the specific physical, social, cultural and linguistic environments
in which they evolve…individuation is presented as inherent to the semiotic
process that grounds any form of cognition” (abstract page).

Furthermore, Frawley discusses the notion of conceptual individuation in language by

saying, “An entity has been defined as an individuated, relatively atemporal region in

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conceptual space. Languages may also make reference to the degree of individuation of

an entity. This is specificity, the uniqueness of the entity or, in more philosophical terms,

the relative singularity of the denotation” (69). Frawley elaborates on the concept of

individuation by connecting it to the linguistic notion of interiocity, which he defines as

“the containedness of an entity or the way that an entity differentiates its inside from its

outside” (125). How then do the linguistic concepts of individuation and interiocity,

evident in human cognition and language, manifest in PIE language and in the Ṛgveda

with regard to the concept of wholeness?

The PIE Concept of Wholeness as a Metaphor for Individuation and Interiocity

Before discussing the notion of wholeness in PIE and Ṛgvedic language, it is

important to define explicitly how I use use the terms individuation and interiocity in this

research. I employ the word individuation in this study in a very specific way that slightly

differs from its traditional definition in lexical semantics and other disciplines. In a study

of individuation and identity Linnebo posits distinct meanings of the word individuation

by stating that there exist two

…senses of the word ‘individuation’—one semantic, the other metaphysical. In

the semantic sense of the word, to individuate an object is to single it out for
reference in language or in thought. The problem discussed above of how this
singling out is effected is thus a problem concerning semantic individuation. By
contrast, in the metaphysical sense of the word, the individuation of objects has to
do with ‘what grounds their identity and distinctness’” (3).

To these definitions can be added another usage of the word individuation found in

Jungian psychology, which Stein defines as, “The process of psychic development that

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leads to the conscious awareness of wholeness” (233)9. My use of the word individuation

in this research is integral spanning all three distinct meanings found in linguistics,

philosophy, and psychology, as all three fields pertain to the study of human language

and cognition.

The work’s use of the word individuation can be seen in PIE language as a

synthesis of lexical semantics that establishes a speaker’s cognitive identity within the

conceptual landscape combined with the meaning of individuation in the fields of

psychology and metaphysical philosophy where the speaker(s) establishes a conscious

distinction between one’s self and the other. Similarly, the word interiocity has a specific

meaning that I use, which combines Frawley’s definition of a speaker(s) cognitive sense

of contaidnessness with a definition of the degree by which a speaker(s) distinguishes

between what is part of the individual’s conceptual whole.

Based on Comrie’s postulation that the grammatical feature of animacy can be

reframed by an axis structured on individuation and on Frawley’s assertion of the

connection between individuation and interiocity, I posit a new conceptual model of

wholeness in PIE that later perhaps reflected in the Ṛgveda. In my opinion it is possible

to reframe Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s PIE linguistic model of binarism between

animate/inanimate, active/inactive into one based on individuation/division and

interiocity/exteriocity. In this possible theoretical model the notion of wholeness in PIE

and Ṛgvedic language is framed within a specific cognitive parameter–one, which I

conjecture, whereby speaker(s) conceptualizes the physical, social, cultural and

                                                                                                                         

9
It is interesting that the etymology of the word individuation derives from Latin in-dividus ‘not
separated in two, i.e whole and integral.’

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cosmological environment based on a cognitive and linguistic distinction of individuation

and interiocity in contrast with division and exteriocity.

The earlier chapter on ‘Wholeness as a Metaphor for Oneness’ presented the

hypothesis that PIE *sem- was originally a deictic marker conveying the meaning of

‘here and now,’ as opposed to *du- as the deictic marker for ‘there and then.’ I believe

that this binary conceptual distinction in PIE possibly implies a deeper cognitive

phenomenon by which the speaker(s) differentiate between grammatical morphemes not

only based on animacy but on individuation and interiocity. The PIE deictic root *sem-

‘one whole, here and now,’ eventually reflected in Vedic Sanskrit as the root saṃ-,

possibly may also have become a lexical expression for the grammatical features of

individuation and interiocity. Conversely, the PIE root *du- ‘separate, other, there and

then,’ and its numerous morphological derivatives both in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit, may

have developed into various cognitive metaphors to connote something perceived as

divided, distinct and exterior from the referential perspective of the speaker(s).

Adding to this notion of PIE *sem- possibly expressing individuation and

interiocity, I now present the case that a cognitive expression of individuation and

interiocity as a metaphor for wholeness may likely be further evident in PIE *Hes- ‘to

be.’ Furthermore, the derivational morphemes *H(e)su- and *(H)su- ‘good, dear,

beloved’ and the grammatical morpheme for reflexivity *(H)su-e ‘one’s own, oneself’

may reveal a deeper cognitive and semantic expression of wholeness as a metaphor for

both individuation and interiocity. A detailed discussion of the PIE morphemes *H(e)su-

and *(H)su- and its possible other derivative *(H)su-e ‘own, oneself’ follows with lexical

evidence of their reflexes in the Ṛgveda and other IE languages.

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PIE *Hes- ‘To Be,’ *H(e)su- ‘Good,’ and *Hsṷe- ‘Own’ as Lexemes of Individuation

and Interiocity

Building upon the evidence outlined in the previous chapters that established the

PIE root *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as- as an inactive verb with stative meaning, it is

possible to contextualize these roots within the additional grammatical feature of

individuation and interiocity. In Mallory and Adams’ PIE World, they present the case

that the PIE root *H(e)su-, and its zero-grade allomorph *(H)su-, are morphologically

connected to PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ (337). As has already been attested in the previous

chapter, PIE *Hes- is a very prolific root with abundant derivational morphemes, whose

reflexes appear throughout all of the IE branches in some form. With regard to the

reflexes of PIE *H(e)su- and its allomorph *(H)su-. The list below offers a partial

attestation of their reflexes in IE languages, based on lexical data by Pokorny (706–8,

2392) and by Mallory and Adams (336).

*H(e)su-, *(H)su- ‘good, well, excellent, dear, beloved’

a. Sanskrit—su- ‘good, well, excellent, dear, beloved, right, virtuous’

b. Avestan—hu- ‘good, well, excellent, dear, beloved, right, virtuous’

c. Homeric Greek—eu- (originally from *(H)su-) ‘good, well, excellent,

dear, beloved, right, virtuous’; eū́s (originally from *H(e)su-) ‘good,

useful’

d. Hittite—āššu- ‘good, favored, dear’

e. Tocharian—sa- ‘good’

f. Old Irish—su-, so-‘good’

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 g. Germanic—su- ‘good’

h. Old Church Slavic—sъ- ‘good’

i. Lithuanian—sū- ‘good’

Semantics of Vedic Sanskrit su- in the Ṛgveda

Vedic Sanskrit appears only to attest the reflexes of the PIE zero-grade *(H)su-

with no apparent relics of the full-grade *H(e)su-. PIE *(H)su- occurs in the Ṛgveda as

the prefix su-, and its allomorph sū-, in an adjectival and adverbial sense, whose meaning

Grassmann lists as schön, wohl, gut, recht, sehr, tüchtig, respectively meaning “beautiful,

well, good, quite, very, efficiently” (1526). The attestations of this prefix in the Ṛgveda

are profuse with a unifying ameliorative semantic connotation of expressing ‘good, dear,

beautiful, etc.’ A comprehensive list of the usage of the prefix su- in the Ṛgveda occurs in

Costa’s I Composti Indoeuropei con *Dus- e *Su- and in Lubotsky’s work (1530–60).

While the morphological connection between PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ and *H(e)su-, *(H)su -

poses no issues among Indo-Europeanists, the semantic connection between these two

roots has not yet been adequately explained. In order to provide a possible explanation

into the semantic affinity between PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ and *H(e)su-, *(H)su -, and their

reflexes as Vedic Sanskrit √as- ‘to be’ and su- ‘good,’ it will be helpful to explore the

possible morphological and semantic connection between PIE *H(e)su- and the PIE

reflexive pronominal marker *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s own, oneself.’

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The PIE Reflexive Marker *(H)sṷe- and Vedic Sanskrit sva- ‘One’s Own, Oneself’

There have been considerable discussion and debate among Indo-Europeanists as

to the origin of the PIE reflexive marker *sṷe-/*sṷo- ‘oneself,’ which I conjecture can be

equally be reconstructed as *(H)sṷe-. Pokorny is in the belief that PIE *(H)su- ‘well,

good’ is the zero-grade form of PIE *sṷe-/*sṷo- ‘oneself’ and that the two forms are both

morphologically and semantically connected (1037–38). In Puddu’s informative study on

reflexives in ancient IE languages, she states,

The original meaning of *s(e)we- has given rise to even more discussion. Many
scholars (e.g., Mezger 1948…) propose a nominal etymology on the basis of
kinship names like *swesor ‘sister’ and *sweḱuros ‘father-in-law’, while
Lehmann (1992) suggests that *s(e)we- was an adjectival stem with the meaning
of ‘good, pleasant, dear.’ (256)

In Bauer’s research on archaic syntax in IE languages, she adheres to Lehmann’s

hypothesis that the PIE reflexive marker had a covalent semantic expression to mean both

‘dear’ and ‘own.’ Bauer states,

Observing that Germanic, Sanskrit, and Greek have an adjective with the two-fold
meaning ‘dear’ and ‘own’ (Germanic swaēs; Sanskrit priyás, and Greek phílos),
Lehmann assumes that the meaning ‘dear’ is original and that ‘own’ only
developed as a reflexive possessive when the middle, whose function was among
others reflexive, started to diminish and eventually disappeared. Accordingly, the
original adjectival meaning ‘dear’ (<*swe-) was readapted and used as a
possessive reflexive. Since *swe- in this meaning is widespread in Indo-European
languages its use must be early (Lehmann 1992:144). Lehmann’s assumption is
further supported by evidence from Hittite…by the ‘reflexive’ marker -za. (169)

Semantic Connection in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit between ‘One’s Own’ and

‘Dear, Good, Beloved’

The question now arises as to how specifically PIE *(H)su- ‘good, dear, beloved’

might have developed semantically to PIE *(H)sṷe- ‘own, oneself’ to become the

grammatical marker for reflexivity, both as a pronoun and an adjective. In order to

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explore this issue, it is helpful to share Lehmann’s research on this topic in greater detail.

In Lehmann’s original study of the PIE pronominal reflexive marker, which he represents

as *sṷe-, he establishes a case that the morpheme originally held a semantic meaning of

‘dear, beloved, good’ and only in later PIE did it become a grammatical marker for

reflexivity to mean ‘own, oneself.’ He cites evidence primarily from Germanic,

specifically Old English, and other IE languages to elucidate this point. Lehmann begins

his thesis by stating that PIE *sṷe- produced Old English swǣes, whose meaning

according to Bosworth and Toller’s Anglo-Saxon Dictionary is ‘(one’s) own, (one’s) own

dear, (one’s) dear, gracious, kind, agreeable, pleasant’ (139). Furthermore, Bosworth and

Toller expand on one of the definitions of swǣes by saying it “is used mostly in reference

to the connection that belongs to relationship by blood or by marriage, or to dear

companionship” (742).

To illustrate this point using an example in Modern English, I cite the words kind

and kin, or the Latin borrowings into English by the words gentility and gentle, which

both Pokorny (373–75) and Watkins (19) state are semantically and morphologically

related and go back to PIE ǵenH- ‘to give birth, beget.’ The semantics of English kin and

kind and with gentility and gentle parallel the covalent meaning of Old English swǣes

meaning both ‘dear’ and ‘one’s own.’ The English word kind and the first part of the

compound gentleman span both meanings and express simultaneously the meaning ‘dear,

agreeable, pleasant, etc’ and ‘one’s own people, family, race, i.e. kin.’ This dual semantic

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quality of English kin(d), gentle, and of Old English swǣes reflects in many of the IE

languages, both ancient and modern.10

PIE Reflexive Markers as Innovation Replacing the Grammatical Middle Voice

Returning back to Lehmann’s thesis, he continues his argument that the PIE

reflexive marker *(H)sṷe- developed from an original meaning of ‘dear, beloved, etc.’ in

the same manner as did Old English swǣes, Ancient Greek phíl(i)o-, and Vedic Sanskrit

priyá-. He reveals in his findings that both Ancient Greek phíl(i)o- and Vedic Sanskrit

priyá- not only expressed the meaning of ‘dear, beloved, etc.’ but also were the

morphemes that conveyed a reflexive semantic meaning of ‘one’s own’ (140). Lehmann

explains the situation of Ancient Greek phíl(i)os and Vedic Sanskrit priyás

simultaneously expressing semantic and grammatical reflexivity due to the gradual loss

of the middle voice in the verbal category within the late stage of PIE. Discussing the

grammatical and semantic connection between the PIE verbal category of the middle

voice with reflexivity Lehmann states,

The middle form alone indicates the reflexive possessive….As grammarians have
long noted, two voices were distinguished in Proto-Indo-European and the early
dialects: the active and the middle. The passive is a later development, still poorly
incorporated in the verb system in Vedic Sanskrit. In the earlier verb system, the
middle voice had functions subsequently expressed by reflexive and reciprocal

                                                                                                                         

10
PIE *ǵenH- ‘to give birth, beget’ shares a dual semantic quality to express both a meaning of
endearment and familial membership, e.g. Latin genus, gens- ‘tribe, clan, people’ > English
gentility; generis, gentilis ‘of the same family or clan’ > English generous, gentle; Old English
cyn ‘family, race, kind’ > English kin, kind.

  135  
 pronouns and by pronominal adjectives, as illustrated in archaic passages of
Sanskrit and Greek verse. (140–41)

The Semantics of Vedic Sanskrit priyá- in the Ṛgveda

With regard to the semantic meaning of the Vedic Sanskrit morpheme priyá-,

Mayrhofer (378–79) and Grassmann (889–91) provide the meaning of this word

respectively as ‘own, dear, beloved’ and ‘lieb, beliebt, erwünscht, sich jemand, that is,

dear, beloved, desired, oneself.’ An example of the nuanced semantic meaning of Vedic

Sanskrit priyá- occurs in the following stanza of the Ṛgveda.

priyó no astu viśpátir

hótā mandró váreṇiyaḥ
priyā́ḥ suagnáyo vayám (1,26,7)

‘Let (Agni) be our own (dear) protector of the dwelling, the pleasant desirable
priest. May we (be ones who have) a good fire for ourselves.’

I chose this stanza specifically due to word priyá- occurring twice in the same stanza with

bivalent semantic meaning of ‘dear’ and ‘own.’ In this passage to Agni, the god is

referred to as priyá- with the reflexive sense of ‘our own, dear,’ while the second usage

of the word grammatically refers back to the pronoun vayám ‘we’ to express a reflexive,

middle connotation of ‘we (for) ourselves.’ This notion of grammatical reflexivity,

originally expressed by the PIE middle voice and eventually being displaced in Vedic

Sanskrit by specific grammatical morphemes, became a productive feature by the time of

the Ṛgveda. For a detailed and excellent discussion on this topic, both Gardiner and

Kulikov expound upon this phenomenon in their respective dissertations that explore how

the usage of certain words in Vedic Sanskrit, e.g. tanū́- and ātmán-, express the notion of

‘self’ as reflexive markers replacing the original middle verbal category of PIE.

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 This covalent semantic meaning of priyá- in the Ṛgveda as ‘dear, beloved’ and

‘one’s own’ underscores Lehmann’s argument that the reflexive adjective and noun

priyá- replaced the diminishing grammatical function of the middle voice to express

reflexivity and reciprocity in the early IE languages. Lehmann further posits that a similar

situation occurred in Homeric Greek and in late Hittite where the middle voice, as a

distinct grammatical expression for verbal reflexivity, began to lose its significance.

Referring to this grammatical shift in PIE Lehmann states that, “such adaptations are

introduced when a pattern for expression of reflexivization loses its force, as did the

middle in the Indo-European dialects” (143).

PIE *(H)sṷe- ‘One’s Own, Oneself’ as a Morphological Derivative of *Hes-

‘To Be’

Returning back to Lehmann’s primary point of his study, he now posits that Old

English swǣes, Ancient Greek phíl(i)os, and Vedic Sanskrit priyá- all share the identical

semantic feature to convey simultaneously a meaning of both ‘dear, beloved’ and a

reflexive meaning of ‘one’s own, oneself.’ Based on this lexical evidence in these IE

languages, he conjectures that PIE *(H)sṷe-, the origin of Old English swǣes, could also

have held a covalent semantic meaning in PIE to express both ‘dear, beloved, etc.’ and

the new grammatical quality of reflexivity, originally governed by the PIE middle voice.

Recalling the semantic meaning of PIE *(H)su- ‘good, dear, etc.,’ I concur with

Lehmann, who conjectures that it is both semantically and morphologically plausible to

posit PIE *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s own, oneself’ as a derivational morpheme, or possible

  137  
allomorph, of PIE *(H)su-. Again, Pokorny holds a similar opinion by stating that, “*su-

is zero grade to *sṷe-” (1037–38). This statement leads Lehmann, in turn, to declare,

If related to PIE su- ‘good’, as proposed by the handbooks, the adaptation of the
adjectival *swe- in possessive force may well be comparable to that of priyás.
Since derivatives of *swe- are found as possessives in many Indo-European
languages, we must posit it in this sense for Proto-Indo-European, and proceed to
the conclusion that the middle already was losing its force in the proto-
language….On the loss of the middle voice, new devices had to be introduced for
expression of reflexive and reciprocal meaning. (144-145)

Lehmann’s findings on the grammatical and semantic nature of PIE *(H)sṷe- and

Pokorny’s opinion of the root being the full-grade of PIE *(H)su- enable a deeper insight

into the lexico-semantics of these roots in PIE and Vedic Sanskirt, as well as a revalation

into Ṛgvedic culture. Lehmann agrees with this assertion by saying, “At the same time

such examination provides insights into the cultural views of its speakers” (145).

As previously stated, Indo-Europeanists generally concur of the established

morphological connection between PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ and *(H)su- ‘good, dear, beloved.’

With Lehmann’s and Pokorny’s conjectured morphological and semantic relationship

between PIE *(H)su- ‘good, dear’ and *(H)sṷe- ‘own, oneself,’ I believe that it is

possible that the original PIE root *Hes- ‘to be’ could be the likely progenitor of both

*(H)su- ‘good, dear’ and *(H)sṷe- ‘own, oneself.’

Previous scholarship has ignored the hypothetical relationship among these three

morphemes, either having overlooked or dismissed their possible morphological and

semantic connection. I, furthermore, advance that it is possible to account for *Hes- ‘to

be,’ *(H)su- ‘good, dear,’ and *(H)sṷe-‘own, oneself’ as related morphemes that

collectively connote ‘being, existence, truth, good, dear, own, self,’ which in turn exist

within the larger semantic continuum of wholeness and oneness. I further posit that these

morphemes are metaphors for wholeness and oneness in early PIE language, reflected as

  138  
relics in Vedic Sanskrit and in the other ancient IE languages. Having outlined a

theoretical model on the morpho-semantic connection among the PIE roots *Hes- ‘to be,’

*(H)su- ‘good, dear,’ and *(H)sṷe-‘one’s own, oneself,’ the discussion can now focus on

the cultural and cognitive expressions of these roots reflected in the Ŗgveda as possible

metaphors for wholeness.

Reflexes of PIE *Hes-, *(H)su-, and *(H)sṷe as Metaphors for Wholeness in Ṛgvedic

Language and Thought

The PIE roots *Hes- ‘to be,’ *(H)su- ‘good, dear,’ and *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s own,

oneself’ respectively produce the Vedic Sanskrit verb √as- ‘to be,’ the prefix su- ‘good,’

and the adjective sva- ‘dear; own, oneself.’ The metaphorical extension of these three

roots to convey a cognitive and cultural expression of wholeness in Ṛgvedic language

and thought is possible by exploring the socio-cultural environment in which the early

speakers of PIE lived. With regard to a semantic understanding of the PIE reflexive

morpheme *(H)sṷe- Szemerényi points out,

This usage has its explanation in the social system of the extended family: in
regard to any external possessions (in contrast to ‘my foot’, etc.) there was of
course no personal ownership; everything belonged to the extended family. This
was called *swe-/*swo- ‘family, kin’ (from *sū- ‘be born’)11 and the adjectival
form *swo-s meant ‘belonging to the family’ = ‘own.’ (220–21)

There are certain words in the Ṛgveda that contain the Vedic Sanskrit root sva-

‘dear; own, oneself,’ which possibly reveal a deeper semantic expression of wholeness

                                                                                                                         

11
Szemerényi reconstructs a different etymology for PIE *swe-, which differs from the opinion
of Lehmann, Pokorny and of this author. This lack of consensus, however, does not diminish the
fact that Szemerényi still concurs that PIE *swe- semantically held a cultural expression that
conveyed a sense of ‘wholeness, oneness’ within the social unit.

  139  
and oneness in the cultural and cognitive framework of Vedic society. Specifically, the

Vedic Sanskrit words svásar- ‘sister’ and śváśuraḥ- ‘father-in-law’ are likely semantic

relics of an original PIE cultural and cognitive metaphor of wholeness and oneness.

PIE *sṷesor- and Vedic Sanskrit svásar- ‘sister’

Recalling Puddu’s statement from earlier in this chapter, she states that “Many

scholars (e.g., Mezger 1948…) propose a nominal etymology on the basis of kinship

names like *swesor ‘sister’ and *sweḱuros ‘father-in-law’”(256). It is precisely these

kinship terms that permit a deeper semantic unveiling and possible insight into early

Vedic culture and cognitive thought. As Mallory and Adams state, “One of the best-

attested areas of the reconstructed lexicon pertains to the family and kinship relations”

(203). This point is echoed among the general Indo-European academic field with the

understanding among comparative and historical linguists that certain basic vocabulary

terms possess high rates of semantic retention. Trask defines a language family’s core

vocabulary by saying that they are “words in a language which are of very high

frequency…which are more resistant to lexical replacement than other words. Among

these are personal pronouns, the lower numerals, body-part names, kinship terms…”

(39). It is this understanding of the highly retentive feature of kinship terms that fosters

an explanation into the possible archaic semantic meaning behind PIE *sṷesor- ‘sister’ as

a cultural metaphor of wholeness and oneness in PIE language, reflected later in the

Ṛgveda.

Clackson identifies some of the reflexes of the PIE kinship term *sṷesor- as

Vedic Sanskrit svásār-, Latin soror, Germanic (English) sister, Celtic (Old Irish) siur,

  140  
Baltic (Lithuanian) sesuō, and Slavic (Russian) sestrá (202). To this list, Gamkrelidze

and Ivanov add Tocharian A ṣar, Tocharian B ṣer, Avestan xvanhar-, and Greek éor

‘female relative’ (666). The widespread lexical evidence of this PIE word and its low

degree of morphological variance among several of the IE branches attest to *sṷesor-

likely being an archaic form in the PIE language. Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, and other

Indo-Europeanists, offer a meaning of this word as ‘sister, any female consanguine, or

any female member of the extended family’ and reconstruct PIE *sṷesor- as a compound

broken into the reflexive pronoun * (H)sṷe- ‘one’s own’ plus *sor- ‘woman’ with the

literal meaning of ‘one’s own woman’ (666). Furthermore the same scholars posit that

PIE *sor- ‘woman’ is a marker for the PIE feminine grammatical gender evident in such

forms as Vedic Sanskrit ti-srá- ‘three (fem.)’ and strī́- ‘woman’ (from original *srī-),

along with Hittite haššu-šara- ‘queen’ (in contrast to haššu- ‘king’) (666).

All of this lexical evidence enables Gamkrelidze and Ivanov to conclude that PIE

*sṷesor- expressed a cultural connotation of a “…woman of one’s own clan or family”

and that, “In ancient Indo-European society a woman remained ‘one’s own’, a member of

one’s extended family, until she married, whereupon she entered another family and

formed new, affinal kinship relations outside of her birth family” (666–67). It is

noteworthy to point out Gamkrelidze and Ivanov’s specific use of the phrases ‘a member

of one’s extended family’ in contrast with ‘outside of her birth family,’ as I believe this

distinction underscores a deeper cognitive expression of the PIE root *(H)sṷe- to connote

notions of inclusiveness, interiocity, and individuation of one’s own clan as ‘one whole’

social unit.

  141  
 Another example within PIE that I argue reinforces this notion of familial

inclusiveness and interiocity in PIE language and thought is the Old Irish word for

daughter ingen. Pokorny (373–75) reconstructs ingen from PIE *en-ǵenH-, which I

translate as ‘one who is born inside (the clan).’ In this sense, the Old Irish word ingen

‘daughter’ parallels the semantic function of PIE *sṷesor- as a term denoting the

perceived interiority and inclusiveness of a woman as within ‘one’s own’ clan. Friedrich

substantiates my position by stating that the reflexive meaning of the PIE prefix *(H)sṷe-

‘own, one’s own’ in *sṷesor shares a semantic meaning with Old Irish ingen by,

“Illustrating a somewhat similar conceptualization, the Pre-Irish form for ‘daughter’ can

be analyzed as ‘the one born inside’ (some sort of kinship group)” (9).

The PIE term *sṷesor-, therefore, can be considered to express two distinct

kinship terms. The first meaning of the PIE term *sṷesor- described a woman who was

originally part of the unified, whole social structure, until the point when she becomes

married and is required to leave the conceptual familial ‘whole.’ At that point of

departure from the ‘whole’ clan, she is no longer conceived of as being *sṷesor- and is

cognitively considered to be ‘outside, separate, and divided’ from the ‘one whole’ social

unit. Conversely, the second meaning of PIE *sṷesor- likely indicates a new woman

entering into the cohesive social unit from the ‘outside,’ most likely through marriage,

and becomes cognitively perceived by all members of the social unit as their *sṷesor-,

literally a woman who is now part of ‘our own’ unit.

A modern day example of this archaic concept might perhaps still be reflected in

the modern French word belle soeur ‘sister-in-law,’ whose literal meaning ‘beautiful,

beloved sister’ echoes the semantic connotation of PIE *sṷesor- as meaning both

  142  
‘beloved, dear woman part of the clan’ and ‘sister.’ Friedrich substantiates this important

point by saying, “In all these discussions it must be remembered that ‘brother’ and

‘sister’ probably referred not only to the true siblings but to the members of the

classificatory units analyzed above as ‘own woman’ or ‘clan sister’ and as ‘clan brother’”

(26).

PIE *sṷeḱuros- and Vedic Sanskrit śváśura- ‘father-in-law’

Another PIE reconstructed term of kinship is the word *sṷeḱuros-, the word for

‘father-in-law,’ which also attests a corresponding feminine noun *sṷeḱruH- ‘mother-in-

law.’ Clackson identifies reflexes of *sṷeḱuros- as Vedic Sanskrit śváśura-12, Greek

hekurós, Latin socer, Germanic (Gothic) svaihr, Celtic (Welsh) chwegrwn, Slavic

(Russian) svekor, Baltic (Lithuanian) śēśuras, Albanian vjehër, and Armenian skesrayr

(204). More precisely, the PIE kinship terms *sṷeḱuros- and *sṷeḱruH- refer respectively

to the ‘father and mother of the husband.’ Gamkrelidze and Ivanov assert this point by

saying, “Analysis of the Proto-Indo-European affinal terminology reveals one essential

feature of Indo-European kinship: only terms for husband’s relatives in relation to the

wife can be reconstructed; words for the wife’s relatives in relation to the husband are

entirely lacking” (663). This linguistic peculiarity of the asymmetrical structure within

                                                                                                                         

12
The Sanskrit phoneme -ś- in the beginning of Vedic Sanskrit śváśura- ‘father-in-law’ and
śváśrū́- ‘mother-in-law’ is likely due to regressive assimilation of the following -ś- in the second
member of the compound -śura- and -śrū́-. Thus, śváśura- and śváśrū́- were originally *sváśura-
and *sváśrū́-, as corroborated by its cognates in the other IE dialects. The case of regressive
assimilation of Sanskrit -s- > -ś- is also evident in the Vedic Sanskrit word for ‘beard,’ śmáśru- <
*smáśru-.

  143  
PIE kinship terms has led Indo-Europeanists, such as Mallory in his In Search of the

Indo-Europeans, to state, “All linguistic evidence suggests that Proto-Indo-European

society was patrilineal in descent and male dominated….This suggests that the residence

rules of the Proto-Indo-European involved the woman going to live in the house of her

husband or with his family” (123).

This feature of PIE culture likely being patrilineal and patrilocal now permits a

better understanding of the PIE words *sṷeḱuros- and *sṷeḱruH- in a cultural context

based on individuation and interiocity. According to Gamkrelidze and Ivanov PIE

*sṷeḱuros- can be segmented into the reflexive marker *(H)sṷe-‘one’s own’ plus the

morpheme *ḱ(u)r- ‘head,’ which they state, “could thus have meant ‘head of family, head

of one’s own people….This can be seen as an indication of the dominant position of the

father in the extended family, with his sons and their wives subordinate to him” (663).

Expanding on the semantic import and cultural significance of the PIE morpheme

*(H)sṷe- in the term *sṷeḱuros-, Friedrich states,

Swe- (discussed above in connection with sweso:r) appears to have been

conjoined with a morpheme for ‘chief, power’ (ḱrwH-), plus affixes denoting sex
gender…Such etymological transparency suggests that at some time during PIE
unity…the woman shifted from a previous usage to these special descriptive
compounds for the husband’s parents. Paralleling this hypothetical but likely
development, we find that as late as Homeric and Vedic times men were still
using generic terms with the notion of ‘own, attached’ for the wife’s father
(Homeric pentherós and Vedic sambándhin, both deriving from PIE bhendh-
‘bind, attach’). (11)

PIE *(H)sṷe- and Vedic Sanskrit sva- as a Cognitive Expression of

Individuation and Interiocity and Metaphor for Wholeness

Based on the established scholarship of the semantic and cultural expression of

PIE *(H)sṷe-, evident in the archaic kinship terms *sṷesor-, *sṷeḱuros-, it is possible to

  144  
conceptualize a deeper cognitive meaning of PIE *(H)sṷe- and its Vedic Sanskrit reflex

sva-. I posit that *(H)sṷe- did not merely mean ‘one’s own, oneself, etc.’ but perhaps

expressed a deeper cognitive connotation of unity, inclusiveness, containedness,

individuation, and interiocity that bound an individual into a social unit together as a

conceptual ‘one whole.’ In this sense the PIE social unit, expressed lexically by *(H)sṷe-,

reflected in *sṷesor- and *sṷeḱuros-, became ‘individuated’ and ‘interiorally self-

contained’ as a clan or familial group, in cognitive contrast to all those who were

perceived to be ‘outside.’ Recalling my usage of the term individuation, it establishes a

speaker’s cognitive identity within the conceptual terrain enabling the speaker(s) to make

a conscious distinction between what is *(H)sṷe-, that is, what belongs to one’s own self,

group, or community, versus what is *dṷe(H)-, that is, perceived as the ‘other.’ I

summarize these points discussed in the following table.

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Table 5

Reflexes of the Grammatical Features of Individuation and Interiocity in PIE and Vedic
Sanskrit

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reflexes
Expression in Vedic Sanskrit
Grammatical
feature Cultural Semantic Lexical
Individuation Individual Wholeness *(H)sṷe- sva- ‘one’s
and Oneness ‘one’s or own, self’
collective the
self- collective’s
identification own’

Interiocity Individual Bounded *sṷesor- svásar-

and sense of Integral ‘one’s or ‘sister’
self- the
containdness collective’s
woman,
i.e. sister’

*sṷeḱuros- śváśura-
‘one’s or ‘father-in-
the law’
collective’s
head, i.e.
husband’s
father’

Further Evidence of the Morphosemantic Connection between PIE *Hes- ‘To Be’

and *(H)su- ‘Good’

Having outlined the likely morphological relationship among the PIE roots *Hes-

‘to be,’ *(H)su- ‘good,’ and *(H)sṷe- ‘own,’ the task is now to establish the possible

semantic link that these roots might share. Lexical data from the Ṛgveda and from other

  146  
early IE dialects, specifically Hittite, might provide a plausible explanation unifying these

morphemes into a larger semantic continuum of wholeness and oneness.

The Evidence in Archaic Hittite Texts

The earliest lexical evidence of the possible semantic connection among the

notions of ‘being,’ ‘good,’ ‘dear,’ and ‘own’ in the IE languages might be found in the

Anatolian branch, specifically in the Hittite language. According to the Hittite Inherited

Lexicon there exists the Hittite verbal root āšš- ‘to be loved, to be good,’ which this

source states, “must in some way be cognate with the substantive āššu- / āššaṷ- ‘good,

dear, favourable’, but the exact connection is unclear” (257). This uncertainty refers to

whether the verb āšš- ‘to be loved, to be good’ or the substantive āššu- / āššaṷ- ‘good,

dear, favourable’ is the original morpheme in Anatolian, and therefore, conjectured for

the PIE language.

The same work resolves this question by arguing that if the Anatolian form āššu-

‘good, dear, etc.’ is to be cognate with Greek eús, ēús ‘good’ and Vedic Sanskrit su-

‘good,’ one has to reconstruct āššu- as deriving from a reduplicated o-grade ablaut form

*h1o-h1s-u-. Furthermore, the same work claims that the PIE reconstructed form *h1o-

h1s-u- is a reduplicated morpheme from the original PIE root *h1es- ‘to be.’13 As a

reduplicated e-grade ablaut *h1e-h1s-u-, this form now is able to account for Ancient

Greek ēús, while in its zero-grade ablaut *h1h1s-u produces Ancient Greek eús and Vedic

Sanskrit sú- (266–67). Based on the argument presented by the Hittite Inherited Lexicon,

it is now possible for Indo-Europeanists to reconstruct PIE *(H)su- ‘good, dear’ as the
                                                                                                                         

13
*h1es- is an alternate representation by some Indo-Europeanists of PIE *Hes-

  147  
product of the zero-grade ablaut form *H-Hs-u- ‘good, dear.’ All of this evidence permits

the Hittite Inherited Lexicon to state, “…it is likely that the verb āšš-a(ri)…’to be loved’ is

derived from āššu- and not the other way around” (267). In turn, this conclusion enables

IE scholars to posit that PIE *(H)su- ‘good, dear’ is an archaic morpheme in PIE, the

importance of which now becomes evident.

The PIE suffix *-u- as the Missing Morphological Link

Returning to the main point of inquiry, how does the morphological connection

between PIE *He-Hs-u- and its zero-grade allomorph *H-Hs-u- ‘good, dear’ with PIE

*Hes- ‘to be’ offer possible insight into any semantic affinity between these roots with

regard to the concept of wholeness? The morphological missing link may likely be the

PIE suffix *-u-. In Puhvel’s “Hittite aššu” he presents further lexical evidence within

Hittite and the reconstructed PIE language to explain how the PIE suffix *-u- reflects in a

number of derivational morphemes that produce adjectives from original verbal forms.

He states that there exists a “collaterality of primary verb and u-stem adjective” in both

the Anatolian branch and the reconstructed PIE language (66). He continues to say, “…a

productive relationship persists between basic verbs and u-stem derivatives (e.g. huišu-

from hueš- [just quoted]14, harpu- ‘hostile’ from harp- ‘separate’, hatku- ‘tight’ from

hatk- ‘squeeze, shut’, šarku- ‘prominent’ from šark- ‘rise’)” (67).

I believe that Puhvel’s evidence now provides a missing element to the findings

of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon that the substantive āššu- ‘good, dear, favorable’ is

original to the verbal form āšš- ‘to be loved, to be good.’ While the Hittite Inherited

                                                                                                                         

14
huišu- ‘live, raw’ from hueš- ‘live.’

  148  
Lexicon conjectures that the adjective āššu- ‘good, dear, favorable’ produced the

secondary denominative verbal form āšš- ‘to be loved, to be good,’ Puhvel’s hypothesis

would have to place the Hittite adjective āššu- as a derivational morpheme from an even

earlier Hittite verb, in the same process that other u-stem adjectives originate from basic

verbs. Based on Puhvel’s observations on the collaterality between early Hittite verbal

forms with their derivational u-stem adjectives, Indo-Europeanists are able to postulate

that the progenitor of the Hittite adjective āššu- ‘dear, good’ is the Hittite verb aš- ‘to be.’

Puhvel’s model can now be applied to the PIE language confirming PIE *(H)su- ‘good,

dear’ as a derivational u-stem adjective from an original PIE verb *Hes- ‘to be.’ Puhvel’s

research into the Hittite language and the findings of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon are

relevant as they assist in establishing an explanation for the possible semantic evolution

of the archaic u-stem adjective (H)su- ‘good, dear, etc.’ as a metaphorical development

from *Hes- ‘to be.’

Semantic Concatenation and Continuum of Wholeness and Being

It is now possible to conceptualize the PIE and Ṛgvedic notion of being,

expressed by PIE *Hes- and by Vedic Sanskrit √as-, as a semantic concatenation that

constitutes a larger semantic continuum of wholeness and oneness. In Puhvel’s work he

establishes a semantic chain in Hittite that conceptually links the notion of being with the

idea of good as part of a greater semantic continuum. He states that “a chain of semantic

developments” linking the Hittite verbal participle ašant ‘being’ with aššu- ‘good’ can be

established in the following manner–‘being’ > ’real’ > ‘true’ > ‘good’ (67). In his article

Puhvel cites textual examples from the Hittite corpus where the word ašant ‘being’ can

  149  
be shown to connote a meaning of ‘true,’ analogous in both form and meaning to Ṛgvedic

sá(n)t-. The example Puhvel uses to demonstrate his assertion is a line from the

Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi (KUB) texts of the Hittite corpus in the Hittite phrase

ašanza memiaš (KUB XXXIII 109 I 5), which Puhvel translates as “the matter [is] true”

(67). Similar to the semantic covalency of Hittite ašant to connote both ‘being’ and

‘truth,’ is the parallel development in Vedic Sanskrit of the word sá(n)t-. Just as Hittite

ašant ‘being’ is the present active participle of the original Hittite verb aš- ‘to be,’ so too

is Vedic Sanskrit sá(n)t- the present active participle of √as- ‘to be.’ Both Hittite ašant

and Vedic Sanskrit sá(n)t- are reflexes of the reconstructed PIE present active participle

*Hsont- and its zero-grade ablaut allomorph *Hsṇt- from the verb *Hes- ‘to be.’

PIE *Hsont- and Ṛgvedic sá(n)t- as ‘Being, Reality, and Truth’

In the Ṛgveda the semantic development of Vedic Sanskrit sá(n)t- to express the

simultaneous notions of ‘truth’ and ‘being’ is evident in the following stanzas.

suvijñānáṃ cikitúṣe jánāya

sác cā́sac ca vácasī paspṛdhāte
táyor yát satyáṃ yatarád ŕ̥jīyas
ít sómo avati hántyā́sat (7,104,12)

‘For the person who perceives it is easy to discern the truth (real, being) from the
untruth (unreal, non-being); the two words oppose each other. Of these two, the
one which is true and (up)right Soma indeed favors, he destroys the untruth (non-
being).’

anyád adyá kárvaram anyád u śvó

ásac ca sán múhur ācakrír índraḥ
mitró no átra váruṇaś ca pūṣā́
aryó váśasya parietā́ asti (6,24,5)

‘Another act today, another tomorrow, Indra in every moment transforms non-
existence to existence. Here for us is Mitra, Varuṇa, and Pūṣan, the subduer of the
enemy’s will.’

  150  
In both of these stanzas the semantic force behind the Vedic Sanskrit participle sá(n)t-

underscores its covalent meaning of ‘truth, existence, reality.’ Conversely, in both of

these stanzas the word ása(n)t- ‘non-reality, non-existence, falsehood’ occurs in semantic

opposition to the participle sá(n)t-. This binary semantic contrast between sá(n)t- and

ása(n)t- becomes a common motif throughout the subsequent Vedic and Upaniṣadic

philosophical literature, as evidenced in the famous verse asato mā sadgamaya ‘Lead me

from the Unreal to the Real’ (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1,3,28). The semantic link

between Vedic Sanskrit √as- ‘to be’ and the notion of truth is further evident in the word

satyá- ‘truth’ as a derivational morpheme of the participle sá(n)t-. I believe that the

semantic distinction between Vedic Sanskrit sá(n)t- and ása(n)t- is an expression of a

deeper binarism between wholeness versus otherness, which can be summarized

succinctly in the following way.

Table 6

Semantics of Vedic Sanskrit sá(n)t and ása(n)t-

sá(n)t-   ása(n)t-  
Wholeness Otherness
Otherness   Twoness  
Order   Chaos  
Truth   Falsehood  
Being   Non-Being  
Existence   Non-existence  
 

  151  
 Semantic Concatenation from Hittite aš- ‘To Be’ to Hittite aššu- ‘Good,

Dear, Favorable’

Puhvel also discusses how the semantic meaning of Hittite aššu- ‘good, dear,

favorable’ became part of the semantic concatenation of the Hittite verb aš- ‘to be.’ He

states,

Hittite aššu-, on the other hand, does not basically denote that which is
intrinsically and objectively good (as would inherently IE *Ẹsú-15) but rather that
which is felt to be agreeable…It is therefore advisable to start with the sense
‘favored, dear’ which is so prominent with aššu-, e.g. :

KBo III 22 Vs. 2 (OHitt.) DIM-unni āššuš ēšta ‘he was dear to the storm-god’.

KBo XXII 22 Vs. 2 (OHitt.) ūk-wa a[tt]i-m[i] [natt]a āššuš ‘I (am) not dear to my
father’.

KUB XIX 26 I 17 kuiš-a antuwahhaš ITTI LUGAL SAL.LUGAL āššuš ‘what

man (is) in favor with king (and) queen’…. (67)

Citing the above texts from the Old Hittite corpus, Puhvel demonstrates that the semantic

meaning of Hittite āššu- originally had a connotation of ‘one who is favored, dear,

beloved.’ He continues to say, “From ‘favored, dear’ the meaning developed to

‘favorable, agreeable’ (e.g. KUB XXVI 12 II 25 [š]umēšš-aš āššuš kuedanikki ‘he is

favorable to one of you’; KBo XVII 65 Vs. 55 mašiwan A NA EN SISKUR.SISKUR āššu

‘as much as [is] agreeable to the sacrificer’) and thence to ‘good’ in a “utilitarian” sense”

(67).

Based on the textual evidence in the Hittite corpus, Puhvel offers a plausible

semantic connection from the notion of ‘favored, dear’ to a general sense of ‘good’

expressed by the Hittite word aššu-. His argument substantiates the semantic

concatenation that he posits earlier–‘being’ > ’real’ > ‘true’ > ‘good.’ Using Puhvel’s
                                                                                                                         

15
This is Puhvel’s representation of PIE *(H)su- ‘good.’

  152  
model as a framework, I embellish upon his fundamental structure by integrating

Pokorny’s and Lehmann’s hypotheses of PIE *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s own, oneself’ being the

morphological and semantic derivative of PIE *(H)su- ‘good, dear, favorable, beloved.’

Expanding upon Pokorny’s and Lehmann’s findings and hypotheses, I expand

Puhvel’s semantic concatenation in the following manner–‘to be’ 

‘being/real/existence’  ‘truth’  ‘good/dear’  ‘one’s own.’ The corresponding

lexical expressions of this semantic concatenation in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit can be

summarized in the following table.

  153  
Table 7

Metaphorical Expressions of PIE *Hes- and Vedic Sanskrit √as-

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reflexes
in Vedic Sanskrit
Grammatical,
semantic, Vedic Vedic
cognitive PIE PIE Sanskrit Sanskrit
expression Lexeme Meaning Lexeme Meanig
Wholeness *Hes- ‘to be’ √as- ‘to be’
Oneness
Inactive

Inclusiveness *Hsont- ‘being’ sánt- ‘being’

Stative *Hsṇt- ’real’ sát- ’real’
Existential ‘existence ‘existence

Totality *Hsṇt-io ‘truth’ satyá- ‘truth’

Permanence

Endearment *(H)su- ‘good’ su- ‘good’

Reflexivity ‘dear’ ‘dear’

Individuation *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s sva- ‘one’s

Interiocity own’ own’
Containedness

  154  
Chapter Summary

It is now possible to broaden the theoretical framework regarding the PIE and

Ṛgvedic cognitive metaphor of wholeness by viewing it through the grammatical features

of individuation and interiocity. It has already been discussed in previous chapters that

the PIE grammatical concordance between nouns and verbs dictated the use of inactive

verbs to express inactive nouns and concepts. One such inactive verb that I conjecture is

the PIE root *Hes- and its Vedic Sanskrit reflex √as- ‘to be.’ The lexical evidence within

the Ṛgveda and in the other early IE texts suggest a possible grammatical function of

*Hes- and √as- as an original inactive verb with stative meaning to convey a cognitive

expression of individuation and interiocity, with a cultural expression of endearment and

of group-identity.

The grammatical feature of individuation is intimately linked to the cognitive and

cultural notion of both self and communal identity. In Frawley’s study he uses the term

‘degree of individuation’ to express the extent by which speaker(s) place on the ‘relative

singularity of the denotation’ (69). Adapting Frawley’s statement within the context of

this current research, I coin the terms relative oneness and wholeness of the denotation,

which I define as the degree of individuation the speaker(s) places on the denotative

object, person, or entity. The degree of individuation by which speaker(s) perceives

individual and collective identity as a state of wholeness within the conceptual landscape

frames and determines the way these denotative objects become lexically expressed

within one’s specific language As Linnebo asks,

What is the relation between the semantic notion of individuation and the notion
of a criterion of identity? According to the approach to the problem of reference
with which I will be concerned, there is a very close relation. It is by means of
criteria of identity that semantic individuation is effected. To single out an object

  155  
 for reference involves being able to distinguish this object from other possible
referents (3).

I suggest that in PIE language, and subsequently reflected in the Ṛgveda, the

notion of individuation and identity, whether personal or collective, was likely expressed

through the verbal root *Hes- ‘to be.’16 The grammatical and cognitive concept of

individuation can further be constructed within a semantic concatenation based on the

PIE verb *Hes-. This semantic chain begins with PIE *Hes- meaning ‘to be, being’ with

the other end of the chain expressing ‘good, dear, beloved’ by the PIE root *(H)su-,

which further develops into the PIE reflexive pronoun *(H)sṷe- to express the meaning of

‘own, beloved, dear.’ This semantic continuum from PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ to the PIE lexeme

*(H)sṷe- ‘own, beloved, dear’ can be explained as a cognitive process by which the

speaker(s) indentifies a conscious distinction between what belongs to one’s self or to

one’s own group in cognitive contrast to what is perceived as ‘the other.’ To recall

Szemerényi’s statement regarding the cultural and cognitive expression of PIE *(H)sṷe-,

“…there was of course no personal ownership; everything belonged to the extended

family. This was called *swe-/*swo- ‘family, kin’…and the adjectival form *swo-s meant

‘belonging to the family’ = ‘own’” (220-221).

Intimately connected to the linguistic function of individuation is the notion of

interiocity. As Comrie states the grammatical and cognitive feature of individuation is

established by the speaker identifying, “…what is essentially the same, a hierarchy of

salience” based on “foci of attention…” (199). I belive that this cognitive process existed

in PIE language that enabled speaker(s) to identify those members of the ‘one whole’ via
                                                                                                                         

16
I also conjecture that the deictic root *sem- ‘one whole, connected, united’ may also have
expressed a similar cognitive notion of individuation and interiocity.

  156  
various ‘foci of attention’ based on the salience of ‘sameness, oneness, and wholeness.’

Furhermore, in Frawley’s definition of the grammatical notion of interiocity, he expresses

it as “the containedness of an entity or the way that an entity differentiates its inside from

its outside” (125).

I conjecture that while individuation was likely based on cognitive ‘foci of

attention,’ interiocity was perhaps established on cognitive ‘loci of attention.’ These loci

of attention were perhaps physical, determined by geography, or possibly cognitive,

established on conceptual boundaries of wholeness. Whatever or whoever was contained

within the physical or cognitive locus of attention from the relative perspective of the

speaker(s) was termed by the PIE lexeme *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s own,’ as they were perceived

also to be *(H)su- ‘good, dear, beloved.’ Additionally, I postulate that PIE language

equated interiocity as that which speaker(s) conceptualized as being one’s own. In this

sense the linguistic feature of interiocity semantically unites PIE *Hes- ‘to be’ with

*(H)sṷe- ‘one’s own’ to encompass all which is cognitively interior and contained within

the foci and loci of the individual or collective boundary.

In summary, all which or whom speaker(s) cognitively identify as being close to,

part of, or as the same foci of attention or loci of proximity in relationship to the

speaker(s) are more individuated and interior than those who are identified as being

separate from the whole. In my opinion it is therefore possible to conceptualize

wholeness and oneness in PIE language and thought as a continuum of personal and

collective identity based on relative degrees of individuation and interiocity. In the PIE

language, individuation and interiocity were perhaps expressed by the PIE verb *Hes- ‘to

be’ and through its derivational morpheme *(H)sṷe- ‘one’s own.’

  157  
 In the Ṛgveda, the Vedic Sanskrit word sva- ‘one’s own, oneself, etc.,’ as the

reflex of PIE *(H)sṷe- possibly expressed simultaneous grammatical, cognitive, and

cultural functionality. Grammatically, sva- overtook the function of the PIE middle verbs

to connote reflexivity. The morpheme’s cognitive function assisted Vedic Sanskrit

speaker(s) to identify denotative objects as either ‘one’s own’ or ‘part of the collective

whole,’ while the cultural function of sva- was structured around personal and collective

individuation and interiocity as a metaphor to connote wholeness and oneness in Ṛgvedic

language and thought.

  158  
 8) Otherness as a Metaphor for Twoness

In the chapter on “Wholeness as a Metaphor for Oneness” I suggest that the PIE

numeral ‘two’ *du̯oH(u)- expressed the concept of twoness as a cognitive metaphor of

otherness. Just as the concept of wholeness was perhaps a cognitive metaphor of oneness,

the discussion now turns to how the notion of otherness was possibly a cognitive

metaphor that expressed twoness in PIE and Ṛgvedic language. In this chapter I present

the case that PIE *du̯oH(u)- expressed the concept of twoness as a cognitive expression

of otherness reflected in both the grammar and lexico-semantics of early PIE language. I

also suggest that the numeral *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ was in semantic contrast to both PIE *sem-

‘one, whole, together’ and *Hes- ‘to be’ as cognitive expressions of wholeness.

Furthermore, I conjecture that it is possible to posit the semantic contrast between

wholeness versus otherness as binarism between the notions of ‘one’ and ‘two’ in a larger

cognitive, conceptual, and cultural context within the Ṛgveda.

Binary Contrast between ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ in PIE Language

I have already suggested that PIE *(H)su- ‘good’ was a metaphor that developed

morphologically and semantically from PIE *Hes- ‘to be.’ The conjectured antonym of

PIE *(H)su- is *du(H)s-17 ‘bad, foul.’ Mallory and Adams state, “The prefix *dus- ‘bad’,

or in English terms, ‘un-’ or ‘ill-’, is well attested across the Indo-European world (e.g.

                                                                                                                         

17
The representation of this morpheme is generally *dus-. The alternative representation of the
medial -H- laryngeal in *du(H)s- that I use in this research reflects the possible position that
*du(H)s- is cognate with the other PIE root *deuH(s)- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior.’ A
point that I discuss further in this chapter.

  159  
OIr do- ‘bad, mis-’, OE tor- ‘un-’, NHG zer- [verbal prefix], Grk dus- ‘bad, mis-’, Av

duš- ‘bad, mis-’, Skt duṣ- ‘bad, mis-’); Lat dif- may be cognate here (339). The question

now arises if the PIE prefix *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’ can be reconstructed from an even

earlier PIE root, in a manner analogous to PIE *(H)su- ‘good’ originating from PIE *Hes-

‘to be?’ To current knowledge a definitive response and detailed examination on this

issue appear to be lacking in IE scholarship. Despite the dearth of research on this

specific question, Indo-Europeanists agree that PIE *(H)su- held an ameliorative

semantic connotation of ‘good,’ while *du(H)s- connoted a pejorative semantic

connotation of ‘bad.’ In order to ascertain if PIE *du(H)s- was perhaps a morphological

derivative from a conjectured earlier root, akin to *(H)su- < *Hes-, it is helpful to explore

the morpho-semantic connections between PIE *du(H)s ‘bad, foul’ and *du̯oH(u)- ‘two.’

The Morpho-semantic Relationship between PIE *du(H)s- ‘Bad’ and

*du̯oH(u)- ‘Two’

In Mallory and Adams’ PIE World they state, “The number ‘two’ was *dwoh3(u)-

(neuter: *dwoih1)18 which may have originally been *du but was progressively extended

by suffixes to indicate ‘duality’…” (310). If this assertion by Mallory and Adams is

correct and PIE deictic root *du- ‘there, other, etc.’ is the origin of the PIE numeral

*du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’ can a similar connection be established between PIE *du- and the prefix

*du(H)s- ‘bad, foul?’ I conjecture that it is possible, with the missing morphological and
                                                                                                                         

18
In Adams and Mallory’s reconstruction of the basic PIE root *dwoh3(u)-, also written as
*du̯oh3(u)-, they posit the reconstructed laryngeal cluster *-oh3-, which is phonologically
equivalent to the reconstructed phoneme *-ō- encountered in *du̯ō(u)-. I favor the alternate
reconstruction *du̯oH(u)-, equivalent in form to *du̯oh3(u)-, *dwoh3(u)-, and *du̯ō(u)-.

  160  
semantic link that places *du(H)s- into the same semantic field of otherness along with

PIE *du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’ is perhaps the PIE verb *deuH(s)- ‘lack, be distant, deficient,

inferior.’19

PIE *deuH(s)- ‘Lack, Be Distant, Deficient, Inferior’

With regard to PIE *deuH(s)- Mallory and Adams state in PIE World, “Although

*deu(s)-20 indicates lack of energy or colour in OE tēorian ‘faint, grow weary; fade [of

colours]’ > NE tire, it indicates a more general ‘lack’ in Grk déomai and not only ‘want’

but also ‘crime’ in Indic (Skt doṣa-)” (274). They add that in the PIE language, “There

are a series of terms for lacking or poverty (*deu(s)- ‘be lacking’…” (285). In addition to

this semantic definition of PIE *deuH(s)-, Pokorny adds the meaning ‘to move forward,

pass’ and reconstructs the various allomorphic roots *deu-, deṷ∂-21, dṷā-, dū- (477). The

LIV lists the root as *deus- ‘bedürfen, ermangeln, that is, to need, lack’ (107). In

Watkins’ Indo-European Roots he defines *deu- as ‘to lack, be wanting’ and states that

English tire originally meant ‘to fall behind’ and is cognate with the Greek verb dein ‘to

lack, want’ (12). In this sense, English tire < Germanic *teuzōn, Greek dein < de(u)in,

                                                                                                                         

19
This definition of PIE *deuH(s)- is my own, synthesized from those by Pokrny, Mallory and
Adams, Watkins, and the LIV.

20
Mallory and Adams (and a number of other IE scholars) opt to reconstruct this root without the
-H- laryngeal, while Pokorny and the Hittite Inherited Lexicon reconstruct the laryngeal. Either
way is valid and can still account for the various reflexes of the original PIE form among the
descendant languages. I favor the form *deuH(s)- in this research.

21
PIE deṷ∂- can also be written as *deuH-.

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and Sanskrit doṣa- are all morphologically and semantically related tracing back to PIE

*deuH(s)- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior.’

The morphological connection between PIE *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’ with *deuH(s)-

‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior’ now becomes more transparent, if one takes

*du(H)s- as the zero-grade allomorph of *deuH(s)-. The semantic connection between the

two morphemes can perhaps also be readily explained. Just as PIE *(H)su- ‘good’

became the metaphorical extension from the PIE verb *Hes- ‘to be, i.e. be one whole,’

PIE *du(H)s- perhaps had an original connotation of something that is ‘lacking, deficient,

blemished, wanting, inferior, distant, etc., i.e. not one whole.’ The conjectured original

meaning of *du(H)s- as a cognitive expression of lack, inferiority, incompleteness,

distance, remoteness, etc. possibly eventually extended by metaphor to mean something

‘bad, foul, evil, unpleasant, etc.’ In this sense the original connotation of PIE *du(H)s- to

express something as not one whole can be understood to be in semantic binary

opposition to *(H)su-, which might originally have expressed good as that which is

perceived as one whole.

In Vedic Sanskrit the PIE root *du(H)s- developed into the prefix duḥ-, along

with its allomorphs dur-, duṣ-, dū-, to express the semantic qualities of ‘bad, evil, foul, ill,

etc.’ Similarly, PIE *deuH(s)- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior’ yielded the Vedic

Sanskrit roots du-22, dū- and dav- reflected in Ṛgvedic dūrá- ‘far, remote,’ dūtá-

‘messenger, i.e. one who goes to remote far places,’ and daviṣṭhá- ‘very far away.’ If this

assertion is correct, I conjecture that PIE *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’ is a later development in

                                                                                                                         

22
Vedic Sanskrit du- possibly appears once in the Ṛgveda as the verbal root √du-/dav- in the
form daviṣāṇi (10,34,5).

  162  
PIE language having evolved metaphorically from an original PIE *deuH(s)- ‘lack, be

distant, deficient, inferior.’ Furthermore, I suggest the likelihood that *deuH(s)- itself is a

possible derivational morpheme from the archaic PIE deictic root *du- ‘there, other,’ as

the result of suffixation by -H-s- and of vocalic thematization by the theme-vowel -e-.

Thus a possible morphological development might have been *du- > *deu- > *deu-H- >

*deuH-s-. On this matter Pokorny comments that PIE *deuH(s)- ‘lack, be distant,

deficient, inferior’ is likely the -s- extension of an original root *deuH- (219). He further

comments that with regard to *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’ the “connection with deus- ‘lack’ is

very probable” (227). My proposed model of *du- > *deu- > *deu-H- > *deuH-s- can

now also possibly account for and justify the various reconstructions of the allomorphs

*deu-, *deṷǝ-, *du̯ā-, *dū, and *deus- by Pokorny (219–20) and by Mallory and Adams

(273–74) as merely alternative representations of PIE *deuH(s)-. Having established the

probable morpho-semantic connection between PIE *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’ and *deuH(s)-

‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior,’ the question still lingers as to the possible

relationship of these forms to the PIE numeral *du̯oH(u)- ‘two.’

The Morphological Relationship of PIE *deuH(s)-, *du(H)s- , and *du̯oH(u)-

As the above section suggests, a plausible explanation now exists to account for

the morphological connection between PIE *deuH(s)- and *du(H)s- as the result of

various suffix extensions on to the zero-grade root *du-. Similarly, I propose that PIE

*du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’ along with its allomorphs *du̯eiH-, *du̯oiH-, *du̯iH-, may also have

derived from the original PIE deictic root *du- ‘there, other,’ a point supported by

Mallory and Adams (310) and by Sihler (407).

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 Regarding the morphological structure of PIE *du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’ Villar explains

that, “The name of the indo-european numeral ‘two’ is generally reconstructed as

*duō(u)-, of which the last syllable is considered to be the dual ending” (136). The

interpretation of Villar’s statement is that the PIE ending *-oH(u)- was a secondary

development on to the original PIE root *du- in order to mark it grammatically as a

thematic dual noun, according to the dictates of PIE morphology. The assertion of PIE

*du- being the origin of the numeral *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ is again substantiated by Mallory

and Adams who assert that the allomorph *du̯oiH- can be explained as the neuter form of

PIE *du̯oH(u)- due to “markers to indicate gender distinctions as it was declined” (310).

It is for this reason that Vedic Sanskrit expresses the number ‘two’ as both dvā́-

and dvaú- (the masculine dual form derived from *du̯oH(u)-) and as dvé- (the feminine

and neuter form from *du̯oiH-). Additionally, the allomorph *du̯iH- was the form that

appears in the Vedic Sanskrit prefix dvi-. The variant allomorphic forms *du̯oH(u)-,

*du̯oiH-, and *du̯iH-, therefore, appear to be various grammatical markers for the

numeral ‘two’ that I conjecture originally go back to the PIE deictic root *du- ‘there,

other.’ While certain IE scholars reconstruct the original form for the PIE numeral ‘two’

as *du̯oH(u)-, there are others who favor that the original root for the numeral ‘two’ was

simply the basic root *du-. Along with Mallory and Adams, Ernout and Meillet hold a

similar position to that of my own. In the opinion of Ernout and Meillet, *du- represents

the original form and reflects a PIE archaism as it is attested laterally among many of the

IE branches (146).

Even though current scholarship can substantiate the possible lexical evidence to

support the morphological connection and etymology among the PIE roots *du(H)s- ‘bad,

  164  
foul,’ *deuH(s)- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior,’ and *du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’ no definitive

study has yet to establish a possible semantic connection among these roots. If scholars

are able to explain the morphological relationship among *du(H)s-, *deuH(s)-, and

*du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ as derivatives of the PIE proto-root *du-, in order for this assertion to

hold validity it is necessary to account for their semantic affinity.

The Semantic Relationship among PIE *deuH(s)-, *du(H)s-, and *du̯oH(u)-

Mallory and Adams posit that the PIE morpheme *deuH(s)-, which they

represent as *deuh4-, conveys the semantic meaning of ‘leave, go away.’ They state,

“…‘leave’ in the sense of ‘go away’ is found in *deuh4-, e.g. Grk dēn ‘long, far’, Hit

tūwa ‘to a distance’, Skt dávati ‘goes’, dūrá- ‘distant, remote’” (401). If one consolidates

Mallory and Adams’ meaning of *deuH(s)- with those suggested by Pokorny, Watkins,

and the LIV, a broader semantic meaning of *deuH(s)- becomes ‘lack, tire, be deficient,

inferior, separated, remote, distant, poor.’ Furthermore, based on the findings presented

earlier on the possible morphological derivation of *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul, etc.’ from

*deuH(s)-, there exists an even larger semantic continuum of *deuH(s)- that encompasses

a pejorative semantic expression of badness, evil, danger, illness, etc. (For the sake of

convenience, from hereon the PIE form *deuHs- represents the consolidated roots

*deuH(s)- and *du(H)s-) How then is it possible to account for all of these seemingly

variant semantic expressions of *deuHs- and to unify this root with the concept of

twoness and duality expressed by the PIE numeral *du̯oH(u)-? An examination into the

specific lexico-semantic reflexes of *deuHs- in the early Indo-European languages,

especially in Vedic Sanskrit, Homeric Greek and Hittite, might reveal an answer.

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Reflexes of *deuHs- in Vedic Sanskrit and other IE Languages

Among the various reflexes of PIE *deuHs-, the Vedic Sanskrit word dūrá- ‘far

off, remote, distant, separated,’ Homeric Greek deúteros ‘second,’ and Hittite duianalli-

‘second in rank’ and tūṷa- ‘far, away’ might reveal the hidden semantic connection

between PIE *deuHs- ‘separate, bad, remote, etc.’ and the notion of twoness by PIE

*du̯oH(u)-.

Ṛgvedic dūrá- ‘Far off, Remote, Distant, Separated’ as an Expression of

Otherness and Separation

The Vedic Sanskrit word dūrá- ‘far off, remote, distant, separated’ occurs in the

Ṛgveda, along with the comparative dávīyas- ‘more far away’ and the superlative

adjective daviṣṭhá- ‘very far away.’ The etymology of this word, according to both

Pokorny (219) and Mayhrhoffer (56–57), likely derives from the reconstructed PIE roots

*deu-, *deuH-, or *deu̯(ā)-, here reconstructed in this study by the consolidated PIE

morpheme *deuHs-. Both of these scholars believe that Ṛgvedic dūrá- is likely from dū-

rá23, the morpheme dū- with the suffix -ra. Pokorny and Mayhrhoffer continue to state

that morphological derivatives of dūrá- might also be reflected in the Ṛgvedic words

duvás- ‘press out,’ duvanya-sád ‘pressing out, distance, separation,’ and dūtá-

‘messenger, envoy.’ I conjecture that the Vedic Sanskrit root dū-, along with its

allomorphs du- and dav-, possibly holds an underlying meaning that semantically unites

all of these words in the Ṛgveda by connoting physical or temporal separation as a

                                                                                                                         

23
Vedic Sanskrit dū-rá derives from the PIE form *du(H)-rós, with the loss of the PIE laryngeal
(-H-) in Sanskrit regularly producing compensatory lengthening of –uHr- > -ūr-.

  166  
metaphor of something or someone no longer being in the oneness and wholeness of the

‘here and now.’ Cognates of Vedic Sanskrit dūrá- in other Indo-European languages

might support this hypothesis.

The specific Ṛgvedic word dūrā́t ‘from far away, from the distance’ was

discussed in the previous chapter as the ablative singular of the word dūrá-. The Ṛgvedic

word dūrā́t is identical in morphology and meaning to Avestan dūrāt ‘from far away’,

and as the form dūrá- it is cognate with Homeric Greek dērós ‘long duration, long time’.

Additionally, the PIE root *deuHs- yields the Vedic root dū-, which is cognate with

Hittite tuṷa- ‘far, wide, remote’, Homeric Greek déō, deúō ‘to lack, miss’, deúteros ‘the

one more distant, the second one’, deútatos ‘the most distant, the last’, Old Persian

duvaištam ‘for a long time’, and Latin dūdum ‘long while ago.’

As I demonstrated in the chapter “Wholeness as Metaphor for Inclusiveness and

Being,” the Ṛgvedic word dūrā́t is semantically contrasted to āsā́t ‘from nearby,’ both of

which occur as members of the stylistic couplet dūrā́t āsā́t ‘from afar and from near.’ I

conjectured that the connotation of āsā́t ‘from nearby,’ as a derivative from PIE *Hēs- ‘to

sit, dwell’ and from *Hes- ‘to be,’ revealed a deeper semantic structure and cognitive

relationship among the PIE notions of being, wholeness, and of inclusiveness. Similarly I

posit that Ṛgvedic dūrā́t, as the antonym of āsā́t, expressed a cognitive metaphor of

separation and exclusiveness evident in the Vedic Sanskrit word dūrá-.

While certain Ṛgvedic stanzas containing the specific word dūrā́t were cited in a

previous chapter, further examples of words in the Ṛgveda derived from dūrá- are now

provided. Specifically, the words dūráādhī-, dūráādiś-, and dūráüpabda- might suggest a

  167  
connotation of dūrá- as something or someone not existing in state of oneness and

wholeness, that is to say, perceived to be separate and other.

dūráādhī- ‘distant-minded’

ví me kárṇā patayato ví cákṣur

vī́dáṃ jyótir hŕ̥daya ā́hitaṃ yát
ví me mánaś carati dūráādhīḥ
kíṃ svid vakṣyā́mi kím u nū́ maniṣye (6,9,6)

‘My ears and eyes fly off away (to hear and behold Agni), this light which
constitutes the heart (seeks Agni). My mind goes in far off distant-thought. How
shall I speak, how shall I now think?

dūráādiś- ‘proclaiming in the far off distance’

hótā yakṣad vaníno vanta vā́riyam

bŕ̥haspátir yajati vená ukṣábhiḥ
puruvā́rebhir ukṣábhiḥ
jagr̥bhmā́ dūráādiśaṃ
ślókam ádrer ádha tmánā
ádhārayad araríndāni sukrátuḥ
purū́ sádmāni sukrátuḥ (1,139,10)

‘Let the bestowing Hotṛ priest consecrate, let the bestowers acquire the best
treasure. Bṛhaspati consecrates in desire with bulls, rich in gifts with bulls. We
now grasp the sound proclaiming in the far off distance of the pressing stone by
our own self. The skillful one has maintained the water-vessel. The skillful one
(has maintained) many seats for the sacrifice.’

dūráüpabda- ‘sounding from afar’

prá yanti yajñáṃ vipáyanti barhíḥ

somamā́do vidáthe dudhrávācaḥ
ní u bhriyante yaśáso gr̥bhā́d ā́
dūráüpabdo vŕ̥ṣaṇo nr̥ṣā́caḥ (7,21,2)

‘They go toward the sacrifice. They strew the sacred grass, these Soma-
intoxicated ones speaking boisterously in the throng. Here from the dwelling
place are brought (the pressing stones), splendorous, invigorating, companions of
men, sounding from afar.’

The three examples cited here are compound words, whose first member dūrá- in

each of these instances connotes a sense of distance, remoteness, and separation from the

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referential perspective of the speaker(s). Furthermore, in each of these instances the word

dūrá- appears in its original form and does not undergo phonological transformation

according to the proper rules of sandhi.24 This rare instance of word boundaries within a

Ṛgvedic compound not being subject to the rules of sandhi may possibly be attested to

the adverbial deictic sense of Ṛgvedic dūrá- as an indeclinable word, a point that

Macdonell claims (211). As an indeclinable adverb with a possible deictic connotation,

the word dūrá- reveals its archaic feature as an extremely old word in Vedic Sanskrit,

perhaps further establishing its status to the level of its PIE form *du(H)-r-ó-.

In addition to dūrá- implying a sense of distance and otherness in the Ṛgvedic

word dūrā́t ‘from afar, from distance,’ its cognitive expression of remoteness and spatio-

temporal separation from the perspective of the speaker(s) may also be inferred in the

words dūráādhī- ‘distant-minded,’ dūráādiś- ‘proclaiming in the far off distance,’ and

dūráüpabda- ‘sounding from afar.’ Collectively, these instances of dūrá- in the Ṛgveda

possibly continue the original semantic connotation of PIE *deuHs- as a cognitive

metaphor of remoteness, separation, and otherness from the perspective of the

speakers(s).25

                                                                                                                         

24
The same phenomenon occurs with Ṛgvedic dūréanta- ‘ending in the far off distance’ and
dūréartha- ‘whose purpose is far off.’

25
Another very likely PIE root that expressed a covalent meaning of otherness and secondness
was *Hel-yos-, reflected in Latin al-terus, al-ius ‘second, the other one’ and Vedic Sanskrit an-
yá-, án-tara- ‘other, second’ with PIE *Hel-y- > Vedic Sanskrit an-y.

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 PIE *deuHs- as a Metaphor of ‘Secondness’

The examples of Vedic Sanskrit dūrá- in the Ṛgveda suggest that PIE *deuHs-

possibly expressed a connotation of otherness and separation. In addition to PIE *deuHs-

implying physical and cognitive remoteness, the root is also reflected in a select number

of words in the Indo-Iranian, Greek, and Anatolian branches of PIE that semantically

convey the meaning of twoness and otherness as the ordinal adjective ‘second.’

Homeric Greek deúteros

Homeric Greek has the word deúteros ‘second,’ which became the ordinal

adjective of the word ‘two.’ Pokorny (219) and the LIV (107), however, cite the Homeric

Greek form deúteros deriving not directly from the PIE numeral *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ but

rather from PIE *deuHs- ‘lack, be remote, far off, etc.’ Sihler provides a plausible

explanation on the etymology and semantic development of Homeric Greek deúteros. In

his opinion, Homeric Greek deúteros is not directly derived from the Greek numeral dúo

‘two,’ but rather he states that deúteros “traces to deúomai ‘am wanting, am inferior’”

(429). Sihler further elaborates this point,

The supposed semantic development rests on the marked tendency for words
originally ‘second [in rank]’ to acquire connotations of outright inferiority (as in
NE second-rate). That is, we first suppose that for a time the inherited G form for
‘second’, whatever it was, was partly synonymous with deúteros in that they
shared the meaning ‘inferior’. (429)

According to the Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, the word deúteros can mean the

following :

1. Coming second in a contest.

2. Coming second in gaining estimation, taking a second place.

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 3. (a) Second in doing something, following another in doing it. (b) In fighting,

coming in with one’s throw or stroke after an opponent.

4. To be left behind or surviving someone.

5. (a) In the second place. (b) A second time, again. (c) Another time, for the

future (88).

I provide the following lines excerpted from Homer’s Illiad here to support

Sihler’s assertion.

tote de gnōsesthe hekastos hippous Argeiōn, hoi deuteroi hoi te paroithen (Illiad,
23, 498-499)

‘Then you can both see the Argive horses, who’s in the lead and who’s farther
behind.’

all' age dē hoi dōmen aethlion hōs epieikes deuter' atar ta prōta pheresthō
Tudeos huios (Illiad 23, 537-538)

‘Come, let’s give him a prize, as seems fitting—the award for second place. Let
the son of Tudeos take the first-place prize.’

In both of these examples from the Illiad, the covalent meaning of deúteros as ‘second’

and ‘more distant’ can be evidenced. In the first example, deúteros connotes spatial

distance, separation, and a cognitive perception of something that is lacking or deficient

in strength, speed, etc. In this manner it expresses that which is more remote and farther

away from the relative perspective of the speaker(s). In the other example, deúteros

expresses the quality of that which comes after the one that is first and best. In this

meaning of deúteros it implies inferiority in action of someone who is ‘second best.’

Both of these excerpts from the Illiad provide the possible semantic explanation between

the notions of distance, lack, and separation with the pejorative connotation of inferiority

and deficiency as a cognitive metaphor of secondness, otherness, and twoness.

  171  
 Hittite duianalli- and tūṷa-

A similar situation to Homeric Greek deúteros is perhaps found in Hittite

duianalli-, which the Hittite Inherited Lexicon defines as ‘functionary of the second rank’

(1034). According to this work, Hittite duianalli- reconstructs back to a PIE form *dui-

io-no-. The study goes on further to say that Hittite duianalli- is connected to the adverb

tān ‘for the second time, subordinately,’ which derives from PIE *duoióm (954). The

Hittite Inherited Lexicon also states that PIE *dui-io-no- and *duoióm are cognate to

Sanskrit dvayá- ‘twofold,’ Greek doioí ‘both, two,’ and Lithuanian dvejì ‘two,’ all of

which originate from the root *du̯iH-, one of the conjectured allomorphs of PIE

*du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ (954). Just as the Homeric word deúteros implied a metaphoric meaning

in the Illiad of ‘the one who is second best,’ the Hiitite word duianalli- perhaps also

connotes a similar sense of inferiority in rank and status. I conjecture that both Homeric

Greek deúteros and Hittite duianalli- reflect an earlier stage in PIE language of a

morpheme that expressed cognitive and conceptual separation, inferiority, distance,

otherness, and secondness. I posit that this morpheme was PIE *deuHs- ‘lack, be remote,

far off, etc.’

In addition to Hittite duianalli- there exists the Hittite word tūṷa- ‘far, away,’

along with the derivational morphemes tuṷān- ‘to this side,’ tūṷaz ‘from afar,’ and

tūṷala- ‘far.’ The Hittite Inherited Lexicon suggests that Hittite tūṷa- ‘far, away’ is

cognate with Sanskrit dūrám ‘far away,’ dūrā́t ‘from far away, from afar,’ Greek dēn ‘for

a long time, far,’ dērós ‘lasting long,’ Latin dūdum ‘for a long time already, which all

reconstruct to the PIE root *dueh2- (1044). The work further concludes that the forms

tūṷa-, tuṷān-, and tūṷaz are old root-nouns that respectively reconstruct back to archaic

  172  
PIE root nouns *dueh2-s > tūṷa-, *dueh2-m > tuṷān-, and *duh2-os > tūṷaz (1045). While

the LIV establishes that Hittite tūṷa- ‘far, away’ is a morphological derivative from the

PIE root *dueh2-s, which can alternatively be represented as *dueHs-, this form *dueHs-

is slightly different in its morphological structure to the reconstructed root *deuHs-. I

posit that the two seemingly variant PIE forms, *dueHs- and *deuHs-, are actual

allomorphs that can be explained by the linguistic feature of schwebe ablaut.

The Connection between PIE *dueHs- and *deuHs- as Schwebe Ablaut

Recalling from a previous section, the LIV, along with Pokorny, Mallory and

Adams, collectively reconstruct PIE *deuHs- to mean ‘lack, be deficient, separate,

remote, go far away, etc.’ Furthermore, Mallory and Adams in the PIE World (298)

reconstruct the forms *duH- and *dueH-, evidenced in PIE *duHros and *dueHros,

which produce both Greek dērós and Sanskrit dūrá-. The PIE root *dueH- reconstructed

by Mallory and Adams matches the same form posited by the Hittite Inherited Lexicon.

How then is it possible to integrate the PIE form *dueHs-, proposed by the LIV and by

Mallory and Adams, into the larger PIE morphological and semantic unit of PIE *deuHs?

I conjecture that both *dueHs- and *deuHs- are variant allomorphs of one another that are

the result of the IE linguistic feature known as schwebe ablaut.

The linguistic feature of schwebe ablaut in PIE phonology and morphology

appears to pervade all branches of the IE languages. Szemerényi offers an example of

PIE schwebe ablaut reflected in the alternation of the vowel in the root structure of PIE

*ters- and *tres- ‘to tremble, shake,’ reflected respectively as Latin ter-reō ‘to terrify, be

afraid’ and Greek é-tres-san ‘they trembled’ (133). The process of schwebe ablaut seems

  173  
to occur in PIE roots that are of the form CVRC, where C = consonant, V = vowels -e- or

-o-, and R = resonants -u-, -i-, -r-, -l-. Thus, the base root, *deuH-, the root from the s-

stem *deuHs-, fits the morpheme structure of CVRC. Furthermore, schwebe ablaut

allows the root structure CVRC also to exist as CRVC and CRC. The following table

exhibits the allotted permutations of the schwebe ablaut allomorphs of PIE *deuH-.

Table 8

Allomorphs of PIE *deuH- as Schwebe Ablaut

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reflexes
in Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Vedic
PIE Root PIE PIE Sanskrit Sanskrit
Structure Morpheme Meaning Morpheme Meaning
CeRC *deuH- > ‘lack, be dū-rá- ‘far,
*deuH-s- deficient’ remote’
CReC *dueH- > ‘second’ dvitá- ‘second’
*dueH-i-
CorC *douH- NA NA NA

Croc *duoH- > ‘two’ dvā́-/dvaú- ‘two’

*duoH-u-
CRC *duH- > ‘bad, foul’ duḥ- ‘bad,
*duH-s- foul’

The linguistic feature of schwebe ablaut now offers a more plausible connection

between the apparently distinct forms *dueH- and *deuH-, and furthermore connects

them in morphological structure with PIE *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ and PIE *du(H)-s- ‘bad, foul,

etc.’

  174  
Vedic Sanskrit dávīyas- versus dvitā́ - and English farther versus further

Having now established the morphological connection between the various

allomorphs of PIE *deuH-, it is now possible to apply this finding on to a specific case

within the Ṛgveda—the apparent semantic incongruence between the seemingly

divergent Ṛgvedic words dávīyas- ‘more far away’ and dvitā́- ‘doubly, in a second way.’

It was previously believed that these two words lacked any apparent semantic affinity,

having derived respectively from the different roots dū- ‘far, away’ and the prefix dvi-

‘two.’ I now offer a cogent explanation that dávīyas- and dvitá- actually share a common

morphological and semantic origin going back to *deuHs-.

In Maṇḍala Six of the Ṛgveda, considered to be one of the older books, the sole

instance of the word dávīyas- and its allomorph daviṣṭhá- occur as the comparative and

superlative adjectival forms of the word dūrá-, with their respective translations as ‘more

far away’ and ‘very far away.’ Their meaning is evidenced in the following two stanzas.

úpa śvāsaya pr̥thivī́m utá dyā́m

purutrā́ te manutāṃ víṣṭhitaṃ jágat
sá dundubhe sajū́r índreṇa devaír
dūrā́d dávīyo ápa sedha śátrūn (6,47,29)

‘Fill with noise on both Earth and in Heaven, let the world spread out in all its
breadth perceive you. O War Drum, you are the companion with Indra and the
gods, drive off our enemies from afar to even farther off.’

ápa tyáṃ vr̥jináṃ ripúṃ

stenám agne durādhíyam
daviṣṭhám asya satpate kr̥dhī́ sugám (6,51,13)

‘You, Agni, drive away the deceitful thief contemplating evil to the very farthest
distance. Protector of the Good, make (for us) a good passage.’

  175  
 In both of these stanzas dávīyas- and daviṣṭhá- are the respective comparative and

superlative forms of the Ṛgvedic adjective dūrá- ‘far, remote, distant,’ all of which derive

from the Vedic Sanskrit root dav-/dū- expressing spatial distance between oneself and the

other. The connotation of dávīyas- and daviṣṭhá- is that of cognitive separation and

psychic distancing of something or someone from the referential perspective of the

speaker(s). In this manner, dávīyas- and daviṣṭhá-, as the comparative and superlative of

the root dav-/dū- I conjecture can be taken as metaphors that express otherness and

separation from one’s perceived whole.

In juxtaposition to the words dávīyas- and daviṣṭhá- there exists the Ṛgvedic word

dvitā́-, whose general meaning of ‘doubly, in a second manner,’ according to Mayrhoffer,

is questionable (85). Grassmann also defines dvitā́- with the general meaning of

‘zweifach, in zweifacher Weise, in Wahrheit, fürwahr, in besonderen Grade, that is,

doubly, in a dual manner, in truth, indeed, verily’ (651). However, in actual context the

word dvitā́- can have various shades of meaning. Examples of this word, also attested

from Maṇḍala Six, illustrate this point.

tuvā́m īḷe ádha dvitā́

bharató vājíbhiḥ śunám
ījé yajñéṣu yajñíyam (6,16,4)

‘O Bharata, I revere you now and furthermore happily along with the valiant ones.
I honor you revered one with sacrifices.’

yásya víśvāni hástayor

ūcúr vásūni ní dvitā́
vīrásya pr̥tanāṣáhaḥ (6,45,8)

‘(Him) in whose hands, they declare furthermore all treasures exist, of the hero
victorious in battle.’

  176  
 The meaning of the Ṛgvedic word dvitā́-, as an indeclinable instrumental noun

deriving from the ordinal adjective dvitá- ‘second,’ does not exactly carry the connotation

of twoness in either of these stanzas. Instead, the semantic quality of dvitā́- appears to be

used in the Ṛgveda as an emphatic declaration rather than as its numerical sense derived

from the adjective dvitá- ‘second.’ Regarding the ordinal adjective dvitá-, Mallory and

Adams state in the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture that dvitá- can be traced back

to the PIE form *du̯i-tos, which is connected to the other PIE adjective *du̯i-ios meaning

‘that one farther away’ (399). According to these scholars, both *du̯i-tos and *du̯i-ios

would have to be comparative adjectives based on a PIE root *du̯iH-26, which would

mean ‘that one far away.’ As stated earlier PIE *du̯iH- is actually an allomorph of PIE

*du̯oH(u)- ‘two.’ Based on Mallory and Adams’ assertion, one could posit a covalent

meaning of PIE *du̯iH-, the root of the PIE ordinal adjectives *du̯i-tos and *du̯i-ios, as

‘that one far away, two.’ Ṛgvedic dávīyas-, as the comparative form of dav-/dū- ‘far,

remote, distant,’ can now be compared to dvitā́-, as the comparative form of dvi- ‘two.’

The Vedic Sanskrit roots dav-/dū- and dvi- can both possibly be traced back to PIE

*deuHs- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior, etc.,’ which in turn is conjectured to derive

from the PIE deictic root *du-, whose meaning of ‘there, other’ was established earlier.

The possible semantic connection between Vedic Sanskrit dávīyas- and dvitā́- can

perhaps best be understood as the ananalogous semantic and morphological connection

between English farther and further. Both English farther and further are, respectively,

the comparative adjectival forms of English far and fore. According to Mallory and

Adams in the PIE World, both English far and fore are reflexes of an archaic PIE deictic
                                                                                                                         

26
PIE *du̯iH- is evident in Ṛgvedic dvi-pád- ‘two-footed.

  177  
root *perH-/*pṛH- ‘in front of, forward, ahead’ (289). Similar to the cognitive expression

of PIE *du- connoting a meaning of ‘other, there,’ PIE *perH-/*pṛH- appears to have

held a parallel function expressing that which was not part of the cognitive and spatio-

temporal here and now of the speaker(s).

I conjecture that it is now possible to contextualize Vedic Sanskrit dávīyas- and

dvitā́- in a similar semantic distinction to that of the English comparative adjectives

farther and further. In English there exists a subtle, but yet grammatically distinct,

semantic meaning between farther and further. According to the Instant English

Handbook, farther “refers to distance or remoteness in space,” while English further

“refers to remoteness in time, to degree, extent, or quantity. It is also used to express the

idea of something more or additional” (119). In fact, English further is an exact cognate

in both form and meaning with the indeclinable Ṛgvedic adverb pratarám and the

Homeric Greek adjective próteros ‘further, in future.’

Based on the semantic and cognitive distinction between English farther and

further as one of physical versus perceived remoteness, I believe it is now possible to

account for the apparent semantic discrepancy between dávīyas- and dvitā́- in the

Ṛgveda. In my opinion, both dávīyas- and dvitā́- respectively mean ‘farther’ and

‘further(more)’ as physical distance and cognitive remoteness from the relative position

of the speaker(s) in space-time of here and now. The indeclinable instrumental noun

dvitā́- has been traditionally translated as ‘twice more, in a double manner, etc.’ based on

its derivation from the Vedic Sanskrit ordinal adjective dvitá- ‘second.’ However, the

origin of both dvitā́- and dvitá- is likely the comparative form of the PIE root *dṷiH- ‘that

one far away, two,’ which in turn derives from the PIE deictic marker *du- ‘there, other.’

  178  
 For this reason, I suggest that a more nuanced translation of Ṛgvedic dvitā́- is

‘further(more).’ In contrast to dvitā́-, Ṛgvedic dávīyas- was the comparative adjective

used for spatial and physical distance to express the same meaning as English farther. In

this sense, Ṛgvedic dvitā́- shared a similar semantic quality with the indeclinable Ṛgvedic

adverb pratarám to express cognitive remoteness and otherness translated as

‘further(more),’ while dávīyas- was in semantic contrast to dvitā́- as it expressed only

physical remoteness and otherness. In support of my claim, Mallory and Adams add in

their PIE World, “Forms relating to ‘two’ and ‘twoness’ are of old IE origin, possibly

from an older demonstrative meaning ‘that one farther away’, with the abstract

cardinality of ‘twoness’ developing later” (399).

Ṛgvedic dvitá- ‘second,’ Homeric Greek deúteros ‘second,’ and Hittite duianalli-

‘second in rank’ all connote meanings that express the ordinal adjective ‘second.’

However, their collective semantic meaning appears to underscore the PIE notion of

remoteness, separation, distance, and otherness as relics of the PIE root *deuHs-, which I

believe encompassed a larger semantic continuum spanning the concepts of remoteness,

lack, deficiency, inferiority, secondness, twoness, and otherness. The extremely wide

semantic field expressed by PIE *deuHs- to contain all of these ideas can be rationalized

by conjecturing it as a morphological derivative from the PIE deictic root *du- ‘there,

other.’ Recalling Mallory and Adams’ position, I posit that the lexemes connoting the

concept of two and twoness were likely products of an earlier cognitive expression in PIE

language to signify that one farther away, which only later became a metaphor to express

twoness and for something that was second.

  179  
 Morphosemantic Connection between PIE *du(H)s- ‘Bad, Foul’ and *du̯oH(u)-

‘Two’

It has already been discussed that the Vedic Sanskrit prefix duḥ- ‘bad, foul, evil,

ill, etc.’ derived from PIE *du(H)s-. The Vedic form duḥ- is cognate to Avestan duš-,

duž-; Greek dus-; Latin di(s)-; and Gothic tuz-, all of which Pokorny states likely derive

from the PIE reconstructed form *deuHs- ‘to lack, be deficient, separate, etc.’ (227) I

conjecture that PIE *du(H)s-‘bad, foul’ is a morpheme contained within the larger

semantic field expressed by PIE *deuHs-, which is itself an extensive semantic

continuum that accounts for the PIE roots *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul,’ *du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’

*du̯eH(s)- and deuH(s)- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior, etc.’

It is now possible to discuss in more detail the Vedic Sanskrit prefix duḥ-, which

along with its allomorphs dur-, duṣ-, and dū-, constitutes a large set of lexemes within the

Ṛgveda. Again, Costa’s comprehensive survey of the PIE morpheme *du(H)s- cites the

various reflexes of this root in the Ṛgveda , along with Lubotsky’s lexical frequency of

duḥ-, dur-, duṣ-, and dū- (683–88). In all instances of the prefix duḥ- in the Ṛgveda, there

exists a cognitive expression of duḥ- as something that is perceived as being bad, evil and

difficult. The question now posed is if an established semantic connection exists that

metaphorically unites Vedic dvi- ‘two’ and dav-/dū- ‘far, away, separate’ with the Vedic

prefixes duḥ-, dus-, dur-, dū- in the same manner by which Vedic Sanskrit √as- ‘to be’

and svá- ‘one’s own’ was metaphorically related to su- ‘beloved, dear, good.’

  180  
 Twoness and Duality as Metaphors for Badness, Hostility, and Enmity

This section focuses on the morphological and metaphoric connection between

PIE *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ with the PIE root *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’ and *du̯ei(H)- ‘to fear, be

agitated.’ The PIE root *du̯ei(H)- ‘to fear, be agitated’ is a highly productive root in

many of the ancient Indo-European languages, with reflexes of this root having

developed into the Vedic Sanskrit verb √dviṣ- ‘to hate, be hostile’ and as the substantives

dvíṣ/dvéṣas ‘hatred, hostility.’27 Given the Ṛgveda’s penchant on rivalry and combats

between the Vedic people and their respective deities against their perceived enemies, it

is easy to understand the prolific usage of the verb √dviṣ- and its substantives dvíṣ/dvéṣas

‘hatred, hostility’ in the Ṛgvedic corpus. To advance the case for Ṛgvedic dvíṣ/dvéṣas

being etymologically and semantically connected to PIE *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ and

metaphorically linked to the concept of duality and twoness, Pokorny posits the

etymology of Ṛgvedic dvíṣ/dvéṣas as s-extensions from an already existing *du̯iH-, an

allomorph of PIE *du̯oH(u)- ‘two’ (68).

While it is quite possible to prove by lexical data within the Ṛgveda itself how

Vedic Sanskrit dvíṣ/dvéṣas became likely metaphors formed on the PIE concept of

duality and division, there exists additional linguistic evidence from the other branches of

Indo-European. Specifically, Homeric Greek, Latin, and Germanic provide further

philological evidence to support the assertion that the concepts of enmity, fear and rivalry

became metaphors for duality and twoness. The following list is adapted from examples

cited by Halsey (97) and by Pokorny (592).

                                                                                                                         

27
These words no longer expressed the original semantic meaning of PIE ‘fear’, with the word
for ‘fear’ in the Ṛgveda represented by the word bhayá-.

  181  
 1. Latin dubius ‘doubt, uncertainty, suspicion’ goes back to the earlier

Latin form duhibius from duo ‘two’ + habeō ‘to have, hold,’ which

literally means ‘held as two, having two (thoughts).’

2. Homeric Greek deíd(u̯)ō ‘to fear, dread’ results from an original

reduplicated stative verbal form *dé-du̯oi-ka and would mean ‘being in

a state of two.’ To this notion would also belong Homeric d(u̯)íe-

‘dreaded, feared’ and d(u̯)éos ‘fear.’

3. Gothic twisstandan ‘to divide’ derives from twis ‘two’ + standan ‘to

stand.’ It has derivatives in Old Norse tvistra- ‘to separate,’ and in

Middle High German zwist ‘discord, split.’ If Gothic twisstandan

derives from PIE *dui̯(s)- ‘two’ + *steH- ‘to stand,’ it would be

morphologically and semantically parallel to Sanskrit dviṣṭha-

‘ambiguous’ and to Greek d(ṷ)istázdō ‘doubt.’ This idea is also found in

German Zweifel ‘doubt’ deriving from the numeral zwei ‘two.’

Further lexical evidence to explain the conjectured semantic connection between

Vedic Sanskrit dvā́-/dví-/dvé- ‘two’ with Ṛgvedic √dvíṣ- ‘to hate, be hostile’ and its

corollary metaphoric shift from twoness to hatred and hostility can also be found in other

Sanskrit texts than the Ṛgveda. In these texts one finds words that pertain to aspects of

combat, battles and feuds that have specifically derived from Sanskri dvā́-, dví-, and dvé-

‘two.’

1. dvirājá- ‘(battle) of two kings’ found in the Atharvaveda

2. dvairatha- ‘chariot duel’ found in the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa.

  182  
 3. dvaṃdvá- ‘duel, fight, combat, contest’ found in Mahābhārata and the

Rāmāyaṇa.

This concept of duality and twoness as a metaphor for warfare and hostility can

also be found in the meaning and etymology of the English word duel. English duel

derives from the Middle Latin form duellum ‘combat between two persons.’ Related to

this word is Latin bellum28 ‘war,’ which Sihler indicates in the archaic Latin inscriptions

was originally DVELLOM (185). Similar to the Sanskrit connotation of twoness and

duality as the basis for words pertaining to strife and battle, a likely parallel development

appears to have occurred with the Old Latin form duellum ‘war.’

I posit that all of these words, both within Sanskrit and other IE branches, imply

the notion of two opposing forces locked together in a common enmity and hatred

perceiving the opposing side as the cognitive other and not conceptually part of one’s

own whole. Perhaps this notion can be understood by the notion that whatever or

whomever is far off and unknown is evil and dangerous. In this sense Ṛgvedic √dvíṣ- ‘to

hate, be hostile’ behaves as a morphological and semantic extension of Vedic Sanskrit

dvi- ‘two,’ eventually becoming a metaphor for duality, hostility, enmity, and rivalry. The

lexical and semantic investigation of the PIE root *du̯eiH- ‘to fear, be agitated’ can,

therefore, be seen to be a possible metaphorical development from the PIE concept of

twoness derived from the PIE numeral *duoH(u)- ‘two.’ This lexico-semantic connection

between these two roots is a prerequisite that now sets the foundation for examining the

deeper semantic connection between the PIE numeral *duoH(u)- ‘two’ and *du(H)s-

                                                                                                                         

28
Latin exhibits regular phonological shift of Proto-Italic *due- > Latin be-, to produce Latin
bellum from an original *duellom.

  183  
‘bad, foul’ as part of a greater semantic concatenation that begins with PIE *deuHs-

‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior.’

Semantic Concatenation from PIE *deuHs- ‘Lack, Be Separate’ to PIE *du(H)s-

‘Bad, Foul’

I conjecture that the PIE word for ‘two’ in the forms *dṷoH-, *dṷeH-, *dṷiH-

were metaphors to express the semantic meaning of that which is ‘far off, distant,

separated,’ that is to say all that which was not cognitively part of one’s own whole of the

here and now. In this sense the PIE root *dṷoH(u)- expressed not only the numerical

concept of ‘two,’ but additionally became a cognitive metaphor of otherness,

morphologically and semantically connected with the PIE roots *deuHs- ‘lack, be distant,

deficient, inferior’; *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’; and with *du̯ei(H)- ‘to fear, be agitated.’ All of

these PIE forms have continued into Vedic Sanskrit, some of which are reflected in the

Ṛgveda as the words dūrá- ‘distant, far;’ dvā́-, dvé-, dvi- ‘two;’ and duḥ- ‘bad, foul, ill.’

Just as a semantic concatenation was established in the previous chapter linking

the PIE morpheme *Hes- ‘to be’ with the prefix *(H)su- ‘good’ within the greater

semantic continuum of wholeness and oneness, I now present the case suggesting a

converse situation whereby PIE *dṷeHs- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior’ is the

starting point for all of the PIE morphemes discussed so far that express the notion of

otherness and twoness. The semantic concatenation is as follows—‘be separate’ 

‘other’  ‘remote, distant’  ‘twoness, second, number two’  ‘lack, deficient,

inferior’  ‘bad, foul, evil’  ‘hatred, enmity, fear.’ Furthermore, this conjectured

semantic continuum now unites the respective PIE morphemes within the semantic field

  184  
of otherness and twoness in the following manner—*deuHs- ‘lack, be separate, etc.’ 

*dṷoH(u)- ‘two, other’  *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’  *dṷiH-s- ‘to fear, hate, be hostile.’

Reconstructing the Semantic Field of PIE *du-

The underlying principle that semantically unites all of the morphemes presented

in this chapter in Vedic Sanskrit and in other IE languages is the metaphorical expression

of otherness, in semantic contrast to the idea of wholeness. Based on the lexical evidence

presented the PIE roots *deuHs- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior,’ *du̯oH(u)- ‘two,’

*du̯ei(H)- ‘to fear, be agitated,’ and *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul’ can be cast in new light. I

establish a working hypothesis that all of these morphemes are members contained within

one single semantic field originally expressed by the PIE deictic root *du- ‘there, other.’

The PIE deicitc root *du- was, in my opinion, the morpheme in PIE language that

expressed through cognitive metaphor the various interconnected concepts of otherness,

twoness, remoteness, duality, exclusiveness, exteriocity, division, falsehood, strife, and

badness. These concepts existed as a sensuous continuum that appear to have continued

in Ṛgvedic language and thought as – 1) physical and temporal separation 2) cognitive

remoteness 3) the other as inferior and bad and 4) duality as enmity, hatred, and fear. The

numerous lexemes and derivational morphemes within this semantic continuum all

possibly originated from the seminal PIE morpheme *du-, which conveyed a primal

cognitive expression of otherness, in semantic contrast to wholeness. In the Ṛgveda, the

lexemes that evolved from PIE *du- and their metaphorical expressions are evident in the

following table.

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Table 9

Lexico-Semantics of *du- in PIE and Vedic Sanskrit

Proto-Indo-European (PIE)
Reflexes
Expression in Vedic Sanskrit
Grammatical,
semantic, Vedic Vedic
cognitive PIE PIE Sanskrit Sanskrit
expression Morpheme Meaning Morpheme Meaning
Otherness *deuHs- ‘Lack, be dū-/dav- ‘distant,
Exteriocity separate’ dūrá- far’

Aversion *du(H)s- ‘Bad, foul’ duḥ- ‘bad,

Duality foul, ill’

Division *duoH- ‘Other, not dvā́-, dvaú-, ‘two,

Twoness one’s own’ dvé-, dvi- other’

Enmity Rage *dṷei(H)- ‘Hatred, √dviṣ- ‘to hate,

Hostility enmity, be
fear’ hostile’

Chapter Summary

The cognitive metaphors for otherness, in contrast to that of wholeness, appear to

be expressed in the Ṛgveda as various morphological derivatives from the archaic PIE

morpheme *du- ‘there, other.’ I conjecture that the PIE idea of otherness is grounded in a

deeply embedded cognitive framework that perceives all that is not part of one’s own or

collective whole as dangerous, bad, and evil. In cognitive contrast to this idea of

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otherness is the notion that everything that speaker(s) perceive as being part of one’s own

whole is beloved, dear, and good. In Vedic Sanskrit this notion of otherness appears to be

reflected in a series of interrelated words that are expressed cognitively, conceptually,

and culturally in lexico-semantic relics in the Ṛgveda, some of which are dūrá-, duḥ-,

dvé-, and √dviṣ-.

I conjecture that all of these Ṛgvedic lexemes are metaphors that have derived

from the PIE morpheme *du- ‘there, other,’ an archaic deictic marker that expressed the

covalent notion of otherness and twoness. PIE *du- produced the derivational morphemes

*deuHs- ‘lack, be distant, deficient, inferior, etc.’ and *du(H)s- ‘bad, foul, etc.’

Additionally, the seminal morpheme *du- was the probable origin of the PIE numeral

*dṷoH(u)- ‘two, other,’ which had an allomorph *dṷiH- that produced the derivational

morpheme *dṷeiH- ‘hate, fear, etc.’ Together the PIE morphemes *deuHs-, *du(H)s-,

*duoH(u)-, and *dṷeiH- are semantically contained within a sensuous continuum that

continued in the Ṛgveda as cognitive, conceptual, and cultural metaphors for otherness.

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