indic and iranian studies in honor of stanley insler on his sixty-fifth birthday || Ádhrigu and...

Ádhrigu and drigu: On the Semantics of an Old Indo-Iranian WordAuthor(s): George ThompsonSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 122, No. 2, Indic and Iranian Studies inHonor of Stanley Insler on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Apr. - Jun., 2002), pp. 411-418Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3087637 .

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ADHRIGU AND DRIGU: ON THE SEMANTICS OF AN OLD INDO-IRANIAN WORD

GEORGE THOMPSON

MONTSERRAT COLLEGE OF ART

The relationship between the Vedic word ddhrigu- and the Avestan drigu- has been the subject of much discussion. A major concern has been to determine which of these apparently related terms is primary, which secondary. Divergent etymological analyses have been proposed. Morphological anomalies have been pointed out. And in the case of the Vedic word, at least, the basic sense has remained obscure. In this paper the problem is taken up once again.

IN HIS LONG and characteristically thorough article, "Wortkundiche Beitrage zur Arischen (Indo-Iranischen) Kulturgeschichte und Welt-anschauung" (1958), W. Wust surveyed the many attempts that have been made to analyze and interpret the obscure Vedic word ddhrigu. The great variety and mutual incomparability of these attempts demonstrates, at the very least, that the word has been perceived to be a problem ever since Yaska's analysis of it in the Nirukta (where it is rather cavalierly proposed that ddhrigu = ddhi, prep., + -gu, 'bull, cow'). In this brief article, offered in homage to the American Oriental Society's master Indo-Iranist, yet another attempt will be made to come to terms with this still opaque Vedic word. It is humbly offered as a drigu's gift to one whose judgments on all things Indo-Iranian have been unfailingly illuminating and instructive.

Leaving aside other highly unlikely analyses (such as Rajavade's [1932]: ddhrigu < *adrigu- 'one that possesses cows shut in mountain strongholds'), prior to Wiist's article three analyses have been generally preferred:

(1) adhrigu = ad-dhri-gu (i.e., alpha-privative + verbal root dhr- + verbal root gd- 'to go'), thus = 'unhaltsam gehend' (Grassmann).1

(2) adhrigu = a-dhri-gu (i.e., alpha-privative + verbal root dhr + nominal stem gu- 'bull, cow'), thus = 'dont la vache ne retient pas (son lait), dont la vache est genereuse, qui a pour vache adhri' (Bergaigne).2

(3) adhrigu = a-dhrigu (i.e., alpha-privative + the Vedic equivalent of Avestan drigu 'poor'), thus = 'not poor, rich, liberal' (Bloomfield).3

A measure of the uncertainty confronting us with re- gard to this word can be found in the peregrinations on it in Mayrhofer's etymological dictionaries, covering a span of over thirty years.4 In KEWA 1.31 (s.v. adhrih)5 Mayrhofer embraced the view that adhrigu is to be analyzed as in number 1 above (explicitly rejecting the proposed association with Avestan drigu in number 3, while completely ignoring number 2). In his later addendum

1 See WUst, 1958: 9f. Cf. non-RV agreguf "going in front"

and RV agregd (see EWA 1.46), idem; also vanarga, kicigu,

priydmgu, laladmagu, all cited in Wackernagel 11.2: 471.

2 See WUst, 1958: lOf. There are many analogous forms in

both Vedic and Avestan: saptdgu, Satagu (though a late form,

this has cognates in OP Oatagu and Grk. iKat6ppj; cf. also RV

gatagvin); p&?nigu (also p&?nigo); pistigu; suga (cf. Av hugu);

Avestan pourugu; bhirigu (a RV hapax, in the vocative, of

Indra, this compound is discussed at length by Wfist), etc.

Cf. Wackernagel-Debrunner II.1.99f. 3 See WUst 1958: 1 If. Later Barr, Bailey, Lommel, culmi-

nating in Narten: this is the view in fact of Iranists in general.

Cf. also Insler 1975b, Humbach 1991, Kellens-Pirart. 4 Also note that the three most important translations of the

RV, those of Geldner, Renou, and now Elizarenkova, all display

much hesitation among the three interpretations cited above,

and thus gloss the word ddhrigu with very little consistency. 5 The form adhrijas is a hapax in the RV at 5.7.10. Its con-

nection with ddhrigu is generally taken for granted, though

like the latter it has been analyzed in different ways. Mayr-

hofer is inclined to accept WUst's derivation adhrija < adhri +

yaj-, and the gloss 'verschnittene (Tiere) opfernd'. As Bailey

suggests, the word can be analyzed, just as reasonably, as a-

dhrij, and as such may be relatable to the Avestan word drigu.

Wust also argues that the AV hapax ddhri (at AV 5.20.10) may

also be related to adhrijas, but it is possible that this AV form

may be a corruption for ddri (on which see Whitney-Lanman,

ad loc.), in which case it may be best not to depend on it.

411



412 Journal of the American Oriental Society 122.2 (2002)

(KEWA 1.548), Mayrhofer once again rejected the derivation of Vedic ddhrigu from Avestan drigu (i.e., number 3), this time treating in some detail the views of K. Barr 1953 (on which, see below). In this treatment, Mayrhofer acknowledged an etymological connection between the two words, but he explicitly rejected the suggestion that the Avestan word was the primary member of the pair. The basis for this conviction was his view that there was no good reason to interpret the ini- tial a- in ddhrigu as an alpha-privative (this of course contradicts his earlier position at KEWA 1.31). Instead, Mayrhofer insisted that there was "klar Zeugnis" for an element *adhri- not only in a'dhrigu but also in the rare form adhrija (sic). Furthermore, he considered the Avestan form drigu to be a reanalysis of an inherited Iranian word *adri-gu, similar to the sort of back- formations found in Sanskrit, such as sita 'white', from asita 'black', and sura 'god', from asura 'lord', later 'de- mon'. Mayrhofer later returned to the problematic form adhrih in the addendum to KEWA (III.627), this time de- riving from it the form adhrij (instead of adhrija) as well as didhrigu. Here Mayrhofer cited, very briefly and for the first time, the supporting evidence of Wust, as well as the important article of Bailey (1973). Finally, in EWA 1.67, in his final treatment of the problem, Mayr- hofer re-asserted his view that the term ddhrigu con- tained a final member -gu 'Rind', as well as a first member ddhri-, for the interpretation of which Mayr- hofer expressed a clear preference for Wust's analysis.

The point of this extensive summary of Mayrhofer's views is that, while hesitating between different interpretations of the word, Mayrhofer has consistently assumed the primacy of an otherwise unattested form *adhri-, from which he has derived the attested forms adhrij and dadhrigu. In doing so, Mayrhofer has rele- gated the Avestan form drigu to the status of an incor- rect back-formation. This invites the question: is there a principled reason for Mayrhofer's preference?

Wust's contribution to the discussion was to come up with a novel etymology for this element ddhri- in ddhrigu. Rejecting both the proposed association of -dhri- with the verbal root dhr-, as well as the alternative derivation from Avestan drigu (and rejecting the pres- ence of an alpha-privative in either case), Wust related adhri- to the Greek forms sOptl/TtOpt5, 'eunuch',6 and glossed it as "verschnittene (und somit im Effekt: domes- tiziert feist)" (p. 25); i.e., he interpreted ddhrigu as a bahuvrihi compound with a first member adhri- 'castrated', and a final member -gu 'bull': ddhrigu in his

view thus = 'having castrated bulls, therefore wealthy, powerful'.

Admittedly, Wiist's rather general remarks about the vital role of castrated and domestic animals in the Ve- dic economy are valid and even at times valuable.7 But in the end this etymology is hardly convincing, for the simple reason that there is no evidence for it in the texts. Wust has closely examined each of the fifteen attestations of the term ddhrigu in the RV, but he has not been able to point to any passage that even hints at an association of the word a'dhrigu with castrated animals.8 In fact, as I will attempt to show, all of the attestations of the word in the RV are frustratingly opaque. Nevertheless, because the term is applied to several Vedic gods, notably Indra, Agni, the Maruts (Rudras), the As'vins, and Soma (though notably not to any one of the Adityas, Mitra or Varuna, etc.), as well as to a handful of otherwise obscure human figures, a generally positive sense like 'rich, liberal, powerful' etc., can be reasonably assumed. Beyond this rather generally positive sense, however, precious little can be inferred from these collocations.

Since the publication of Wist's article, another important visitation to this problem was made by J. Narten in her 1986 edition, translation, and commentary on the Old Avestan text, the Yasna Haptayhditi. In her discussion of the term driguddiiah, 'nourishing the drigu', which is applied to the divine waters at YH 38.5, Narten briefly surveyed the attestations of the Avestan word drigu.9 She presented a strong case for the view, held by most Iranists, that the Avestan word drigu and the Vedic word ddhrigu are indeed related, but that the primary member of the pair is in fact the Iranian form drigu, 'poor, needy, dependent'. She explicitly rejected Wust's detailed analysis, including his suggestion that the Avestan word drigu should be interpreted as a Kontrar- bildung to the supposedly inherited Indo-Iranian term *adhri-gu. Furthermore, like Barr (1953) and Bailey

6 On ddhri vs. vddhri, cf. Mayrhofer's vacillations, ad loc.

7 See Wiist's extended discussion of the RV terms vddhri, anadvdh, as well as the non-RV words sanda and mahanirasta.

8 In fact, there is no association of ddhrigu with any animals whatsoever. adhrijah at RV 5.7.10 is usually interpreted as a genitive sing. from adhrij (see n. 5). Admittedly, there is a clear link in this passage between the phrase manydim adhr(ias in line a and pas'lim in line b, but nothing suggesting 'castrated bull'. At AV 5.20.10, if indeed ddhrih is the correct reading, there is once again some association with gavydm, but not at all with castration.

9 Narten 1986: 238-41, very illuminating pages, like so much of this valuable book.



THOMPSON: Adhrigu and drigu: Semantics of an Old Indo-Iranian Word 413

(1973) before her, Narten reversed the direction of the presumed re-analysis: instead of the derivation of the Avestan form from a falsely re-analyzed Vedic one (drigu < Iranian *a-drigu < Vedic adhri-gu), as preferred by Wfist and Mayrhofer, these Iranists all proposed a derivation of Vedic adhrigu as the negation of an unattested Vedic form *dhrigu, 'poor, needy' (cognate with Avestan drigu): therefore, in their view, Vedic adhrigu literally = 'not poor, therefore rich, powerful, etc.'. Again, one is tempted to ask: is there a principled reason for their preference?

The major problem with this derivation is the exist- ence of strong forms like nom. pl. adhrigdvah (at RV 1.64.3 and 8.22.11) instead of -avah,10 as well as the collocation of the word ddhrigu with ddsagva at RV 8.12.2 (where both are proper names whose second elements appear to be alternative stems from the noun gau 'bull, cow'). Such passages indicate that in fact there was a tendency already in the RV to analyze the Vedic word adhrigu as ddhri-gu, with the final element understood as a reduced form of gaiu 'bull, cow'. The suggestion made by Narten and other Iranists that such forms are themselves simply the product of a false analysis in Vedic is a viable alternative to the interpretation of Wust and Mayrhofer, but it is not persuasive by itself, nor has anyone provided it with any serious support. Some support for the position of the Iranists is offered in what follows.

But first what appears to me to be a fairly weak argu- ment in favor of interpreting adhrigu as a-dhrigu must be disposed of. In one of the passages where a'dhrigu has this strong form, ddhrigiivah, the term appears also in a sequence of terms with the alpha-privative, which has suggested to both Geldner (1.84) and Renou (EVP X. 16, 64) that the form should be analyzed as d-dhrigiivah (as implied by Geldner's gloss 'nicht kargen', on the one hand, and Renou's 'eux exempts de mesquinerie', on the other). Renou explicitly noted the sequence of alpha-privatives as implicit support for his gloss (which itself seems little more than a very rough guess). At first glance it is indeed a suggestive passage:

yavano rudrad ajdrd abhogghdno vavaksur ddhrigavah pdrvata iva RV 1.64.3ab

The young Rudras [Maruts], the non-aging, the non-

partaking-slaying,

the adhrigus [i.e., the non-dhrigus] have swelled/

grown up like mountains.

The suggestiveness of this sequence of alpha-privatives is seriously weakened, however, by the fact that the alpha-privative in abhogghadno is to be attributed to the non-partaking ones [abhoj-] whom the Maruts destroy, rather than to the Maruts themselves. Thus, the seeming parallelism with the two other members of the sequence is actually illusory. And since there is no other passage in the RV that even vaguely suggests a native interpretation of adhrigu as a-dhrigu, this sequence does not offer strong counter-evidence to the analysis preferred by WUst and Mayrhofer. To this extent, rejection of the alpha-privative interpretation seems well-founded.

But there is another motif attested in RV collocations that is significant, it seems to me, because it is frequently found also in Avestan collocations with drigu: this is the collocation of Vedic adhrigu with forms of the verb av- 'to aid, help' (RV 1.112.20; 8.12.2; 8.22.10). Narten noted the importance of this motif in the Aves- tan collocations," but failed to note its role in the Vedic collocations (nor in fact did Wust). The fact that this motif, in which aid is sought for the drigu on the one hand and for the ddhrigu on the other, is attested in both branches of Old Indo-Iranian suggests that it may well have been an inherited motif, rather than an independent development. Nevertheless, although the motif of seeking help from the gods is rather commonplace in Vedic in general, it is rather surprising to see it in collocations with a word like ddhrigu, with its vague con- notations in Vedic of strength, power, forcefulness. If we were to accept the interpretation of Wust and Mayr- hofer, of course, the word would have the approximate sense 'wealthy (because possessing castrated bulls)'. And since the term is frequently an epithet of numerous Vedic gods, such as Indra, many passages suggest that adhrigu has a sense approximating 'powerful, forceful, like a god', etc., as we have seen.12 But why would such a god or person-if not divine at least wealthy and powerful-be in such dire need of help? In contrast with the Avestan collocations with drigu, where the need for aid is obvious, these Vedic collocations seem rather anomalous.

10 See Wust 1958: 28; also Narten 1986: 238-39 n. 158;

Kuiper 1997: 494; Wackernagel, III, 158.

Narten 1986: 238, citing auuah, as well as the verbal root

Ora- and maraZdika 'Erbarmen'. Cf. also Lommel 1968. 12 Cf. collocation with rajiJ at 8.70.1; with svaradjyam at

8.93.11. Other passages: 1.61.1 tavdse turd'ya ... mdhina-ya

... ddhrigave ... indr-ya ... .; 3.21.4 adhrigo Saciva (both voc-

atives); 9.98.5 with vocative vyrtrahan in line a in a kind of ring

relation with vocative adhrigo in line d, cf. 8.70.1; 5.73.2 the

pair of duals ddhrigui with tuvistamd.




By my count adhrigu is a divine epithet in ten of its fifteen attestations.13 In these ten passages, as I have already suggested and as Wust (p. 20) also seemed to rec- ognize, it is not possible to identify with any confidence a specific determinable meaning for the word. It is nec- essary therefore to examine more closely those passages where the word may still be a living word in a living context, and not merely a divine epithet, vague and im- precise and formulaic-as epithets for divine beings typically are. There are five such passages: RV 1.112.20, 8.12.2, 8.22.10, 8.22.11, 8.93.11. In four of these five passages (the one exception is 8.93.11, on which see below), the word appears to be the proper name of some human being or other, or of a clan descended from such a person. It is striking that in three out of the other four passages (1.112,20, 8.12.2, and 8.22.10) there is a strong semantic link between the word adhrigu and the theme of aid, expressed by the root av-, which as we have seen is frequently attested with drigu in Avestan. It is also suggestive that four of these five collocations are attested in Book 8 of the RV, while the other passage, RV 1.112.20, belongs to a hymn that has clear and unam- biguous formulaic and thematic ties with Book 8 (see below). This concentration of passages suggests that this RV book may be the central locus for the play of the word adhrigu in the RV

In fact, there is such a concentration in general: of the fifteen attestations of the word adhrigu in the RV, no less than seven are attested in Book 8 alone, and several of the others, like 1.112.20, have clear formulaic and thematic ties with Book 8. In fact, it is instructive to look at the general distribution of the word in the RV:

Bk 1: 3x (1.61.1; 1.64.3; 1.112.20) Bk2: Ox Bk 3: lx (3.21.4) Bk 4: Ox Bk 5: 2x (5.10.1; 5.73.2) Bk 6: lx (6.45.20) Bk7: Ox Bk 8: 7x (8.12.1; 8.22.10; 8.22.11 (2x);

8.60.17; 8.70.1; 8.93.11) Bk 9: lx (9.98.5) Bk 10: Ox

There are several things that are striking about this distribution. First, the seven attestations in Book 8 are

made even more conspicuous when they are combined with the three other passages that have strong formulaic links with Book 8.14 This means that there are only five RV attestations that may be said to be independent of Book 8.15 Thus two new facts come into the foreground: one is the clear prominence of Book 8 in the history of the word; the other is the relative rarity of the word's attestations outside of the sphere and influence of Book 8. It is also just as important to note exactly where the word is absent as it is to note where it is prominent. Be- sides the rather remarkable fact that there are no attestations at all in that great appendix to the RV, Book 10, it is also rather surprising that there are no attestations whatsoever in three of the six family books that make up the oldest stratum of the RV What this suggests is that the distribution of the word appears to have no clear chronological significance: while it is entirely absent in book 10, it is attested 3x in book 1, the other late appendix to the RV; though absent in three of the early family books, it is attested 4x in the other three. With such a distribution, the heavy concentration of the word's oc- currences in Book 8 and in related passages would seem to suggest that the word may have been current parti- cularly within a single Vedic clan, the Kanvas. This distribution thus seems to suggest a local or geographical significance: the word appears to be relatively frequent within a particular Vedic community that is set in the ex- treme NW of the Rgvedic culture area, within a territory that included eastern Iran.16

Furthermore, after the RV the word ddhrigu utterly dis- appears from Vedic usage, except for its use as a name for the well-known sacrificial invocation, the adhrigu praisa.Y7 It is clear that Late Vedic Aryans no longer had a clear or specific sense of the term's meaning, neither as they encountered it in the RV (as we have seen already in the case of Yaska), nor as they used the word themselves. For them (as attested also, e.g., in the TS, AB, BD) the word designated a liturgical sequence relating to the pasubandha, the animal sacrifice. In this context it appeared only as a vocative adhrigo and as such offered itself as the name of the Sondergott invoked

13 Epithet of Indra 3x (1.61.1, 6.45.20, 8.70.1); epithet of Agni 3x (3.21.4, 5.10.1, 8.60.17); epithet of the AMvins 2x (5.73.2, 8.22.11); epithet of the Maruts lx (1.64.3); epithet of Soma lx (9.98.5). Cf. Wust 1958: 21.

14 RV 1.112.20, a Kutsa hymn, has clear links with 8.22.10 (cf. Bloomfield 1916, ad loc); 1.61.1 belongs to a hymn that alludes to the Emusa boar-myth otherwise treated at 8.77.6- 11); 5.73.2 has formulaic similarities with 8.22.3 and 8.5.5 (Bloomfield 1916, ad loc.). On other parallels with Bk 8, see Geldner's notes to this hymn.

15 RV 1.64.3, 3.21.4, 5.10.1, 6.45.20, 9.98.5. 16 In general, see the recent articles of M. Witzel. 17 Cf. Renou 1954: 9 and Kane 1997: 1121f.




there, but also as the name of the liturgical sequence to which it belonged. It clearly was no longer a living word, but was rather a frozen liturgical formula, as Narten (p. 239, n. 158) already had recognized. In other words, it became a late Vedic mantra without meaning.

The Avestan word drigu is attested 4x in Old Avestan, and in Late Avestan another 1lx.18 In absolute terms these numbers are comparable to the RV numbers for adhrigu, but given the fact that Avestan is a much smaller corpus even than the RV alone, it is fair to say that drigu is much more prominent in Avestan than adhrigu is in the RV This prominence is even more pro- nounced when one considers the fact that the word drigu appears not only in the closing line of the Ahuna Vairya prayer (Y. 27.13) which forms a prelude to the Gathas, but also in the concluding line of Y. 53.9, which itself is the closing stanza of the Gdthds. The fact that the term thus frames the entire liturgical sequence of the Githas, and the Yasna Haptayhaiti, is surely noteworthy.

Forming as it does a prelude to the Gdthds themselves in the Avestan liturgy, the Ahuna Vairya prayer is one of the most important mantras in all of Avestan literature. It has received an enormous amount of attention not only from modem scholars but from traditional exegetes as well (there are extant commentaries on it as early as the Bayin Yagt [= Y. 19-21], a text in Late Avestan, which attributed the text of this mantra to Ahura Mazda, addressing Zarathustra).19 The prominence of the Ahuna Vairya, as perhaps the most potent protective mantra in the entire Avestan liturgy, would seem to assure that the word drigu, which occurs in its final line, would have had a spiritual significance of its own within the tradition, and indeed the word has played a significant role in the history of later Zoroastrianism. The final clause of the Ahuna Vairya (Y 27.13) refers to Ahura Mazda as yim drigubiia dadat vistdram ("the one whom they have established as a shepherd to the drigus").20 Likewise, in

the closing invocation to Ahura Mazda in the Gdthis, it is said that Ahura Mazda "will grant the better (gift) to the right-living drigu" (Y 53.9: yd arazaJii5i dahi dri- gauue vahiit3). In both passages, drigu appears to be used virtually as a term of self-designation by the author (or authors) of these lines. If this is not the prophet Zara- thustra himself, it is nevertheless reasonable to suppose that this author stands as a proxy for the worshipers of Ahura Mazda in general.

But perhaps the most important of all Avestan passages where this word is attested is Y 34.5. Here, after a pair of riddling rhetorical questions in traditional Indo- Iranian style,21 Zarathustra himself makes direct appeal to Ahura Mazda "to protect your drigu ... (for) we have declared that you are above them all, the ferocious beasts, both demons and humans as well" (Oraiiiidiiiii drigum ... yF4miikam / para va vispdis' (para) vaoxamd / daeuudiS'cd xrafstrdis' masfiidis'cd). Here Zarathustra has explicitly identified himself as a drigu.22 He has also explicitly identified the drigu's enemies: it turns out that they are daivas, i.e., demons, and certain hostile humans, both of whom are 'ferocious beasts' (xrafstra).

To my mind, the merism dajuudis'cd xrafstrdis' ma- sfiidiSicd recalls the Vedic phrase attested at RV 8.93.11: nd dev6 nddhrigur jdnah, "neither a god nor an adhrigu man." On the one hand, the Avestan passage shows that Zarathustra, identifying himself as a drigu, seeks the protection of Ahura Mazda from the two kinds of ferocious enemies, daevas and humans. On the other hand, the Vedic passage asserts that no one violates the decree and the sovereignty of Indra-not even a deva or an adhrigu man. The interesting point here is that both words, Avestan drigu and Vedic ddhrigu, are directly linked with daevas or devas. In Avestan, the drigu seeks protection from the daeva, whereas in Vedic the ddhrigu is aligned with, is a colleague of, the deva. Hostility to the daeva in Avestan correlates with the term drigu, while alliance with the deva in Vedic correlates with the term ddhrigu. Whatever the correct analysis of these words may ultimately be, it would seem quite clear that the pair is related in terms also of how they relate to the perennial problem of the daevas/devas.

18 Old Avestan: Y 27.13; 34.5; 53.9; YH 38.5 driguddiiah.

Late Avestan: Y 10.13; Y. 19.14; Y 57.10; Yt. 10.84; Yt. 11.3; P. 26 & 44; V 3.19 (draijift5.tama); also Ordiiio.driyu (attested twice: S. 1.4 and S. 2.4) and Ordiiio.driyutama at A.3.4.

19 On the Bayan YaMt, see Humbach 1984: 226; Skjwrv0 1994: 203, n. 7. For further scholarly discussion of the Ahuna Vairya, also see, e.g., Benveniste 1957: 85; Duchesne-Guillemin 1975:

42; Boyce 1966: 261; Insler 1975b, as well as the recent edi- tions of Old Avestan texts published by Humbach (et al.), on

the one hand, and Kellens-Pirart, on the other. 20 See Boyce 1966: 260f. The use by the later Zoroastrian

tradition of the twenty-one words of the Ahuna Vairya as a

mnemonic device in enumerating the twenty-one nasks, sec-

tions, of the Sasanian Avesta is surely worth notice. Thus, as

the nineteenth word in the Ahuna Vairya, drigubHii is used as

the name of the nineteenth nask. On this practice, see E. W.

West 1892: Sf. 21 On which, see Thompson 1997. 22 Especially if one accepts Insler's reading, in the previous

line, of ahmi 'I am', instead of the rather strange reading found

in the better MSS, hahmi 'I sleep'. See Insler 1975a: 222f.




Whereas the Vedic term ddhrigu clearly became ob- solete after the RV, Old Avestan drigu continued to be a living word in Late Avestan. The odd double superla- tive draejift3.tama 'most drigu of all' (at V 3.19) shows that the Avestan word was still very much a productive (though not quite a correct) one, capable of morphological variation even at the later stages of the language. The early compound driguddiiah 'taking care of the drigu' (at YH 38.5), and the Late Avestan compounds Oriii5.driyu 'protecting the drigu' (attested twice) and Ordii5.driyutama 'best protecting the drigu' are also worth noting here. Clearly, they are formulaic, liturgical variants of Y 34.5 cited above, except that the latter two (attested in the late text, Siroza) are used to modify a semi-deified marzdika 'compassion' (thus Humbach 1991, vol. 2: 224). Compare also Yt. 11.3: sraos'o driyiim Ordt5.tam5 (= "Sraosa who best protects the drigu"23) and Yt. 10.84, which commends to the God Mithra the driyus'cit a?5tkajsi "the poor man who follows Asa" ("though deprived of his rights' . . . apaiiat3 hauudisi datuis'). Such attestations show not only that the term drigu was productive morphologically and in compound formation, but also that the notion of "protecting the drigu" was an attribute only of divine beings, and only in their treatment of Zoroastrians. What is implicit in all of these passages, I think, is the identification of the Zoroastrian, the Mazdayasnian, as a drigu.

There is therefore good evidence to suggest, as Barr in particular noticed, that already in Avestan the word drigu meant much more than simply 'poor, needy, dependent'. Barr defined the Zoroastrian drigu as "the true follower of the creed of the Prophet (Zoroaster), the meek and pious who stands firmly on the side of God and makes himself solely dependent on Him" (p. 40). This interpretation, perhaps a little anachronistic in its tone, is confirmed nevertheless, I think, not only by the evidence cited above, but also by post-Avestan cognates of the term. In Zoroastrian Pahlavi, the cognates driyis' 'poor' and driys'ih 'poverty' both continued to be well- attested. In Sogdian, the form drywsk (< *driguska = drigu + diminutive suffix24) meant 'disciple' in both Christian and Manichean texts, and the term was used in Sogdian translations of Buddhist texts as a gloss for Sanskrit bhiksu. Eventually, Avestan drigu culminated

in Modern Persian darves (darvis) 'beggar, wanderer, ascetic, member of a Sufi order', whence the English borrowing (through Turkish) 'dervish'. Certainly, the Ira- nian term drigu, etc., has had a long and illustrious history that has extended well beyond Zoroastrianism into the religious vocabulary of Islam (cf. Shaki 1985). In my view, this entire history is encapsulated already in the Avestan passages cited above. If there is an earlier attestation of the theme of the 'holy beggar' anywhere in world literature, I am not aware of it.

Conclusions. As for the pair ddhrigu/drigu, Avestan drigu seems clearly to be the base word. Pace Wust and Mayrhofer, Vedic a'dhrigu seems to be the negation of an inherited term *dhrigu that is for some reason unattested in Vedic. But the fact that it is unattested is explicable, it seems to me, on the basis of the two facts to which this paper has called attention. First, the nearly exclusive use of the word adhrigu as a formulaic epithet, or a name, of certain divine beings, or of certain powerful human beings, has resulted in the word's im- penetrability to etymological analysis even in the Vedic period itself. Second, the distribution of the Vedic word, which is largely restricted to the environs of the 8th book of the RV strongly suggests that significant contact between an eastern Iranian language, Avestan, and a NW branch of early Vedic has played a determining role in the semantics of this word-pair.

A. Lubotsky has recently produced a list of some 120 Indo-Iranian word-isolates, i.e., words common to both branches but without IE cognates, and which therefore can be considered as possible borrowings from an unknown, perhaps Central Asian, substrate. Among these is our word, the common Indo-Iranian *dhrigu. Viewing it as a "foreign" word would help to explain the pecu- liar behavior of the Vedic word adhrigu. It appears that eastern Iran/Central Asia is the culture-area where the word *dhrigu flourished. It is not attested as such in Vedic, and its negation, ddhrigu, though well-attested within a restricted range of Vedic, essentially atrophied there. The reason for this would appear to be the fact that the Avestan word had taken on a marked semantic charge as a term of self-designation among the followers of Zarathustra. Perhaps the corresponding word in the unknown source language also had this religious significance. It is impossible to know. In any case, it would appear that the positive form *dhrigu was suppressed in Vedic, and that its negation a'dhrigu was given a positive value, much like the positive sense attributed to dimira, from mnrda 'foolish' or dbadhira from badhira 'deaf' (cf. Narten 239, n. 158). The alternative hypothesis of Wust and Mayrhofer, according to which Avestan drigu is a re-analysis of *adri-gu, it seems to me, does not offer

23 Cited by Insler 1975a: 222. 24 Besides drywsk, *driguska is attested also as jwxsk in Man-

ichean script, twxsq in Christian Syriac script, and zywsk in Buddhist Sogdian, all due to the regular phonological change in Sogdian of inherited dr- to z-. See Gershevitch 1954: ?285 (also ?180); cf. also Benveniste 1957: 83.




adequate motivation for this re-analysis. While both hy- potheses take for granted some kind of significant contact between the two traditions, the "Vedic thesis" of Wust and Mayrhofer fails to offer convincing motivation for such a remarkable development in Avestan: that such a re-analyzed word would have taken on such a semantic charge among Zarathustra and his followers. Likewise, that the Vedic word from which it is supposed to be derived essentially became a fossil after the RV remains

unexplained in their thesis. In short, the "Avestan thesis," which asserts the primacy of Avestan drigu in this pair, is better motivated: it explains both the continued vi- brancy of the Avestan word and its congeners, as well as the fossilization of the Vedic word; it more adequately defines and explains the geographical range of the two words; it offers a more convincing explanation for the Vedic re-analysis of the word from a-dhrigu to *adhrigu, with its still inexplicable, opaque, first member.

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