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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Twice recently (Journal, 1931, 572 and 899) I have touched on certain curious cases of compounds of Sanskrit lāpaya. Further inquiry has produced some other instances and suggested to me that the Buddhist technical term, lapanā, is connected with the same verbs. For though the commentators were presumably well aware of its meaning, their statements are so lacking in clarity that modern scholars are still in doubt regarding the exact sense, and their vagueness seems to me due to attempting to make their explanations fit in with a derivation from lap. But this etymology is negatived by the old phrases in which the term originated, such as janaṁ lāpayeyya (Suttanipāta, 929) and janaṁ lapetave (Udāna, 21), which cannot be reconciled with their suggestions that the sinner himself is the speaker (cf. Abhidharmakośa, vol. iii, 165, n. 4, and Visuddhimagga, 22 ff.). As it occurred to me that possibly the facts might be accounted for by a derivation from some root other than the recognized ones, lap and lī, I turned for light to the use of rap in the Rigveda and Avesta. Though the inquiry did not issue in a certain explanation of the words in question, it did bring me to a conclusion about the Vedic root, rap, which, despite its heterodoxy, seems inescapable.
page 535 note 1 An important one is bālālāpanam, describing sarvasamskṛtam at Daśabhūmikasūtm, p. 43. The Chinese and Tibetan translations agree that ālāpana here means “beguiling”, “deceiving”, and this is the only sense which fits the context. The Pali word bālalāpana, at Majjhima, ii, 261, and Jātaka, iii, 450, should presumably be understood in the same way, the commentaries not showing clearly how the word was interpreted in Ceylon. See now Oertel, H., Zeitschr. f. vergl. Sprachforschung, 1933, 142ffGoogle Scholar.
page 536 note 1 In treating of this and other Vedic passages I have had the great advantage of seeing the advance sheets of the second and third volumes of Geldner's translation of the Rigveda, to which through the courtesy of the editor of the Harvard Oriental Series I am permitted to refer.
page 536 note 2 For these Iranian words and for references and help on Avestic matters in this paper I am indebted to Mr. H. W. Bailey.
page 537 note 1 There is probably a hint here of talking like a lover. Lap with ud, though very rare in Sanskrit, occurs a number of times in Pali and Prakrit (see Jacobi, , Ausgewählte Erzählungen, 57Google Scholar, 26, and index to Weber's Saptaśataka) of the conversations between lovers, cf. the use of ullāpa at MBh., xii, 12248. It has also the sharply opposed sense of “insult”, “mock at” (Vairāgyaśataka, 6, Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, 382, and Bodhisattvabhūmi, ed. Wogihara, , 169)Google Scholar.
page 538 note 1 One of these, Y., 51, 18, comes doubtfully under this head; see the next note.
page 539 note 1 The passage can, however, be reconciled with his general meaning, if we accept the suggestion that tavā belongs to the root tav, not to the second person singular. Then, whatever the signification of rap, the sense is a prayer that the rulers will use their power to help the Zoroastrian faith.
page 539 note 2 I do not overlook the translations “emporhebend”, “Erhebung” by Andreas and Wackernagel in NGGW., 1913, 364 ff., but no justification of this is given in the recently published notes to this paper (ibid., 1931, 364 ft.); and that Dr. Lommel, who was a pupil of Professor Andreas and had the benefit of his advice, in the translation referred to above, should not follow it, suggests a subsequent change in the late professor's views.
page 540 note 1 Does the meaning so worked out explain the difficult passage, Vendidād, 13, 45, where among the qualities of a dog is mentioned raftō paurvaēibyayaθaēšå? Bártholomæ thought the form odd and accepted the reading yato (Air. Wörterbuch, 1238). It would suit the context much better, if we took it as a participle of rap in the sense “be loyal to”.
page 540 note 2 Since appeared in the Pavry volume, p. 21.