<論文>ヴェーダ語 vidh-, 古アヴェスタ語 vid- 「敬意を表する, 捧げる」をめぐる問題

Abstract

Ever since the influential proposals of Thieme (1949) and Hoffmann (1969), the root vidh- is commonly thought to have arisen by incorporation of the preverb vi with the root dhā-. vi-dhā- means 'distribute, allocate', and the root vidh- is usually assigned a similar semantic value in more recent dictionaries and translations. Based on a careful analysis of the syntax and semantics of Vedic vidh- and its Old Avestan counterpart vid-, I argue that the root concerned existed already in Proto-Indo-Iranian as a root unrelated to vi-dhā-. This root appears in sacrificial contexts, and its meaning is essentially 'honor, offer', as recognized by older dictionaries. An important result of this study is the finding that the commonly supposed construction for vidh- in which the recipient is placed in the accusative does not appear in the Rgveda. This discovery allows us to clarify some commonly mistranslated passages and misunderstood constructions. A detailed appendix of construction types for vidh- in the Rgveda and Atharvaveda has been included.