OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF SANSKRIT 41 applied to Agni in his capacity of carrying the oblations to the gods. Later it means ' fire * in general by a perfectly natural extension of meaning. The term dasyti- is primarily ethno- logical, meaning the non-Aryan inhabitants of India ; later it acquires the meaning 4 robber, brigand Similarly ddsd- * slave * was originally a tribal name (cf. the Dahae of Central Asia) t and the same may apply to siidrd- ' member of the fourth caste since a tribe with this name is known to have existed in N.W. India from both Indian and Classical sources. In other cases the change of meaning in the later language is due simply to a misunderstanding of the Vedic word. This is the case with kratu- 4 sacrifice ' as opposed to Vedic krdtu - ' wisdom, insight Here there is no change of meaning, but simply a failure to understand properly the meaning of the Vedic texts. In classical Sanskrit mdtansvan - means ‘ wind ' ; originally it meant the divine being who discovered fire by the method of rubbing two sticks, and also Agni himself (from
- mdtaris- 1 fire-stick etymologically equivalent to Lat.
matrix) ; the change of meaning can only be due to the fading of the old mythology in the popular mind. Vedic ktldla - meant a certain milk preparation (cf. Khowar kildl 1 a kind of cheese ') ; its use in classical Sanskrit to mean ‘ blood ’ is due to a mis- understanding of the old texts. False popular etymology in the case of the old words dsura - ' demon ' and risita- 4 black 1 led to the creation of two new words. Since the initial «- in these words was falsely inter- preted as the negative a sura- ‘ god 4 and sita- ‘ white 1 were created as their opposites. The above examples show that the losses in vocabulary during this period of the history of the language were consider- able. As elsewhere the Indo-European heritage of In do -Aryan was steadily reduced with the passage of time. One result was that many of the old words of the Veda ceased to be understood in later times. The difficulties that ensued gave rise at an early period to a special school of interpretation (nirukta-) of the Veda. Collections of difficult vocables were made and attempts to explain them on an etymological basis were made. These labours were summed up in the work of Yaska, who may be roughly contemporary with Panini. These attempts at inter- pretation were successful to only a limited degree, and it emerges quite clearly there existed no reliable tradition as to
