Achtung!
Dies ist eine Internet-Sonderausgabe des Aufsatzes
„How to kill a cow in Avestan“
von Jost Gippert (1996).
Sie sollte nicht zitiert werden. Zitate sind der Originalausgabe in
Mír curad. Studies in honor of Calvert Watkins,
ed. J. Jasanoff, H.C. Melchert, L. Olivier, Innsbruck 1998, 165-181
zu entnehmen.
Attention!
This is a special internet edition of the article
“How to kill a cow in Avestan”
by Jost Gippert (1996).
It should not be quoted as such. For quotations, please refer to the original edition in
Mír curad. Studies in honor of Calvert Watkins,
ed. J. Jasanoff, H.C. Melchert, L. Olivier, Innsbruck 1998, 165-181.
Alle Rechte vorbehalten / All rights reserved:
Jost Gippert, Frankfurt 1998-2011
How to kill a cow in Avestan
J
OST
G
IPPERT
Frankfurt am Main
In one of his most elucidative articles
1
, Calvert W
ATKINS
dealt with a rather martial
aspect of Proto-Indo-European social life, tracing its residues throughout the literary
products of various daughter languages. He argued convincingly that poetic formulae
such as Rigvedic áhann áhim ”(he, Indra) slew the serpent“ witness to a central
motive of PIE folklore which reflects, to put it shortly, some kind of ritualization of
the killing of mighty enemies by heroes. The essential linguistic feature of the for-
mulae involved is the usage of the verbal root *g
wh
en- as represented in Ved.
áhann
(3.sg.impf.act., < *é-g
wh
en-t), Hittite
kuenta (3.sg.pret.act., <
*g
wh
en-t), or Greek
(epefnen (3.sg.plup.act., cf. perf. *g
wh
e-g
wh
on-e). The verb in question was thus demon-
strated to have had special connotations, preventing it from being used in everyday
speech.
The usage of *g
wh
en- was not restricted to the killing of enemies such as dragons,
serpents, ”anti-heroes“, or ”anti-guests“, though. Both in Greek and in Indo-Iranian,
the same root could be used when people talked about the killing of cows. This can
hardly be accidental, given that in all those languages the combination of *g
w
o ˘u- and
*g
wh
en- yielded compounds such as Ved. m.
gohán- ”cow killing“ (referring to a
”weapon“, vadhá ˙h, of the Maruts: nom.sg. goh´¯a RV 7,56,17c beside n ˙rh´¯a ”man
killing“; derived nom.sg.ntr. goghná ˙m in RV 1,114,10a beside p¯uru ˙saghná ˙m), Avestan
gaojan- (gen.sg. gaojan¯o, referring to the winter: Vd. 7,27, cf. below), or the Greek
verb boufon
Hermes hymn, 430). The Homeric tradition and its background were discussed in great
detail by J. B
ECHERT
(1964). In the following pages, I shall examine the Avestan
material in question concentrating upon Zarathustra’s teachings.
The most intriguing Avestan passage that deals with the killing of the cow explicitly
is Y. 32,14c. The verse belongs to a context where Zarathustra complains about the
practices of the karapans and kavis appearing as a gr¯ehma-
2
to him:
Y. 32,14:
ahii¯a. g e r¯ehm¯o. ¯a.h¯oi\
¯oi. n¯ı. k¯auuaiiasc¯ı ˜t. xrat¯uš. [n¯ı.]dada ˜t.
var e c˚¯a. h¯ıc¯a. fraidiuu¯a. hiia ˜t. v¯ıs¯e ˙nt¯a. dr e guua ˙nt e m. auu¯o.
hiia ˜tc¯a. g¯auš. jaidii¯ai. mrao¯ı. y¯e. d¯uraoˇ˙s e m. saocaiia ˜t. auu¯o.
Although the context is far from being clear in all details, the interpretation of the
forms in question was never debated about: g¯auš is the nom.sg. meaning ”cow“, and
jaidii¯ai, an infinitive with the suffix *-d
h
˘i¯a ˘i built from jan- < *g
wh
en- ”to kill“. The
greatest divergences in the different interpretations of the present verse concern the
form mrao¯ı and the syntactical analysis depending on it. As this is basic for the under-
standing of the whole passage in question as well as for gaining an insight into the
situative background involved, it is worth while recollecting the proposals made so far.
1
W
ATKINS
1987, 270-299.
2
Following H
UMBACH
(1991: II, 86) I take this word as a collective noun designating a group of
persons.
166
Jost Gippert
In a 1985 article, I adopted the view expressed by Chr. B
ARTHOLOMAE
in his Wör-
terbuch (1904, 1193) who considered mrao¯ı as a finite 3.sg. passive injunctive form
of the root mr¯u- ”to speak“. Comparing the syntactic constellation thus established
with other occurrences of *mr¯u- plus infinitives in Vedic and Avestan, I arrived at the
conclusion that the sentence in question could be interpreted as denoting the speech
act leading to the killing of cows: ”und wenn die Kuh als zu töten(de) genannt wird“,
i.e., ”and when the cow is ordered to be killed“ (1985, 43). The clause would thus
represent a passivized equivalent of Vedic sentences like á´svam ´¯anetavai br¯uy¯at ”(he,
the Adhvaryu) should order a horse to be brought about“ ( ´SBM 2,1,4,16).
B
ARTHOLOMAE
’s own interpretation differed only partially from this in that he
regarded g¯auš jaidii¯ai as a clause of direct speech: ”.. und daß es heiße: das Rind ist
zu töten ..“ (1905, 31). A similar analysis of the infinitival clause was proposed by S.
I
NSLER
in his Gatha edition (1975, 208 sq.). This author, however, regarded
mrao¯ı as
an infinitive formation of its own, depending on v¯ıs e ˙nt¯a in the preceding verse and
thus being arranged parallel with auu¯o ”help(ing)“. The syntagm consisting of g¯auš
and jaidii¯ai is taken as a formula of direct speech then, together with the closing half
verse: ”.. since they (the Kavis) have begun to aid the deceitful person and to say:
‘The cow is to be killed (for him) who has been kindling the Haoma ...’“ (1975, 49).
This interpretation is doubtful in several respects. First, I
NSLER
had to suggest that
the attested form, mrao¯ı, ”somehow reposes on an orig. reading inf. *mruy¯oi (=
*mruv¯oi)“ (o.c., 209). Given that a form
mruii¯e (this is what we should expect from
*mru ˘ua ˘i) is well attested several times in Old Avestan as well as Young Avestan
contexts (as a 1st sg. pres.ind.med.: Y. 49,3d; Y. 9,17; 12,4; 19,10), this conjecture is
hard to believe, all the more since none of the variants listed in G
ELDNER
’s edition is
nearer to
mruii¯e than to
mrao¯ı:
mrao¯ı itself is the reading of nearly all manuscripts
pertaining to the Iranian Pahlav¯ı Yasna (Pt4, Mf1; Mf4 may be added
3
), the Sanskrit
Yasna (J3; S1 is ”defective“ in the present context), the (Indian) Yasna S¯ade (C1,
K11; H1, J6, J7), and the Iranian Vendid¯ad S¯ade (Mf2, Jp1); from the latter branch,
only K4 has mr¯oi. mrao¯ı is further attested in the Khorde Avesta ms. Pd. The mss.
assigned to the Indian Vendid¯ad S¯ade mostly read mraouu¯ı (L2, K10, L1) or, with a
neglectable difference, mra¯ouu¯ı (P1)
4
; B2 and L3 from this branch have mrao¯ı again.
Another ms. belonging here, O2, agrees with the reading of the Indian Pahlav¯ı Yasna,
which has mraom¯ı (J2, K5); the same holds true for the Iranian Khorda Avesta ms.
K37 and the Yasna Sade ms. L13 (where the m was secondarily added). G
ELDNER
was
certainly right in rejecting this as the lectio difficilior, all the more since a 1st sg. ”I
speak“ could hardly be motivated in the given context.
Another point that has to be objected against S. I
NSLER
’s interpretation is that the
two forms he assumes to depend from
v¯ıs e ˙nta as infinitives are basically distinct:
mrao¯ı, if it had replaced *
mruii¯e, would represent a dative root infinitive, thus being
3
This ms. was not used by G
ELDNER
because it ”did not reach (him) until after the entire Yasna
was completed“ (Prolegomena: 1896, xxiv); nevertheless G
ELDNER
had to acknowledge its importance
as a sister ms. of Pt4. Mf4 is nowadays easily accessible via the facsimile edition prepared by J
AMASP
A
SA
/ N
AWABI
(1976e) where it is named ”D90“.
4
This reading is not mentioned in G
ELDNER
’s apparatus but can be taken from the facsimile
edition prepared by B
URNOUF
(1829-1843).