How to kill a cow in Avestan
167
equivalent to a certain extent with
framr¯uit¯e depending on *
v¯ısait¯e in Y. 8,4 which
I
NSLER
quotes as a parallel.
auu¯o, on the other hand, is the accusative of an
s-stem
noun, *á ˘uas. Although such a syntactic disjuncture cannot be ruled out with certainty,
it would nevertheless be hard even if we could regard v¯ıs e ˙nt¯a as a verb of motion (”to
enter“).
Although all interpretations connecting
mrao¯ı with the root
mr¯u ”to speak“ are
supported by the Pahlavi translation which uses guft ”spoken“
5
, several quite diver-
gent proposals were published as to the form in question. In a 1957 article, H. H
UM
-
BACH
argued that mrao¯ı cannot represent a 3rd sg. form of the passive aorist of
”mr¯u/mrav ‘sprechen’“ because this root is supplied by v¯ac in the aorist throughout,
the 3sg. aor.pass. being v¯ac¯ı. Instead he proposed to connect mrao¯ı with the YAv.
adjective ”mr¯ura- ‘gewalttätig (?)’“ which is used in Vd. 2,22 as an epithet of the
”winter“, just as the compound gaojan- ”cow killing“ is used in Vd. 7,27. According-
ly, he proposed the tentative translation ”die Kuh wird, um getötet zu werden, gewalt-
tätig behandelt“
6
. Note that here, the infinitival syntagm is regarded equivalent with
a passive final clause, ”for being killed“. In H
UMBACH
’s first Gatha edition (1959: I,
99), his translation was a bit more concise: ”.. während die Kuh zu Tode gequält wird
..“
This view according to which mrao¯ı is a 3.sg. aor.pass. of a root
2
mr¯u ”to torment“
was adopted by J. K
ELLENS
in his study on the Avestan root nouns (1974, 325) as
well as — hesitatingly — by K. H
OFFMANN
and B. F
ORSSMAN
in their ”Avestische
Laut- und Flexionslehre“ (1996, 228). It was K
ELLENS
who extended the basis for the
alleged
2
mr¯u by relating to it both *amr¯u-, the name of a saint occurring in Yt.
13,109, interpreted by him as ”qui ne maltraite pas“, and mrauuaii˚¯asca appearing as
a variant reading in Yt. 1,15. Taking the latter as a gen.sg. of a fem. ¯a-stem mrauu¯a-
”la violence“, K
ELLENS
explicitly tried to improve B
ARTHOLOMAE
’s Wörterbuch entry
”mrv¯ı- f. etwa ‘Hader, Zwist’“ based on G
ELDNER
’s reading mruaii˚¯asca (1904, 1197).
One further derivation of the root in question had been claimed before by G. K
LIN
-
GENSCHMITT
in his 1968 dissertation on the Farhang-¯ı ¯o¯ım according to whom mruta
appearing in F.11 (491) is the ”einziger Beleg des PPP. der Wz. mr¯u“ [!], its meaning
being ”‘vernichtet, geschädigt’ (o.ä.)“
7
. The interpretation of mrao¯ı as a passive form
of
2
mr¯u ”maltraiter“ has been upheld by K
ELLENS
ever since: It is repeated both in
”Les textes vieil-avestiques“, edited together with E. P
IRART
(K
ELLENS
-P
IRART
1991,
289) and in a recent article dealing about the Avestan infinitives (K
ELLENS
1994
[1995], 57); the translation agrees with the one proposed by H
UMBACH
in 1957: ”..
lorsque la Vache est maltraitée pour être tuée“ (K
ELLENS
-P
IRART
1988, 121).
H
UMBACH
himself, however, has meanwhile changed his mind again. In his second
Gatha-edition published in collaboration with J. E
LFENBEIN
and P.O. S
KJÆRVØ
(1991),
5
As usual, this is an interlinear rendering of the Avestan words rather than a translation: W
AMTˇc
c
w’ TWRA znšn gwpt’ i.e. ud ka-z ¯o g¯aw zanišn guft ”and also-when to the cow killing (is)
spoken“.
6
H
UMBACH
1957, 91 with fn. 26.
7
K
LINGENSCHMITT
1968a, 149; the ”Teildruck“ (1968b) does not contain any commentary on the
form in question.
168
Jost Gippert
he now regards mrao¯ı not as a finite passive form of mr¯u
2
but as an ”instr.sg. of an
¯ı-stem noun
mrao¯ı- ‘destructive action, destruction, enfeeblement’, derived from the
same root (1991: II,89). Taking g¯auš jaidii¯ai as a direct speech clause, he arrives at
the following translation for the verse in question: “.. when, with the destructive
action (called) ‘let the ox be killed’ ..” (I: 135). H
UMBACH
felt it necessary once again
to explicitly state that “
mrao¯ı cannot be for
*mr¯auu¯ı [sic; see n. 42 below], 3rd sg.aor
pass of mrau/mr¯u ‘to speak, recite’, since the aor. of this root is supplemented by the
root vac ‘to speak, say’” (II: 89).
Considering this amount of divergent opinions, it seems worth while reinvestigating
the arguments put forth in detail
8
. If we start with contrasting the two roots in ques-
tion,
1
mr¯u and
2
mr¯u, we are struck by the fact that the former only is well attested in
Avestan and elsewhere: With its Vedic counterpart, br¯u-, it shares both its meaning
and its formal pecularities, i.e. the existence of an athematic root present, the non-
existence of an aorist stem, and its suppletion by * ˘uaˇc-. And it can be traced to a
Proto-Indo-European *mluH- by identification with Slavonic *ml˘uv- “to speak”
9
.
The case for
2
mr¯u, on the other hand, is rather weak, at least if it is postulated to be
a verbal root. In this case, the form mrao¯ı would remain the only finite form attested
— provided the analysis as underlined by K
ELLENS
and H
OFFMANN
/ F
ORSSMAN
can
be maintained at all. But the nominal derivatives invoked as witnesses are not beyond
doubt either.
The most serious problem is posed by the alleged attestation of a noun *mruu¯ı- or
*mrauu¯a- meaning “Hader, Zwist” or “la violence” in Yt. 11,15. In the context in
question, it is just the verse containing this word which shows the greatest variation
in manuscript tradition. This was studied in great detail by J. K
ELLENS
(1968, 43) in
connection with a second hapax legomenon appearing alongside with *mrauu¯a- here,
viz. p e r e t-. For the present investigation, the complex situation may be summarized as
follows.
Taking G
ELDNER
’s edition as a basis, the text of Yt. 11,15-16 can be rearranged
into syntactical units in the following way:
(11,15) sraoˇ˙s e m. aˇ˙s¯ım. [huraod e m. v e r e \r¯ajan e m. fr¯ada ˜t.ga¯e\ e m. aˇ˙sauuan e m. aˇ˙sahe.
rat¯um.]
10
yazamaide:
yim. da\a ˜t. ahur¯o. mazd˚¯a. aˇ˙sauua. a¯eˇ˙smahe. xruu¯ı.draoš. hama¯est¯ar e m:
¯axšt¯ım. h ˛
am.vai ˙nt¯ım. yazamaide.
par e tasca. mruuaii˚¯asca. hama¯est¯ara.
(11,16)
haxaiia. sraoˇ˙sahe. aˇ˙siiehe.
haxaiia. raˇ˙snaoš. razištahe. ...
8
I shall not discuss the name amru-, appearing in Yt. 13,109 in the genitive form, amraoš,
rhyming with the following name,
camraoš, nor the Old Persian proper name
Gaubruva
〈g-u-b-ru-v〉
interpreted by H
UMBACH
(1991: II, 89) as “bull-killer”. They have no argumentative value.
9
Cf. M
AYRHOFER
1986-, II, 235 sq. for O.Ind. br¯u- (BRAV
I
) and V
ASMER
1955, II, 148 sq. s.v.
Russ. molv-a. The Slavonic -i-present (Czech mluviti, Pol. mówi´c etc.; a “ˇcech. mluvati” as quoted by
M
AYRHOFER
seems never to have existed) can immediately reflect the athematic root present if it was
remodelled after the 3.pl.pres.ind.act. *ml˘uv ˛
et˘ı < *
mluh
1
énti
≈ Ved. bruvánti.
10
The text in brackets is suppleted from Yt. 11,1.