Chapter 1: Animals

One of the Sanskrit words for 'animal' is ???????? pra?in. It also means 'breathing, alive; living thing'. This word comes from ????? pra?a, which means 'breath, life force; spirit or soul'. Our English word animal has a similar history: it comes from Latin animale 'living being, being which breathes' and is derived from anima, 'breath, soul; a current of air'.

Another word of interest is ??? mr?ga, which was applied to forest animals in general and to deer, gazelles, antelopes, stags and musk-deer in particular. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-Iranian word from which it derives, *mr?gas, means 'forest animal'. Some words among descendants of ??? in Indo-Aryan languages are Kalasha mru 'mountain goat', Bengali mrig 'deer', Shina bri? 'bird' and Hindi mrg 'deer; antelope.' In Old English, the word deor ('deer' in Modern English) meant 'wild animal, beast, any wild quadruped'. Over time the word became narrower in its semantic meaning, and by the 15th century it no longer referred to wild beasts in general but to a specific animal. Some hypothesise that this semantic shift occurred via hunting, as the deer was especially preferred by game hunters. And it is believed the word deor comes from Proto-Indo-European *dheusom 'creature that breathes' - by way of comparison, the Latin word animalis is ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *h²enh¹mos 'breath'.

Now let's take a look at words for individual animals. As you read on, you may wonder, why did people have so many alternative names for animals? Why did they use descriptive words, euphemisms and circumlocutions to refer to them? The answer lies in the old practice of referring to something by another name because of superstitious beliefs. One of the most famous examples is the Jews' avoidance of the divine name (commonly transliterated at YHWH). There is some evidence to suggest that such superstition had already developed before the year 70 AD. Even today Jews will use the term Hashem (meaning 'the name') instead. In the same way, the names of some animals that were believed to be connected to the spiritual realm were avoided. This was especially true when wild animals were hunted. People believed that if they uttered the animal's name it would come and kill them. But if they used a different appellation then the animal would stay away. Today we use the expression 'talk of the Devil (and he will appear)' when a person just mentioned appears. Of course, today we say this jokingly but for ancient peoples it was no laughing matter.1

Cow: Cows play a very important role in Indian culture, so it's natural that Sanskrit has many words for them. Going through all of them is totally beyond the scope of this work, so let's just take a look at a small selection.

???? dhenu refers to a cow in general but can also be applied to a milch cow in particular. It ultimately comes from Proto-Indo-European *d?eh¹(y)- 'to suckle, to nurse'. A cow that does not yield milk was called ????? adhenu, which is the opposite of ???? dhenu 'yielding milk'. A cow that lost her calf was called ?????? avatsa, literally 'without a calf'. A mooing cow is ????? vasra, and the Indo-Aryan descendants of this word refer to animals being in heat, e.g. Sindhi vahura 'desire of cow, goat, etc. for male' and Lahnda vahra? 'to be on heat (of cows)'. Cows were also associated with daybreak and light, as can be seen in the word ???? asra 'ray, brightness; morning light; cow.' Finally, a cow that produces abundant milk is called ???????? payasvin, from ???? payas 'fluid; juice'.

Bull: Bulls are associated with strength, which can be seen, for example, in the Sanskrit word ???? vr??abha 'powerful; lord; male; bull'. Descendants of this word in other Indo-Aryan languages yielded more specific meanings, e.g. Nepali basaha 'bull not used for ploughing', Bihari basaha 'bull bought by religious mendicants' and Marathi vasu 'bull calf, bull branded and set at liberty.' Another example is ?????? sakvara, which means 'powerful' as well as 'bull'. Often the strength exhibited by bulls results in death, thus Sanskrit ?????? hantu? 'killing, death; bull.'

Elephant: We will encounter many words that are descriptive in nature, i.e. they describe a particular characteristic or behaviour of the animal. First up is ??????? hastin, which comes from ???? hasta, 'hand'. So the word for elephant literally means 'having a hand', because apparently people associated the trunk with human hands. A similar word is ????? karin, 'having a trunk, an elephant'. It derives from the root ?? k? 'to do'. This is where the Hindi word kari 'elephant' comes from. The third descriptive word for 'elephant' is ??????? dantavala, meaning 'toothed, tusked.'

Pig: One of the words for 'pig' in Sanskrit is ????????? pa?kakri?a, a compound word which literally means 'playing in mud'. Nepali has udhinne 'pig', related to the verb udhinnu 'to dig up (of pigs), to rummage'. These words come from Sanskrit ???????? úddhanti 'to lift up; to turn up the earth.'

Bird: First let's look at general, descriptive words for 'bird'. There is the adjective ??????? pak?ín 'winged', derived from ???? pak? 'wing; side, flank'. ??????? viha?gama literally means 'moving in the sky' and referred to birds in general, but in A comparative dictionary of Indo-Aryan languages R. L. Turner lists a Hindi word for a specific bird (bah?gwa), namely the fork-tailed shrike. Another Sanskrit word for 'bird' is ?????akuna (or ????? ?akuni). It was specifically used to refer to large birds and those that give omens. In fact, its secondary meaning is 'good omen.' The link between birds and prognostication shouldn't surprise us, as the practice of reading omens from the actions of birds (ornithomancy, to use the technical term) was common in ancient cultures, e.g. in ancient Greece and Rome. Examples of words in Indo-Aryan languages that derive from ????/ ????? are: Hindi saun, son 'good omen', sauniya 'soothsayer' and Torwali shôn 'parrot'.

Parrot: There are a few descriptive words for parrots in Sanskrit, some of which refer to their ability to mimic human speech. Case in point, ????? vaca?a 'noisy, full of bustle; talkative', which is derived from the root ?? vac 'to speak'. ??? vacah also comes from the same root and means 'parrot'. At least two words refer to the bird's eating habits: ??????????dadimabhakshana, literally 'eating pomegranates' and ?????????? dadimapriya 'enjoying pomegranates'.

Owl: There are several terms for 'owl' in Sanskrit but I chose a handful of words in Indo-Aryan languages that mean 'owl' but that come from words which do not referred to owls specifically. There is Sinhala mavat-a, which is derived from Sanskrit ????????? mahavaktra, literally 'large-mouthed'. Sindhi has ci?a, ci?iro and Gujarati cib?i, all derived from *cibba, a reconstructed form meaning 'flattened.' This original sense survives in Marathi ciba 'flattened'.

Vulture: One of the Sanskrit words for 'vulture' is ????? gr?´dhra. Its primary meaning is 'desiring greedily', which perfectly describes this type of bird. ????? ultimately derives from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root *g???l?d?-ró-s, from *g???eld?- 'to desire greedily'.

Here are just a few more examples of bird names that originate from descriptive words. Hindi adh?ga 'a brown bird with red throat and head and yellow wings and legs' is derived by R. L. Turner from the reconstructed compound word *ardhapi?ga 'half-yellow'. Sanskrit ????? sara?ga 'spotted; a kind of deer; the Indian cuckoo' yielded Sinhala haran?ga-ya 'a bird of the cuckoo family, Ceylon hornbill', Pali sara?ga 'a spotted deer' and Maithili sara~g 'deer'. My final ornithological mention goes to ?????? supar?a 'any large bird of prey, a mythical bird'. Its literal translation is 'having beautiful wings.' This term yielded Pali supa??a 'the bird Garuda' (we will discuss this bird in the section about snake charmers and conjurers).

Monkey: One of the Sanskrit words for 'monkey' is ???? vanara, which some argue comes from ?? vana, 'forest' +? ?? 'man'. Others consider it a derivative of ??? vanara '(something) relating to the forest'. ??????? la?gula 'tail; having a tail' yielded Kashmiri la?gur, 'the langur monkey Semnopithecus schistaceus', Punjabi la~gur, 'monkey', Kumauni la~gur, 'long-tailed monkey' and Hindi la?gur 'long-tailed black-faced monkey'. Sanskrit ?????? valimukha is a compound of ??? vali 'a fold of the skin, wrinkle' + ??? mukha 'face', so its literal translation is 'having a wrinkled face.' And speaking of faces, Sanskrit also has the word ?????? kalamukha, meaning 'a kind of monkey', literally 'black-faced.' This is the...