A short note on an ancient Vedic poetic formula and an obscure word

A couple of ṛk-s, respectively from maṇḍala-s 6 and 7 of the Ṛgveda, are rather striking for their parallel structure:

You are the bull of Heaven, the bull of Earth,
the bull of the rivers, the bull of the “immobile/dense”;
For you, the manly, O Bull, the Indu has waxed,
the sweet juice, the honey-drink, for your choice.

Sought in Heaven, established on Earth,
the leader of rivers, the bull of the “immobile/dense”;
He shines forth to the peoples of Manu,
Vaiśvānara waxing by his own choice.

The first ṛk is by Śaṃyu Bārhaspatya and is addressed to Indra, while the second is by Vasiṣṭha Maitrāvaruṇi and addressed to Agni Vaiśvānara. Nevertheless, as can be seen above, they are structurally equivalent in the following ways: (1) In each case, the god is invoked in four stations, namely heaven, earth, the rivers, and something termed the stiyā-s, which will be the focus of the discussion in the concluding part of this note. (2) In both cases, the respective gods are referred to as bulls (vṛṣabha) — a common Vedic metaphor emphasizing their preeminence and manliness. (3) In the second hemistich, the word vara (choice, wish) is used. While it is declined differently in the two ṛk-s, in both cases, there is a sense of the autonomous nature of the god in making the choice. (4) In the second hemistich of both ṛk-s, there are distinct but semantically overlapping words meaning “waxing/growing/swelling”. In the ṛk to Indra, it is pīpāya that is often used in the context of the “waxing” of soma both in the sense of the moon (Indu) and the turgidification of the soma stalks before the extraction of the juice. In the one addressed to Agni, it is the perfect participle formation vāvṛdhānaḥ. (5) While in the ṛk to Indra, the term vṛṣabha is repeatedly used, it can be seen as semantically overlapping with netṛ used in the cognate position of the Agni ṛk. It is not uncommon to see parallels between the compositions of the different ṛṣi-s; hence, why do we make a big deal of this?

First, it is not a case of identical repetition of certain characteristic phrases (e.g., agnim īḻe; bhadraṃ no api vātaya manaḥ; mṛl(ā/yāsi) naḥ) or a repeated refrain. Rather, the entire structure mentioned above is recapitulated, albeit in the context of different deities and with differing intents. Second, there is no special connection between the Bharadvāja-s of maṇḍala 6 and the Vasiṣṭha-s of maṇḍala 7 beyond the fact that they were ṛṣi-s of a common Āryan tradition. This is most starkly illustrated by looking at their associations with specific rulers. The table below shows the number of times the rulers Atithigva, Divodāsa and Sudās are mentioned in the respective maṇḍala-s. Most students of the RV agree that Atithigva is either the father or a dynastic title of Divodāsa.

The link between the Bharadvāja-s and the Atithigva-Divodāsa line is in sharp contrast to that between Vasiṣṭha and Sudās. It is also notable that while there is at least one mention each of Atithigva and Divodāsa by the Vasiṣṭha-s, there is no mention of Sudās by the Bharadvāja-s. Irrespective of both their adherence to contrafactual ideas like autochthonous Āryan-s of India, and the mapping of Atithigva and Divodāsa to the homonymous kings mentioned in the dynastic lists of the Purāṇa-s, most students of the RV agree that they were temporally anterior to Sudās. Thus, it would be safe to conclude that not only did the early Bharadvāja-s and Vasiṣṭha-s not have any special connection, but also belonged to distinct temporal periods of the Early Vedic age. Hence, we believe that the parallels between the ṛk-s presented above represent an old Āryan poetic formula with a special significance that allowed the portrayal of a god in a specific fashion, simultaneously embodying multiple key elements: (1) The universal lordship of the deity in association with both the heavenly realm and earth and the swiftly motile (rivers) and the “immovable/dense”. This might have been used in a metaphorical sense similar to sthāvara-jaṅgama (immobile and mobile) used in the later registers of the language; (2) The sense of expansion; (3) the sense of self-choice, evidently with respect to the sacrificers (also apparently indicating the granting of boons — vara-s to them).

In the above, we translated the word stiyā noncommittally as immobile/dense, but can we infer what it really meant? Traditionally it has been taken to mean stagnant water bodies in contrast to rivers. To our knowledge, stiyā is only attested in the early Vedic dialect and is not seen in the classical language. Hence, one cannot infer its actual meaning directly from continuity with the classical dialect. However, the “stagnancy” inherent in it can be literally etymologically inferred as the word is seen as derived from a root that was likely a paralog, already present in early Indo-European, of a more widely attested root (Skt: sthā < PIE *steh; we have no particular opinion on the reconstructed laryngeal in this form as we have not studied that closely), which is equivalent to English “stand”. This paralogous root is reconstructed as steyh from which we likely have the Skt roots styai and styā. The form styāna, which is derived as a kta passive past participle of the root styai in traditional vyākaraṇa, is attested in the classical dialect and means viscous, coagulated or immobile. This is consistent with the inference of stagnancy behind stiyā in the RV. A closer look at the descendants of steyh in other IE languages presents an interesting picture. We have the following cognates:
(1) Greek: stía= stone, pebble; stîon= stone, pebble; stiáōn= altar made of stones.
(2) Germanic: Proto-form: *stainaz > English: stone; stayn (Middle Eng.); German: Stein; Old Norse: Steinn.
(3) Slavic: Proto-form: stena > Russian: stená= rock, stone wall/cliff; Serbo-Croatian: stijéna= rock;

Thus, from these distinct branches of IE, one would infer an ancestral meaning of the paralogous root steyh as meaning stone; however, the size of the stone could range from a pebble to a rock. It is notable that this meaning survives in Slavic — something relevant to Vedic since Balto-Slavic is a likely sister group of Indo-Iranian. Under this consideration, given the uncertain meaning of Vedic stiyā, we would parsimoniously infer that it actually meant “rock/stone” as opposed to a stagnant water body. We now return to the RV to see if there is any support for this claim. We find that the term “rivers” as in the above ṛk-s is also found in a parallel context in the below ṛk of Viśvāmitra:

mitro agnir bhavati yat samiddho
mitro hotā varuṇo jātavedāḥ ।
mitro adhvaryur iṣiro damūnā
mitraḥ sindhūnām uta parvatānām ॥ RV 3.5.4
The ritual fire becomes Mitra when it is kindled;
As the Hotṛ, he is Mitra, as Jātavedas [he is] Varuṇa.
Mitra is the Adhvaryu, the strongman of the household,
[as also] is Mitra of the rivers and mountains.

Here, sacrificial fire is said to become Mitra when kindled, and as the manifestation of Agni that pertains to the ritual of the sacrificer (Jātavedas), he is seen as Varuṇa. Thereafter this ritual fire in the form of Mitra is said to become the Adhvaryu and Hotṛ of the ritual, as also the lord of the household, the rivers and the mountains. This devotion to Mitra likely relates to the special place of the god for Viśvāmitra — indeed, his own name is likely an early theophoric name signaling the universal nature of the god Mitra. In this context, it is not surprising the metaphors indicative of the lordship of the various stations are deployed in this ṛk, similarly to those in the opening two ṛk-s under discussion in this note. Thus, the expression sindhūnām uta parvatānām can be seen as an equivalent of sindhūnām … stiyānām in those ṛk-s. Further, a comparable juxtaposition of rivers and mountains can be seen in a ṛk of the Father of our people, Manu, to Viṣṇu. Here the word sindhu for river is replaced by nadī:

śarma parvatānāṃ vṛṇīmahe nadīnām । ā viṣṇoḥ sacābhuvaḥ ॥ RV 8.31.10
We choose the shelter of the mountains and of the rivers, of Viṣṇu, who stands [with us] as a helper.

A comparable coupling of the rivers and mountains is also seen in the Vaiśvadeva incantations of the Atri-s and Vasiṣṭha-s:
uta tye naḥ parvatāsaḥ suśastayaḥ sudītayo nadyas trāmaṇe bhuvan ।RV 5.46.6a
śaṃ naḥ parvatā dhruvayo bhavantu śaṃ naḥ sindhavaḥ śam u santv āpaḥ ॥ RV 7.35.8c
In the second of these, the immobility of the mountains is explicitly mentioned, evidently in contrast to the flow of the rivers.

Based on the multiple juxtapositions of rivers and mountains in the early layer of the Vedic tradition, along with the IE tradition indicating that the ancestral meaning of the noun derived from the root steyh is likely to have been stone, we cautiously propose that stíyā (udātta indicated) meant stone and by metonymy mountain. Indeed, in the RV itself, we see a similar metonymic duality between stone and mountain in the word adri. This is made explicit in RV 10.94.1, where the soma-pounding stones (adri-s) are explicitly also called mountains (parvata-s). Thus, rather than being stagnant water, we believe that the Vedic stíyā preserved in old IE meaning. Curiously, a juxtaposition of the waters and the stone is seen in a name of Germanic provenance, Epstein, that is widely borne by paleo-Abrahamists in our day (e.g., separately, a virologist and a criminal who was mysteriously eliminated). Apparently, it was originally a place name in Northwestern Germany — the Stein part is obvious and meant mountain by metonymy — we believe Ep is from an IE word that might have been Apa (= Skt apas). The root of the latter might have originally been from Celtic given the name Abiona (also Old Irish aub for river) found in continental Celtic inscriptions, which appears to have signified a water/river goddess. Alternatively, it was from a Western Baltic tongue, given the Old Prussian word “ape”=river. Thus, the German place name likely meant “river-mountain”.