Tota noi... bahuvriihi's in yoga-suutras!

[ecky]

First some definitions of terminology (from Wikipedia):

A bahuvrīhí (बहुव्रीहि), or bahuvrihi compound is a type of nominal compound
that refers to something that is not specified by the compound's parts.
It is common in compounds referring to a possessor of a specified object:
a bahuvrihi compound XY tends to mean someone or something which has a Y,
and that Y has the characteristic X. For instance, a sabretooth (smil-
odon) is neither a sabre nor a tooth: it is an extinct feline with sabre-
like fangs. In linguistic terms, a bahuvrihi is headless or exocentric:
its core semantic value is implicit rather than explicit, so that the
compound is not a hyponym of the head.

English bahuvrihis often describe people using synecdoche: flatfoot, half-
wit, highbrow, lowlife, redhead, tenderfoot, longlegs, and white-collar.

Read more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahuvrihi

Well, perhaps that's 'nuff for starters?? :D

[ecky]

Post by ecky
A bahuvrīhí (बहुव्रीहि), or bahuvrihi compound is a type of nominal
compound that refers to something that is not specified by the
compound's parts. It is common in compounds referring to a possessor of
a specified object: a bahuvrihi compound XY tends to mean someone or
something which has a Y, and that Y has the characteristic X. For
instance, a sabretooth (smil- odon) is neither a sabre nor a tooth: it
is an extinct feline with sabre- like fangs. In linguistic terms, a
bahuvrihi is headless or exocentric: its core semantic value is implicit
rather than explicit, so that the compound is not a hyponym of the head.
English bahuvrihis often describe people using synecdoche: flatfoot,
half- wit, highbrow, lowlife, redhead, tenderfoot, longlegs, and
white-collar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahuvrihi
Well, perhaps that's 'nuff for starters?? :D

One of the most intriguing (karmadhaaraya/tatpuruSa/)bahuvriihi's in da
yoga-suutra, IOO, is this (on 'anyaH', according to commentators,
asaMprajñaata[samaadhi])

viraama-pratyayaabhyaasa-puurvaH...

Well, 'puurva' means:

pUrva a. being before (sp. & t.), fore, first, eastern, to the east of
(abl.); prior, preceding, ancient, previous to, earlier than (abl. or
---, often --- or --- w. pp. in the sense of an adv., e.g. {pUrvokta} or
{uktapUrva} spoken before or already); accompanied by, following; with,
under, according to (---); w. {vayas} n. youth; w. {Ayus} n. old age. --
m. elder brother, pl. the ancestors or ancients. f. {pUrvA} (ñ{diz}) the
east. n. forepart, as adv. in front, before (as prep. w. abl.), first,
previously, already, long since; --- accompanied by etc. (cf. adj. ---).
{pUrva uttara} former-latter, n. adv. first-last; {adya pUrvam} until
now, hitherto.

--------------

As a bahuvriihi it actually seems to mean exactly the opposite stuff,
namely 'preceded by smthng'. Because that would be so tricky to explain
even in our strange Uralic stone-agey language, namely Finnish, we wont
even try to explain that in a language that we know rather poorly,
namely English.