Indo-Aryan and Dravidian

Extract

A. A. Macdonell in his commentary on RV. IV. 50.5 (Vedic Reader for Students) remarks: “The exact meaning … does not clearly appear from its four occurrences; but it must have a sense closely allied to receptacle—in three passages it is spoken of as being rent or pierced, and twice is associated with Valá; and in the Naighaṇṭuka it is given as a synonym of megha cloud.” Grassmann (Wörterbuch) similarly translates as Behälter, Wolke. The four passages in which it occurs are I. 62.4, phaligam, Indra śakra, valaṃ raveṇa darayo, “Rend, O mighty Indra, the ph. cage with a crash”; I. 121.10, tam, adrivaḥ, phaligaṃ hetim asya, “At that ph., O thou of the thunderbolt, hurl thy missile”; IV. 50.5, sa … valaṃ ruroja phaligaṃ raveṇa, “He hath burst with a crash the ph. cage”; VIII. 32.35, ya udnaḥ phaligaṃ bhinan nyak sindhūṃr avāsṛjat, “Who split the ph. of the water and let the streams rush down.” Phaligam is here a valam, cave, prison or cage, but is not always used as such, otherwise there would be no need to complete its meaning by valam. It shares with the rock and the cloud the function of imprisoning the waters, but, unlike the twin aśman (cloud above and rock below), is not mentioned as a producer of fire. The cloud, like the rock, must be hard, so that the clash of the upper with the nether aśman may yield fire, and phaligam is probably hard also. It may be white, like the bright cloud or the snow-capped mountain, grey or even black, like the rain-charged cloud or the stark rock.