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उभयादत् (ubhayAdat)

 
Monier Williams Cologne
English
उभया—द (?
AV.
 v, 19, 2) and उभया—दत्,
mfn.
 having teeth in both jaws,
RV.
 x, 90, 10
AV.
 v, 31, 3
xix, 6, 12
TS.
Vedic Reference
English
Ubhayā-dant, ‘having incisors in both jaws, ’ is an expression
employed to distinguish, among domestic animals, the horse,
the ass, etc., from the goat, the sheep, and cattle. The
distinction occurs in a late hymn of the Rigveda, ^1 and is several
times alluded to in the later Saṃhitās^2 and the Brāhmaṇas.^3
In one passage of the Taittirīya Saṃhitā^4 man is classed with
the horse as ubhayā-dant. The opposite is anyato-dant, ‘having
incisors in one jaw only, ’ a term regularly applied to cattle, ^5
the eight incisors of which are, in fact, limited to the lower jaw.
The ass is styled ubhayā-dant in the Atharvaveda.^6 In one
passage of the Atharvaveda, ^7 however, the epithet is applied to
a ram
but the sense here is that a marvel occurs, just as in
the Rigveda^8 a ram destroys a lioness. Bloomfield^9 suggests
in the Atharvaveda passage another reading which would mean
‘horse.’ A parallel division of animals is that of the Taittirīya^10
and Vājasaneyi Saṃhitās^11 into ‘whole-hoofed’ (eka-śapha) and
‘small’ (kṣudra).
Zimmer^12 seeks to show from the Greek ἀμφώδοντα^13 and the
Latin ambidens^14 that the Indo-European was familiar with
the division of the five sacrificial animals into the two classes
of man and horse on the one hand, and cattle, sheep, and
goats on the other. But this supposition is not necessary.
1) x. 90, 10.
2) Taittirīya Saṃhitā, ii. 2, 6, 3
v. 1, 2, 6
Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā, i. 8, 1.
3) Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, i. 6, 3, 30
(ubhayato-dant).
4) ii. 2, 6, 3.
5) Taittirīya Saṃhitā, ii. 1, 1, 5
v. 1,
2, 6
5, 1, 3.
6) v. 31, 3.
7) v. 19, 2.
8) viii. 18, 17.
9) Hymns of the Atharvaveda, 434.
10) iv. 3, 10, 2.
11) xiv. 30.
12) Altindisches Leben, 74-76.
13) Aristotle, Hist. An., ii. 1, 8.
14) Festus apud Paulum Diaconum
Cf. Weber, Indische Studien, 10, 58.
Grassman
German
ubhayā́-dat, a., auf beiden Seiten Zähne [dát] habend.
-atas [N. p. m.] yé {916, 10}.