THE Doctrine of Maya - HolyBooks.com

"""""""""""HISTORY OF THE WORD "MAYA"5Uhlenbeck 1 also takes it to mean Wunderkraft,Trug, Trugbild. Grassmann 2 (after referringit tothe root ma =man, vgl. mdti, Grk. ^ris) givesthe equivalents: iibermenschliche Weisheit oderList, gottliche Kunst oder Zauber-Kunst, Zauberbild,Trugbild.Following Bohtlingk and Roth, Monier Williams 3also says that the meanings of "art,"wisdom,"extraordinary or supernatural power are onlyfound in the earlier :language but when he addsthat in R.V. the word also meansunillusion,"reality," "deception," "fraud," "trick," "sorcery," witchcraft,"he magic," is not accurate,and is using these words loosely. Some shade ofthese is of course in R.V., and their further development is noticed in A.V., but to say that all theseare found in R.V. is not correct, but a hasty anderroneous generalization.The Nighantu, which is one of the earliest collections of Vedic homonyms, mentionsmay aone of the eleven names of prajna (intelligence). 4The great commentator on the Nighantu, Yaska, 5as1Uhlenbeck, Etymologisches Wdrterbuch der AltindischenSprache, Amsterdam, 189899.2Grassmann, Wdrterbuch zum Rig-Veda.3Monier Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, newedition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1899, p. 811.4Nighantu, vol. i. of Bibl. Ind. ed. Calcutta, 1882 ;see p. 324, ch. iii. sec. 9. Cf. Roth s ed. Gottingen, 1852 ;iii. 9 (p. 19).6See The Nirukta, Bibl. Ind. ed., vol. ii., published 1885,