p-sighted."
THE DUAL CABAL[=A]U.
The two dogs of Yama derive their proper names from their color
epithets. The passages above make it clear that Cy[=a]ma (rarely
Cy[=a]va), "the black," is the moon dog, and that Cabala, "the spotted,
or brindled," is the sun dog. In one early passage (_Rig-Veda_, x. 14.
10) both dogs are named in the dual as Cabal[=a]u. But for a certain
Vedic usage one might think that "the two spotted ones" was their
earliest designation. The usage referred to is the eliptic dual: a close
or natural pair, each member of which suggests the other, may be
expressed through the dual of one of them, as when either
_m[=a]tar[=a]u_ or _pitar[=a]u_, literally, "the two mothers," and "the
two fathers," each mean "the two parents."[18] From this we may conclude
that Cabal[=a]u means really Cabala and Cy[=a]ma, and not the two
Cabalas, that is, "the two spotted ones."
IS CABALAS = [Greek: Kerberos]?
More than a hundred years ago the Anglo-Indian Wilford, in the _Asiatick
Researches_, iii., page 409, wrote: "Yama, the regent of hell, has two
dogs, according to the Pur[=a]nas; one of them named Cerbura, or varied;
the other Syama, or black." He then compares Cerbura with Kerberos, of
course. The form Cerbura he obtained from his consulting Pandit, who
explained the name Cabala by the Sanskrit word _karbura_ "variegated," a
regular gloss of the Hindu scholiasts.
About fifty years later a number of distinguished scholars of the past
generation, Max Mueller, Albrecht Weber, and Theodor Benfey, compared the
word Cabala with Greek [Greek: Kerberos] (rarely [Greek: Kerbelos]),
but, since then, this identification has been assailed in numerous
quarters with some degree of heat, because it suffers from a slight
phonetic difficulty. One need but remember the swift changes which the
name of Apollo passes through in the mouths of the Greeks--[Greek:
Apollon], [Greek: Apellon], [Greek: Appellon], [Greek: Apeilon], [Greek:
Aploun][19]--to realize that it is useless to demand strict phonetic
conservation of mythic proper names. The nominative Cabalas, translated
sound for sound into Greek, yields [Greek: Keberos], [Greek: Kebelos];
_vice versa_, [Greek: Kerberos?] translated sound for sound into Vedic
Sanskrit yields Calbalas, or perhaps, dialectically, Cabbalas. It is a
sober view that considers it rather surprising that the two languages
have not manipulated their respective versions of the word so as to
increa
|