122 Professor Buhler on the Sanskrit Liaguals. 



become stringent in the Prakrit dialects, an f r' immediate- 

 ly preceding an c n must be assimilated to the latter. In 

 the Prakrit dialects of the dramas an rm thus produced 

 remains unchanged, e. g. kanno ' the ear' for karnah. In Sans- 

 krit, however, as well as in some of the vernaculars, the 

 first n is dropped and a preceding short vowel may be length- 

 ened. Thus we find in the Rigveda dunaca ' imperishable' 

 for durnaca, and dunaca, £ difficult to obtain' for dur- 

 nac,a. In both these cases either form actually occurs. Ani 

 • the pin of the axle of the wheel,' which I believe to be de- 

 rived from the gunated form of the root ' ar,' by the 

 affix f ni/ as well as pani ' hand, 5 are other instances of this 

 ■change, common to the Vedic and classic Sanskrit.* The lat- 

 ter word £ pani' seems to stand for £ parni' and to be derived 

 from the root ' pri,' ' to transact business, act' just as kara 

 'hand' from kri 'to do'. More frequently however the first 

 n of the group nn deduced from 'rn' is simply dropped, as 

 in the roots ghun, cun, cun, pun, pun for ghurn, curn and 

 purn. The u of the roots purn etc. is originally short and 

 is lengthened in consequence of a special rule in Sanskrit. 

 This accounts for the double forms cun and c'un. The n of 

 ani, a rarer form for ani, of anu 1 small,' pan { to buy and sell' 

 seems to owe its origin to the same source. 



Anu, I think, is derived from an Indo-European root, 

 f ar' 'to hurt,' 'to grind,' from which the Sanskrit irma, 

 arus ' wound' are derived and which in Greek is re- 

 presented by ' al' in aA.4) to grind, a\zvpov ' flour.' The 

 etymological meaning of anu (arnu) would therefore be 

 ' diminished by grinding,' (compare the Greek repev from 

 Tccpo)— Latin tero.) Regarding pan it seems to be derived 

 from an Indo-European root par, which is preserved in the 

 Sanskrit pri ' to transact business' and in the Greek 



* Many of the following conjectures have already been brought forward 

 by other philologists, especially bv Benfey and Boethlin^k "and Rotli 

 See BenfeyWollsst Skt. gram, ss> 121. ff. B. & It's Sit; dictionary, s, v v. 



