M.L. Glikman ,
Israel
18/03/2015
Eliezer Ben Yehuda
(1858-1922), “the father of modern Hebrew” suggested that the word bedolach בדלח can be seen as a two root word consisting of the roots badal
בדל and dalach דלח. The noun badal בדל means “tip, part”, while the verb badal means
“to separate”. It is believed that the
word bdil (bedil) בדיל meaning “tin” (stannum) is also derived from the first
root.
The second root dalach is associated with
words meaning “muddy” – daluach דלוח, “water pollution” delicha דליחה, etc.
In Akkadian dalahu also means “water pollution”, while in Tibetan
driha means “urine”.
In
literature we find various transliterations of the word bedolach:
bdolach, bedolach, bdolah. J.B. Obry
(1858) even writes it as “bedoulakh” possibly hinting at Sanskrit. A book “Die Indischen Mineralen” by R. Garbe
was published in 1882. In the chapter
“Gelber, Arsenik, Auripigment” we read that one of the names of Auripigment is
“bidlAka” (page 48). This word can be
found almost in all Sanskrit dictionaries.
It should be noted that in Sanskrit this mineral has only (!) 50
different names (according to the Spoken Sanskrit dictionary), but the word
“haritAla” is most commonly used in the Indian literature (Vaidia Bhagvan Dash,
2001, etc.).
While
continuing with the “Sanskrit direction” of our research we discovered certain
“imitation” of Hebrew. In Sanskrit the
noun dala means “part, portion, piece”, the verb dal – “to
explode”, the noun bidal (sf. vidal) – “to burst, crack, be
produced by splitting”. The word vidala
means “separating, fragment”. We would
like to emphasize that the Hebrew word badal בדל and the Sanskrit word
vidala have the same semantic meaning “to separate, separating”.
And now, a
bit of grammar. The letters “b” and “v”
in Sanskrit are interchangeable in certain cases. Thus, V.B. Dash (2001) writes the name of
Auripigment as “vidAlaka” (see “Alchemy and Metallic Medicines in Ayurveda,
page 136). The suffix “ka” in the end of
the word sometimes does not change its original meaning and sometimes lends it
a diminutive or even pejorative tone. (V.A.
Kochergina “Sanskrit-Russian Dictionary”, M. 1996, pages 920-921). For example, the word vidAra means
“the act of tearing, splitting”, while vidAraka means “the one who
tears”; the word biDAla means “cat”, biDAlaka means “little cat”
and biDAlika – “female cat” (see ibid. pages 466, 489).
At this
stage we can only speculate that the word bidAlaka meaning “Auripigment,
Orpiment” was formed by adding the suffix “ka” to the words bidal, vidal
or vidala. In the literature available
to us such a theory has not been found.
Conclusion: BEDOLACH
= bidAlaka = ORPIMENT, AURIPIGMENT
Discussion. The experts studying Sanskrit usually agree
that the meaning of the word “saniSkRta” is “good atonement or expiation”,
“treated, brought to perfection” (V.A. Kochergina, 1996). Sanskrit is possibly the richest language
when it comes to the number of synonyms for each word. Some Sanskrit words with similar
pronunciation and meaning can be found in many languages of the world. For example, the word “part” in Latvian is dala,
“amber” is dzintars, which sounds similar to the Sanskrit yantra
meaning “amulet” and yantraNa meaning “protecting”. The Sumerian word LUH-HA means “to wash, clean”,
URUDU.LUH-HA - purified copper, KU.LUH-HA - purified silver and PAD.LUH-Ha –
pieces of silver. The Sanskrit word Loha meaning “metal, copper, iron”
(see Vibha Tripathi “Archaeometallurgy in India”, 1998, page 141) came from the
root Luh, which in Sanskrit means “removing, pulling, drawing,
attracting”. E. Renan in his monograph “Histoire generale et systeme compare des langues semitiques”
(1858) gives many such examples (see pages 205-206). Perhaps, Sanskrit absorbed words from several
ancient languages. However, it was not a
loan, but rather storage and safekeeping.
That is why one can find similarities with some Hebrew words that had
been forgotten by the native speakers but had kept their original meaning in
Sanskrit. The Sanskrit word yaTa means
“sulfur”. In an alchemic tractate (J.J.
Mangeti, 1612) the trinary from the Land of Haviah: gold, bedolach and the shoham
stone is compared to the three main alchemical substances respectively:
mercury, sulfur (under the name of bdola) and salt. According to our research, bedolach is
not sulfur but rather its compound with arsenic.
The Sanskrit word used both for bronze and
brass is kAMsya, it has such synonyms as vahniloha, pitalauha,
etc., while one of the Tibetan names is ba ta lo ha (V.B. Dash, 1994).
We have not found any proof that the root dalach
דלח is used in forming the word bedolach, even though the
Auripigment power, which is poorly soluble in water, could make the water look
muddy. The words בדיל (stannum) and בדלח (Auripigment) have the same root in Hebrew.
