2025, Vol. 11, Issue 2, Part A

The purpose of the study is to attempt to clarify the context of difficult-to-understand passages in the Rigveda by etymological research of the difficult-to-translate words in order to determine the original meaning of a word which is represented as a verbal noun.

The obtained results are checked for compliance with the grammatical and semantic translation criteria which are defined in the paper. The results that have passed such a selection make possible to significantly clarify the understanding of the subjects of the Rigveda.

Thus, the meaning of the words are obtained as follows: मस् [mas], as ‘exchange’, ‘changing’, मास्[mās], as measure, क्षाम [kṣāma], as ‘withered’, ‘dried’.

According to the context, both मस् [mas] and मास् [mās] are used as measures of the time of day or month, respectively for Sun or Moon. These terms are mostly used in the meaning of the month (the Moon), but in some cases they may have the meaning of the Sun, which is determined by the context.

Since the paper proves that सूर्याचन्द्रमसौ [sūryācandramasau] phrase cannot grammatically be a pair in the dual number, how it is currently applied therefore it is proposed to read its as सूर्य-अ-चन्द्र-मसौ [sūrya-a-candra-masau] – ‘sunshineless two months’.

The meaning of the expression अधिअजायत [adhi ajayata] is defined as a verb in the imperfect form: ‘was reborn’, unlike अजयत [ajayata] – ‘was born’.