Vedic āhanás- and its relatives/cognates within and outside Indo-Iranian

Abstract

This paper discusses possible etymological connections of two Vedic forms that are considered problematic in Mayrhofer’s etymological dictionary, ¯ahanás- ‘lustful, obscene’ and jaghána- ‘genitals, pubis’.

I argue that there are good reasons to connect these formations with the root han ‘beat, strike, hit, kill’ (< PIE *gwhen-), originally probably denoting repeated strikes or lashes. This meaning could easily develop the secondary semantics ‘perform sexual movements, have sex’, which, ultimately, must underlie such derivatives as ¯ahanás- and jaghána-.