by Edwin D. Floyd
Alternative glosses for Vedic sravah, as "fame" or "reputation", are not really mutually exclusive. They do, however, go in different scholarly directions, as referring to (1) enduring fame spread over many generations, or (2) reputation in the here and now, spread over a geographically wide area. Typically, the study of Indo-European poetics has focused on the former - the long preservation of fame - as the original pattern. In discussing the combination of sravo "fame" with nrnam "of men" found at RV 5.18.5, for example, Schmitt, Dichtung und Dichtersprache (1967: 96) speaks of the great deeds of heroes having receded, in the Rig-Veda, before the praise of gods such as Indra.
We do not, however, need to opt for either formulation of fame to the exclusion of the other. Instead, we should operate in terms of a complex interrelationship, with fame being, so to speak, spread out in both space and time. The usage of Sanskrit uru- and Greek euru- (both meaning "wide, broad") illustrates this. At RV 6.65.6, for example, the combination urugayam "wide-striding" is used in association with the noun sravo. The specific fame which is referred to is contemporary, as the rsi invokes Dawn to shine with favor on us today. The overall context, though, is a comparison of the present seer's reputation with the fame of a past rsi Bharadvaja. A similar balance between past and present fame is also evident in Greek passages with euru kleos "wide fame", such as Pindar, Olympian 10.95, and we may therefore fairly confidently reconstruct this as an Indo-European pattern.