Etymology of Malay berhala

[David Mead]

For borrowed words in the Malay context, your colleague would do 
better to make the following work his first stop, rather than Wilkinson:
Jones, Russell (ed.) 2007. Loan-words in Indonesian and Malay. 
Leiden: KITLV Press.
If Indian influence is suspected, the next stop shoud be:
Gonda, J. 1952. Sanskrit in Indonesia. Nagpur: International Academy 
of Indian Culture. [2nd edition 1973, reprinted 1998, New Dehli: 
International Academy of Indian Culture.]
I don't have access to either in my current location, but elsewhere I 
have a note to myself that on page 42, Gonda (1952) derives both 
Malay batara and berhala from Sanskrit bhaTTAra 'noble lord' , the 
latter via Prakrit bharAla  (T = t  with underdot, A = a with macron).

David


At 1/21/2009 06:30 PM -0800, Christopher Sundita wrote:
>Hi Geoff,
>
>My post may be totally useless, but it reminds me of Tagalog 
>"bahala" which is used to mean something like "suit yourself" or 
>simpy responsibility.  From my understanding, it refers to 
>"bhattara" (my spelling is off), which refers to a deity of some 
>sort in pre-Christian times.
>
>--Chris
>
>--- On Wed, 1/21/09, Geoffrey Wade <geoffrey.wade at anu.edu.au> wrote:
>From: Geoffrey Wade <geoffrey.wade at anu.edu.au>
>Subject: [An-lang] Etymology of Malay berhala
>To: an-lang at anu.edu.au
>Date: Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 8:34 AM
>
>Dear AN-Lang list members,
>
>A colleague is seeking  ideas as to the etymology of  the Malay term 
>"berhala", a term used for "idol, image". Wilkinson provides no etymology.
>
>He has proferred the possibility of derivation from Sanskrit/Pali 
>"vihara" and would appreciate any comments on the phonetic 
>feasibility of this suggestion, and/or the occurrence of the term 
>"berhala" in other Austronesian languages.
>
>Many thanks
>
>Geoff Wade
>
><mailto:geoffrey.wade at anu.edu.au>geoffrey.wade at anu.edu.au
>
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