The elephant naLagiri/nalagiri

Rolf Koch roheko at MERKUR.NET
Wed Apr 7 11:49:50 UTC 1999


I would suggest that nala is Middle Indian from Sanskrit nada "boaring"


Swaminathan Madhuresan wrote:

> This Dravidian naLa/nala meaning both 'good' and 'black' is
> interesting. In sangam texts, the brown color (mAmai) is celebrated,
> opposite of todays' Indian movies where Dalits appear in white
> colors! The IE notion of good=white/light and evil=black is at
> odds with the Dravidian nal/naL = good and black.
>
> SM
>
> _________________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com





More information about the INDOLOGY mailing list