The elephant naLagiri/nalagiri

[Venkatraman Iyer]

>The name of the elephant Devadatta planned to use to kill the Buddha
>was in fact not nalagiri but nAlAgiri  - "tena kho pana samayena
>rAjagahe nAlAgiri nAma hatthI caNDo hoti manussaghAtako" [Vin. II,
>p. 194]. The Burmese edition of the Canon has nALAgiri.

>*nAlA-/nALA- is not known to the PED.* [...]

The many variations, nAlAgiri (vin.), nALAgiri (Burmese version),
nalaagiri (Kashmiri version of b.rhatkathaa), ... are interesting.
Tamil version of b.rhatkathaa calls an elephant, naLakiri (=naLagiri)
resembling a black, huge mountain. Like the mahabharata epic
characters, naLa and naaLaayaNii, this naLagiri may also represent
'black'.



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