marAThI bELA (jasmine)

[N. Ganesan]

>There is indeed the Marathi word bel (Skt. bela-) referring to the
>specific tree whose leaves are offered to Shiva, i.e. belapatra,
>and whose fruit are supposed to have medicinal properties.
> But this obviously is different from anything like jasmine.

  Dear Prof. Deshpande,

  Greetings.

 Vaguely remember when myself and Palaniappan were saying
 that BeLagAm is related to a Tamil cognate, "vEL".,
 S. Krishna said BeLa + gAma (grAma) means jasmine village.
 I think he mentioned "bELA" means jasmine in Marathi.

 I was skeptical then. beLagAma may have nothing
 to do with jasmine (Ta. mallikai).

 jasmine is a bush whereas bilva is a big tree.
  Have a question on vilva/bilva in Sanskrit:

  'vilva' leaves are the most sacred for Lord 'Siva.

  Tamil has two vilva/bilva trees. One is 'kUviLam',
  the other being 'karuviLam'. Both have medicinal
  values. One (or both?) is called "viLAm" tree.
  Elephants particularly like fruits from "viLam/viLaam"
  trees.

  Also, karuviLam and kUviLam are used in Tamil metrics of
  prosody for measuring word lengths. Used as mnemonic
  formulas.

  Ta. viLam/viLaam - Are there any
  relations to Sanskrit vilva/bilva?

  Sincerely
  N. Ganesan




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