Ma~Nju/SrImUlakalpa and MaNimEkalai

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

In a message dated 3/5/99 12:53:38 PM Central Standard Time, lengqie at GMX.NET
writes:

> But i suppose that it is possible that it can be due to simple reason
>  - that the history in AMMK is spoken
>  as prophecy from the mouth of Buddha and it may not be related
>  author's location.

The author's original location, the location where the text was written, and
the location where the manuscript was discovered can all be different.

Regarding tAmraparNi, see Shu Hikosaka's "Buddhism in Tamilnadu: A New
Perspective", p. 189, where he suggests that the mountain/place and the river
may have been named so by Buddhist monks from Ceylon.

More interesting thing is what I found in "Cosmography and Geography in Early
Indian Literature" by D. C. Sircar, p.123. In the section on extracts from
Ptolemy's Geography, there is a list of places in the Country of Aioi (the Ay
country around Potiyil mountain). One place is called elangkon or elangkor. In
Tamil, "i" cannot occur in word-initial position. So often in borrowed words
"i" is added in front. Sanskrit lankA will become Tamil ilagkai. The
alternation of word-initial "i" with "e" has been discussed in the list
already. So Ptolemy's "elangkor/elangkon" may represent a possible lankA on
the Kerala coast near Potiyil. We do have another "ilagkai" in the Tamil
region attested in CT texts. So naming Tamil places after lankA is not
improbable. But we do not have the name lankA occurring in CT texts
corresponding to any place on the Kerala coast. But then Buddhists seem to
have their own names for referring to places which normally were known by
different names. For instance, the Chola city pukAr was called kAkanti by
maNimEkalai. It may be worth going through Ptolemy's work to research this
further.

Regards
S. Palaniappan