1 2 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 4 ... (Re: lion - "five-faced")

[Jean-Luc Chevillard]

At 09:13 10/01/03 -0500, you wrote:
>V.S.Apte's dictionary explains paJcaanana referring to a lion as paJcam 
>aananam yasya, "so called because its mouth is generally wide-open."  It 
>also lists paJca in the sense of "spread, extended," though the only cited 
>instances of this word are in compounds like paJcaanana.
>
>                                                 Madhav Deshpande

It is curious to note that there is some parallel phenomenon
with "nAlvAy" in Tamil,
as was pointed to me once by Dominic Goodall,
when it appears in the tiruveZukURRirukkai
(tEvAram 1-128),
seemingly in a progression
that goes up and down several times
1 2 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 ... etc. upto 7
and containing:
  Or uru "one form"
  Ir iyalpu "two natures"
  oru "one"
  iru cuTar "two luminaries"
  mummUrttikaL "three embodiments"
  ....
  nAlvAy
  etc.
[it goes by steps upto eZu "seven"]

One would expect nAlvAy to mean "four"
but it is in fact translated by "hanging jaw"
(for an elephant)

[for the record, that same meaning of nAlvAy
is also seen in tEvAram 1-102 (2)

Happy new year 2003 to all Indology list members

-- Jean-Luc Chevillard (Paris)



> > ----------
> > From:         Eva De Clercq
> > Reply To:     Indology
> > Sent:         Friday, January 10, 2003 8:28 AM
> > To:   INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
> > Subject:           lion - "five-faced"
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > Do any of you have any references to why a lion is often called "five-
> > faced", paJcànana?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Eva De Clercq
> >
> >