Dear Rolf,

The word rakta indeed appears with the meaning of "red," but at least in Marathi usage, the word refers to blood, which of course has red color. I wonder if the executioner is said to wear something bloody. Just a thought.

Madhav

Madhav M. Deshpande

Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 8:18 AM Rolf Heinrich Koch via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:

Dear listmembers,

anyone of you came probably across a description of someone who is adorned with a rattamāla "a red garland of flowers"
And: Where, at which part of the body, he wears this garland?
I found two quotations in Jātakas: Here in each case it is a executioner (vadhaka, coraghātaka) who is adorned with a rattamāla.
The artists of the last centuries painted the executioner with a garland hanging around his neck or even across his upper body.
But there is another quotation, in the Vessantara-Jātaka, where the Brahmin Jūjaka is adorned ... dvīsu kaṇṇesu ratta-mālā ...= with a garland of flowers bound at each of his two ears.

I think a rattamāla original adorned the ears. But I need textual references.
Someone can help?

Thank you

Heiner
-- 
Dr. Rolf Heinrich Koch
www.rolfheinrichkoch.wordpress.com
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