I was going to make the same suggestion as Lyne. An अक्षमाला held in the hand is a common picture of divinities like Sarasvati. Here is a well known verse:

तव करकमलस्थां स्फाटिकीमक्षमालां नखकिरणविभिन्नां दाडिमीबीजबुद्ध्या |

प्रतिकलमनुकर्षन्येन कीरो निषिद्धः स भवतु मम भूत्यै वाणि ते मन्दहासः ||


One can easily imagine the अक्षमाला being seen as an अङ्गुलीयक.

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 4:12 PM Lyne Bansat-Boudon via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> wrote:
Dear colleague,
 
In order to understand the adjective, it is necessary to know the syntactic context (as well as the semantic context): since it is an adjective, it should qualify a substantive. Therefore the first step would be to know what is the entire syntagm. Only then will it be possible to determine whether or not it is a dvandva-BV (as you say). But, in my opinion (and given the absence of  context in your message), it is a  regular BV, which could be translated as "having a rosary for a finger ring" (the image is stronger understood in this way, and more appropriate to the Indian system of representations, whether literary or iconic, as it can be easily verified in wordly practices).

As for reading akṣamālo ’ṅgulīyakaḥ, this proposition doesn't seem possible, neither grammatically nor semantically.

Best wishes,

Lyne

Lyne Bansat-Boudon

Directeur d'études pour les Religions de l'Inde

Ecole pratique des hautes études, section des sciences religieuses

Membre senior honoraire de l'Institut universitaire de France


De : INDOLOGY <indology-bounces@list.indology.info> de la part de Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA <dominik@haas.asia>
Envoyé : mercredi 19 mars 2025 22:40
À : indology@list.indology.info <indology@list.indology.info>
Objet : Re: [INDOLOGY] dvandva → bahuvrīhi?
 
Dear colleagues,

Thank you for your replies! It would make a lot if sense if akṣamālāṅgulīyakaḥ was a dvandva-bahuvrīhi. Neverthesss, if I haven’t overlooked it, the possibility of dvandva-bahuvrīhis is not mentioned in the grammars of Whitney, Müller, Macdonell (Vedic & Sanskrit), Kale, Mayrhofer, or Gonda, nor do I find it in Tubb’s and Boose’s book on scholastic Sanskrit. I would therefore be very grateful if you could provide examples. (The examples from the Bhagavad-Gītā beginning with aneka are karmadhāraya-bahuvrīhis.)

Thank you again,
D. Haas


Am 19.03.2025 um 19:26 schrieb Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA:
Dear colleagues, 

I have a question: Can dvandvas become bahuvrīhis? Specifically, I’m looking at the compound akṣamālāṅgulīyakaḥ. Does it just mean “wearing an akṣamālā as a finger ring,” or could it also mean “wearing an akṣamālā and a finger ring”? I don’t recall ever seeing a dvandva-bahuvrīhi, but in this case it would make much more sense, which is why I wonder if this is perhaps a rare, non-standard form. Of course, it’s also possible that it’s just a misspelling of akṣamālo ’ṅgulīyakaḥ.

Thank you for your time and best regards,
Dominik A. Haas

__________________
Dr. Dominik A. Haas, BA MA
dominik@haas.asia | ORCID 0000-0002-8505-6112 | academia.edu DominikAHaas | hcommons DominikAHaas
ÖGRW | DMG | SDN | WPU
Postdoctoral Researcher, Austrian Academy of Sciences / COE “Eurasian Transformations” (2024–)
Gonda Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden (2024)
Post-DocTrack Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2023)
Lecturer, University of Vienna (2023)
Doc Fellow, Austrian Academy of Sciences (2020–2022)

Books:
– Gāyatrī: Mantra and Mother of the Vedas, https://doi.org/10.1553/978OEAW93906 (Roland Atefie Prize 2023)
– Vom Feueraltar zum Yoga. Kommentierte Übersetzung und Kohärenzanalyse der Kaṭha-Upaniṣad, https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1329
– Puṣpikā 6. Proceedings of the 12th International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (Vienna, 2021), https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1133








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