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calatkamimanominam ādātum cittajanmanah / galayastir ivabhati bălaveni gunojjvala //
In this stanza the braided hair of a young girl are compared to a galayasti. Thieme remarks that the meaning of the word galayasti is not immediately clear. He tentatively suggests fetter, shackle' (Fessel ?), or 'net' (Netz ?) as the meaning.
But it seems that galayasti can only mean a fishing rod to which the hook is attached. We have in Pali gala, in Prakrit gala, and in some of the modern Indian languages gal or gal, which mean a hook, a fish-hook'. Tumer, in his etymological dictionary, traces these words to *gada (3971).
In the text of the Sārngadharapaddhati edited by P. Peterson (Bombay, 1988), where the above stanza is numbered 3290, occurs a variant reading jalayasti. This would mean a stick which holds the fisherman's net.
M. A. MEHENDALE
MadhuVidya/548
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