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The Hyades
the Hyades · — · Taurus
names 11languages 11 Mel 25
In the classical tradition this is रोहिणी Rohiṇī, attested in 13 texts.
The names
tribal 5 · borrowed 6
| Name | Language | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Themü-tikru | Angami Naga the Angami country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland) | 'the Rain-shield stars' A woman's rain-shield, which she suddenly missed from her shoulders and turned to find had been snatched away and set in the sky. | tribal |
| ރޯނު roanu | Divehi (Mahl) the Maldives, and Minicoy (Maliku) in Lakshadweep, which speaks the same language and keeps the same calendar | The fourth nakaiy of the south-west monsoon; Maniku names α, θ, γ, δ and ε Tauri. | borrowed |
| Medi; Kotela | Gondi Nagpur region: Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Gondia (Maharashtra), Adilabad (Telangana), Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla (Madhya Pradesh) | Kotela: the bat used to beat grain out of the husk Medi is described as a bright star at the centre of a ring of fainter ones, likened to the set-up for crushing grain with a bullock (khala). It rises between 9 and 10 pm in the season from Kartik to Maho. | tribal |
| Khiryan | Korku Melghat, Amravati district, Maharashtra, and adjoining Betul and Khandwa districts, Madhya Pradesh | the circular ground on which grain is trodden out The paper gives Aldebaran, Ain, Hyadum II and Hyadum I as the ring, with magnitudes 0.85, 3.50, 3.75 and 3.65; the word Khiryan is used both of the threshing floor and of the cow that treads it. | tribal |
| शकट śakaṭa | Marathi Maharashtra | a cart | borrowed |
| ରୋହିଣୀ ଶକଟ Rohiṇī ṡakaṭa | Odia Odisha | 'Rohiṇī's cart' Given as the Odia or native name of the 4th asterism. The omen attached to it is recorded in the same note: when the moon is seen to pierce the Rohiṇī-cart, calamity is feared. | borrowed |
| Mangari | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | 'the triangular net used for trapping small birds' Reported in seven villages. Mangari is a real object, photographed in the paper: a triangular net used to catch Ring Doves and Jungle Babblers, shown both folded for transport and laid out. It sits in the sky immediately beside the flock of babblers it is used to catch. | tribal |
| ਰੋਹਣੀ rohṉí | Punjabi Punjab | 'the red one' (Sanskrit rohiṇī) Attached to a Punjabi weather proverb, which is what makes it more than a transliteration: the brighter Rohṇī shows on the eleventh of the dark half of Sāwan, the better the harvest. | borrowed |
| ruhni | Santali Santal Parganas, Jharkhand / adjoining Bengal and Odisha | Not used by Santals as a star at all but as the sowing week: the 13th of Jeṭ and the six days following. Paddy, maize, pumpkins and beans sown in Ruhni are said to come up strong. A cow-dung streak is drawn round the house wall on the first day to keep snakes off, and the ojha begins teaching his disciples. | borrowed |
| சகடம் cakaṭam | Tamil Tamil Nadu | cart, wagon The V of the Hyades seen as a bullock-cart. Sanskrit śakaṭa in Tamil form, but the figure itself is the shared South Asian one; the Tamil Lexicon lists the asterism sense among the ordinary cart senses without comment. | borrowed |
| tudrvalmokh (with a companion star) | Toda Nilgiri hills, Tamil Nadu | the young of the tūdrval bird A bird with young was left by its mother while she went for food; a snake climbed the tree, and the nestlings called to Kudursami, who took them up into the sky. The tūdrval still sings 'Kudursami trrrrrrr'. In another version the bird had offended Swami, who took its young as a punishment. | tribal |
Sources
- J.H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1921), Appendix VIII, p. 412–413 link
- Hassan Ahmed Maniku, A Concise Etymological Vocabulary of Dhivehi Language, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Sri Lanka, Special Volume XLIV (Colombo, 2000), s.v. roanu, p. 210 link
- Vahia & Halkare, 'Aspects of Gond Astronomy', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 16(1), 29-44 (2013); preprint arXiv:1306.2416 link
- M.N. Vahia, Ganesh Halkare and Purushottam Dahedar, 'Astronomy of the Korku tribe of India', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 19(2), 216-232 (2016), Table 2, p. 221 link
- J. T. Molesworth, A Dictionary, Marathi and English, 2nd ed. rev. and enl. (Bombay: Bombay Education Society's Press, 1857), s.v. शकट, p. 779 link
- G. C. Praharaj, Purnnachandra Ordia Bhashakosha: a lexicon of the Oriya language, Cuttack: Utkal Sahitya Press, 1931-1940 (DSAL digital ed.), s.v. ନକ୍ଷତ୍ର Nakshatra, note on the 4th asterism ରୋହିଣୀ, p. 4095 link
- Ganesh Halkare, Purushottam Dahedar, Wayne Orchiston and M.N. Vahia, 'Astronomy of the Pardhi tribe of central India', Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, 22(1), 179-194 (2019), Table 5, pp. 184-185 link
- Bhai Maya Singh, The Panjabi Dictionary (Lahore, 1895), s.v. rohṉí, p. 971 link
- Bodding, A Santal Dictionary, vol. V (1936), s.v. ruhni, p. 133 link
- Tamil Lexicon (University of Madras, 1924-36), s.v. சகடம்¹ sense 4, vol. III p. 1255, citing the Piṅkala Nikaṇṭu link
- Rivers, The Todas (1906), p. 595 link