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Ursa Major (the Big Dipper)
circumpolar figure — glossed 'the Big Bear' but described as a lizard-shaped chain ending at Polaris · Ursa Minor / Draco / Ursa Major
names 93languages 34stars 20
In the classical tradition this is सप्तर्षयः / ऋक्षाः Saptarṣayaḥ / Ṛkṣāḥ, attested in 11 texts.
The names
vernacular 18 · folk 14 · tribal 37 · borrowed 24
| Name | Language | Meaning | Register |
|---|---|---|---|
| Themü-pisu | Angami Naga the Angami country, Naga Hills (now Nagaland) | — | tribal |
| অৰুন্ধতী arundhatī | Assamese Assam | the wife of the sage Vasiṣṭha Recorded here for its error, which is instructive. The Assamese definition is correct — Arundhatī is among the seven stars called the Saptarṣimaṇḍala, and Assamese brides are shown her at the wedding as the type of the faithful wife, and a person within six months of death cannot see her. The English gloss appended to it, 'the morning star; one of the pleiades', is wrong on both counts. | borrowed |
| গোধিকা godhikā | Assamese Assam | 'the iguana / monitor lizard' (Assamese গুঁই guñi) A genuine Assamese sky-figure, and an old one: the dictionary supports it with a line from the Kīrttana (the Kīrttana-ghoṣā of Śaṅkaradeva, 16th c.) — 'গোধিকাৰ পুছ ভাগে দেখিয় অদ্যাপি', 'even today it is seen at the tail-end of the Godhikā'. | vernacular |
| সপ্তর্ষি (সপ্তর্ষিমণ্ডল) saptarṣi (saptarṣi-maṇḍala) | Bengali Bengal | 'the seven sages' Biswas is the source that shows the modern Bengali equation of the group with the English 'Plough' as well as the Great Bear. | borrowed |
| ঋক্ষমণ্ডল ṛkṣa-maṇḍala | Bengali Bengal | 'the bear-circle' Bengali keeps the old Vedic ṛkṣa 'bear ~ star' ambiguity live in a single dictionary entry: the headword is glossed 'the bear; a star; a constellation', and the compound is the Great Bear. | borrowed |
| डायला / पाटील / कोतवाल Diala / Patil / Kotwal | Bhili Bhil village 2, north-western Maharashtra | the village elder, the village chief and the sheriff The general theme across all the communities is three thieves at the cot; individual villages substitute a cast of local officials. Village 4 gives Talathi (तलाठी), the revenue collector, in place of the elder. | tribal |
| [a cot; no vernacular form printed] | Bhili Bhil, Mavchi Bhil, Vasave Bhil, Pawra and Kokna villages of north-western Maharashtra | 'a cot', its shape distorted because a thief pulled at one of its legs At Varpada the three thieves are two brothers and a pregnant sister who needed the cot for her delivery; the brothers came back with the stolen cot too late, and the furious sister pulled at its leg. Pawras and Mavchi and Vasave Bhils say instead that the four legs were of gold, silver, copper and iron and a thief pulled the golden one. Most villages also see Mizar's companion, calling the middle thief a pregnant woman or giving the thieves a small child. | tribal |
| Inoat | Central Nicobarese (Camorta) Camorta, Nancowry group, Central Nicobars | — | tribal |
| Uyas | Central Nicobarese (Camorta) Camorta, Nancowry group, Central Nicobars | The paper's prose gives Uyav for the four leading stars. | tribal |
| Haloko | Chaura (Chowra) Chowra (Chaura) island, Nicobars | 'a ladder', by which the hen-basket is reached Given for Teressa as well, where the quadrilateral is a coffin. | tribal |
| Honrulohatoom | Chaura (Chowra) Chowra (Chaura) island, Nicobars | — | tribal |
| Lonob | Chaura (Chowra) Chowra (Chaura) island, Nicobars | 'a basket to keep hens in' With Haloko, a ladder to climb to the basket, as the three trailing stars. | tribal |
| — | Chhattisgarhi the Baiga chak and the surrounding country — Mandla, Baihar, Kawardha, Dindori and Rewa, in what was then the Central Provinces | A bed on which a corpse is carried out. When they bring it out it is night; when they put it back it is day. The Baiga smash the bed with their axes when they carry a corpse, which is why bits of the bed are scattered all over the sky. | tribal |
| — | Chhattisgarhi the Baiga chak and the surrounding country — Mandla, Baihar, Kawardha, Dindori and Rewa, in what was then the Central Provinces | In Baihar: a King and Queen quarrelled and the Queen ran to kill herself in the star called the Tank; the Kotwar ran to stop her; the King jumped out of bed so violently that one leg of the bed broke — which is why you always see one leg in the wrong place. In Mandla the same story is told with a Bhoi and Bhoin, a Gond man and woman, as hero and heroine. | tribal |
| [no vernacular form printed] 'a cot with three thieves tied to it' | Chhattisgarhi Chhattisgarh (Dhuri caste, rice-parchers) | The thieves came to steal the cot, which belonged to an old woman, but God caught them and tied them down there for ever. | folk |
| Kalher, Kalir, Kalhad; Muvir Kaler | Gondi Nagpur region: Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Gondia (Maharashtra), Adilabad (Telangana), Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla (Madhya Pradesh) | thieves; three thieves The three who mean to steal the old woman's cot the moment she sleeps. In one village the three are instead Poyi, a nobleman, his wife Poyatar and his kotwal, moving towards their salvation. | tribal |
| Katul; Sedona Katul | Gondi Nagpur region: Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Gondia (Maharashtra), Adilabad (Telangana), Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla (Madhya Pradesh) | a cot; the old woman's cot The four bowl stars are a cot whose four legs are of gold, silver, inferior silver and copper, counted anticlockwise. The old woman must never fall asleep, because thieves are waiting to take the cot; and if she sleeps — that is, if the Dipper sets — the world ends. Saptarshi is the reference point from which the Gonds locate everything else in the sky. | tribal |
| Poyi; Poyatar; Kotwal | Gondi Nagpur region: Chandrapur, Yavatmal, Gondia (Maharashtra), Adilabad (Telangana), Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla (Madhya Pradesh) | a noble man; his wife; his assistant At Kopariya the three trailing stars are not thieves but a nobleman, his wife and his village officer, approaching the cot for salvation after doing good on earth; the cot itself is called Kutil there and is the path of salvation (p. 37). | tribal |
| रीछ / ريچهـ baṛā rīchh / chhoṭā rīchh | Hindi Hindustani generally | 'the big bear' / 'the little bear' A calque, almost certainly of Arabic ad-dubb al-akbar / al-aṣghar rather than of English, since Fallon himself glosses sapt-rishī with 'A. dub-i-asgar'. The word rīchh is the inherited Indo-Aryan reflex of Sanskrit ṛkṣa, which in Sanskrit already meant both 'bear' and 'star' - so the calque lands on a word that was etymologically waiting for it. | vernacular |
| झुमका / جهمکا jhumkā (sāt sahelyoṅ kā jhūmkā) | Hindi Hindustani generally | 'the bell-shaped ear-drop'; in full 'the ear-drop of the seven girl-friends' jhumkā is the pendant cluster of an ear-ring; applied to the sky it names both the Bear and the Pleiades, which is a genuine ambiguity in the sources and not a slip - Platts gives both senses in one entry. The full phrase sāt sahelyoṅ kā jhūmkā ('the seven girl-friends') fixes it on the Bear. | folk |
| सप्त / سپت sapt-r̤ishi (sapt-rikh) | Hindi Hindustani generally | 'the seven sages' The inherited Sanskrit name, retained unchanged; Platts and Fallon both file it as the standard learned equivalent of 'Charles's Wain'. Individual members keep their Sanskrit names in Hindi too: Platts s.v. marīćī (p. 1027) and vaśishṭh (p. 1194) each identify the sage with one of the seven stars. | borrowed |
| ಅರುನ್ಧತಿ arundhati | Kannada Karnataka (Mysore, Canara, Deccan) | — | borrowed |
| ಚಿತ್ರಶಿಖಣ್ಡಿ citraśikhaṇḍi | Kannada Karnataka (Mysore, Canara, Deccan) | having bright crests | borrowed |
| ಸಪ್ತರ್ಷಿ saptarṣi | Kannada Karnataka (Mysore, Canara, Deccan) | the seven sages | borrowed |
| अरुन्धती arundati | Kashmiri Kashmir valley | — | borrowed |
| Dongal | Kolami Kolam villages of Yavatmal and Chandrapur districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, and adjoining Adilabad, Telangana | 'the thieves' — a Kolam, a Gond and a Pardhan (chief), counting outward from the cot Nine of ten villages. | tribal |
| Mandater / Mandter / Mandetar; Ter / ava ter | Kolami Kolam villages of Yavatmal and Chandrapur districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, and adjoining Adilabad, Telangana | 'a cot' Nine of ten villages. | tribal |
| Dusara chor | Korku Melghat, Amravati district, Maharashtra, and adjoining Betul and Khandwa districts, Madhya Pradesh | 'the second thief' All twelve villages. Magnitude 2.20. | tribal |
| Kaseti / Dhona / Ghanti / Kudapa / dadudi | Korku Melghat, Amravati district, Maharashtra, and adjoining Betul and Khandwa districts, Madhya Pradesh | ghanṭī 'a bell'; dadudi and kudapa 'a water jar' The water-carrier the middle thief takes along; reported in five of twelve villages. Magnitude 1.96. | tribal |
| Pahila chor | Korku Melghat, Amravati district, Maharashtra, and adjoining Betul and Khandwa districts, Madhya Pradesh | 'the first thief' Reported in all twelve villages. Magnitude 1.75. | tribal |
| Tisara chor | Korku Melghat, Amravati district, Maharashtra, and adjoining Betul and Khandwa districts, Madhya Pradesh | 'the third thief' All twelve villages. Magnitude 1.85. | tribal |
| khaṭī-pāwā bīnkō (the three outside stars: ḍhālbar) | Kurukh Chota Nagpur plateau (Oraon country), Jharkhand | the cot-feet constellation; thieves The quadrangle is the bed; the three stars outside it are ḍhālbar, thieves, after the bedstead. | tribal |
| Jamakhat / Yamakhat | Lambadi (Banjara) Banjara tandas of Vidarbha, Maharashtra (villages in the Nagpur–Amravati–Yavatmal region) | 'the cot of the dead' Reported in all six villages surveyed — the most universally held sky-figure the paper records for the Banjaras. | tribal |
| സപ്തര്ഷികള് saptarṣikaḷ | Malayalam Kerala (Malabar, Cochin, Travancore) | 'the seven sages' | borrowed |
| Keulachongpa | Mara (Lakher) the Lakher country, southern Lushai Hills (now southern Mizoram) and the Chin Hills | A man killed in a raid, whose slayers took his head and his left leg; before his relatives could carry off the corpse the great darkness fell. Four stars form his body and two his thigh and knee; the lowest and smallest is a chicken killed as riha to accompany his soul. Because he died in war his spirit cannot cross the Kolodyne, so these stars turn back instead of completing their circuit and reappear in the same place. Visible from Saiko in December, January and February. | tribal |
| Arundhati | Marathi Bombay Presidency (Deccan and Konkan) | Konkan death-divination: a person who cannot make out the pole star will die within six months, and some substitute Arundhatī for the pole star | borrowed |
| Khatale and Bagale | Marathi Bombay Presidency (Deccan and Konkan) | cot and bedstead the four bowl-stars are a cot with a man asleep on it; the three handle-stars are thieves | folk |
| अरुंधती arundhatī | Marathi Maharashtra | — | borrowed |
| खाटलें khāṭalēṃ | Marathi Maharashtra | a small bedstead, a cot | folk |
| खाटलें khāṭalēṃ | Marathi Maharashtra | a small bedstead, a cot | folk |
| खाटलें बाजलें khāṭalēṃ bājalēṃ | Marathi Maharashtra | cot-and-bedstead | folk |
| सप्तऋषि saptaṛṣi | Marathi Maharashtra | the seven sages | borrowed |
| the seven seers | Marathi Dharwar district (Deshasth Brahman community, Marathi-speaking) | worshipped as seven cocoanuts by elderly women, married and widowed, on Ṛṣipañcamī, the bright fifth of Bhādrapada | borrowed |
| Zâng-khua, zâng-khaw | Mizo (Lushai) the Lushai Hills, Assam (now Mizoram) | — | tribal |
| Zângkhua bung-bu, Zângkhua bung-but | Mizo (Lushai) the Lushai Hills, Assam (now Mizoram) | A verb, not a noun, and in ordinary speech a proverb about reversal of fortune. | tribal |
| khawi-dâng | Mizo (Lushai) the Lushai Hills, Assam (now Mizoram) | — | tribal |
| topoḍ-akan parkom ipilko (printed 'topagara parkom ipilko') | Mundari Chota Nagpur plateau, Ranchi district, Jharkhand | the bier stars The cot doubles as the bier that carries a corpse to the grave; after the burial one side of the frame is broken and the bed left at the burial ground. The watchman on the threshing floor, waking cold before dawn, sees the broken frame in the north, and in Alioth and Mizar the mourners walking away from the grave. | tribal |
| सप्त-रिखि sapta-rikhi | Nepali Nepal, and the Nepali-speaking Darjeeling and Sikkim hills | — | borrowed |
| सात् तारा sāt tārā | Nepali Nepal, and the Nepali-speaking Darjeeling and Sikkim hills | 'the seven stars' | vernacular |
| ଅକ୍ଷମାଳା Akshamāḻā | Odia Odisha | 'the rosary, the string of beads' A second name for Arundhatī, and Praharaj gives the reason: the Saptarṣimaṇḍala encircles her like a rosary. | borrowed |
| ବାଜ୍ଖଟ୍ Bāj-khaṭ | Odia Sambalpur (western Odisha) | 'the bier' — the bamboo bedstead on which a corpse is carried to the burning-ground Sense 1 of the same headword is the object itself. The Big Dipper as a bier is a real folk figure and reads the asterism the way Hindi khaṭolā and Arabic na'sh do — as a funeral cot, the four bowl stars the frame and the three handle stars the mourners. | folk |
| ଧ୍ରୁବ ଦର୍ଶକ Dhruba darṡaka | Odia Odisha | 'the Dhruva-shower', that which points out the pole star A functional name, and one the same dictionary explains: extend the line joining the two stars at the head of the group and it passes beside Dhruvatārā. Sense 2 of the same word is the mariner's compass. | borrowed |
| ସାତଭାଇୟା Sātabhāiyā | Odia Odisha | 'the seven brothers' Given as THE Odia or native name of the group in Praharaj's systematic note, against Hindi ଖଟୋଲା khaṭolā (a cot). The seven ṛṣis have become seven brothers. | vernacular |
| Bater | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | the Black-breasted Quail, Coturnix coromandelica | tribal |
| Khodyaryo, Pimplajyo | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | A man of the Gaon Pardhi with the surname Solanke, who worshipped the goddess Pimpalaj or Khodyar Devi. | tribal |
| Lawada | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | the Rock Bush Quail, Perdicula argoondah | tribal |
| Melela manas, Taran chor | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | 'dead men'; 'three thieves' Recorded as three dead men in one village and as three thieves in six. | tribal |
| Teetar | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | the Grey Francolin, Francolinus pondicerianus One of the birds the Pardhi net most often; the paper's Table 7 lists it as hunted frequently, in a net called khandari. | tribal |
| budinu khatalu, budhinu khat, budinu gathalu | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | 'the old lady's cot' Reported in thirteen of the fourteen villages surveyed — the most widely held belief the authors recorded, and the only one shared by every Pardhi village whether hunting or farming. | tribal |
| chavandeyo | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | A man of the Gaon Pardhi with the surname Chauhan, who worshipped the goddess Chavanda. | tribal |
| korobyo | Pardhi fourteen Pardhi villages of the Amravati and Yeotmal districts, Vidarbha, Maharashtra, surveyed 2016-2018 | A man of the Gaon Pardhi with the surname Pawar, who worshipped the goddess Korobyo. | tribal |
| haftwarang | Punjabi Punjab | 'the seven ...' (Persian, from Avestan haptōiringa) The Iranian name of the Bear, reported in the Panjab beside the Arabic ones; Dames follows Max Müller in equating it etymologically with Sanskrit saptarṣi. | vernacular |
| palang-pāwe | Punjabi Jhang District, western Punjab | 'the legs of the bedstead' The Punjabi version cuts the asterism in two and names the halves separately - the four bowl stars as the four legs of a charpoy, the three handle stars as a net. Dames notes the identical Balochi usage khaṭ-phāḍhagh, 'the legs of the bedstead'. | folk |
| traṅgar (traṅgaṛ) | Punjabi Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan (Multani/Saraiki); Jhang District | 'a wide-meshed net for carrying straw or fodder on pack animals' A working object of the western Punjab plains - the loose net slung over a camel or donkey to carry straw - read into the sky. O'Brien makes it the whole Bear; Dames restricts it to the three handle stars and adds that the same word names the upper part of Orion, so it is a shape-word, not a fixed constellation name. | folk |
| दावौ dāvau | Rajasthani Rajasthan generally (Lalas does not dialect-mark this headword) | The cold-season wind off the same quarter, which Lalas spells out — 'from the place where the Saptarṣis set, that is, from between north and north-west' — and which, like okaṛa, is defined by the damage it does to the crop. He quotes a couplet from the Dasadeva in which the wind brands what it touches, and gives the variants दाऔ dāau and दाहौ dāhau. | folk |
| रिसिअस्त / रिखीअस्त / रिसीअस्त risiasta / rikhīasta / risīasta | Rajasthani Rajasthan generally (Lalas does not dialect-mark this headword) | 'the setting of the ṛṣis' A point of the compass defined by a constellation: Lalas glosses it as the direction between north and north-west, where the Saptarṣis set. Rajasthani then names three winds off that quarter — okaṛa, dāvau and sūrayau, entered separately below — so the constellation is doing real orientational work rather than surviving as a name only. | borrowed |
| सूरयौ sūrayau | Rajasthani Rajasthan generally (Lalas does not dialect-mark this headword) | The third wind off the Saptarṣi quarter and the only welcome one: blowing in Śrāvaṇa it is read as a sign of rain. Lalas supports it with a couplet from a Varṣā-vijñāna (rain-lore) text, in which the sūrayau blowing means thunder within the hour, and with a folk song addressed to the wind by name asking it to bring the clouds. Variants सूरियौ sūriyau, सूर्यौ sūryau. | folk |
| ओकड़ ōkaṛa | Rajasthani Rajasthan generally (Lalas does not dialect-mark this headword) | Defined by Lalas purely by the sky and by the harm it does: the wind that comes from the quarter where the Saptarṣis set, and that damages the standing crop. | folk |
| Buḍhi parkom ipil | Santali Santal Parganas, Jharkhand / adjoining Bengal and Odisha | the old woman's cot star | tribal |
| اوتِرِين کَٽَ autirīṅ khaṭ | Sindhi Sind; Baloch's dictionary is not dialect-marked at these entries | 'the northern cot' Defined as a gathering of stars that turns about the north pole, and equated with Arabic Dubb-e Akbar. | vernacular |
| بَناتُ النعش banāt al-naʿsh | Sindhi Sind; Baloch's dictionary is not dialect-marked at these entries | 'the daughters of the bier' Defined as the cluster of seven stars turning about the pole star — the cot — and as the three stars at the tail of Dubb-e Akbar. | vernacular |
| سَپْتَ رِشيِ sapta riṣī | Sindhi Sind (Bombay Presidency); Mewaram's dictionary is not dialect-marked | — | borrowed |
| سُها suhā | Sindhi Sind (Bombay Presidency); Mewaram's dictionary is not dialect-marked | — | vernacular |
| අරුන්දති arundati | Sinhala Sri Lanka | Invoked by the bridegroom at marriage as the model wife (Carter, p. 61). | borrowed |
| ඍෂියා r̥ṣiyā | Sinhala Sri Lanka | 'sage, ṛṣi' The living Sinhala reference to the Dipper is to the seven sages, not to a bear. | borrowed |
| செம்மீன் cem-mīṉ | Tamil Tamil Nadu | red star One Tamil name with three competing referents in the Caṅkam corpus itself. In Patiṟṟuppattu 31 it is a chaste woman's exemplar 'foremost among the women who move in the sky', i.e. Arundhatī among the ṛṣis' wives; in Puṟanāṉūṟu 60 it is a red star twinkling in the high sky. | vernacular |
| சிறுமீன் ciṟu-mīṉ | Tamil Tamil Nadu | small star The strongest Caṅkam identification of Arundhatī, because the poet gives the star's position as well as its name: 'the small star that shines in the northern quarter of the great good sky'. | vernacular |
| சுடர்ச்சக்கரம் cuṭar-c-cakkaram | Tamil Tamil Nadu | wheel of light A Tamil formation for the Great Bear conceived as the turning polar wheel; the commentary passage quoted makes it the reference circle against which the planets' positions are described. | vernacular |
| சாலினி cāliṉi | Tamil Tamil Nadu | A name for Arundhatī used in one of the most striking sky-passages in the Caṅkam corpus: of the seven women dwelling by the shining banyan in the northern quarter, one — the divine star Cāliṉi — abstains, and the other six partake, and so become the Pleiades who bear Murugan. | borrowed |
| எழுமீன் eḻu-mīṉ | Tamil Tamil Nadu | seven-star, the seven stars The indigenous Tamil name of the Great Bear, from ஏழு ēḻu 'seven'. The Naṟṟiṇai simile — white sea-crows settling on the dark sea like the Seven Stars in a clear sky, 'in the manner of hands folded in worship' — shows the asterism was both named and venerated in Caṅkam Tamil. | vernacular |
| பெரியகரடி periya-karaṭi | Tamil Puducherry | big bear A LATE CALQUE, not indigenous: the European 'Great Bear' translated word for word into Tamil, recorded by the Lexicon's Supplement and marked 'Pond.', i.e. current at Pondicherry. Recorded here precisely so that it is not mistaken for old Tamil sky-lore. | folk |
| உத்தரமீன் uttara-mīṉ | Tamil Tamil Nadu | northern star (Skt. uttara 'north' + Tamil mīṉ) A hybrid of the same idea as vaṭa-mīṉ, with the Sanskrit word for north. The Lexicon's definition is unusually precise about which star is meant. | vernacular |
| வடமீன் vaṭa-mīṉ | Tamil Tamil Nadu | northern star The standard Caṅkam figure for a wife's chastity — 'the lady of gentle words whose chastity is like the northern star'. The comparison is to a star that never leaves its place. | vernacular |
| అరుంధతి arundhati | Telugu Telugu country (Madras Presidency: Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, Telangana) | Wedding ritual: the bridegroom invokes her and the star is pointed out to the couple. | borrowed |
| చిత్రశిఖండి citra-śikhaṇḍi | Telugu Telugu country (Madras Presidency: Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, Telangana) | the bright-crested ones | borrowed |
| సప్తర్షులు saptarṣulu | Telugu Telugu country (Madras Presidency: Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema, Telangana) | the seven sages | borrowed |
| Rohiung | Teressa Teressa island, Nicobars | 'a coffin' | tribal |
| Katikālmin | Toda Nilgiri hills, Tamil Nadu | — | tribal |
| ಹೊರಸಿನ್ಟ ನಕ್ಷತ್ರೊಳಿ ಕೂಟ horasinṭa nakṣatroḷi kūṭa | Tulu South Canara (Tulu Nadu) | 'the star-cluster of the cot' — ಹೊರಸು horasu 'a cot, a couch' (Kittel, Kannada-English Dictionary, p. 1771) + genitive + ನಕ್ಷತ್ರ nakṣatra 'star' + ಕೂಟ kūṭa 'assembly, cluster' | vernacular |
| بنات banātu'n-naʻsh | Urdu Urdu, from Arabic; reported as the usual name among educated Muslims in the Panjab | 'the daughters of the bier' The classical Arabic reading: four stars form the naʻsh, a bier, and the three ahead of it are the mourning daughters. Structurally identical to palang tīn ćor - four stars of furniture, three figures at them - which is why the two coexist so easily. | vernacular |
| گردانك gardānak | Urdu Urdu, from Persian | diminutive of gardān 'turner, that which turns' Named for their function: the two stars that swing round the pole and point to it. | vernacular |
| پلنگ تين چور palang tīn ćor | Urdu marked dakh. (Deccani) by Shakespear on Harris's authority; unmarked in Platts and Fallon | 'the bedstead and three thieves' The single best folk name in the whole file: the four-star bowl is a charpoy and the three handle stars are thieves creeping up on it. R. C. Temple (Panjab Notes and Queries II.83) thought the image reached Hindustani from Turki, where the Qazaq name is likewise 'the seven thieves' who try to steal a horse from the Little Bear. | folk |
| سہا suhā | Urdu Urdu, from Arabic | 'the forgotten one' (from Arabic sahw 'to be forgetful, to be overlooked') The Arabic naked-eye test star, the faint companion of Mizar, taken into Urdu with its etymology intact - it is 'the one you overlook'. This is the exact functional counterpart of Sanskrit Arundhatī, likewise the tiny companion pointed out as a test. | vernacular |
Sources
- J.H. Hutton, The Angami Nagas (London: Macmillan, 1921), Appendix VIII, p. 413 link
- Candrakanta Abhidhana (Assamese-Assamese-English), 2nd ed., Guwahati: Guwahati Bisbabidyalaya for the Assam Sahitya Sabha, 1962 (DSAL digital ed.), s.v. অৰুন্ধতী arundhatī, p. 48 link
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