hema-jāla (17763)

hema-jāla
Entry 17763, Page 621, Col. 2

<k1>hemajAla<k2>hema-jAla
hema-jāla¦ (not noted as cpd. in Skt.; Pali id., de- fined as covering for gift-elephants, gift-chariots, a heavenly mansion or vimāna and the body of a possessor of one; AMg. °jālaga, a kind of ornament, Ratnach.), lit. gold-net, but seems to have acquired a special mg., which is not clear: in Mv i.171.8 (vs) one of the 60 qualities of a Buddha's voice is that it is hemajāla-tulya-ravā, sounding like a…; in Mv i.195.5 the railing-networks (vedikā-jāla, see vedikā) of Dīpavatī, and in 196.4 each of its city gates, are covered with two hemajāla, one of gold and the other of silver! (195.5) dvihi hemajālehi praticchannā abhūṣi suvarṇa- mayena ca °lena rūpyamayena ca; the next sentence, both times, says that the golden hemajāla had bells of silver, the silver one bells of gold; Senart supposes that hema- has come to mean precious substance in general, but I know of nothing else to support this; on the other hand, in Mv ii.453.17 the lit. mg. may well apply, elephants being described as hemajāla-praticchanna (misprinted hemalāla° in text), as in Pali AN iv. 393.21 (°saṃchanna).