“palli, a house, a house lizard.”

     While palli, ‘a house’, is derived from the Tamil pa˜˜i, a bed, a bed-room, a shelter for the night, a house (fr.pa˜, depression, lowness, to lie dowŒ, palli, ‘a house lizard’ is exactly the Tamil word of the same sense, an alteration of pulli, ‘that which sticks or clings to the wall.

     “may‡ra, m. (prob. fr. 2mƒ, to sound, bellow, roar, bleat) a peacock.”

     may‡ra is a clear corruption of the Tamil mayil, ‘a bird whose feathers have dark-blue spots’ fr.mai, ‘dark’, and il, ‘spot’.

     “mukta, mfn. (fr. muc, to loose, let loose, free, let go, slacken, release liberate) loosened, let loose, set free, relaxed, slackened, opened, open; a pearl (as loosened from the pearl oyster shell).”

     mukta is an alteration of the Tamil word muttam, an augmentative of muttu, anything small and roundish, a pearl, a roundish seed, fr. mu——u, anything roundish.

     Pearl-fishery has been going on in the Gulf of Mannar from time immemorial, and the pearls of Pƒ–dinadu have won historical fame.

     vadaba, m. (also written vadava, badava, badaba) a male horse resembling a mare (and therefore attracting the stallioŒ. vadvba-dhenu, a mare.

     vadabƒ f. (also written vadavƒ, badavƒ, badabƒ) a female horse, mare, TS &c,.&c.; the nymph A™vini (who, in the form of a mare as wife of Vivasvat or the Sun became the mother of the two Ašvins.)

     vadƒbagni, m. ‘mare's fire’, submarine fire or the fire of the lower regions (fabled to emerge from a cavity called the ‘mare's mouth’ ‘under the sea at the South Pole. “Vadaba mukha, n. ‘mare's mouth’, N. of the entrance to the lower regions at the South Pole.”

   This is a typical instance in which Prof. Monier Williams's gullibility manifests itself. The Indian Sanskritists, in order to attribute a Sanskrit origin to the Tamil word vadavai, have played all sorts of verbal jugglery and Tomfoolery.