Note 1777 — SECTION III. HINDŪSTĀN

Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. (Sans. and Bengālī) p:ndūī; two good MSS. of the Pers. trs. (I.O. 217 and 218) p:ndāwalī; Ilminsky (p. 361) mīnā; Erskine (Mems. p. 319) pindāwelī, but without his customary translation of an Indian name. The three forms shewn above can all mean “having protuberance or lump” (pinḍā) and refer to the bird’s wattle. But the word of the presumably well-informed scribes of I.O. 217 and 218 can refer to the bird’s sagacity in speech and be panḍāwalī, possessed of wisdom. With the same spelling, the word can translate into the epithet religiosa, given to the wattled mīnā by Linnæus. This epithet Mr. Leonard Wray informs me has been explained to him as due to the frequenting of temples by the birds; and that in Malāya they are found living in cotes near Chinese temples.—An alternative name (one also connecting with religiosa) allowed by the form of the word is bīnḍā-walī. H. bīnḍā is a mark on the forehead, made as a preparative to devotion by Hindus, or in Sans. and Bengālī, is the spot of paint made on an elephant’s trunk; the meaning would thus be “having a mark”. Cf. Jerdon and Oates s.n. Eulabes religiosa.