4 E. T. Atkinson — Note on the rice-juice sapper of Madras. [Jan., 



analogous. At first sight the word bhaumdvdsyd* struck me as closely 

 similar to the English mineralogy. It is an obscure word, not given in 

 our lexicons, but it is sometimes used by Kaula Tantrics who indulge 

 extensively in obscure, enigmatic and mystified technical terms, often 

 amputating words and syllables to raise them above the comprehension 

 of the common people. At first sight it seems to be a compound of 

 hliauma and amdvdsyd ; but the two elements compounded according to 

 the ordinary rules of Sanskrit grammar would yield bhaumdmdvdsyd, and 

 not bhaumdvdsyd, and the inference is that one of the two ma's has been 

 elided for the sake of euphony. If so, it would certainly be the same as 

 mineralogy, a compound of mineral and the Greek logos, which should 

 have in ordinary course produced mineralology and not mineralogy. 

 But all Tantrics do not accept the derivation above given. While some 

 refer the etymologist to the rule about irregulars (Preshodara &c.) to 

 account for the irregularity, f others hold that bliauma is a derivative 

 form, and vdsyd is the same word which we have in amdvdsyd with the 

 intensive particle a, meaning ' to abide by,* or 'to exist conjointly with,' 

 the meaning of the compound term being ' that which exists conjointly 

 with bhauma' or Tuesday. And if this be the right etymology, and there 

 is no fair reason to reject it, the parallelism is entirely destroyed. It is 

 true that an amdvdsyd, or new moon on a Tuesday, is what is meant by the 

 term, that conjunction being held to be the most auspicious for the perfor- 

 mance of certain Kaula rites, but it may be as well indicated by a deriva- 

 tive as by a substantive word, and it would be futile to build any theory 

 on such dubious evidence. 



The following papers were read — 



1. Note on the rice-juice sapper of Madras. — By E. T. Atkinson, Esq., 

 President. 



Mr. J. Lee Warner, of Tinnevelly, sent me some specimens in spirits 

 of an insect that attacks rice in the Tinnevelly district, and which, like 

 the green Homopterous insect that came in such numbers in Calcutta in 

 October-November 1886, also appeared in excessive numbers in the 

 Madras Presidency about the same time during that year. I identify 

 this insect with Leptocorisa acuta, Thunberg, a wide-spreading species 

 found all over the East on rice. In Assam, it is known as the gandi 



* The word occurs in tho following extract from the 7th book of the Maha- 

 nirvana Tantra : — 



