Are hirodaka and andakastha actual words?

Summary

In this philological note V. S. Agrawala scrutinises two obscure words – **hirodaka** and **andakasthā** – that appear in a Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit manuscript. Previous editors marked them with question‑marks and proposed fanciful meanings such as ‘blood’ or ‘vein’. Agrawala argues that both forms are ghost words resulting from mis‑division of compound phrases and scribal corruption. He shows that the phrase should be read as **himodaka**, meaning ‘dew’, and **andhakāśthāna**, meaning ‘lampstand’, both of which occur in standard lexicons. By consulting the St. Petersburg and Monier‑Williams dictionaries and comparing Nepalese and Bengalese manuscripts, he demonstrates that the supposed words do not exist in Sanskrit and that their adoption was due to a copyist’s error. He further notes that the context describes the human body as perishable like a lump of castor‑oil tree gum and that ‘dew’ fits the metaphor, whereas ‘blood’ does not. The note emphasises the importance of rechecking sources before emending texts and warns against introducing unnecessary neologisms.