Fauna Names in the Ḍākārṇava

The fifteenth chapter of the Ḍākārṇava, a late Buddhist tantra, describes an elaborate maṇḍala containing one hundred and eight kinds of fauna, among its other inhabitants. While most of these fauna names are known to derive from a tenth-century tantric treatise, the Laghutantraṭīkā, over two dozen names have not previously been identified with particular kinds of fauna. This study investigates the novel fauna names of the tantra in connection with its probable natural and linguistic environment in the medieval coastal northeast of the Indian subcontinent, and proposes new identifications drawing on salient lexical, medical and scientific literature.