On the Tibetan Rendering of Agastya

Here is a small note pertaining to the Tibetan renderings of the name Agastya (=  Agasti) as recorded in the ITLR. First, see MW (s.v. agasti): “m. (according to, Uṇ. iv, 179 fr. 2. a-ga, a mountain, and asti, thrower, √ 2. as). N. of a Ṛṣi (author of several Vedic hymns; said to have been the son of both Mitra and Varuṇa by Urvaśī; to have been born in a water-jar; to have been of short stature; to have swallowed the ocean, and compelled the Vindhya mountains to prostrate themselves before him; to have conquered and civilised the South; to have written on medicine, &c.) … the star Canopus (of which Agastya is the regent, said to be the ‘cleanser of water’, because of turbid waters becoming clean at its rising.” Second, the name Agastya has been rendered into Tibetan in at least two ways, namely, as (a) Ri ’dor/’phen (Saṃ bod shan sbyar, p. 4) and as (b) Nyes ’dor (Vajratuṇḍasamayakalparāja-Tib, B, p. 104.12). The former presupposes the interpretation: Agastya (or Agasti) = aga (“mountain”) + asti (“thrower” from √as). Thus it has been rendered into Tibetan as Ri ’dor/’phen “Mountain Hurler.” To be sure, a+ga means “unable to walk” and hence “a mountain” (among other things). The latter Tibetan rendering presupposes the following understanding by the translators: Agastya (or Agasti) = āga (i.e. āgas and āga “sin” as in anāga “sinless”) + asti “thrower” (cf. MW, s.v. āgas “transgression, offence, injury, sin, fault”) and thus Nyes ’dor would mean something like “Fault Eliminator/Avoider.”