I am back here with my etymology-craze! In the Tibetan word keng
rus for “skeleton,” I think rus is clear. It means
“bone.” But what is keng supposed to mean? Is it a loan word
of some kind? Has anyone thought of it before? Maybe someone has already
written something about it.
I have an odd idea that the keng element may be borrowed from the first syllable of Sanskrit kaṅkāla, one of the words keng-rus has been used to translate, according to Negi. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there it is. I notice that the Tibetan-language definitions usually emphasize that it means a set of bones that is not only fleshless, but also hollowed of its internal organs, if that helps anything at all. You can find a lot of examples of usage for keng-rus in Vinaya texts, and it's one of the subjects of so-called 'foulness meditation'.
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