One of my informants is, however, of opinion that ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ does not mean an iron hook at all, but hook in general even though it might be made of silver, copper, gold, etc. He compares it with the word wall, ལྕགས་ རི་, which is not necessarily made of iron, and though of stone or earth is still called ‘iron-mountain.’ Women’s ornaments such as earrings, chains, or necklaces (སྐེ་འཕྲེང་, pr. kenthang, not in the Dicts. or Bell. As a colloquial word the dengbu might perhaps be left out in writing) may have golden or silver hooks, གསེར་གྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ or དངུལ་གྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་. Example: སྐྱེ་དམན་འདི་ལ་སྐྱེ་འཕྲེང་ཡག་པོ་ཅིག་འདུག། དེ་ལ་གསེར་དང་དངུལ་གྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་བཞི་འདུག་, this woman has a very fine necklace which has four golden and silver hooks (or clasps). Schroeter’s dict., p. 361b, already gives ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ as hook only. The expression ལྕགས་ནག་ in the sense of mineral, given by Desg., 307a, would make us think that ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ might perhaps mean metal hook, but see below. S. Ch. D. adds to the confusion. Under ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ he gives: (1) iron pin to guide and punish elephants; fish-hook; (2) name of a plant. (His next entry seems improbable, elephant driving and elephant driver for one and the same word). But under ཀྱུ་ he defines ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ as ‘iron hook, an angle, a fishing-hook.’ J. has ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ under ལྕགས་ and gives ‘an iron hook, esp. fishing-hook, angle; often fig.’ and in his illustration he translates ཆོས་ཀྱི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ simply as ‘hook of grace.’ He marks the word as belonging to the book language. It is curious to note that Schlagintweit in his Rgyal-rabs (title, or introductory verse) translates the word ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ with ‘eisernen Hacken’ (p. 25), whilst Schiefner renders the same word correctly on the next page by ‘Hacken’ alone. But in his new translation of the Rgyal-rabs, H. A. Francke (J.P.A.S.B., Vol. VI, n. 8, p. 397) writes again ‘Iron Hook.’ There is still another compound with ཀྱུ་, namely མཐེབ་ཀྱུ་, the name for a component part of the elaborate torma cake structure. It indicates a small piece of dough in the form of the top of the thumb. From all these examples it might be hazarded that the element ཀྱུ་ means primarily ‘curve, curved’ or ‘curvature,’ and has no substantial meaning like ‘hook’ or the like. My teachers, however, think that ཀྱུ་ by itself is a substantive ‘hook.’ So it is not clear whether J. is right as against the other Dicts. in not entering the word separately. The above discussion is in any case better entered under the word ཀྱུ་, whether this is really an independent word or not. The fact that S. Ch. D. gives a Sk. equivalent for ཀྱུ་ alone, pleads for its separate existence. My teachers opine that ཀྱུ་ as a separate word may occur alone, but their nearest approach to framing a sentence illustrating such a use was one in which they spoke of a wooden hook (made by a jungleman to fish or hunt with) as ཤིང་གི་ལྕགས་ཀྱུ་ or more briefly ཤིང་ཀྱུ་. So the example was not decisive.