Ā-khu, us, m. a mouse, a rat, a mole; the grass Lipeocercis Serrata; a thief; a hog; a digger, a spade. —Ākhu-karīṣa, am, n., Ved. a mole-hill. —Ākhu-karṇī, f., N. of the plant Salvinia Cucul- lata. —Ākhu-ga, as, m. (riding on a rat), an epithet of Gaṇeśa and of Kārttikeya. —Ākhu-ghāta, as, m. a Śūdra or man of low caste and profession, lit. ‘a rat- catcher.’ —Ākhu-parṇikā or ākhu-parṇī, f., N. of the plant Salvinia Cucullata Roxb. (?). —Ākhu-pā-ṣāṇa, as, m. a kind of mineral, a loadstone. —Ākhu-bhuj, k, m. ‘a mouse-eater,’ a cat. —Ākhu-ratha, as, m. a N. of Gaṇeśa, ‘having a rat for his vehicle.’ —Ākhu-viṣa-hā, f. a kind of grass, Andro- pogon Serratum, considered as a remedy for a rat's bite. —Ākhūtkara (°khu-ut°), as, m. a mole-hill. —Ākhūttha (°khu-ut°), as, m. the rising up or appear- ance of rats or moles, a swarm of rats or moles.
Ākhu. — The exact sense of this word is uncertain. Zimmer1 renders it ‘mole,’ while Roth2 prefers ‘mouse’ or ‘rat.’ It is frequently mentioned in the later Saṃhitās,3 and is known to the Rigveda,4 where, however, the word is regarded by Pischel5 as having acquired the secondary sense of ‘thief.’ This is denied by Hillebrandt.6[Footnote] 1) Altindisches Leben, 84, 85, followed by Bloomfield. Hymns of the Athar-vaveda, 142. [Footnote] 2) St. Petersburg Dictionary, s.v., followed by Whitney, Translation of the Atharvaveda, 317, 318. [Footnote] 3) Taittirīya Saṃhitā, v. 5, 14, 1; Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā, iii. 14. 7; Vāja- saneyi Saṃhitā, iii. 57; xxiv. 26; 28; Av. vi. 50, 1. [Footnote] 4) ix. 67, 30. [Footnote] 5) Vedische Studien, 2, 246; Zeitschriftder Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesell-schaft, 48, 701. [Footnote] 6) Zeitschrift, 48, 418; Vedainterpreta-tion, 7.