this was rather difficult to figure out, as the Maha-pudma misprint has become rather widespread. It turns out that a World Turtle does exist in classical Hindu literature, under the name of Kurma or Kurmaraja, and has a pedigree reaching to the ShPB. There is also a Hindu World Serpent, Naga Shesha (or Padoha?), although rather less prominent than Kurma. As for the world-elephant, there are many references to the effect of "sometimes also an elephant", but without specification. This must be a late (non-classical, medieval) development. The suspicion that the 'world-elephant' is due to a confusion of the term naga appears to originate with Wilhelm von Humboldt. But we are lacking specific references on where such a world-elephant narrative is actually attested. Perhaps it is purely oral folklore current in 19th century India, without any literary precedent? --dab (𒁳) 13:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Monier-Williams, IW[1] appears to be the source. There are sixteen, not four elephants, eight male and eight female. MW's source is the Amara-kosha. --dab (𒁳) 14:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The statement "However, this concept is not found anywhere in the Puranas or the Epics" seems to be incorrect. There are elephants supporting the earth mentioned in the Ramayana. See, for example, http://www.valmikiramayan.net/utf8/baala/sarga40/bala_5F40_frame.htm (verse 13). Gjnyasa (talk) 07:21, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It has been proposed in this section that World Elephant be renamed and moved to Astadiggajas. A bot will list this discussion on the requested moves current discussions subpage within an hour of this tag being placed. The discussion may be closed 7 days after being opened, if consensus has been reached (see the closing instructions). Please base arguments on article title policy, and keep discussion succinct and civil. Please use ((subst:requested move)). Do not use ((requested move/dated)) directly. Links: current log • target log • direct move

World Elephant → Astadiggajas – This article is about the eight elephants of Hindu cosmology, not the western motif of the World Elephant. Chronikhiles (talk) 09:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Conditional oppose. This request should have been merged with Talk:Ashtadiggajas#Requested move 2 October 2022 and converted to a multi-page move. Unless these two requests are bundled, neither request makes sense. Steel1943 (talk) 15:14, 10 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]