Book VI · Apocrypha Entry 40 of 55
Bolwell Nagari
It sounds exactly like the Sanskrit for serpent. It is not the Sanskrit for serpent.
Bolwell, an Australian glass-fibre specialist, named its Ford V8 sports car Nagari. Every reader of Indian mythology stops dead at that word. The resemblance to nāga is entirely accidental.
- Book
- Book VI — Apocrypha
- Marque
- Bolwell
- Model
- Nagari
- Years
- 1970–1974; revived 2008
- Origin
- Australia
- Namesake
- None — an Aboriginal word, not a nāga
- Binomial
- Nāga australis (invalid)
- Verdict
- DENIED — coincidence of syllables
Sigil generated from the entry's own name. Every coil, hue and scale in this plate is a function of the string “bolwell-nagari”, and of nothing else.
The nāga of Indian, and subsequently Southeast Asian, tradition is among the most consequential serpent figures on earth: semi-divine, water-dwelling, associated with rain, fertility, treasure and the guarding of thresholds. Nāga temples, nāga balustrades, Vāsuki coiled around the mountain to churn the ocean, Śeṣa holding up the world. If you were designing a serpent name from first principles you would struggle to improve on it.
Bolwell took its model names from Aboriginal Australian languages — Nagari, Ikara — and the word’s meaning is generally given as something in the region of “flowing”. The coincidence with Sanskrit is a coincidence.
The Ophidiary is including it precisely because the reflex to claim it is so strong. There is a version of this website that quietly files the Nagari under Book II, says nothing, and gets away with it, because almost nobody would check. That website would be more impressive and less true.
The car deserves the page regardless. Bolwell built glass-fibre sports cars in Melbourne with genuine competence, and the Nagari — a low, wide, Ford V8-powered coupé and roadster — was the peak of it. Around a hundred were made before Australian design regulations made small-volume manufacture impossible, which is how nearly every story of this kind ends.
The word arrived in Australia by a road that never went through India. Two languages, ten thousand kilometres, and the same four syllables meaning nothing to each other.
Questions people actually ask
Is the Bolwell Nagari named after the naga serpent?
No. Bolwell used Aboriginal Australian words for its model names. The similarity to the Sanskrit nāga is coincidental, despite being one of the most striking accidental resemblances in automotive naming.
Provenance of claims
This is a satire with a research habit. Every load-bearing statement above is listed here and labelled, so you can tell which sentences would survive a librarian.
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Documented
Bolwell drew its model names from Aboriginal Australian languages.
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Contested
Nagari is not etymologically related to the Sanskrit nāga.
No serious source connects them. The Ophidiary states the negative as firmly as a negative can honestly be stated.
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Documented
The Bolwell Nagari used a Ford V8 and roughly 100 were built.