Cela, Ceḷa: 24 definitions
Introduction:
Cela means something in Hinduism, Sanskrit, Jainism, Prakrit, Buddhism, Pali, Marathi, Hindi, biology, Tamil. If you want to know the exact meaning, history, etymology or English translation of this term then check out the descriptions on this page. Add your comment or reference to a book if you want to contribute to this summary article.
The Sanskrit term Ceḷa can be transliterated into English as Cela or Celia, using the IAST transliteration scheme (?).
Alternative spellings of this word include Chela.
Images (photo gallery)
In Hinduism
Purana and Itihasa (epic history)
Cela (चेल) refers to “clothes”, according to the Śivapurāṇa 2.3.28 (“Description of the fraudulent words of the Brahmacārin”).—Accordingly, as Pārvatī said to Śiva (in guise of a Brahmacārin): “[...] If, out of ignorance of His reality, any one were to discredit Śiva, his merit hoarded ever since birth becomes reduced to ashes. You have censured Śiva of immeasurable splendour and I have worshiped you, hence I have become sinful. On seeing a person who hates Śiva one should take bath along with one’s clothes (sa-cela). On seeing a person who hates Śiva one should perform expiatory rites”.
The Purana (पुराण, purāṇas) refers to Sanskrit literature preserving ancient India’s vast cultural history, including historical legends, religious ceremonies, various arts and sciences. The eighteen mahapuranas total over 400,000 shlokas (metrical couplets) and date to at least several centuries BCE.
In Jainism
General definition (in Jainism)
Cela (चेल) refers to a “clothes”.—The Ardha-Māgadhī Koṣa interprets celotkṣepa as a ‘rain of clothes’.—Hemacandra makes it plain in other passages that he does not mean a shower of clothes, but a waving of garments. [...] One MS has the reading celaknopa [celaknopam], which has some appeal.
Jainism is an Indian religion of Dharma whose doctrine revolves around harmlessness (ahimsa) towards every living being. The two major branches (Digambara and Svetambara) of Jainism stimulate self-control (or, shramana, ‘self-reliance’) and spiritual development through a path of peace for the soul to progess to the ultimate goal.
Biology (plants and animals)
1) Cela in India is the name of a plant defined with Albizia julibrissin in various botanical sources. This page contains potential references in Ayurveda, modern medicine, and other folk traditions or local practices It has the synonym Mimosa speciosa Thunb. (among others).
2) Cela is also identified with Ficus tsiela It has the synonym Ficus tsiela Roxb. ex Buch.-Ham..
3) Cela is also identified with Polyalthia fragrans It has the synonym Polyalthia fragrans (Dalzell) Hook.f. & Thomson (etc.).
Example references for further research on medicinal uses or toxicity (see latin names for full list):
· Revisio Generum Plantarum (1891)
· The Cyclopaedia (1810)
· Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugduno-Batavi (1867)
· Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters (2765)
· Carbohydrate Research (2000)
· London Journal of Botany (1847)
If you are looking for specific details regarding Cela, for example side effects, pregnancy safety, extract dosage, health benefits, diet and recipes, chemical composition, have a look at these references.
This sections includes definitions from the five kingdoms of living things: Animals, Plants, Fungi, Protists and Monera. It will include both the official binomial nomenclature (scientific names usually in Latin) as well as regional spellings and variants.
Languages of India and abroad
Pali-English dictionary
cela : (nt.) cloth; garment.
Cela, (nt.) (Derivation unknown. Cp. Sk. cela) cloth, esp. clothes worn, garment, dress A. I, 206; Pv. II, 127 (kañcanā° for kañcana°); III, 93 (for veḷa); dhāti° baby’s napkin J. III, 539. In simile of one whose clothes are on fire (āditta°+ādittasīsa) S. V, 440; A. II, 93; III, 307; IV, 320.—acela a naked ascetic D. I, 161, 165≈; J. V, 75; VI, 222.
1) cela (စေလ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[cila+ṇa．cila vassane,cilyate acchādīyateti,ṇo,thiyaṃ celī．,ṭī．29va．]
[စိလ+ဏ။ စိလ ဝဿနေ၊ စိလျတေ အစ္ဆာဒီယတေတိ၊ ဏော၊ ထိယံ စေလီ။ ဓာန်၊ ဋီ။ ၂၉ဝ။]
2) ceḷa (စေဠ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[cila+ṇa．la- ḷa-pru．]
[စိလ+ဏ။ လ-ကို ဠ-ပြု။]
[Pali to Burmese]
1) cela—
(Burmese text): (၁) ရေကျီးကန်း (ဇာတ်ဝတ္ထု-၌ ထီးလှိုင်ကာငှက်ဟူ၏)။ (န) (၂) အဝတ်၊ အထည်။ (၃) အလံ၊ အောင်လံ။ စေလက-ကြည့်။
(Auto-Translation): (1) Water lily (in the drama titled "Htilin Khaing") (a) (2) Clothes, fabric. (3) Flag, victory flag. Look out - watch.
2) ceḷa—
(Burmese text): (၁) စေဠမည်သောသူ။ (န) (၂) အဝတ်၊ ပုဆိုး။
(Auto-Translation): (1) A person who will bless. (2) Clothes, robe.
Pali is the language of the Tipiṭaka, which is the sacred canon of Theravāda Buddhism and contains much of the Buddha’s speech. Closeley related to Sanskrit, both languages are used interchangeably between religions.
Marathi-English dictionary
cēla (चेल).—n S Cloth or clothes. See sacēlasnāna.
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cēla (चेल).—f ( H) Profusion, exuberance, overflowing abundance.
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cēlā (चेला).—m by redup. cēlācāṭā m ( H) A disciple; a pupil; an elève of.
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cēḷa (चेळ).—f (Better cēla. H) Overflowing abundance. 2 m Commonly caḷa q. v. esp. from Sig. III. inclusive.
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cēḷā (चेळा).—a P Naughty, mischievous, riotous, full of tricks and pranks;--esp. a child.
cēla (चेल).—f Profusion. n Cloth or clothes.
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cēlā (चेला).—m A disciple; a pupil. cēlī f A female disciple or pupil.
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cēḷa (चेळ).—f Profusion, overflowing abundance.
Marathi is an Indo-European language having over 70 million native speakers people in (predominantly) Maharashtra India. Marathi, like many other Indo-Aryan languages, evolved from early forms of Prakrit, which itself is a subset of Sanskrit, one of the most ancient languages of the world.
Sanskrit dictionary
Cela (चेल).—
1) A garment; कुसुम्भारुणं चारु चेलं वसाना (kusumbhāruṇaṃ cāru celaṃ vasānā) Jagannātha.
2) (At the end of comp.) Bad, wicked, vile; भार्याचेलम् (bhāryācelam) 'a bad wife.'
Celā (चेला).—name of a daughter of Siṃha (8): Mūla-Sarvāstivāda-Vinaya ii.8.8 ff.
Cela (चेल).—mfn. sub.
(-laḥ-lī-laṃ) Cloth, clothes, raiment. adj. Vile, wicked, bad. E. cil to wear, affix, karmaṇi ghañ; also celaka and caila.
Cela (चेल).—n. Cloth, [Mānavadharmaśāstra] 11, 166; raiment, [Mānavadharmaśāstra] 4, 216.
Cela (चेल).—v. caila.
1) Cela (चेल):—n. (√cil) clothes, garment, [Gautama-dharma-śāstra; Manu-smṛti; Mahābhārata] etc. (ifc. f(ā). , [Harivaṃśa 7946; Naiṣadha-carita xxii, 42])
2) ifc. ‘the mere outward appearance of’, a bad representative of (e.g. bhāryā-cela n. ‘a bad wife’ [Patañjali] and, [Kāśikā-vṛtti]; also mf(ī)n. e.g. brāhmaṇicelī f. ‘a bad wife of a Brahman’, brāhmaṇa-cela m. ‘a bad Brahman’ [Pāṇini 6-3, 43; Kāśikā-vṛtti; Gaṇaratna-mahodadhi 114]), [Pāṇini 6-2, 126]
3) m. = ceṭa, a servant, slave, [Mahābhārata ii, 70, 7 [Scholiast or Commentator]]
4) cf. ku-, āhara-celā
5) [pāpa-celī] and likā.
Cela (चेल):—[(laḥ-lā-laṃ)] 1. m. f. n. Cloth, raiment. a. Vile, bad.
[Sanskrit to German]
Cela (चेल) in the Sanskrit language is related to the Prakrit words: Cela, Celaya.
Sanskrit, also spelled संस्कृतम् (saṃskṛtam), is an ancient language of India commonly seen as the grandmother of the Indo-European language family (even English!). Closely allied with Prakrit and Pali, Sanskrit is more exhaustive in both grammar and terms and has the most extensive collection of literature in the world, greatly surpassing its sister-languages Greek and Latin.
Hindi dictionary
Celā (चेला) [Also spelled chela]:—(nf) a pupil, disciple; hence~[lī] (nf).
...
Prakrit-English dictionary
Cela (चेल) in the Prakrit language is related to the Sanskrit word: Cela.
Cela has the following synonyms: Celaya.
Prakrit is an ancient language closely associated with both Pali and Sanskrit. Jain literature is often composed in this language or sub-dialects, such as the Agamas and their commentaries which are written in Ardhamagadhi and Maharashtri Prakrit. The earliest extant texts can be dated to as early as the 4th century BCE although core portions might be older.
Kannada-English dictionary
Cēla (ಚೇಲ):—
1) [noun] a woven fabric of fibrous material (as cotton, wool, silk, etc.); a piece of cloth.
2) [noun] a thing that is of low, mean or disagreeable quality or standard.
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Cēla (ಚೇಲ):—
1) [noun] a pupil, student or follower of a teacher.
2) [noun] a follower a) a man who follows another; b) a servant or attendant.
3) [noun] a man who has been converted into Muslim religion by force in his boyhood.
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Cēla (ಚೇಲ):—[noun] = ಚೇಲಬಾಗೆ [celabage].
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Cēlā (ಚೇಲಾ):—[noun] = ಚೇಲ [cela]2.
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Cēḷa (ಚೇಳ):—[noun] = ಚೇಲ [cela]1.
Kannada is a Dravidian language (as opposed to the Indo-European language family) mainly spoken in the southwestern region of India.
Tamil dictionary
Cēlā (சேலா) noun Fragrant cherry. See நெடுநாரை. [nedunarai.]
Tamil is an ancient language of India from the Dravidian family spoken by roughly 250 million people mainly in southern India and Sri Lanka.
Nepali dictionary
Celā (चेला):—n. 1. a pupil; student; 2. a son;
Nepali is the primary language of the Nepalese people counting almost 20 million native speakers. The country of Nepal is situated in the Himalaya mountain range to the north of India.
See also (Relevant definitions)
Partial matches: Na.
Starts with (+21): Cela Sutta, Celabage, Celacara, Celacaram, Celaceli, Celacima, Celacira, Celacittattharana, Celaganga, Celaka, Celakade, Celakanthin, Celakaran, Celakkiriyai, Celakkupam, Celaknopam, Celamalam, Celamaya, Celanamaka, Celandaka.
Full-text (+152): Sela, Kucela, Sacela, Acela, Acelaka, Caila, Pracela, Ukkacela, Celaka, Celaprakshalaka, Celashaka, Mritacela, Celaganga, Celanirṇejaka, Tundicela, Celabage, Celukkhepa, Chelaka, Ghanasela, Celacira.
Relevant text
Search found 72 books and stories containing Cela, Cēla, Cēlā, Celā, Cēḷa, Cēḷā, Ceḷa, Chela, Cila-na, Cila-ṇa, Cila-na, Cila-ṇa, Saelaa, Sela, Selaa; (plurals include: Celas, Cēlas, Cēlās, Celās, Cēḷas, Cēḷās, Ceḷas, Chelas, nas, ṇas, Saelaas, Selas, Selaas). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Dictionaries of Indian languages (Kosha)
Page 125 < [Hindi-English-Nepali (1 volume)]
Page 101 < [Hindi-Assamese-English Volume 3]
Page 713 < [Hindi-Gujarati-English Volume 1]
The Way of the White Clouds (by Anāgarika Lāma Govinda)
Chapter 32 - New Beginnings: 'Ajo Rimpoché' < [Part 3 - Death and Rebirth]
Chapter 35 - Lengthening Shadows < [Part 3 - Death and Rebirth]
Chapter 22 - The Hermit Abbot of Lachen < [Part 2 - Pilgrim Life]
Archives of Social Sciences of Religions
The History of CELAM: Rediscovering Its Forgotten Origins < [Volume 62-1 (1986)]
Le concile en Amérique latine : le rôle du CELAM dans l’aggiornamento continental < [Volume 175 (2016)]
The Mediation Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge < [Volume 37 (1974)]
Apadana commentary (Atthakatha) (by U Lu Pe Win)
Commentary on the Biography of Nanda thera < [Chapter 2 - Sīhāsaniyavagga (lion-throne section)]
Commentary on Biography of thera Parappasādaka < [Chapter 7 - Sakacintaniyavagga (section on Sakacintaniya)]
Sanskrit Words In Southeast Asian Languages (by Satya Vrat Shastri)
Page 499 < [Sanskrit words in the Southeast Asian Languages]
Page 64 < [Sanskrit words in the Southeast Asian Languages]
Page 213 < [Sanskrit words in the Southeast Asian Languages]
‘Messianic Fraternity’ < [Volume 16, Issue 1 (2025)]
Jon Sobrino and ‘the Crucified People’ < [Volume 14, Issue 2 (2023)]
Liberation Theology Today < [Volume 14, Issue 4 (2023)]