Transliteration: klu
<noun> "Nāga". Translation of the Sanskrit "nāga".I. Nāgas are a particular type of animal who live in the human realm but are usually not visible to humans. They live in close association with bodies of water such as streams, lakes, and oceans; living in, around, and under the water. They look like snakes, usually with a large hood and are fond of wealth / jewels which they hoard if they can.
Generally they are not harmful to humans, however if their habitat is disturbed they can cause harm. The harm usually comes in the form of groups of large, blistery sores or rashes on the body that cannot be cured by conventional medicine; the cure usually can only be effected by petitioning the offended nāgas with liturgies of which there are many in the Buddhist system. In Tibetan, this kind of attack is called ཀླུས་སོ་རྒྱབ་པ་ "being bitten by a nāga". Because they can be troublesome to humans, nāgas as a whole are taken as one of the སྡེ་བརྒྱད་ eight classes.
Many nāgas are mentioned by name in the Buddha's teachings and several had dialogues with the Buddha which were recorded as sūtras.
There are rulers amongst the nāgas, like there are rulers amongst humans. They are called nāgarāja in Sanskrit and this is translated into Tibetan with ཀླུ་རྒྱལ་, meaning nāga king. However, the original term rāja in Sanskrit has more the meaning of a local ruler and lesser king and the term nāgaraja and its translation ཀླུ་རྒྱལ་ should be understood in the same way.
Among the various nāga kings of the Buddha's time, there were eight particularly great ones who were called ཀླུ་ཆེན་ great nāgas or ཀླུ་རྒྱལ་ཆེན་ great nāga kings. They and their nāga servants were / are generally protectors of the Buddha's teaching. For example, one nāga king protected the Buddha during the māra attacks prior to his final attainment of buddhahood. Also, the nāga kings took the prajñāpāramitā sūtras of the Buddha's time and hid them under the ocean for safety. It was not until later, when ཀླུ་སྒྲུབ་ Nāgārjuna went there and removed them, that they were brought back to the human realm.
II. 1) "Nāga". One of བྱེད་པ་བཅུ་གཅིག་ eleven calculators of astrology. 2) [Mngon] "Eight-fold". Because there are eight great nāgas, the term indicates the count of eight.