本文探討了古代印度文獻中兩個結構相同且含義相近的複合詞—吠陀文獻中的「死卵（mārtāṇḍá）」和佛教文獻中的「無明[殼-几+卵]（avijjaṇḍakosa）」的源流。「死卵」一詞最早見於《梨俱吠陀》第十卷第72組詩，其被稱作母神阿底替（Aditi）流產得到的第八子。筆者分析了死卵及其相關神話在屬《夜柔吠陀》的諸本集與梵書中的流佈情況，還比較了上古與中古伊朗神話中的相似成分，以此管窺人類始祖與「卵生」創世神話。「無明[殼-几+卵]」則出自佛教律部文獻，語出佛陀成道後與一位婆羅門的對話中「以智慧嘴啄無明[殼-几+卵]」的譬喻，後成為佛經中常用的譬喻。筆者主要探尋了漢譯佛典中「[殼-几+卵]」字的語源、分佈情況與相關用例，以及對於avijjaṇḍakosa（梵語：avidyāṇḍakośa）這一概念的不同接受和詮釋方式。雖然本文仍然無法證明這兩個詞的直接關聯，但兩者及其相關神話或譬喻在某種程度的暗合，給今後的研究留下了無限空間。

The present survey investigates two compounds associated with ovals in the religious texts of ancient India, i.e., Vedic mārtāṇḍá ‘what springs from a dead egg’ and Pāli avijjaṇḍakosa ‘the shell of the ignorant egg’ (Chinese wuming luan/ke) from Buddhist texts. The earliest mention of Vedic mārtāṇḍá is found in a cosmological hymn of the tenth Maṇ ḍ ala of R̥ gveda (RV X 72), wherein he is portrayed as the eighth and the sole mortal son of the mother goddess Aditi. In subsequent Middle Vedic texts, mārtāṇḍá is identifies as the progenitor of human beings, initially taking a clot-like form as a result of the divine miscarriage. The diverse accounts of mārtāṇḍá’s myth in Yajurvedic Saṁ hitas and Brāhmaṇ as are explored, and further compared to the Iranian accounts of the first man (Avestan gaiiamarǝtan- ‘mortal life’, Pahlavi gayōmart), which arguably testify to a shared Indo-Iranian myth of the birth of human from egg. In contrast, Pāli avijjaṇḍakosa (Sanskrit avidyāṇḍakośa) is documented in Vinaya within the context of Buddha’s discourse with a brahman. Here, the eggshell serves as a metaphor for penetrable ignorance, pecked away by the beak of wisdom. In the Chinese translations of the Buddhist texts, a special Chinese character luan/ke is devised to correspond to either the entire compound aṇḍakośa ‘eggshell’ or one of the two members of it. The study scrutinises diverse translation techniques, shedding light on varying interpretations of the term avijjaṇḍakosa and its associated metaphor. The two egg-related words and the allegories surrounding them share a number of features such as the human birth from the egg, and the symbolic act of cutting part of the egg, and so forth. Despite the absence of direct textual support, their shared features provide compelling grounds to posit a connection between these accounts from two diff erent ancient Indian traditions.