There is a famous story in puraanic texts that King Nriga redonated a cow to a Brahmin by mistake and for this sin he had to become a lizard/ krikalaasa in a well. The water of the well dried because this lizard plugged the source of water in the well. Then one day lord Krishna took this lizard out of the well and the lizard regained his earlier form of king Nriga. Puraanic texts remain so secretive about the hidden meanings of words that they have not openly disclosed the meaning of this word. But one book Lakshmi Narayana Samhita, which does not fall under the category of puraanic texts, has indirectly disclosed the meaning – and the disclosure is in the root form karka or karki. Root krika or karka are connected with reverberations of a central sound. This central sound is called Shruti and the reverberations are called Smriti. All our life proceeds with smriti because we have lost the capability of Shruti. Karka is also the name of a constellation which is called Cancer in English. And the disease cancer is connected with some disorder in reproduction of exact copies of the cells. So this is also a disorder of smriti. It seems that the meaning of the story of king Nriga is that even this power of reverberation has to remain active. It is desirable that this force of reverberation get connected to a central point. Going deep in the well may mean going into oblivion, going into unconsciousness mind.

Yaska, the legendry figure for interpretation of vedic words , has rightly interpreted word krikawaaku as anuwaada/reverberation in his book Nirukta.

Krikala word also happens to be second of the five sub-praanas. This is said to be responsible for senses of touch, for hunger etc. This praana is supposed to reside in a pipe in the body called Alambushaa nadi. Alambushaa probably means which is not fresh, rotten.