Doesn’t really matter I suppose, just curiosity.
DN30 describes him as ‘abhinīlanetto’, a word with three parts: ‘abhi’ means ‘very’, ‘netto’ means ‘eyed’, and ‘nīla’ is the key word to consider here….
‘nīla’ means, at first glance ‘blue’, therefore ‘abhinīlanetto’ means ‘very blue-eyed’. But Color term - Wikipedia colour terms don’t necessarily map exactly between different languages; the key question is does ‘nīla’ have exactly the same meaning as the English word ‘blue’ or can it also mean ‘dark’.
Take the Irish word ‘gorm’. It also is usually translated ‘blue’, but it is not equivalent to the English word. Here’s an example of it meaning ‘black’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCbROmg6oc
So if ‘nīla’ has a semantic catchment area closer to Irish ‘gorm’ than English ‘blue’, then ‘abhinīlanetto’ means ‘very dark-eyed’…. I think this might be the case but I’d be interested to hear one of the Pāli speakers here weigh in.
The Wikipedia article on Maudgalyayana Maudgalyayana - Wikipedia says “Sri Lankan scholar Karaluvinna believes that originally a dark skin was meant, not blue”, so there’s at least one other case of the words for ‘blue’ and ‘dark’ getting muddled/disputed between translators.
Setting aside DN30, there’s also the historical question of is it plausible that someone from the Shakya Republic had blue eyes? Shakya - Wikipedia says they were “of “mixed origin” (saṃkīrṇa-yonayaḥ), consisting primarily an indigenous lineage with a possible minority of Aryan ancestry”
