Mathura A District Memoir Chapter-12

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THE ETYMOLOGY OF LOCAL NAMES IN NORTHERN INDIA, AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE DISTRICT OF MATHURA.

IN this, the concluding chapter of the general narrative, I propose to investi gate the principles upon which the local nomenclature of Upper India has been and still is being unconsciously constructed. The inquiry is one of considerable importance to the student of language; but it has never yet been approached in a scientific spirit, and the views which are here advanced respecting this terra incognita in the philologist’s map must be regarded as a first exploration, which is unavoidably tentative and imperfect. Many points of detail will pos sibly demand future rectification; but the general outline of the subject, the fixed limits within which it is contained and some of its more characteristic features of interior development have, it is hoped, been satisfactorily ascertained and delineated with a fair amount of precision.

It is not to be inferred from this prelude that a subject of such obvious inter est has hitherto been totally neglected. On the contrary, it has given rise to a vast number of speculations, but all of the most haphazard description. And this from two causes; the first being a perverse misconception as to the verna cular language of the country; and the second, the absence up to the present time of any list of names sufficiently complete to supply a basis for a really thorough induction.

It seems a very obvious truism, and one that requires no elaborate defence to maintain, that the names of a country and of the places in it should prima facie, and in default of any direct evidence to the contrary, be referred to the language of the people who inhabit them rather than to any foreign source. This, however, is the very point which most writers on the subject have failed to see. In order to explain why the founder of an Indian village gave his infant settlement the name, by which it is still known among his descendants, our laborious philo logists have ransacked vocabularies of all the obscurest dialects of Europe, but have left their Sanskrit and Hindi dictionaries absolutely unopened.

A more curious illustration of a deliberate resolve to ignore obvious facts for the sake of introducing a startling theory based on some obscure and utterly problematical analogy could. Scarcely be found than is afforded by Dr. Hunter in his Dissertation on non-Ayan languages. In this he refers the familiar local termination ganw (which argumenti gratia he spells gang or gating, though never so written in any Indian vernacular) to the Chinese hiang, "the Tibetan thiong, the Lepcha kyong, &c., &c., and refuses to acknowledge any connexion between it and the Sanskrit grama. Yet as certainly as Anglo-Saxon was once the language of England, so was Sanskrit of Upper India; and it seems as reasonable to deny the relationship between grama and ganw as between the English affix bury or borough and the Saxon burg. The formation is strictly in accord with the rules laid down by the Prakrit grammarian’s centuries before the word ganw had actually come in existence. Thus by Vararuchi’s Sutra--Sarvatra la-va-ram, III., 3—the letter r when compounded with another consonant, whether it stands first or last, is always to be elided; as we see in the Hindi bat for the Sanskrit varta, in kos for krosa, a measure of distance, and in pem for preman, love. So grama passes into gama, and whether this latter form or ganw is used depends simply upon the will of the speaker; one man calls the place where he lives Naugama, another calls it Naughaw, in the same way as it is optional to say Edinbro ‘or Edinborough. For in Hindi as in Sanskrit a nasal can always be inserted at pleasure, according to the memorial line—Savindukavindukayoh syad abhede na kalpanam: and the distinction between m and v or w has always been very slightly marked; for example, dhimar is the recognized literary Hindi form of the Sanskrit dhivar and at the present day villagers generally write Bhamani for Bhawani, though the latter form only is admitted in printed books. If speculation is allowed to run riot with regard to the paternity of such a word as ganw, every step in the descent of which is capable of the clearest proof, then philology is still a science of the future, and the whole history of language must be rewritten from the very commencement.

Perhaps of all countries in the world, northern India is the one which for an investigation of this kind is the most self-contained and the least in need of alien analogies. Its literary records date from a very remote period; are, in fact, far more ancient than any architectural remains, or even than any well-authenticated site, or definitely established era, and they form a continuous and unbroken chain down to this very day. From the Sanskrit of the Vedas to the more polished language of the Epic poems, and through the Prakrit of the dramatists, the old Hindi of Chand and the Braj Bhasha of Tulsi Das, down to the current speech of the rural population of Mathura at the present time, the transitions are never violent, and at most points are all but imperceptible. The language, as we clearly see from the specimens which we have of it in all its successive phases, is uniform and governed throughout by the same phonetic laws. And thus, neither from the intrinsic evidence of indigenous literature, nor from the facts recorded by history, is it permissible to infer the simultaneous existence in the country of an alien-speaking race at any period, to which it is reasonable to refer the foundation of places that still bear a distinctive name, prior to the Muhammadan invasion. The existence of such a race is simply assumed by those who find it convenient to represent as non-Aryan any forma tion which their acquaintance with unwritten Aryan speech in its growth and decay is too superficial to enable them at once to identify.

As local etymology is a subject which can only be investigated on the spat, and therefore lies beyond the range of European scholars, its study is necessarily affected by the prejudices peculiar to Anglo-Indian officials, who are so accus tomed to communicate with their subordinates only through the medium of Urdu that most of them regard that lingua franca as being really what it is call ed in official parlance, the vernacular of the country. This familiarity with the speech of the small Muhammadan section of the community, rather than with that of the Hindu masses, causes attention to be mainly directed to the study of Persian and Arabic, which are considered proper to the country, while Sanskrit is thought to be utterly dead, of no interest save to professional scholars and of no more practical import in determining the value of current phrases than Greek or Hebrew.

The prejudice is to be regretted, as it frequently leads writers, even in the best informed London periodicals, to speak of India as if it were a purely Muhammadan country, and to urge upon the Government, as highly conciliatory, measures which—if taken—would most effectually alienate the sympathies of the vast majority.

Neither Urdu, Persian, nor Arabic, is of much service in tracing the derivation of local names, and it is hastily concluded that words which are unintelligible when referred to those recognized sources must therefore be non-Indian, and may with as much probability be traced up to one foreign language as another. Any distortion of the name of a town or village which makes it bear some resemblance to a Persian or Arabic root is ordinarily accepted as a plausible explanation; thus Khanpur is substituted for Kanhpur and Ghazipur for Gadhipur, Gadhi, the father. of Visvamitra, being a character not very widely known; while on the other hand a derivation from the Sanskrit by the application of well-established but less popularly known phonetic and gramma tical laws, is stigmatized as pedantic and honestly considered to be more farfetched than a derivation from the Basque or the Lithuanian.

This may seem an exaggerated statement; but I speak from personal experience and with special reference to a critic who wrote that he thought the identification of Maholi with Madhupuri far more improbable than its connection with the Basque and Toda word uri, which is said to mean ‘a village.’

Such philological vagaries have their birth in the unfortunate preference for Urdu, which the English Government has inherited from the former conquerors of the country, though without any of their good reasons for the preference. They are further fostered by a wide-spread idea as to the character the people and the country, which in itself is perfectly correct and wrong y in the particular application. The Hindus are an eminently conservative race, and their civilization dates from an extremely remote period. It is therefore, inferred that most of their existing towns and villages are of very ancient foundation and, if so, may bear names to which no parallel can be expected in the modern vernacular. This hypothesis is disproved by what has been said above as to the continuity of Indian speech it is further at variance with all local traditions. The present centres of population, as any one can ascertain for himself, if he will only visit the spots instead of speculating about them in his study, are almost all subsequent in origin to the Muhammadan invasion. When they were founded, the language of the new settlers, whatever it may have been in pre-historic times, was certainly not Turanian, but Aryan, as it is now; and though any place, which had previously been inhabited, must already have borne some name, the cases in which that old name was retained would be very rare. Thus, it may be remarked in passing, the present discussion supplies no ethnical argument with regard to the original population of the country. The names, once regarded as barbarous, but now recognized as Aryan, must be abandoned as evidence of the existence of a non-Aryan race; but, at the same time, since they are essentially modern, they cannot be taken as supporting the counter-theory. The names of the rivers, however, which also are mostly Aryan, may fairly be quoted as bearing on, the point for of all local names these are the least liable to change, as we see in America and our Colonies, where it is as exceptional to find a river with an English name as it is to find a town with an Indian one. And a still stronger and more numerously attested proof is afforded by the indigenous trees, nearly all of which (as may be seen from the list given in an appendix to this volume) have names that are unmistakably of Sanskrit origin.

Moreover, Hindu conservatism, though it doubtless exists, is developed in a very different way from the principle known by the same name in Europe. Least of all is it shown in any regard for ancient buildings, whether temples or homesteads. Though Christianity is a modern faith as compared with Hin duism, and though the history of English civilization begins only from a time when the brightest period of Indian history had already closed, the material evidences of either fact are found in inverse order in the two countries. There is not a single English county which does not contain a longer and more venerable series of secular and ecclesiastical edifices than can be supplied by an Indian district or it might even be said by an entire Presidency. Thus the temple of Govind Deva at Brinda-ban, which is popularly known in the neigh bourhood as ‘the old temple ‘par excellence, dates only from the reign of Akbar, the contemporary of Elizabeth, and is therefore far more modern than any single village church in the whole of England, barring those that have been built since the revival by the present generation. The same also with MSS. The Hindus had a voluminous literature while the English were still unable to write; but at the present day in India a MS 200 years old is more of a rarity than one five times that age in England. This complete disappearance from the surface of all material records of antiquity is no doubt attributable in great measure to the operation of the two most destructive forces in the known world, viz., white-ants and Muhammadans; but the Hindus themselves are not altogether free from blame in the matter. As if from a reminiscence of their nomadic origin, with all their modern superstitious dislike to a move far from home, is combined an inveterate tendency to slip away gradually from the old landmarks. The movement is not necessitated by growth of population, which, as in London, for instance, can no longer be contained within the original city bounds, but is a result of the Oriental idiosyncrasy that makes every man desire, not—in accordance with European ideas—to found a family or restore an old ancestral residence, but rather to leave some building exclusively comme morative of himself, and to touch nothing that his predecessors have commenced, lest they should have all the credit of it with posterity. The history of Eng land, which runs all in one cycle from the time of its first civilization, affords no ground for comparison; but in mediaeval Italy the course of events was somewhat parallel, and, as in India, a second empire was built up on the ruins of a former one of equal or greater grandeur and extent. In it we find the modern cities retaining under some slight dialectical disguises the very same names as of old and occupying the same ground: in India, on the other hand, there is scarcely an historic site which is not now desolation. Again, to pass from political to merely local disturbances: when London was rebuilt after the Great Fire, its streets, in spite of all Wren‘s remonstrances, were laid out exactly as before, narrow and irregular as they had grown up piece by piece in the course of centuries, and with even the churches on their old sites, though the latter had become useless in consequence of the change in the national religion, which required one or two large arenas for the display of pulpit eloquence rather than many secluded oratories for private devotion. When a similar calamity befell an Indian city, as it often did, the position of the old shrines was generally marked by rude commemorative stones, but the people made no difficulty about abandoning the exact sites of their old homes, if equally eligible spots offered themselves in the neighbourhood.

The same diversity of conservative ideas runs through the whole character: the Hindu quotes the practice of his father and grandfather and persuades himself that he is as they were, and that they were as their forefathers, uncon scions of any change and ignoring the evidence of it that is afforded by ancient monuments, both literary and architectural. The former he prizes only for their connexion with the sect to which he himself belongs; whatever is illus trative of an alien faith he consigns to destruction without any regard for its history or artistic significance; and in an ancient building, if it has fallen into disuse, he sees no beauty and can take no interest; though this can scarcely be from the feeling that he can easily replace it with a better, a conviction which led our mediaeval architects to destroy without compunction any part of an earlier cathedral, however beautiful in itself, which had become decayed or too small for later requirements. In all these matters England is far more critically conservative; believing in nothing, we tolerate everything; and profoundly distrusting our own creative faculties, we preserve as models whatever we can rescue from the past, either in art or literature. These reflections may seem to wander rather far from the mark; but they explain the curious equipoise that prevails in the Indian mind between a profound contempt for antiquity and an equally profound veneration for it. The very slight regard in which ancient sites are held is illustrated by the use of the terms ‘Little ‘and ‘Great ‘as local prefixes. In consequence of the ten dency to shift the centre of population, these seldom afford information as to the comparative area and importance of the two villages so distinguished: most frequently the one styled ‘Little ‘will be the larger of the two. In some cases the prefix ‘Great’ implies only that when the common property was divided among the sons of the founder, the share so designated fell to the lot of the eldest; but ordinarily it denotes the original village site, which has been wholly or at least partially abandoned, or so diminished by successive parti tions that it has eventually become the smallest and least important of the group.

The foregoing considerations will, I trust, be accepted as sufficiently demonstrating the reasonableness of my general position that local names in Upper India are, as a rule, of no very remote antiquity, and are prima facie referable to Sanskrit and Hindi rather than to any other language. Their formation has certainly been regulated by the same principles that we see underlying the local nomenclature of other civilized countries, and we may therefore expect to find them falling into three main groups, as follows:

I. Names compounded with an affix denoting place.
II. Names compounded with an affix denoting possession.
III. A more indefinite class, including all names without any affix at all; such words being for the most part either the name of the founder, or an epithet descriptive of some striking local feature.

Running the eye over the list of villages in the Mathura district, we can at a glance detect abundant illustrations of each of these three classes. Thus under Class I. come such names as Nanak-pur, Pati-pura, Bich-puri, where the founder‘s name is combined with the local affix pur, pura, or puri, signifying ‘a town’. So also, Nau-gama, Uncha-ganw, Badan-garh, Chamar-garhi, Rup- nagar, Pal-khera, Brinda-ban, Ahalya-ganj, Radha-kund, Mangal-khoh, Mall- sarai, and Nainu-patti. In all these instances the local affix is easy to be recognized as also the word to which it is attached.

Of Class II. the illustrations are not quite so obvious and will mostly require special elucidation; but some are self-evident, as for example Bhure-ka, where the affix is the ordinary sign of the genitive case; Rane-ra, where it is the Marwari form of the same; and Pipal-wara, where it represents the fami liar wala.

Under Class III. come first such names as Suraj, Misri, and Gaju, which are known to have been borne by the founders; and under the second sub-divi sion, Gobardhan, ‘ productive in cattle;’ Sanket, ‘ a place of assignation;’ Khor, ‘ an opening between the hills;’ Basai, ‘ a colony; ‘ and Pura, ‘ a town, ‘ indicative of a period when towns were scarce; with many others of similar character.’

Looking first for names that may be included under Class I., we find that by far the most numerous variety are those compounded with the affix pur. This might be expected, for precisely the same reason that ‘ton’ is the most common local ending in England. But we certainly should not expect to find so large a proportion unmistakably modern, with the former part of the com pound commemorating either a Muhammadan or a Hindu with a Persian name, or one who can be proved in some other way to have lived only a few genera tions ago, and with scarcely a single instance of a name that can with any pro bability be referred to a really ancient date. As this fact is one of considerable importance to my argument, I must proceed to establish it beyond all possibility of cavil by yassing in review the entire series of names in which the ending occurs in each of the six parganas of the district.

The Kosi pargana comprises 61 villages, of which 9 end in pur; viz Aziz-pur, Hasan-pur, Jalal-pur, Lal-pur, Nabi-pur, Pakhar-pur, Ram-pur, Shah-pur, and Shahzad-pur. Six of these are unmistakably post-Muhammadan, one is apparently so, and two are of quite uncertain date.

In the Chhata pargana there are 111 villages, and 16 of them have the pur ending; viz., Adam-pur, Akbar-pur, Bazid-pur, Deva-pura—so called from a ‘ temple’ of Gopal, built by Muhkam Sinh, the ancestor of the present proprie tors, whose Arabic name proves that he lived not many generations ago — Ghazi pur, Gulal-pur, Jait-pur, Jamal-pur, Khan-pur, Lar-pur, Manpur, on the Barsana range—so called from the Man Mandir, the first erection of which cannot date from further back than the transfer of Radha’s chief shrine from Rival to Barsana, which took place in the 15th or 16th century A.D. —Pir-pur, Saiyid-pur, Tatar-pur, Haji-pur, and Kamal-pur. Of these 16 names, 12 are unquestionably modern, and of the remaining 4, nothing can be said with certainty either one way or the other.

Of the 163 villages in the Mathura pargana, as many as 32 have the pur ending; viz., Alha-pur, said by local tradition to have been founded and so named only 200 years ago (the founder’s descendants are still on the spot and most unlikely to detract from the antiquity of their family); A’zam-pur and Bakir-pur, both founded by A’zam Khan Mir Muhammad Bakir, who was Governor of Mathura from 1642 to 1645; Bhavan-pur; Bija-pur, founded 200 years ago by Bijay Sinh, Thakur, on land taken from the adjoining village of Nahrauli; Daulat-pur; Daum-pura, one of 11 villages founded by the sons of a Jat named Nainu at no very remote period, since the share which fell to the eldest of the sons is distinguished by the Persian epithet kalan; Giridhar pur, probably the most ancient of the series, but still dating from times of modern history, having been founded by Giridhar, a Kachhwaha Thakur of Satoha, whose ancestors had migrated there from Amber; Gobind-pur; Hakim- pur; Jamal-pur; Jati-pura, founded by Gosain Bitthal-nath, the son of Val labhacharya of Gokul, commonly called Jati Ji, about the year 1550 A.D.; Jay Sinh-pura, founded by Sawae Jay Sinh of Amber about the year 1720 A.D. Kesopur, so ‘ called from the famous temple of Kesava Deva, a fact which would sufficiently account for the name remaining unchanged, even though of ancient data; Lalpur, founded by a Thakur named Lalu, a member of the Gaurua clan, which is confessedly of late origin; Lal-pur, founded only a few generations ago by a Tarkar Thakur, Laram; Madan-pura, founded by an Ahir from the old village of Karnaul; Madho-pur, dating 300 years ago, when it was formed out of lands taken from the adjoining villages and given to a Hindu retainer by Salim Shah; Mirza-pur; Muhammad-pur; Mukund-pur, so called after a Mahratta founder; Murshid-pur, founded by Murshid Kuli Khan, who was Governor of Mathura in 1636 A.D.; Nabi-pur founded by ‘Abd-un-Nabi, Go­vernor from 1660 to 1668; Panna-pur, founded in 1725 A.D.; Raj-pur, near Brinda-ban, so named with reference to the Raj-Ghat, by a Sanadh Brahman from Kamar in the 16th century; Ram-pur, named after the Ramtal, a place of pilgrimage there; Rasul-pur; Salim-pur, dating from the reign of Salim Shah; Askar-pur, a modern alternative name for Satoha; Shah-pur; and Dhak-pura. Of these 32 names, there are only five as to which any doubt can be entertained; all the remainder are clearly modern.

In the Mat pargana are 141 villages, and 41 end in pur; viz ; Abhay-pura, settled by a Jut, Abhay Sinh, from Kaulana; Ahmad-pur; Akbar-pur; Aman ullah-pur; Badan-pur; Baikunth-pur, founded according to local tradition 300 years ago; Baland-pur, founded in the 17th century by a Jat named Balavant; Bali-pur, founded by Bali, a Jat from Bajana about 1750 A.D.; Begam-pur; Bulakpur; Chand-pur, of modern Jat foundation; Daulat-pur; Faridam-pur; Firoz-pur; Hamza-pur; Hasan-pur;’ Inayat-pur Jafar-par; Jahangir-pur; Jat-pura, a modern off-shoot from the adjoining village of Shal; Khan-pur; Khwaja-pur; Lal-pur, founded by a Jat from Parsauli; Makhdumpur; Mir- pur; Mubarak-pur; Mu’in-ud-dinpur; Nabi-pur; Nanak-pur, a modern off-shoot from Musmina; Nausher-pur; Nur-pur; Pabbi-pur; Pati-pura, a mo dern colony from the Jat village of Dunetiya; Rae-pur, recently settled from Musmina; Sadik-pur; Sadr-pur; Sakat-pur; Sikandar-pur; Suhag-pur; Sul tan-pur; and Udhan-pur. As to the foundation of 6 out of these 41 villages nothing is known; the remaining 35 are distinctly ascertained to be modern.

Of the 203 villages in the Maha-ban pargana, 43 have the ending pur; viz., ‘ Abd-un-Nabi-pur; Ali-pur; Amir-pur; Islam-pur; Bahadur-pur Balaram-pur, recently founded by Sobha Rae, Kayath; Banarasi-pur, founded by a Brahman, Banarasi, who derived his own name from the modern appellation of the sacred city called of old Varanasi; Bhankar-pur; Bichpuri, of modern Jat foundation; Daulat-pur; Fath-pura; Ghiyas-pur; Gohar-pur; Habib-pur; Hayat-pur; Hasan-pur; Ibrahim-pur;’ Isa-pur, founded by Mirza ‘ Isa Tarkhan, Governor of Mathura in 1629 A. D.; Jadon-pur; Jagadis-pur, founded by a Parasar, Jagadeva, whose descendants are still on the spot and claim no great antiquity; Jamalpur; Jogi-pur; Kalyanpur; Kasim-pur; Khan-pur; Kishan pur, recently settled from the village of Karab; Lal-pur; Manohar-pur; Mohan-pur; Mubarak-pur; Muzaffar-pur; Nabi-pur; Nasir-pur; Nur-pur; Rae-pur; Saiyid-pur; Shahab-pur; Shah-pur; Shahzad-pur; Sherpur; Tayyibpur, and Zakariya-pur. Of these 43 villages, 35 are certainly quite modern: as to the remaining 8 nothing can be affirmed positively.

The 6th and last pargana, Sa’dabad, contains 129 villages, of which 31 have the ending pur; viz., Abhay-pura, of modern Jut foundation; Bagh-pur, founded 300 years ago by a Jat named Bagh-raj; Bahadur-pur; Bijal-pur; Chamar-pura; Dhak-pura; Fathullah-pur; Ghatam-pur, founded in the reign of Shahjahan; Hasan-pur; Idal-pur; Mahabat-pur; Madan-pur; Manik-pur, of modern Jat foundation; Mir-pur; Narayan-pur, named after a Gosain of modern date, Narayan Das: Nasir-pur; Nasir-pur; Nau-pura; Rae-pura, of modern Thakur foundation; Ram-pura, recently settled from Sahpau, by `a Brahman named Man Mall; Rashid-pur; Sala-pur, founded by a Brahman named Sabala; Salim-pur; Samad-pur, settled not many generations ago by a Jat named Savadhan; Sarmast-pur; Shahbaz-pur; Sher-pur, Sithara-pur, a modern off-shoot of Garumra; Sultan-pur; Taj-pur; and Zari-pura. Of these 31 names, 5 are doubtful; the other 26 are proved to be modern.

Adding up the results thus obtained, we find that there are in the whole district 172 villages that exhibit the termination pur, and of these as many as 141 are either obviously of modern origin, or are declared to be so by local tradition. It is also worthy of notice that in the above lists there has frequently been occasion to mention the name of the parent settlement from which a more recent colony has been derived; but in no single instance does the older name show the pur ending. Yet pura or puri is no new word, nor is its use as a local affix new; on the contrary we have the clearest literary proof that it has been very largely so employed from the very commencement of the Aryan occupa tion of India. What, then, has become of all the older names in which it once appeared? It is inconceivable that both name and place should in every instance have been so utterly destroyed as not to leave a trace behind; and we are thus forced to accept the alternative conclusion that the affix has in course of time so coalesced with the former part of the compound, that it ceases to be readily distinguishable from it. Now of names that are presumably ancient, ii will be found that a considerable proportion terminate in oli, auli, aur, auri, or aula. Thus, deducting from the 61 villages in the Kosi pargana, the nine that have the modern termination puri, we have 52 left, and among that number 7 are of this character; viz., Banchauli, Chacholi, Chandauri, Mahroli, Sanchauli, Sujauli, and Tumaula. Again, of the 95 villages that remain in the Chhata pargana after deduction of the 16 ending in puri, 15 have the oli affix; viz., Ahori, Astoli, Baroli, Bharauli, Chaksauli, Darauli, Gangroli, Lodhauli, Man groli, Parsoli, Pilhora, Rankoli, Rithora, and Taroli. Without continuing the list in wearisome detail through the other four parganas of the district, it will probably be admitted that, in earlier times, oli was as common a local affix as puri in modern times, and must represent some term of equally general and equally familiar signification. To proceed with the argument; these names, though as a rule older than those ending in puri, are still many of them of no great antiquity and can be proved to belong to an Aryan period, when the lan guage of the country was in essentials the same as it is now and the people inhabiting it bore much the same names as they do still. Thus Sanchauli is derived from Sanchi Devi, who has a temple there; Sujauli from a founder Sujan, whose descendants are still the proprietors; and Parsoli and Taroli from found ers named respectively Parsa and Tura. It may be presumed with absolute certainty that these people, bearing such purely Indian names, whether they lived 5, 10, or 15 generations ago, knew no language but their own vernacular, and could not borrow from any foreign tongue the titles by which they chose to designate their new settlements. Thus Dr. Hunter, and those who have fol lowed him in his speculations, may be correctly informed when they state that in Tamil, or Telugu, or Toda, or even in Basque, there is a word uri, or uru, or ur, which means ‘village ‘; but yet if this word was never current in the ordi nary speech of Upper India, the founders of the villages quoted above cannot possibly have known of it. The attempt to borrow such a name as Sujauli or Maholi directly from the Basque is, when viewed under the light of local know-ledge, really more absurd than to derive Cannington from Kanhay, or Dalhou sie from Dula-hasi, ‘ with pleasant foliage’. The misconception, as already observed, has risen from the erroneous idea that all village names are of remote antiquity, and may therefore be illustrated by philological analogies collected from all parts and ages of the world. In truth, uli or uri is simply puri with the initial consonant elided. Such an elision, removing as it does the most distinctive element in the word, may appear at first sight highly improbable: it is, however, in strict accord with the rules of Hindi formation. The two first sutras of the second Book of Vararuchi‘s Prakrita-Prakasa in the clearest man ner direct it to be made. The text stands thus:

(1) Ayuktasyanadau. (2) Ka-ga-cha ja-ta-da-pa-ya-vam prayo lopah. That is to say, the consonants k, g, ch, j, t, d, p, y, and v, when single and non‑ initial are generally elided. And as a convincing proof that this is no mere grammatical figment, but a practical rule of very extensive application, take the following familiar words, in which its influence is so obvious as to be undeniable. By the elision of the prescribed consonant we obtain from the Sanskit sukar, the Hindi suar, ‘ a pig ‘; from kokila, koil, ‘the cuckoo ‘; from suchi, sui, ‘a needle’ ; from tata, tau, ‘a father’s elder brother’; from pada, pao, ‘a quarter’ from kupa, kua, ‘a well’ from Prayag, Prag, the Hindi name of Allahabad; and from jiva, jia, ‘life’. The rule, it is true, provides primarily that the letter to be elided must be non-initial; but one of the example given in the text is su uriso for su purusha, ‘ a good man ‘; where the p is still elided, although it is the initial of the word purusha. This the commentator explains by declaring that “the initial letter of the last member of a compound must be considered as non-initial.".Thus the mystery is solved, and Karnaul is at once seen to be Karna-pur; Karauli, Kalyan-pur; Taroli, Tara-pur; and Sujauli, Sujan-puri.

This practical application of the Prakrit grammarian‘s rule was first stated in my first edition of this Memoir. In my own mind it was so firmly estab lished as an indisputable fact, and possessed in its extreme simplicity at least one of the great merits of all genuine discoveries, that I stated it very briefly and thought it unnecessary to bring forward any collateral arguments in its support. But I find that I much under-rated the strength of inveterate prejudices; for with the exception of one reviewer in a London scientific journal, all other critics seemed to regard my theory as the mere outcome of unpractical pedantry. I have therefore on the present occasion taken great pains to omit nothing, and I cannot believe that anyone, who will submit to the trouble of following my argument as I have now stated it, will still maintain a that the direct derivation from the Turanian roots aul, ur, uri, is more probable than the forced and far-fetched Sanskrit derivation from one single root supported only by the theory of a grammarian, which may or may not have been put in practice in an unlettered age." The writer of the remarks I quote would seem to imagine that language was the invention of grammarians; on the contrary, they are powerless to invent or even change a single word, and can merely codify the processes which are the result of unconscious action on the part of the unlettered masses. When Sujan-pur is converted in popular speech into Sujauli, it is not because in one rule Vararuchi has directed the elision of the initial p, and in another rule the elision of the final n; but because a Hindu’s organs of speech (as the grammarians had noticed to be the invari able case) have a natural and unconscious tendency to the change. This tendency in still existing in full force, and my observing it to be so in another local compound first suggested to me the identification of uri with puri. Thus the beautiful lake at Gobardhan with the mausoleum of the first of the Bharat pur Rajas is called indifferently Kusum-sarovar, or Kusumokhar; and at Barsana is a tank, called either Bhanokhar or Brikhbhan kit pokhar, after Radha‘s reputed father Brikh-bhan. Both in Kusumokhar and Bhanokhar it is evident that the latter part of the compound was originally pokhar, and in the same way as the initial p has been there elided, so also has it been in Sujauli and Maholi. The explanation of the last-mentioned word ‘Maholi’ is one of the most obvious and at the same time one of the most interesting results of my theory. It is the name of the village some four miles from Mathura, which has grown up in the vicinity of the sacred grove of Madhuban, where Rama‘s brother Satrughna destroyed the giant Madhu. On the site of the captured stronghold the hero is said to have built a city, called indiscriminately in Sanskrit literature Mathura or Madhu-puri: the fact, no doubt, being that Mathura was originally the name of the country, with Madhu-puri for its capital. In course of time the capital, like most Indian cities, gradually shifted its site, probably in order to follow the receding river; while Madhu-puri itself, fixed by the locality of the wood that formed its centre, became first a suburb and finally an entirely distinct village. Simultaneously with these changes, the name of the country at large was attached par excellence to its chief city, and Madhu puri in its obscurity became a prey to phonetic decay and was corrupted into Maholi. The transition is a simple one; the h being substituted for dh by the rule II. 27 Kha-gha-tha-dha Bham Hah, which gives us the Hindi bahira for the Sanskrit badhira, ‘deaf,’ and bahu for vadhu, ‘a female relation.’

It will be observed that Madhu-puri as a literary synonym for Mathura remains unchanged, and is transformed into Maholi only as the name of an insignificant village. Thus an easy solution is found for the difficulty raised by the same critic I have before quoted, who objects, "If it is possible in the lapse of time to elide the p of puri, why have not the oldest towns in India like Hastina-pur yielded to the change? And in the case of more modern towns why do we not find the change half-effected, some middle place in the transition stage?" To the former of these two questions I reply that a name when once petrified in literature is preserved from colloquial detritions. Thus, of two places originally named alike, one may retain the genuine Sanskrit form, while the other becomes Prakritized, according to their celebrity or otherwise. A parallel is afforded by the names of many English families: the elder branches retain the old spelling, however much at variance with modern pronunciation, as, for instance, Berkeley and Marjoribanks; while the obscurer branches, who seldom had occasion to attach their signatures to any document, conform their spelling to the sound and appear in writing as Barkley and Marchbanks. Again, among those who retain the old form, some no longer pronounce the word in the old fashioned way, but alter its sound according to the more ordinary value of the letters in modern pronunciation. Thus Hastina- pur exists unchanged, by vir tue of its historical fame; had it been an obscure village it would probably have been corrupted into Hathaura. In fine, it may be accepted as a general rule that when the termination par, pura, or puri is found in full, the place is either comparatively modern, or if ancient is a place of pre-eminent note. The one exception to the rule is afforded by names in which the first element of the com pound is a Persian or Arabic word. Some of them may be much older and yet not more distinguished than many of pure Hindu descent, from which the p has disappeared; but the explanation lies in the natural want of affinity between the two members of the compound, which would prevent them from coalescing, however long they might be bound together.

To say that the actual process of transition can never be detected is not strictly in accordance with facts. The elision is not restricted to proper names, but is applicable to all words alike; and in Hindi books written and printed at the present day it is optional with the writer to use exclusively either kokila, or koil; sukar or suar; kup or kua, or both indifferently. Again, to take a local illustration: Gobardhan, being a place of high repute, is always so spelt by well-informed people, but in vulgar writing it is contracted to Gordhan, and it is almost exceptional to come across a man whose name is Gobardhan Das, who does not acquiesce in the corruption.

Next to pur, the local affix of most general signification and the one which we should therefore expect to find occupying the second place in popular use is grama, gama, or ganw. It occurs, however, far less frequently, at least in an unmotivated state. Thus of the 61 villages in the Kosi pargana there are only two with this affix, viz., Dahi-ganw, named from the Dadhi-kund, and Pai-ganw from the Pai-ban-kund; dadhi and payas both meaning ‘milk. ‘ In the 111 Chhata villages there are four, viz., Bhau-ganw, Nand-ganw, Nau-gama, and Uncha-ganw. In the 163 Mathura villages there are six, viz., Bachh-ganw, Dhan-ganw, Jakhin-ganw, Naugama (properly Na-gama from its founder Naga), Nim-ganw, and Uncha-ganw. In the 141 Mat villages there is only one, Tenti-ka-ganw, and this a name given by Raja Suraj Mall—on account of the abundance of the karil plant with its fruit called tenti—to a place formerly known as Akbar-pur. In the 203 Mahaban villages only two, viz., Nim-ganw and Pani-ganw; and in the 129 S’adabad villages, four, viz., Kukar gama, Naugama, Risgama, and Tasigau. The proportion is therefore little more than two per cent., and even of this small number the majority may reasonably be presumed to be of modern date. Thus Nau-gama in the Chhata pargana was formed in later Muhammadan times by a moiety of the popula tion of the parent village Taroli, who under imperial pressure abandoned their ancestral faith and submitted to the yoke of Islam. Again the five or six villages, such as Bachh-ganw, Dahi-ganw, &c., that have sprung up round the sacred groves and lakes and retain the name of the tirath unaltered, simply substituting ganw for the original ban or kund, are almost certainly due to the followers of Vallabhacharva at the beginning of the 16th century, or to the Gosain who composed the modern Brahrma-vaivarta Purana and first made these spots places of Vaishnava pilgrimage. It may therefore be inferred that in older names the termination grama has, like puri, been so mutilated as to become difficult of recognition. The last name on the list, viz., Tasigau, is valuable as suggesting the character of the corruption, which it exhibits in a transitional stage. The final syllable, which is variably pronounced as gau, go, or gon, is unmistakably a distinct word, and can only represent ganw. The former part of the compound, which at first sight appears not a little obscure, is illustrated by a village in the Mathura pargana, Tasiha, a patti, or subdivision of the township of Sonkh, which is said to bear the name of one of the five sons of the Jat founder, the other four being Ajal, Asa, Purna, and Sahjua. As these are clearly Hindi vocables, it may be presumed that Tasiha is so likewise, and we shall probably be right if we take it for the Prakrit form of the Sanskrit tishya, one of the lunar mansions, used in the sense of ‘ auspicious, ‘ in the same way as the more common Pusa, which represents the asterism Pushya. Thus, as the letter g can be elided under the same rule as the p in puri. The original termination grama is not unfrequently reduced to the form on, in which not one letter of its older self remains. The most interesting example of this mutation is afforded by the village Parson. Its meaning has so thoroughly died out that a local legend has been in existence for some generations which explains it thus: that two days after Krishna had slain one of the monsters with which the country was infested, he was met at this spot by some of his adherents who asked him how long ago it was that he had done the deed, and he replied parson, ‘the day before yesterday’. This is obviously as absurd as the kal kata, or ‘ yesterday ‘s cutting, ‘ told about Calcutta; for apart from other reasons the word in vogue in Krishna’s time would have been not parson, but its original form paravas. However, the true etymology, which is yet more, disguised by the fact that office clerks always change the r into l and call the place Palson, does not appear to have been ever suggested till now. Clearly the name was once Parasurama-ganw, or in its contracted form Parsaganw, and thence by regular transition has passed through Parsanw into Parson. If proof were required, it is supplied by the fact that a large pond of ancient sacred repute immediately adjoining the village is called Parasuram-kund.

The sacred ponds and groves with which the country of Braj abounds are, as might naturally be expected, ordinarily much older than the villages on their margin; and, as illustrated by the above example, it is always of the utmost importance to the philologist to ascertain their popular names. These are much less liable to corruption than the name of any village; for as the tirath is visited solely on account of the divinity with whom it is tradition-ally associated, his name is in it preserved intact., while as an clement in the word that designates the village (a place most connected in the mind with secular matters) its primary import is less considered and in a few generations may be totally forgotten. Thus the obscure name of a pond which can, only be ascertained by a personal visit, often reveals the name of the local deity or it may be of the founder of the settlement, and in that gives a surer clue to the process of corruption in the village name than could ever be afforded by any amount of library research. For example, the resolution of such a word as Senwa into its constituent elements might seem a hopeless undertaking; but the clouds are dispelled on ascertaining that a neighbouring pond of reputed sanctity is known as Syamkund. Thence it may reasonably be inferred that the original form was Syam-ganw; the final m of Syam and the initial g of ganw being elided by the rules already quoted, and the consonant y passing into its cognate vowel. Other names in the district, in which the affix ganw may be suspected to lurk in a similarly mutilated condition, are Jaiswa for Jay-sink ganw; Basaun for Bishan-ganw, Bhiun for Bhim-ganw; Badon for Badu-ganw (Badu being for Sanskrit Badava) and Ohawa for Udha-ganw.

Another word of yet wider signification than either puri or grama, and one which is known to have been extensively used as a local affix in early times is sthana, or its Hindi equivalent thana. And yet, strange to say, there is not a single village name in the whole district in which its presence is apparent. It probably exists, but if so, only in the very mutilated form of ha. Thus the village of Satoha on the road between Mathura and Gobardhan is famous for, and beyond any doubt whatever derives its name from, a sacred pond called Santanu-kund. The eponymous hero is a mythological character of such remote antiquity that he is barely remembered at all at the present day, and what is told about him on the spot is a strange jumble of the original legend. The word Satoha therefore is no new creation, and it can scarcely be expected to have escaped from the wear and tear of ages to which it has been exposed, without undergoing even very material changes. The local wiseacres find an etymology in sattu, ‘bran,’ which they assert to have been Santana’s only food during the time that he was practicing penance. But this is obviously absurd, and Satoha, I am convinced, is an abbreviation for Santanu-sthana. Instances are very frequent in which words of any length and specially proper names are abbreviated by striking out all but the first syllable and simply adding the vowel u to the part retained. Thus in common village speech at the present day Kalyan is almost invariably addressed as Kalu, Bhagavan as Bhagu, Balavant as Balu, and Mulchand as Mulu. In the last example the long vowel of the first syllable is also shortened, and thus an exact parallel is afforded to the change from Santanu to Satu or Sato. Sato-thana then by ordinary rule, if only the th in the compound is regarded as non-initial, becomes Satohana; and the further loss of the final na cannot be regarded as an insuperable difficulty.

An affix which has itself suffered from organic decay has a tendency to involve its support in the same destruction, and thus I feel no difficulty in proceeding a step further and interpreting the word ‘ Paitha’ on the same principles as in Satoha. It is the name of a large and apparently very ancient village with a temple of Chatur-bhuj, rebuilt on the foundations of an older shrine, which had been destroyed by Aurangzeb. At the back of the god’s throne is a hollow in the ground, which has given rise to a local etymology of the usual unscientific character. For it is said to be the mouth of the cave into which the people of Braj ‘entered (paitha) when Krishna upheld the Giri-raj hill, which is about two miles distant from the village, in order to shelter them from the storm of Indra. Absurd as the legend is, it supplies a suggestion: for paithna, the verb ‘to enter, ‘is unquestionably formed from the Sanskrit pravishta; and if we imagine a some what analogous process in the case of the local name, and allow for the constant detrition of many centuries, we may recognize in ‘Paitha ‘the battered wreck of Pratishthana, which in Sanskrit is not an unusual name for a town.

Sthali, a word very similar in meaning to sthana, suffers precisely the same fate when employed as an affix; its entire intermediate letters being slurred over, and only the first and last retained. Thus Kosi represents an original Kusa-sthali; and Tarsi with the sacred grove of Tal-ban, where, according to the very ancient legend, Krishna put to death the demon Dhenuk, is for Tala-sthali.

Karab, the name of a large village in the Mahaban pargana, is a solitary example of an affix, which I take to have been in full the Sanskrit vapra, ‘a fort’, ‘or field.’ If so, it has suffered even more than sthali and has retained only one letter of its original self, viz., the initial v or b. Since hazard ing the above suggestion I have come across a fact which is the highest pos sible testimony to its correctness: for a copper-plate grant of Dhruvasena, one of the Valabhi kings, transbribed in the Indian Antiquary, gives Hastaka-vapra as the name of the place now called Hathab.

Another termination, which we find occurring with sufficient frequency to warrant the presumption that it is an affix with a definite meaning of its own, is oi. There are five examples of it in the district, viz., Gindoi, Majhoi, Mandoi, Radoi, and Bahardoi. Of these the most suggestive is the first, Gindoi. Here is a pond of ancient sacred repute, called Gendokhar-kund, which is the scene of an annual mela, the Phul Dol, held in the month of Phal gun. Hence we may safely infer that Gindoi is a compound word with Genda for its first element. This is not an uncommon name for a Hindu, and its most obvious meaning would be ‘a marry gold. ‘ So taken it would find a parallel in such proper names as Gulab, ‘ a rose’; Tulsi, the sacred herb so called; Phil, ‘ a flower ‘; and Puhap, for the Sanskrit pushp, with the same meaning. It may, however, be doubted whether it did not in the first instance represent rather the Hindi gainda, for gajendra, ‘an elephant.’ Besides preserving the name of the village founder, the term Gendokhar-kund is curious in another respect, as showing a complete popular forgetfulness of the mean ing of the termination okhar at the time when the word kund with precisely the same import was added. English topography supplies a case exactly in point; for Wansbeckwater is composed of three words, which all mean exact ly the same thing, but were current in popular speech at different times, being respectively Danish, German, and English. But to return to Gindoi, which we have found to be a compound word with Genda for its first element, the termination oi yet remains to be considered. I take it to be rapi, ‘ a pond.’ In confirmation of this view it is worthy of note that in the Ghiror pargana of the Mainpuri district there is a village called oi, pur et simple, surrounded on three sides by the river Arind, which in the rains becomes at that particular spot an enormous and almost stagnant sheet of water For such a place vapi would be a highly appropriate name, and for the transition from vapi to oai nothing is required beyond the elision of the p and change of v into its cognate vowel. Prefixing Genda, we have Genda-oai, Gendavai, and finally Gindoi; o being subsituted for au, and i for ai, by the following Sutras of Vararuchi, Auta ot of I. 41, and Id dhairye I. 39. The latter rule, it is true, refers strictly only to the word dhairya, which becomes dhiram in Prakrit, but it seoms not unreasonable to give it a wider application. The above line of argument would command un qualified assent if it could be shown that each of the places with the oi ending was in the neighbourhood of some considerable pond. There is such a one at Man doi, called Acharya-kund; and Bahardoi, founded at an early period by Tha kurs from Chitor, who only about 30 years ago lost their proprietary rights and now have all migrated elsewhere, is a place subject to yearly inundations, as it immediately adjoins some low ground where a large body of water is always collected in the rains. Radoi I have never had an opportunity of seeing, and therefore cannot say whether its physical characteristics confirm or are at variance with my theory: but at Majhoi, which is a Gujar village on the bank of the Jamuna, there is certainly no vestige of any large pond, which would account for the affix rapi. This one proved exception cannot, however be regarded as a fatal objection; for the same effect may result from very different causes; as, for instance, the Hindi word bar in the sense of ‘a day of the week’ represents the Sanskrit vara; while if taken to mean water, or ‘a child, ‘it stands in the one case for vari, in the other bala. Thus in the particular word Majhoi, the o may belong to the first element of the compound and the i the affix of possession.

Ana is another termination of somewhat rare occurrence. This is in probability an abbreviation of the Sanskrit ayana, which means primarily‘a going,’ ‘a road,’ but is also used in the wider sense of simply ‘place.’ An example very much to the purpose is supplied by Vararuchi, or rather, by his commentator Bhamaha, who incidentally mentions munjuna, ‘ a place producing the munja plant,’ as the Prakrit equivalent for the Sanskrit maunjayana. The district contains nine places which exhibit this ending, viz. Dotana, Halwana, Hathana, Mahrana, Sihana, Kaulana, Mirtana, Diwana, and Barsana. But what was only suspected in the case of the Gindoi group, viz. that all the names do not really belong to the same category, is here susceptible of positive proof. But to take first some of the words in which ayana seems an appropriate affix; Sihana, where is a pond called the kshir sagar, mad, be for Kshirayana; Dotana, derived on the spot from danton, ‘ a tooth-brush’, which is suggestive of Buddhist legends and therefore of ancient sanctity, may well be for Devatayana; Halwana, where an annual mela is celebrated in honour of Balarama, may have for its first element Hala-bhrit, a title of that hero, the final t being elided and the bh changed into v; while the first syllable in the three names Hathana, Kaulana, and Mirtana, may represent respectively Hasti, Komal, and Amrit; Amrit Sinh being recorded by tradition as tie founder of the last-named village. But the resemblance of Diwana and Barsana to any of the above is purely accidental. The former commemorate the Jat founder, one Diwan Singh, whose name has been localized simply by the addition of the affix a, while Barsana has a history of its own, and that curious one. It is now famous as the reputed birth-place of Radha, who is the only divinity that—for the last two centuries at least—has been popularly associated with the locality. But of old it was not so: the hill on which the modern series of temples has been erected in her honour is of eccentric conformation, with four boldly-marked peaks; whence it is still regarded by the local Pandits as symbolical of the four-faced divinity, and styled Brahma ka pahar or ‘ Brahma ‘s hill. ‘This lingering tradition gives a clue to the etymology: the latter part of the word being sanu, which is identical in meaning with pahar and the former part a corruption of Brahma. But this, the true origin of the word, had entirely dropped out of sight even in the 16th century, when the writer of the Vraja-bhakti-vilisa was reduced to invent the form Brisha bhanu-pura as the Sanskrit equivalent for the Hindi Barsana. A somewhat similar fate has befallen the companion hill of Nand-ganw, which is now crowned with the temple of Nand Rae Ji, Krishna‘s reputed foster-father. Its real name, before Vaishnava influence had become so strong in the land, was Nandi-grama, by which title it was dedicated to Mahadeva in his character of Nandisvar; and the second person of the Hindu trinity, who has now appro priated all three of the sacred hills of Braj, was then in possession of only one, Gobardhan.

The local name Mai, or Man, is found occasionally in all parts of Upper India and appears also in the Mathura district, though not with great frequency. The one form seems to be only a broader pronunciation of the other in the same way as nau is the ordinary village pronunciation for nai, ‘a barber,’the Sanskrit napita, and rau, a flood, or rush of water, is for raga, or rai, from the root ri, ‘ to go.’ Twice the word stands by itself; twice as an affix, viz., in Pipara-mai and Ris-mai; once in connection with a more modern name of the same place, Mai Mirza-pur; and twice, as in Rae-pur Mai and Bara Mai, where the exact relationship with the companion word may be a little doubtful. In most of these cases I consider it to be an abbreviation of the Sanskrit mahi, meaning ‘land’ or ‘a landed estate.’ The elision of the h is not according to any definite rule laid down by the Prakrit grammarians, but certainly agrees with vulgar practice: for example, the word mahina, a month, ‘ is always pronounced maina; and if it were given its full comple ment of three syllables, a rustic would probably not understand what was meant. At Mai Mirzapur the tradition is that the name commemorates one Maya Ram; and in the particular case, this very possibly may be so; but obviously instances of this very restricted derivation would be rare.

Nagar, ‘ a town,’ has always been fairly-popular as a local affix, and the Mathura district contains seven examples of the word so used, viz., Rupnagar, Sher-nagar, a second Rap-nagar, Ma’usam-nagar, Ram-nagar, Birnagar, and Raj-nagar. But it is in modern times and as a prefix that it enters most largely into any catalogue of village names. As a rule, whenever now-a-days an over-crowded town throws out a branch settlement, which becomes of sufficient importance to claim a separate entry in the Government rent-roll, it is therein recorded as Nagla so-and-so, according to the name of the principal man in it. On the spot, Nagla Bali, to take a particular case, is more com monly called Bali ka nagara; and after the lapse of a few generations, if the new colony prospers, it drops the Nagara altogether, and is known simply as Bali. The transmutation of the word nagara into Nagla and its conversion from a suffix into a prefix are due solely to the proclivities of native revenue officials, who affect the Persian collocation of words rather than the Hindi, and always evince a prejudice against the letter r. It is interesting to observe that in England the Teutonic mode of compounding names differs from the Celtic, in the same way as in India the Hindi from the Urdu: for while the Celts spoke of Strath Clyde and Abertay, the Teutons preferred Clydesdale and Traymouth.

References