INDIAN PLACE-NAMES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19478, 24 December 1925, Page 6

INDIAN PLACE-NAMES

GODDESSES AND HEROES. CHIEFLY FROM HINDU SOURCES. Names of places in India are varied indeed, but, notwithstanding the numberless invasions which, that country suffered throughout the ages, they arc mostly derived from Hindu sources and are chiefly connected with the names of founders of gods, goddesses and mythical heroes. The name “India” comes from the Sanskrit word “Sindhu” (the sea). “Hind” is the aspired form used by the Persians, and this becomes “Ind” or “India.” The Indus is still called “Sindh” locally; there is also the province of Sind and its desert, and “Sirhind” (Head of India) is a town at the extreme north of the great watershed of the peninsula, says an English writer. The country is mentioned in the Book of Esther (i. 1 and viii. 9). where in Hebrew' it is termed “Hiddu. ” Its ancient names were “Aryavarta (Veda), or “Land of ihe Aryans.’’ “ Bharata-varsha ” (Puranas), or 1 ‘ Territory of King Bharata,” and “ Jambudwipa’’ (Buddhist literature), or “Country of the rose-apples.”

4 4 Bengal Stripes. ’ ’ “Bengal” insignificantly gets its appellation from a kind of muslin which was first exported to England in the 17 th century. ‘ ‘Bengal Stripes” were at that time well-known ginghams! “Bombay” originated from “Mumba Devi” (M and I.) are interchangeable), a goddess and the name of one of die islands on which the city is built. “Madras” was a small place of a different name until the 17th century, ■when it distinguished itself by starting a college or “Af.ad rasa, ” from which it took its present name. “Punjab” means the “Five Rivers (or Waters).” Its Sanskrit name was, however “Sapta Sindhu,” or “Land of Seven Rivers,’’ these being the Indus', Jhelum, Ch enab, Ravi, Beas, Sutlej and Sarasvati. In .ancient days each of those had a longer separate course before uniting with another or flowing into the Indian Ocean. Milton and Lahore. “Lahore” is said to have been founded by Lava or Lo, son of Rama, and was originally called Lohawar after him. Milton mentions Lahore in one of his poems. ‘ ‘ Allahabad ” is “ God in Residence,” and was termed by the Emperor Aurangzeb. Its Hindu name is Prayag, or “Conjunction of Rivers’’ (The Gauged, Jumma and the mythical under-ground Sarasvati).