256 On the Sites of Nikaia and Boukephalon. [No. 3. 



Silla, also, unaltered by translation to Purri, is common, as "Soorh- 

 silla," a village six koss eastward of Atuk, and about ten koss from 

 Hussun Ubdal. And " Hahsilla," a little town and castle near Pindi 

 Ghayb. 



When a town or a village changes its name, if the change be not 

 merely that of pronunciation, it is total. We never find a name half trans- 

 lated and half left in the original tongue. Pentonville may be changed 

 hereafter to Warwick or to Brighton, but not probably to Pentonton. 

 When the name is changed, if the change be not a mere inflection of 

 sound, it will be total; the work of some conqueror who has destroyed 

 and rebuilt it, or of some benefactor who has improved it, or of some 

 fanatic sect who think there is religion in sound, or of some saint 

 whose relics are there deposited. The use of a name to a city is not 

 to describe its peculiarities, but to enable people to find it and to 

 speak about it intelligibly. It can be altered only when a large body 

 of the community are interested in the change. It is very true that 

 the first name of a place is often a description of some peculiarity, as 

 in the case of Turrukpurri, the hysena's rock, or Tukhtpurri, the slab 

 of stone ; because until a place has received a first name, it can be 

 spoken of only by description ; as the first Egyptians wrote in hiero- 

 glyphics. But the name once established becomes the letter of an 

 alphabet, and people cease to enquire its original meaning or value. 



Let us take the instance of Hussun Ubdal. Its oldest name 

 recorded in tradition is Jullal Sirr, the glorious fountain, or, fountain of 

 glory, from the noble spring which there leaps into being from the 

 living rock. Its next name was Hussun Ubdal, from one Hussun, of 

 the Ubdali tribe (still extant in Publi, Huzara), and its latest name, 

 given by the Sikhs, is Punja Sahib, the Sahib's, i. e. Saint's hand-print, 

 from the impression of a hand attributed to the Saint Gulab Dass, 

 although the mason who chiselled it is still alive in the neighbourhood. 

 All these changes are total. Jullal Sirr was not changed into Jullal 

 Chok, nor Hussun Ubdal into Hussun Dewana. The first of these 

 names, Jullal Sirr, being Persian, the place must almost certainly have 

 had an older Hindi name, now lost for ever, unless it be, as I suppose, 

 the Taxila of history. 



A Pundit of this place would translate Tukshasilla as the Touch- 

 stone or Test-stone. But if it be not Taxili which took its name 



