126 
ON THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS 
" Being, self-existing, the Source of Good, and Creator of the 
" Universe, of the inferior gods, and of man. This divinity 
" is called in some districts, Boora Pennu, or the God of 
" Light ; in others, Bella Pennu, or the Sun God ; and the 
" sun and the place from which it rises beyond the sea are 
*' the chief seats of his presence. Boora Pennu, in the 
" beginning, created for himself a consort, who became Tari 
" Pennu, or the Earth Goddess, and the Source of Evil. 
" He afterwards created the Earth. As Boora Pennu walked 
" upon it with Tari, he found her wanting in affectionate 
" compliance and attention as a wife, and resolved to create 
" from its substance, a new being, Man, who should render to 
" him the most assiduous and devoted service, and to form 
" from it also every variety of animal and vegetable life 
" necessary to man's existence. Tari was filled with jealousy, 
*' and attempted to prevent his purpose, but succeeded only 
" so far as to change the intended order of creation. . . Tari 
" Pennu then placed her hands over the earth, and said, 
" in Cuttack, while Sourahs (not identified with the southern race) there 
" inhabit the inferior ridges of the Ghauts." (Compare his " Account of the 
Religion of the Khonds " in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soeieti/, vol. 
XIII, pp. 220, 221.) 
Compare also Fapers relating to the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central 
Provinces left in MSS., by the late Rev. Stephen Hislop, missionary of the 
Free Church of Scotland at Nagpore : edited, with notes and preface, by 
R. Temple, C.S.I., 1866, pp. 3 and i : " The name of Gond, or Gund, seems 
" to be a form of Kond, or Kund, the initial gutturals of the two woixls being 
" interchangeable. . Both forms are most probably connected with Konda — 
" the Teloogoo equivalent for a mountain — and therefore will signify ' the hill 
" people.' And no designation could be more appropriate to the localities 
" which the majority of them inhabit. Though they ;u-e also found residing 
" in the villages of the plains along with the more civilized Hindus, yet 
" they chiedy frequent the mountain ranges lying between IS' -10' and 23° 40' 
" north latitude, and between 78" and 82i east longitude. This tract some- 
" what corresponds with the old M;>homedan division of Gondwana, but differs 
" from it in not reaching so far to the east and in extending considerably 
" further towards the south-e;ist. The Moghul geographers seem to have 
" included with the Gonds of Nagpore the Kols ou their east frontier, and to 
" have been ignoraut of the relationship between tliem and the inhabitants 
" of Bustar. In the north, Goiulsare met with about Saugor and near the 
" source of the ITasdo ; ou the east, they cross that river into Sarguja, whei'* 
" they border uu the Kols, and are found with Konds and Uriyas in !Nowa- 
