OF BHARATAVARSA OR INDIA. 
47 
of an old Dra vidian stock, like their namesakes the Maravar, 
iMp<sijiT, in South-India. It is in itself very improbable, 
that these tribes should have obtained their name from 
a foreign source, and it would not be very ventui-esome to 
conjecture without any further authentic proof, that there 
existed in the ancient Dravidian dialect a word mar or marai 
for mountain, corresponding to the synonymous Tamil words 
par and i^drai. And in fact mar in the language of the 
original inhabitants of Marwar means hill, and the Mars or 
Mhars are in reality hill men}^ 
The Mallas, as a nation, are repeatedly mentioned in 
the Mahabharata, Harivarhsa, in various Puranas, the Brhat- 
sariihita, the Lalitavistara and elsewhere. Mallabhumi and 
Mallarastra, which as well as Malayabhumi refer to the 
northern parts of India, occur in the Eamayana and Maha- 
bharata. The Siddhantakaumudi mentions in a passage that 
refers to Panini, V. 3, 114, the Malldh instead of Bhalldh, 
which latter expression is found in the commentary to 
Dr. 0. v. Bohtlingk's edition of Panini. This quotation is 
significant as the Brhatsamhita mentions likewise the Bhal- 
las, who represent the modern Bhillas or Bhils. Bhalla and 
Bhilla are identical with Malla and are only different pro- 
nunciations or formations of the same word. 
The Mallas are specially brought to our notice by the 
circumstance that Buddha, the great reformer of India, 
preferred to die among the Mallas in Kusinagara. The 
citizens, when they heard of the airival of the dying saint, 
met him sorrowfully, and among the last acts of Buddha was 
that he appointed the Malla Subhadra as an Arhat. This 
connection of Buddha with the Mallas appears strange and 
See Lieut. -Col. James Tod's Amtals and Antiquities of Majastka/n ;■ 
Londcn, 1829, vol. T, p. 680 : The Mair or Mera is the mountaineer of 
Eajpootana, and the country he inhabits is styled Mainvarrci, or " the 
region of hills." 
