122 
F. S. Growse —Mathura Notes. 
[No. 2, 
w 
. men of Barsana. The combatants are drawn up more in battle-array, 
instead of skirmishing by twos and threes, and rally round a small yellow 
pennon that is carried in their midst; but the show is less picturesque in 
its accessories, being held on a very dusty spot outside the town, and was 
more of a phallic orgie. 
Feb. 27th, the Iloli. Flialen. —Here is a sacred pond called Prahlad- 
kund, and the fact of its having preserved its original name gives a clue, 
as in so many parallel cases, to the older form of the name now borne by 
the village. The local pandits would derive the word Fhalen from the 
verb phdma, “ to tear in pieces,” with a reference to the fate of Prahlad’s 
impious father, Hiranya-Kasipu : but such a formation would be contrary 
both to rule and to experience, and the word is beyond a doubt a corruption of 
Prahlada-grama. Thus : 1st, the r in the compounds pr and gr is elided 
by Yararuchi’s sutra, Sarvatra lava-ram , III, 3, as in kos for Jcros ; 2ndly, 
the d in lada is elided by Vararuchi II, 2, as in pau for pada; 3rdly, the 
initial g of gdma is elided by a further application of the last quoted rule ; 
dthly, the m in gam becomes v, these two letters being ordinarily inter¬ 
changeable, thus dhimar — dhivar ; Bhamdni Bhavdni; gauna — gamana ; 
and 5tlily, a nasal is inserted, which can always be done at pleasure. The 
result is Pahlau-aunw, from which to Phalan or Phalen is a transition so 
easy as to be almost a phonetic necessity. 
Arriving at the village about an hour before sunset I found a crowd 
of some 5000 people closely packed in the narrow space on the margin of 
the pond and swarming over the tops of the houses and the branches of all 
the trees in the neighbourhood. A large bonfire had been stacked half-way 
between the pond and a little shrine dedicated to Prahlad, inside which the 
Khera-pat, or Panda, who was to take the chief part in the performance 
of the day, was sitting telling his beads. At 6 p. m. the pile was lit and 
being composed of the most inflammable materials at once burst into such 
a tremendous blaze that I felt myself scorching, though the little hillock 
where I was seated was a good many yards away. However, the lads of the 
village kept on running close round it, jumping and dancing and brandish¬ 
ing their lathis , while the Panda went down and dipped in the pond and 
then, with his dripping pagri and dhuti on, ran back and made a feint of 
passing through the fire. In reality he only jumped over the outermost 
verge of the smouldering ashes and then dashed into his cell again, much to 
the dissatisfaction of the spectators, who say that the former incumbent 
used to do it much more thoroughly. If on the next recurrence of the 
festival, the Panda shews himself equally timid, the village proprietors 
threaten to eject him, as an impostor, from the land which he holds rent- 
free simply on the score of his being fire-proof. 
