62 
ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY OF KAS'MIR. [Extra No. 2, 
tion of m to the preceding sibilant. With reference to a phonetic rule, 
prevalent through all Indo-Aryan Vernaculars, which favours the change 
of medial Skr. m into i>, 1 we are led to assume an intermediate Prakrit 
form * Ka6vir[ a]. In support of this we may point to the striking 
analogy of the Kasnrir local name Sang as which, as shown in my note on 
Rajat. i. 100, goes back through an older recorded form S'vangas to 
* Smangcisa , the Samahgasa of the Chronicle. It has already been 
shown above that we have to recognize in this *Kasvira the original 
Prakrit form which Ptolemy’s Kacr7r€ipa, Kacrneipia (pronounced Kaspira, 
Kaspiria) are intended to transcribe. 2 
Linguistic science can furnish no clue to the origin of the name 
Kasmlra , nor even analyze its formation. 3 
Etymologies of This fact, however, has not saved the name 
from being subjected to various etymological 
guesses which for curiosity’s sake may receive here a passing notice. 
It must be held to the credit of Kasmirian Sanskrit authors that their 
extant writings are wholly innocent of this display of etymological fancy. 
No less illustrious a person than the Emperor Babar opens the list. 
His suggestion was that the name may be derived from the hill-tribe 
* Kas ’ living in the neighbourhood of Kasmir. 4 We easily recognize 
here the reference to the Khasas of the lower hills. Their name, 
however, in its true form has, of course, no connection with Kasmir. 
Another etymology, first traceable in the Haidar Malik’s Chronicle and 
hence reproduced by other Muhammadan writers, 5 derives the first part 
of the name from ‘ Kashap,* i.e., Ka^yapa, and the second either from 
1 Compare Dr. Grierson’s remarks, Z. D. M. G., 1. p. 16. 
2 See above, § 5. 
S If the Unadisutra, 472, Kaser mut ca is to be applied to the word Kasmir a, the 
latter would have to be dissolved into kas-m-ira according to the traditional gram¬ 
matical system. 
4 See Memoirs of Baber, transl. by Leyden and Erskine, p. 313. A Persian MS. : 
of the text adds that mir signifies mountain, Erskine, Introduction, p. xxvii., im¬ 
proves upon this etymology by extending it to Kashgar, the Casia regio and 
Casii Montes of Ptolemy. Ritter, Erdkunde, ii. p. 1127, from whom I take this 
reference, not unjustly queries why the learned editor should have stopped short of 
the Caspium mare and other equally manifest affinities. 
Babar’s conjecture figures still seriously in a note of the latest translation of 
the Ain-i Akbari, ii. p. 381. 
Regarding the name and habitation of the Khasas, compare Rajat. i. 317 note. 
5 It was first introduced to the European reader by Tieffenthaler’s extract 
from Haidar Malik’s Chronicle compare Description historique et gdographique de 
V Inde, ed. Bernouilli (1786), i. p. 79 (also p. 89 as to source). Compare also Wilson, 
Essay, p. 94, for a similar note from the Waqi‘dt-i Kashmir of Muhammad ‘Azirn ; here 
j** is a clerical error for j f;* 3 v-aAS'. 
