1891.] 
L. A. Waddell— Place and River-Names in Sikhim, fyc. 
53 
18. i 
( Chittotpada samvara vidhi krama. 
Cv? c\ 
19. 
C S'iksha samuchchaya abhi samaya. 
This was delivered by S'ri Dharmapala the king of Suvarnadvipa to 
Dipamkara and Kamala. 
( Yimala ratna lekhana. 
20. < CV -v CN cv -- CN cv 
This last is an epistle addressed by Dipamkara to Nyayapala, the 
king of Magadlia. 
Place and River-Names in the Darjiling District and Sikhim.—By L. A. 
Waddell, M. B. 
Facility for finding etymology of names in this area. —The manner in 
which place-names are assigned in Sikhim, Eastern Nepal and Western 
Bhotan, and also in Southern Tibet, can be ascertained with unusual 
facility and certainty by a local review of place-names in the Darjiling 
district, Native Sikhim and British Bhotan, owing to the great majority 
of the villages therein, having been founded within the present genera¬ 
tion by migrant Sikhimites and Bhotiyas and immigrant Nepalis and 
Tibetans, under the Government policy of quickly peopling these hither¬ 
to sparsely populated tracts; so that the reasons for the special nomen¬ 
clature of such new sites and villages are still currently known by the 
villagers. And, the etymology of many of the river-names and older 
place-names can be more or less readily traced owing to the still existing- 
presence of the race of Lepchas—believed to be the autochthones of 
the area. The relative simplicity of the subsequent ethnic elements, all 
of which are still represented, also tends to simplify the problem. 
Desirability of fixing the Lepcha etymology as the language is becoming 
extinct. —The present time, too, seems specially indicated for investi¬ 
gating this subject, from the fact that the Lepcha, though still a living 
language, is fast becoming extinct; and no vocabulary of the language 
having been published*, the names which the Lepcha race has given to 
* Mr. Hodgson published ( Essays , London reprint, 1874) a short list of Lepcha 
words, and several words are to be found scattered through Colonel Main waring’s 
Grammar of the Bong ( Lepcha ) Language ; but these are quite insufficient for the 
present enquiry. 
