56 
L. A. Waddell —Place and River-Names in Sikkim, Sfc. [No. 2, 
form of tlie same word Pot * The country generally known in India as 
Bhotanf was so called by the Bengalis in the belief that it was ‘ the 
end of Bhot,’ which is the literal meaning of the full Sanskrit form of 
the word, viz., ‘ Bhotanta.’ The natives of Bhotan as well as of Tibet 
proper are also by Hindus called Bhotiyas as being inhabitants of 
Bhot. It is therefore to be remembered that the terms Bhotiya and 
Tibetan are synonymous, the various divisions being designated by pre¬ 
fixing the name of the country in which the Bhotiyas are now settled, 
e. g., Sikhim-Bhotiya, Nepali-Bhotiya, Bhotan or Dharma-Bhotiya, 
Tibetan and Chinese Bhotiyas. 
The Limbus. —More peaceful intruders were the LimbusJ a Mon¬ 
goloid race from the adjoining hills on the west. These like the 
Sikliim Bhotiyas intermarried, and still do so, to a considerable extent 
with the Lepchas. They, however, had a superior civilization and 
formed settled abodes. Latterly, they have generally given up Buddhism 
in favour of a rough form of Hinduism, and have adopted the dress and 
to a large extent the dialect (Parbatiya) of the Nepali highlanders. 
The Nepalis or ‘ Pahariyas .’§—These three tribes, viz., the Lepchas, 
* E. Coleborne in J. R. G. S ., Vol. I, Supp., I, p. 98, says “ A Tibetan arriving in 
Ta-chien-ln from Lhasa on being asked from what country he has come will often 
reply ‘from Ten Peu’, meaning from High or Upper Tibet. Perhaps Ten Penis 
the source of our Tibet.” The word should properly be spelt To-pot, which fairly 
approximates to our ‘ Tibet.’ L. A. W. 
f The natives and all Tibetans call this country ‘Dak-pa’ (/ibrng-pa) which 
literally means ‘ the thunderer,’ evidently, it seems to me, on account of the unusual 
amount of thunder experienced here; as the mountains of the greater part of the 
tract receive the full force of the monsoon from the top of the Bay of Bengal. 
The Lamas on the other hand assert that the name is derived from the Duk-pa sect of 
Lama and implies the worship of the thunderbolt which is so peculiar to Bhotan 
Lamaism : the name of thunderbolt, however, is ‘ dorje ’ not ‘ duk,' and the name 
may more probably be merely a result of the worship of the (for Tibetans) striking 
and somewhat mystic natural phenomenon (thunder characteristic of this area. 
And this view is supported by the vernacular history of Bhotan—the ‘ Namtharkyi 
Nag-wang-ten-dsin Nam-gyal ’—which translates the title ‘ hbrug-pa’ ( i . e. Dukpa) 
into Sanskrit as megha-swara or ‘ cloud-voice.’ 
X So called by the Nepalis ; they call themselves Yak-thumba (or Yak-herds), and 
the Lepchas and Bhotiyas call them Tshong (which in the vernacular means ‘ a) 
merchant’ ; and the Limbus were and still are the chief cattle-merchants and butchers 
in Sikhim, and cattle was the chief form of exotic merchandise until the British 
occupation.) 
§ It is to be noted that the term ‘ Parbatiya’, a Sanskritic word having an 
identical meaning, viz., ‘ of or belonging to the hills’, is in practice restricted to 
the language, a Hindi dialecc spoken by the Pahariyas. And the title of 'pahdriyd is 
confined to those hillmen only who profess Hinduism, and this usually of a most lax 
type. 
