187-1.] F. S. Growse —The Etymology of Local Names in N. India. 327 
are unintelligible when referred to those recognized' sources must there¬ 
fore be non-Indian, and may with as much probability be traced up to one 
foreign language as another. Any distortion of a village name which 
makes it bear some resemblance to a Persian or Arabic root, is ordinarily 
accepted as a plausible explanation ; while its deduction from the Sanskrit 
by the application of well-established but less popularly known phonetic 
and grammatical laws is stigmatized as pedantic and honestly considered to 
be more far-fetched than a derivation from the Basque or the Lithauanian. 
This may seem an exaggerated statement; but I speak from personal 
experience and with special reference to some criticisms communicated to me 
by a distinguished Civilian of the Panjab, who thought the identification of 
Malioli with Madhupuri far more improbable than its connection with the 
Basque and Toda word uri, which is said to mean ‘ a village.’ 
Such philological vagaries have their birth in the unfortunate preference 
for Urdu, which the English Government has inherited from the former 
conquerors of the country, though without any of their good reasons for the 
preference. They are further fostered by a wide-spread idea as to the char¬ 
acter of the people and the country, which in itself is perfectly correct and 
wrong only in the particular application. The Hindus are an eminently 
conservative race, and their civilization dates from an extremely remote 
period. It is, therefore, inferred that most of their existing towns and vil¬ 
lages are of very ancient foundation, and if so may bear names to which no 
parallel can be expected in the modern vernacular. This hypothesis is dis¬ 
proved by what has been said above as to the continuity of Indian speech : 
it is further at variance with all local traditions. The present centres of 
population, as any one can ascertain for himself, if he will only visit the 
spots instead of speculating about them in his study, are almost all subse¬ 
quent in origin to the Muhammadan invasion. When they were founded, 
the language of the new settlers, whatever it may have been in pre-historic 
times, was certainly not Turanian, but Aryan as it is now ; and though any 
place, which had previously been inhabited, must already have borne some 
name, the cases in which that old name was retained, would be very rare. 
Thus, it may be remarked in passing, the present discussion supplies no 
ethnical argument with regard to the original population of the country. 
The names, once regarded as barbarous, but now recognized as Aryan, must 
be abandoned as evidence of the existence of a non-Aryan race ; but at the 
same time, since they are essentially modern, they cannot be taken as sup¬ 
porting the counter-theory. The names of the rivers, however, which also 
are mostly Aryan, may fairly be quoted as bearing on the point ; for of all 
local names these are the least liable to change, as we see in America and 
our Colonies, where it is as exceptional to find a river with an English name 
as it is to find a town with an Indian one. 
