330 F. S. Grovvse —The Etymology of Local Names in N. India. [No, 4, 
in Upper India are, as a rule, of no very remote antiquity and are primd 
facie referable to Sanskrit and Hindi rather than to any other language. 
Their formation has certainly been regulated by the same principles that we 
see underlying the local nomenclature of other civilized countries, and we 
may therefore expect to find them falling into three main groups, as fol¬ 
lows :— 
I. Names compounded with an affix denoting place. 
II. Names compounded with an affix denoting possession. 
III. A more indefinite class, including all names without any affix at 
all; such words being for the most part either the name of the founder, or 
an epithet descriptive of some striking local feature. 
Running the eye over the list of villages in the Mathura district, we 
can at a glance detect abundant illustrations of each of these three classes. 
Thus under Class I come such names as Nanak-pur, Pati-pura, Bich-puri, 
where the founder’s name is combined with the local affix pur, pura y or puri f 
signifying ‘a town.’ So also, Nau-gama, Unclia-ganw, Badan-garh, Cha- 
mar-garhi, Rup-nagar, Pal-khera, Brinda-ban, Ahalya-ganj, Radha-kund, 
Mangal-khoh, Mall-sarai, and Nainu-patti. In all these instances both the 
local affix is easy to be recognized as also the word to which it is attached. 
Of Class II the illustrations are not quite so obvious and will mostly 
require special elucidation ; but some are self-evident, as for example Bhu- 
re-ka, where the affix is the ordinary sign of the genitive case ; Rane-ra, 
where it is the Marwari form of the same ; and Pipal-wara, where it repre¬ 
sents the familiar tv ala. 
Under Class III come first such names as Suraj, Misri, and Gaju, which 
are known to have been borne by the founders ; and under the second sub¬ 
division, Gobardhan, ‘ productive in cattle’ ; Sanket, 4 a place of assigna¬ 
tion’ ; Khor, ‘ an opening between the hills’ ; Basai, ‘ a colony’ ; and Pura, 
1 a town,’ indicative of a period when towns were scarce, with many others 
of similar character. 
Looking first for names that may be included under Class I., we find 
that by far the most numerous variety are those compounded with the affix 
pur. This might be expected, for precisely the same reason that ‘ ton’ is 
the most common local ending in England. But we certainly should not 
expect to find so large a proportion unmistakably modern, with the former 
part of the compound commemorating either a Muhammadan or a Hindu 
with a Persian name, or one who can be proved in some other way to have 
lived only a few generations ago, and with scarcely a single instance of a 
name that can with any probability be referred to a really ancient date. 
As this fact is one of considerable importance to my argument, I must 
proceed to establish it beyond all possibility of cavil by passing in review 
the entire series of names in which the ending occurs in each of the six 
parganas of the district. 
