347 
1874.] F. S. Gfrowse— The Etymology of Local Names in N. India. 
appearing as a final in such words as Kamar, Sahar, Udhar, and Surir. Of 
these, Kamar (for Kam-ra) is probably an offshoot from the neighbouring 
town of Kam-ban in Bharatpur territory, a famous place of Vaishnava pil“ 
grimage ; while Sahar and Udhar must have been named after their respect¬ 
ive founders, who in the one case is known to have been called Udho, or 
Udhan, and in the other was probably some Sabha. In Surir, which presents 
peculiar difficulties, we fortunately are not left to conjecture. For a local 
tradition attests that the town was once called Suop-iv-ka Khera. The 
resemblance between the two names is so slight that the people on the spot 
and the unphilological mind generally would not recognize any connection 
between them : but according to rules already quoted Sugriv-ra would pass 
naturally into Surir, and the fact that it has done so is a strong confirma- 
tion of the truth of the rules. 
Both in Sanskrit and also in modern Hindustani, the affix most commonly 
used in the formation of adjectives that denote possession, is l ; thus from 
dhan £ wealth’ comes dhani, wealthy,’ and from mala ‘ a floral wreath,’ comes 
mali, ‘ a florist.’ Dr. Hunter, with much perverted ingenuity, has gone out 
of his way to suggest that the latter are an aboriginal and non-Ary an race 
and “ take their name from the tribal term for man, male , from which many 
hill and forest people of northern and central India, possibly also the whole 
Malay race of the Archipelago are called.” I am not aware that in this 
theory he has found any followers : whatever the origin of the Malays, there 
is no more reason to suppose a connection between them and the Malis of our 
gardens, than between man, the biped, and man , a weight of 40 sers. As 
the letters of the alphabet are necessarily limited, it must occasionally hap¬ 
pen that combinations are formed which are quite independent of one 
another and yet in appearance are identical. Among examples of the i affix 
we find in Mathura, from dhimar , ‘ a fisherman,’ Dlnmari, a fishing village 
on the bank of the Jamuna ; from a founder Husain, a village Husaini ; from 
Pal, the favourite title of a Thakur clan, Pali; from Pingal, Pingari; from 
semal, the cotton-tree, Semri; from babul, the acacia, Baburi; from Khajur, 
Khajini; and from Kinara, { the river bank,’ Kinari, &c. A lengthened 
form of the same affix is iya, which we find in Jagatiya and Khandiya. 
Another affix, which in ordinary Sanskrit literature occurs as fre¬ 
quently as t f and with precisely the same signification, is val, vatt. In 
vulgar pronunciation the consonant v generally passes into the cognate 
vowel; thus Bhagavati becomes Bliagoti, and Sarasvati, Sarsuti. I am 
therefore led to suspect that this is the affix which has been used in the form¬ 
ation of such village names as Kharot, Khatauta, Ajinothi, Bilothi; Kaji- 
rothi, Basonti, Bathi, Jamunauta, Junsuthi, Sonotli, Badauth, Barauth, 
Dhanoti, and Jatarota. All these places are presumably old, and nothing 
can be stated with certainty as to the period of the foundation, but the 
