350 F. S. Growse — The Etymology of Local Names in N India. [No. 4, 
Sanskrit root, and I am inclined to regard the name as a Muhammadan 
corruption of nava —not the adjective meaning ‘ new,’ hut a proper name—■ 
and with the h added either purposely to mark the distinction, or inad¬ 
vertently in the same way as raja is in Persian characters incorrectly written 
rajah. In the Harivansa (line 1677) mention is made of a king Ushinara, 
of the family of Kaksheyn, who had five wives, Nriga, Krimi, Nava, Darva, 
and Drisliadvati. They bore him each one son, and the boys were named 
Nriga, K rimi, Nava, Suvrata and Sivi, of whom Nava reigned over Navarash- 
tram; Krimi over Kumila-puri; Sivi, who is said to be the author of one of 
the hymns of the Big Veda (X. 179), over the Sivayas, and Nriga over the 
Yaudheyas. In the Mahabharat the Usinaras are said to be a lower race of 
Kshatriyas. They are mentioned by Panini in a connection which seems 
to imply that they were settled in or near the Panjab ; and in the Aitareya 
Brahmana, Usinara is collocated with Kura and Panchala. Again, Drishad** 
vati, the fifth of Usinara’s wives, recalls to mind the unknown river of the 
same name which is mentioned by Manu as one of the boundaries of Brah- 
mavarta, and in the Mahabharat as the southern boundary of Kurukshetra. 
From all this it may be inferred that the Navarashtra, over which Usinara’s 
third son Nava reigned, cannot have been far distant from Mathura and 
Gurganw ; and its capital may well have been the very place which still 
bears his name under the corrupt form of Noli or Naub. 
The second subdivision of Class III is of an extremely miscellaneous 
character and admits of no grouping, each name having a separate indivi¬ 
duality of its own. Some of the more obvious examples have been already 
quoted: such as are Basai, ‘ a colony,’ for the Sanskrit vasati (which at the 
present day is more commonly abbreviated by the alternative mode into 
basti) ; Chauki, an outpost, on the Gurganw road ; Nagariya, ‘ a small hamlet’ ; 
Barlia ‘ a removal’ ; Garhi, ‘ a fort’ ; Mai, ‘ an estate’; Khor, ‘ an opening’ 
between the Barsana hills ; Xnyor, £ the other end’ of the Gobardhan range ; 
Pura, £ a town ;’ Kheriya, £ a hill and Toli, £ an allotment.’ Others require 
more detailed explanation on account either of their intrinsic difficulty, or 
of the mythological disguise put upon them by the local pandits, who think 
there is no place in the whole of Braj which does not contain some allusion 
to Krishna. Thus they connect the word Mathura with the god’s title of 
Madhu-mathan, forgetting that the country certainly existed and, for all that 
is known to the contrary, bore the same name as now for ages prior to the 
incarnation in which that title was acquired. The more natural derivation is 
from the root math direct, in its primary sense ot £ churning an exact gram¬ 
matical parallel being found in the word bhidura, ‘breakable,’ a derivative 
from the root bliid , £ to break.’ The name thus interpreted is singularly 
appropriate ; for Mathura has always been celebrated for its wide extent of 
pasture-land and many herds of cattle, and in all poetical descriptions of the 
