352 F. S. Growse— Tie Etymology of Local Names in N. Lidia. [No. 4, 
sri Sarvopari bird jam an Bandi Ji. Tasya sevak, &c. From this it may 
be inferred that Anandi has been added in very recent times simply for 
the sake of the alliterative jingle, and because there happened to be a 
second old figure on the spot that required some distinctive name* 
The original word was Bandi alone. The Gokul Gosains support their 
theory as to its etymology by making the Gobar Lila at Bandi one of the 
regular scenes in the dramatic performances of the Ban-jatra; but it is not 
accepted by the more old-fashioned residents of the village, who maintain 
that the local divinity was a recognized power long before the days of 
Krishna, who was brought there to offer at her shrine the first hair that was 
cut from his head. Their view as to the relative antiquity of the Bandi and 
the Mathura god is certainly correct; for both the images now believed to 
represent Jasoda’s domestic servants are clearly effigies of the goddess Dur- 
ga. In the one she appears with eight arms, triumphing over the demon 
Maliisliasur; in the other which is a modern fac-simile, made at Brinda-ban, 
of the mutilated original, she has four arms, two pendent and two raised 
above the head. Neither of them can represent a human handmaid ; and 
thus they at once disprove the modern story, which would seem to be 
based on nothing more substantial than the resemblance of the word ba7idi 
to the Persian banda , meaning ‘ a servant.’ The real derivation would be 
from bandy a, or vandya , the future participle of the verb vand , signifying 
‘ venerable’ or 1 worshipful.’ Thus what was once an epithet of a par¬ 
ticular image of Devi became after a time its distinctive name ; and event¬ 
ually, being referred by the ignorance of the people to a more ordinary term 
of current speech, has originated a legend and a local festival for which in 
fact there is no foundation whatever. 
The above is one illustration of a general rule that all presumably an¬ 
cient local names are entirely different in origin and meaning from any 
terms of current speech with which they may happen to be identical in form. 
Thus, as we have already seen, the village Parson has no connection with 
parson, the common adverb of time ; neither is Paitha so named, as being 
near the mouth of the cave into which the people of Braj ‘entered’ {paitha). 
Again, Pal, a large village in the Mathura Pargana, is not so called as being 
the scene of one of Krishna’s ‘ battles’ (rdr) , as local pandits say ; nor because 
the extensive woods round about it abound in rdl, or ‘resin :’ but rather it 
is a contraction of Baja-Kula, ‘ a king’s house j a compound of similar 
character with Gokul, ‘ a cow house,’ the name of the town where Krishna 
was nurtured by the herdsman Nanda. Baval, a village in the same neigh¬ 
bourhood, the reputed home of Bad ha’s maternal grandfather Surbhan, may 
be identical in meaning ; or it may even represent an original Badha-kula, 
in which case it would be curious as affording the earliest authority for 
Badha’s local existence and pre-eminent rank. Koila again is evidently not 
