1874.] F. S. Growse —The Etymology of Local Names in N. India. 855 
whom that name was derived, once spread over every province from Burma 
to Malabar. He finds indications of their existence in the Kols of Central 
India ; the Kolas of Katwar ; the Kolis of Gujarat; the Kolitas of Asam ; 
the Kalars, a robber caste in the Tamil country ; the Kolars of Tinnevelly, 
and the Kolis of Bombay, &c., &c. Upon most of these names, as I have no 
knowledge of the localities where they exist, I decline to offer any opinion 
whatever, and can only express my regret that Dr. Hunter has not exercised 
a little similar caution. For he proceeds to give a list of town-names, 
scattered as he says over the whole length and breadth of India, which seems 
to me of the very slightest value as a confirmation of his theory. No one 
should be better conversant than himself with the vagaries of phonetic spell¬ 
ing ; and yet he gravely adduces as proof of the existence of a Kol race, 
such names as Kulianpur and Kullian ; though it is scarcely possible but that, 
if correctly spelt, they would appear as Kalyanpur and Kalyan; the latter 
being still a popular Hindi name and the Sanskrit for ‘ auspicious’. More¬ 
over, if the race was ever so widely spread as he supposes, it is inconceiv¬ 
able that they should give their tribal name to the different towns they in¬ 
habited ; for such names under the supposed circumstances would have no 
distinctive force. For example, if the Hindus were suddenly to be swept 
out of India, the race that superseded them would not find a single village 
bearing such a name as Hindu-pur, or Hindu-ganw. Obviously it is only a 
country that derives its name from a tribe, while towns and villages com¬ 
memorate families and individuals. To ascertain who the Kalars were is 
certainly an interesting question, but one upon which it is as yet premature to 
speak positively. My own impression is that the name denotes a religious 
rather than an ethnological difference and that they were—in this neighbour¬ 
hood at all events—Buddhists or Jains. At many of the places from which 
they are said to have been ejected by the ancestors of the present Jat or 
Thakur families, I have found fragments of Buddhist or Jain sculpture, 
which can only have been the work of the older inhabitants, since it is cer¬ 
tain that the race now in possession have never changed their religion. It 
is if course possible that these Kalars may have been non-Aryan Buddhists; 
but the old village names, which in several cases remain unchanged to 
the present day, such as Aira, Madem, Byonhin, &c., though of doubtful 
derivation, have certainly anything but a foreign or un-Indian sound. 
These and a considerable number of other names yet require elucida¬ 
tion : but the words with which I prefaced Part II of my Mathura Memoir 
in anticipation of the present argument, have now I trust been so far sub¬ 
stantiated that I may conclude by repeating them as a summary of actual 
results. “ The study of a list of village names suggests two remarks of some 
little importance in the history of language. First , so many names that at 
a hasty glance appear utterly unmeaning can be positively traced back to 
