Toponymy of Nagaon District

By Dr. Himangsu Sarmah

In Toponymy of Nagaon District, the author provides a scientific, lucid and nuanced study of the place names of Nagaon District of Assam.The book shows how place names could lead one to extract historical information about a particular area or region. Reconstruction of the social past of any community is not possible without knowing the origination of the name of a particular area/village/habitat. It is also part of the historical memory of the community.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Apr 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781482889314

Dr. Himangsu Sarmah

Dr. Himangsu Sarmah is presently working as an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of History,Morigaon College. He is the Co-editor of “The Tiwas (Lalungs): Profile of a Tribe”. Dr. Sarmah has published several research papers in national and international journals and has presented papers in a number of conferences in the country. His teaching and research areas include Modern History, Cultural Studies and Tribal Studies.

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TOPONYMY OF NAGAO DISTRICT

DR. HIMANGSU SARMAH

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Copyright © 2017 by Dr. Himangsu Sarmah.

ISBN:       Softcover       978-1-4828-8932-1

                 eBook            978-1-4828-8931-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter 1

Toponymy: The Science Of Place Name Studies

Chapter 2

Toponymy Of Kaliabor Sub-Division

Chapter 3

Toponymy Of Nagaon Sub-Division

Chapter 4

Toponymy Of Hojai Sub-Division

Chapter 5

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendices

For my ‘Pitikoli’

FOREWORD

‘T oponymy’ or the study of place names is an emerging area in culture studies. It gives significant insights in appreciating the history, culture, politics and demography and socio-historical contexts of a particular physical space. Of the twenty nine states of India, Assam is situated in the north-eastern part. This book is a study of the place names of Nagaon district which is situated in central Assam. The study of place names of Nagaon district has been done by taking into account the sub-divisions of the district, which are three in number, viz. Kaliabor, Nagaon and Hojai. This book has been organized into five chapters. The first chapter, that is, Toponymy: The Science of Place Name Studies establishes the significance of toponymy as an academic discipline. It covers the definition of toponymy and shows the progress of the study of place names in western countries and India. It gives a description of Nagaon district and states the rationale of the study of place names of this area. The second chapter titled Toponymy of Kaliabor Sub-Division is a study of the place names of Kaliabor sub-division. This chapter throws light on Kaliabor and its nomenclature, names of mouzas and revenue villages under Kaliabor sub-division, and the influences on these place names. The third chapter titled Toponymy of Nagaon Sub-Division includes the place names of Nagaon sub-division. The names of mouzas along with a few revenue villages are studied in this chapter with reference to the crucial factors influencing the place names of this area. The Toponymy of Hojai Sub-Division , the fourth chapter of the book presents an account of the place names of Hojai sub-division. The present Hojai sub-division and its surrounding areas were primarily inhabited by various tribes. Hojai is also an important archaeological site of Assam. So, the chapter and the study attempts to focus on the tribal influences and their proper meaning on the places names in addition to tracing their archaeological importance. The last chapter titled Conclusion is a summary of the analyses done in the preceding chapters which presents an overall picture of the influences on and significance of the toponymy of Nagaon district.

This book is the result of a research work carried out for a doctoral degree in the Dept. of History, Gauhati University in 2012. This work was carried out under the supervision of Prof. Meeta Deka and it would not have been complete without her. I also wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to all my teachers in the Dept. of History, Gauhati University; the staff of Krishna Kanta Handiqui Library, Gauhati University; Mr. Sarat Phukan, Retd. IPS Officer, Assam; Mr. Bipul Bhatta, Retd. Subject Teacher, Jakhalabandha H.S. School, Assam; and to all the interviewees without whose help and cooperation this project would have been impossible. Thank you all!

Himangsu Sarmah

Morigaon, Assam

CHAPTER 1

TOPONYMY: THE SCIENCE OF PLACE NAME STUDIES

CHAPTER 1

TOPONYMY: THE SCIENCE OF PLACE NAME STUDIES

T oponymy or study of place names is an important and interesting field of immense historical significance. With the progress of human civilization, place names became an important component of day to day life to describe or refer to a habitation area. A place name specifies the geographical location of a physical space, gives it an identity, and thus distinguishes itself from other places. Herein lies the significance of place names. The geographical element is ‘natural’ whereas settlement and the process of naming requires human enterprise. The name by which an area or part of the earth’s surface is distinguished from others is commonly known as ‘place name’. ¹ Toponymy refers to the scientific study of place names, their origin, meaning, use and typology. Toponymy could be defined as the scientific study of place names of a region or language or an etymological study of them and a toponymist is one who studies toponymy. Topo is derived from the Greek word topos which means ‘place’ followed by nymy which implies ‘name’. A toponymist is one who studies toponymy. As per the Oxford English Dictionary, the word toponymy was incorporated into English vocabulary in 1876. This word has subsequently been used in lieu of ‘place names’ in academic discourse by researches and scholars.

It could be reasonably argued that the story-tellers and poets of the past were the first toponymists as they described or narrated the naming processes of particular places in their narratives. A place name provides particular direction to a geographical area. Place names have immense importance and one could say that they form a part and parcel of human civilization. When humankind abandoned a wandering life and settled in a particular area, they started agriculture and engaged in other modes for their living. To identify their area of settlement, people began using a particular name to designate their localities taking into account some of its characteristics. So, the place name can give us not only the history of the place but also provide other related information regarding the place such as political, economic, social and cultural condition. In this context, D. Javare Gowda opines that, place names are said to be the footnotes of history and fossils of archaeology. They are pregnant with anthropological and ethnological information.² Place names contain various elements of a civilization. A place name can provide sufficient information about the progress of the society. Hence, the study of history is incomplete without its association with the study of place names. When one opens a map of any part of the world, one has to go through place names which help to attain a basic idea about the place. Naftali Kadmon maintains that:

On the theoretical side, place names can tell us a great deal about the physical geography, the culture and the history of a place and about the people connected with it. No wonder; after all it is people who give these names. Places are named not only for their physical properties but also after local events, important personalities, ethnic, literary or religious source and even humorous happenings. The occurrence of a particular name in different countries, together with local variations in the name, can inform us about the dissemination of a specific cultural or historical factor, such as military expansion or colonization.³

Toponymy divides place names into two broad categories: habitation names and feature names. A habitation name denotes a locality that is peopled or inhabited, such as homestead, village or town and usually dates from the inception of that area. Feature names refer to natural or physical features of the landscape and are subdivided into hydronyms (water features), oronyms (relief features) and places of natural vegetation growth (meadow, glades, groves). ⁴ Toponymy itself is a branch of onomastics, the study of names of all kinds. The term, onomastics is also a Greek origin word. In Greek Onoma means ‘name’ and Stics means ‘description’. Onomastics thus implies description or scientific interpretation of names. Onomastics is a vast subject and it has many branches such as eponymy i.e. study of personal names and surnames; study of place names is called toponymy; names of streets, roads, ramparts, embankments forts and the like are called hodonymy; study of names of water bodies, and others is called hydronymy; study of names of ethnic groups is called ethnonymy; names of hills mountains are called oronymy; names of things are called chrematonymy; and names of space in the universe are called choronymy. Figure 1. shows the various branches of Onomastics.

Figure 1. : The Various Branches of Onomastics

chart-onomastics.jpg

Place names are normally used as the indicator of places. Place names reflect variety of objects, both natural and man-made, such as huts, fields, streets, temples, villages, towns, rivers, tanks, hills, mountains, forests, regions, countries, and others which come under purview of human knowledge. Place names of a region speak about the geographical peculiarities and historical or cultural endowments of a people. It has been aptly remarked that place names do speak when history becomes silent. Place names disclose the pages of vast knowledge, interest and wonder not only for a keen observer of nature but to the laymen also. This has no barrier of dialect, region and time. ⁵ Toponymy is taxonomic study of place names based on etymological, historical and geographical information. The study of toponymy is called ‘toponomastics’.

Toponymy has a very long history. It was first started as an academic discourse in the West in the eighteenth century. Giving names to animate and inanimate objects is one of the oldest practices in all cultures. Therefore it is no wonder that from very early stage human beings began giving names to geographical features. This is attested to by the stories of creation in various religions and cultures. The first place name referred in the Bible (Genesis 2, 8) is Eden; the garden planted by God which is usually equated with Paradise.⁶ The idea of Onomastics was seen in the The Odyssey of Homer. The writings of Socrates and Plato also deal a lot with onomastics. The real foundation of onomastics in Europe, however, was laid by Plato in the Cratylus. This remarkable work discusses in detail the nature and the derivation of proper names.

In the modern period in the western world, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is called the founder of toponymy. He popularized the study of place names in 1768 A.D. Toponymy later on attained importance from scholars world-wide. Various works have been accomplished in this field in different countries in the west. J.J. Eglig who made remarkable contribution in this field is also called the doyen of study of English place names.⁷ At the hands of other contemporary scholars the subject became more important and was also able to draw attention from students and modern researchers. Apart from the scholars and their writings, some place name societies and organizations have contributed a lot to popularize and focus on this subject in recent times. Some notable societies are American Name Society, Australian National Place Names Survey, The International Council of Onomastic Sciences, The English Place Name Society, Canadian Society for the Study of Names, Place Name Board of Estonia, Nova Scotia Geographical Name Society, Scottish Place Name Society, Place Name Society of India and others.

In India, the systematic study of place names started much later than it did in the West; but references to it are there in the Rig Veda. A verse in Rig Veda suggests that name constitutes the basic structure of language– prathamamang vachoagramang yat – prairta namadheyam dadhanah (x.71.1.) i.e. that is the primary speech which those who were bearing the name initially motivated.⁸ In some of the early puranas⁹ (e.g. Matsya, Brahmanda, Markandeya and Vayu Puranas) references to the ruling dynasties of the Andhras, the Mitras, the Nagas and the Maghas and the extent of their kingdoms are found. Apart from Rig Veda and Puranas, various classical works also deal with place names, such as, Satapatha Brahmana; Aitareya Brahmana; Manusmriti; Ramayana; Mahabharata’s Bhisma Parvan, Vanaparvan, Sabha Parvan; Patanjali’s Mahabhasya. These refer to many places which are very important for topographical understanding. The renowned Indian grammarian Panini in his Ashtadhyayi analyses the study of place names. Kalidasa in his various writings selected the references of toponymy. Several eminent writers after Kalidasa, such as, Banabhatta, Bhavabhuti and Bharavi give insightful accounts of place names in their writings. The ancient inscriptions contain useful accounts not only with regard to various place names, but also throw light on the internal and external routes and on various facts of cultural geography. Names of important towns such as Pushkalavati, Sravasti, Pratishthana, Kanchi, Vahlika, Takshasila, Ujjaini, Vidisha, Mathura, Kausambi, among others are mentioned in several inscriptions, seals and sealings.¹⁰

In modern times, references related to toponymy could be noticed in the preface of the Dictionary in English and Bengali of Ramakamal Sen. He analyses some place names in his writings in 1834. In India, at regional level, different works have been done in this field. Some of the notable works are R.P. Branfil’s The Name of Places in Tanjore district in Madras published in the Journal of Literature and Science (1879), Padmanabha Menon’s Discursive Notes on Malabar and its Place Names in Indian Antiquary (1902), J.F. Fleet’s Inscriptional Place Names (1902), Ferard Hahn’s Dravidian and Kolarian Place Names (1903), Hayavadan Rao’s Place Names of Mysore published in Journal of Mythic Society (1915), S.K. Chatterjee’s Bengali Place Names in the Origin and Development of Bengali Language (1926), Hiralal’s Place Names after Botanical and Animal and Birds (1931). Besides these K. Achyuta Menon, Krisnapada Goswami, H.D. Sankalia, A.S. Tyagaraju, R.C. Harimath, N. Nachimuthu, D. Javare Gowda, G.S. Ghai, K.V. Ramesh, K.S. Singh, G.N. Reddy, N.S.Sahu, Satyanarayan Dasa, and others contributed a lot to this area. The foundation of the Place Name Society of India, Mysore in 1978 provides a useful platform for the scholars and researcher to work in the field of toponymy. A group of scholars contributed to this field under the banner of this institution.

In Assam, (the state of Assam is situated in the north-eastern part of India) since the ancient period, the place names were conferred by the settlers after natural features like hills, mountains, mounds, rivers, rivulets, canals, streams, trees etc. In course of time, population increased and men had to move from one place to another. The new settlement is often named after the first inhabitant of that new settlement. Again, it is seen that the new settlers of a village, name their village after such a person to commemorate his beneficence. Variety of plants such as aquatic plants, creepers, flowers were abundantly available in the past in Assam and the early inhabitants also named their places after features of flora. The Austric people, the early inhabitants of Assam named the places deriving elements from their language. The tribal groups in Assam had their own system of nomenclature of their habitat areas. With the development of Neo Indo Aryan Assamese language, some place names received new elements. In modern Assam, John M’Cosh in his Topography of Assam first started the systematic study of place names. B.K. Kakati in Assamese: Its Formation and Development deals with place names, while Raj Mohan Nath in The Background of Assamese Culture throws light on the interpretation and etymology of place names. Among the other Assamese scholars Promod Chandra Bhattacharjya, S.N. Goswami, Mohinimohan Brahma, Lila Gogoi, Debendra Nath Sarma, and Sarat Kumar Phukan have made immense contribution to the development of study of place names in Assam. In this context, Sarat Kumar Phukan could be called the doyen of toponymy in Assam. His Toponymy of Assam is a milestone in this field.

Place names supply sufficient information for the reconstruction of history. Some place names are associated with certain historical events which are implicated in the naming process of the place. The facts of war, treaties, revolution or uprising, personalities have intricate and inviolable relation with place names as found in names like Nagaon, Kaliabor, Dobaka, and Dhing among others. The names could supply traces of history of a region or locality that have no written records or monuments. The knowledge of the past and progress of these places could be explored through a systematic study of the place names. A good example of this kind is the etymological analysis of the place names. In the last decade of the preceeding century, the names of a few metro cities in India were changed. For example Bombay changed to ‘Mumbai’. The name ‘Mumbai’ is