Kumoan Toponymy: an interesting study

Kumoan Toponymy: an interesting study

Badri Dutt Kashniyal 

Pithoragarh, December 9

The growing social discipline of toponymy or naming of a place, has it’s significance in studying unclassified history, culture, society, economy and religion and development of languages of a particular place. These names remain like religious scriptures and result into loss of identity of tried to updated.

The discipline of studying of names or Toponymy, is not that old, it came into being from Europe in last decades of 19th century and spread in Indian mainland beginning from Bengal.” In Kumaon region, the works of Tara Chandra Tripathi, Kalpana Pant and Dr Dev Singh Pokharia is worth significant in this subject,” said Dr Bhandari.

A new book, ‘Kumaon Ke Sthan Namon Ka Adhayan,’ written by retired English professor and a social science lover, Dr Sheetal Singh Bhandari, reminds the readers, interested in local history, culture, dialect and society of the significance of study of place names. The study includes all 6 districts of Kumaon region and names of places or villages from ancient Kol culture era to recent Khas migration to Himalayan region.

Describing linguistic differences of dialects spoken at various historical era in naming the places, the writer has studied ethnic effects on names of places in Kumaon region right from Kol, Kirat, Dravid  Yaksha, Munda and Khash era besides including effects on Kumaon names, the reflection of  ancient races of Kulinds, Kushan, Darad, Sakas, Tanganas and Partanganas.”The study of suffice in names of places, indicating residential places, hilly terrains, caste, person and sacred places was of high significance as suffice and preface carry in some of names in Kumaon places revealing the link of name to particular culture language or religion,” said Dr Bhandari.

Begining his study with names of all 6 districts of Kumaon region, the writer has said that while the name Kumaon developed from Tortoise incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the naming of Champawat, Bageshwar, Almora, Nainital and U S Nagar  has it’s distinct origin. “Same sort of distinctiveness lies with names of places that suffix or prefixes words like ‘Lak’ Dhura, Gair, Kanda, Khola, Syari, Tir, Cheena, Sim, Gal, Katya, Gar Goth, Sail and Dhar  that reflects original local names which are distinct to Himalayan and find nowhere else in mainstream of country,” said Dr Bhandari.

“Besides this, the places names in Kumaon region or in overall Himalayan region, also indicate towards original places, migration topography, economic and political events of the time, climate, flora fauna and topography of the regions the settlers faced while taking shelter.” said Dr Bhandari.

The work of penetrating into culture through stable names of places, in Kumaon region is excellent one and needs to develop further to find culture history and society of bygone era as despite been home of several races, the Himalayan region has historical evidences up to a short period only while the settlement in Himalayan region is from ancient times. “If studied deeply, the places names, customs, traditions and social customs can reveal more evidence to know, who were the ancient settlers in Himalaya and in which conditions they lived,” said Padma Datt Pant, a cultural writer in Pithoragarh.