________________
150
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
Emperor Akbar, and has been edited, with a translation, by the late A. Weber in the year 1887 in the Abhandlungenic der Konigl. Preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften, at Berlin'. In the preface Weber gives a loug account of the connexion between the Magi and the Sâkadvipa Brahmans. The book itself is a Persian Grammar and Kôéa written in Sanskrit.
"P. 20, above. Regarding the Haihayas there are many traditions about them in the country to the east of Benares, and in Bihâr. In Darbhanga, a district of Bihar, there is Haya Ghât on the river Baghmati. I used to be told, when I was there, that it was named after the Haihayas, who fought a battle there. In the Gorakhpur district (north-east of Benares), the Majhauli Râjâs are Bisén Rajpats, but a scion of the family used to maintain to me in conversation that they were by origin Haihayas. These Majhauli Bisons, at any rate, intermarry with the Hayôbans (= Haihayavarsa), Rajputs of Baliâ (a district on the Ganges, to the East of Benares). See Gorakhpur Gazetteer (1881), p. 519. You will find much information about Rajpûts in this volume, and also especially in the Gazetteer of the Himalayan Districts (Kumaun, &c.) of the N.-W. P. Crooke also gives an article on Hayôbans Rajpats in his book.
"P. 21, above. I see you follow Dr. Fleet in considering that "Gujarat" is derived from "Gurjaratra." I would suggest that this is not certain. It is quite possible that the reverse is the case, and that "Gurjaratra" is a Sanskritization of "Gujarat." To me the difficulty is that Gurjaratra as a Sanskrit word has no meaning, while Gurjara-rashtra has a meaning. The phonetic change of the cerebral th of Gujjurattha to Gujarat is quite regular in Gujarati (see the Linguistic Survey on the point). It looks to me as possible that the writer of the inscription in which "Gurjaratra" is found, already knew the word "Gujarat" and concocted the word "Gurjaratrâ," because he did not know the real derivation.
"P. 21, above. In regard to the statement about Gajars in Gujarât, I venture to mention a few points which may interest you. You perhaps
[MAY, 1911.
know that I call the languages of the N.-W. Frontier (Kâfir, Khôwâr of Chitral, Shinâ of Gilgit, Kashmiri, &c.) by the name "Pisâcha," Now these modern languages have several very peculiar phonetic rules, such as the occasional hardening of a soft consonant (e.g., lukam for lagám), the disaspiration of sonant aspirates (guru for ghora, &c.), inability to differentiate between cerebrals and dentals, the frequent occurrence of epenthesis, and so on. Now the Linguistie Survey shows that these peculiarities can be followed down the Indus into Sind, across North Gujarat, and into the Bhil Hills. I do not think that we can attribute these peculiarities to the original language of the Gurjaras. Rather they indicate the presence of another language alongside and intermingling with that of the Gurjaras, and I have little hesitation in looking upon them as remnants of the language of the Khasas of the Sub-Himalaya. These Khasas still survive. They are numerous in the North Panjab, in Garhwal, in Kumaun (i.e., Karmachala, from the Karm-avatara), and in Nepâl. In the last country, the language which Europeans call Nepali" is locally known as "Khas-kurâ "i.e., the language of the Khasas. In all these tracts the same "Pisacha" peculiarities exist in the local languages, although the local languages are all closely connected with Rajasthani. But I think that I can definitely state that these phonetic peculiarities are not inherent parts of the local language. They all occur more or less sporadically. They are there, but they are always unexpected when they appear.
"
LE
We find a similar state of affairs again in "Nepali," in regard to Tibeto-Burman languages. Although "Nepâli" is essentially a form of Rajasthani, it also presents numerous unexpected forms which are certainly borrowed from Tibeto-Burman languages, e.g., there is an honorific conjugation of the verb built exactly on Tibeto-Burman lines. In this case the explanation is obvious. The speakers of the Aryan quasi-Rajasthani came into Nepal (we know from history that they came originally from Udaipur), and conquered the local TibetoBurmans. As time went on, their language
1 I intend publishing a translation of this important paper of Prof. Weber, in this Journal, for the benefit of the Indian Scholars.-D. R. B.
* This derivation had been suggested by me first in my paper on the Gurjaras, (Jour. Bomb, As. Soc., Vol. XXI.) long before Dr. Fleet's note appeared in the Jour. R. As. Soc.-D. R. B.
