World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 598

epigraphists, archaeologists, sociologists, geographers, topographers, mappers etc, - somehow it has not attracted scholars to the desired extent or yet to receive serious attention. Most educated persons are not even familior with the words like toponymy and onomastics. So to say,it is found as a subject of special study neither in literature, nor in archaeology or nor in history or nor in the discipline of architecture. Therefore it is a need of an hour that indifferent attitudes for the study of place names should be changed and efforts must be made at least at the higher level of education to introduce onomastics and toponymy as the topics of studies along with the environmental studies. The Place Names Society of India should take initiative and help the educational institutions to formulate the syllabus and see that it is implemented.
What does place name serve to social scientists ?
Thus the study of place names serves the linguists by providing with old and else where otherwise extinct forms and suffixes; the ethnographers by providing with local information about heroes, settlements and other topographical details; the epigraphists and archaeologists by providing with clues is the royal families and places of historical interest; the historians by providing the so far not available informations from traditional and conventional sources as well as variegated cultural contours and the architects by providing multifaceted informations regarding structures, monuments and habitats. What are to be followed ?
To understand any place name correctly and clearly there are certain definite rules or processes involving the analysis or classification of the names based on prefixes and suffixes as well as their body proper in order to obtain the form or structure or pattern. They are to be followed.
There is no place name without meaning; because name is given on the basis of the local environment or feature or event or Hora-founa or important person or caste etc. This means every name carries a specific meaning. This can be possible by knowing the meaning of both prefix and suffix.
The place names are to be studied among other names of similar type or nature or structure and corroborate the data thus obtained with the literary works, geographical data, archaeological excavations and epigraphical evidences wherever possible if need be.
That the place names must be studied along with the material available from other sources, other sources mentioned just now and not just in isolation. We can only then trace the culturcal history of any given
549