Travel
Majra, Majri, Wala, Wali ...
Punjab's Cities, Towns & Villages
by KHUSHWANT SINGH [Chandigarh]
Recently I was in England and got interested in the meaning of the suffixes of many of its towns and cities. Each time I came across a town with a name ending with 'Ham', 'Chester' or 'Shire', my curiosity would increase and I would keep asking the folks around, what these suffixes meant.
It seemed no one really knew what they stood for, but all of them were sure that they meant something. Sitting in one of the Costa Coffee bars on Regent Street, I tried Googling to get my answers but my attention was soon diverted towards my own Punjab and I launched a desperate search for the suffixes and prefixes Majra, Majri, Wala , Wali, Chak, Bassi, Basti, Pur, garh, garhi ...
Sadly, there is not enough material on these suffixes on the google search engine. However, desperate to learn more, I was soon seeking help from Balwinder Kaur, an English teacher at the Government Senior Secondary School, Bhunga. Balwinder spent a day looking up the Mahan Kosh by Bhai Kahn Singh Nabha and other reference books and put together this information for me.
Bassi and Basti are Persian words from the word Basar-Gurdan meaning 'habitat' comprising mostly of Persian/ Muslim families. One of the earlier bassi's as per her research was Basti Malik in the kingdom of Patiala, near Fategarh. Bassi Pathana, Bassi Kasso and Bassi Daultkhan are further examples of it.
Majra means a town and Majri a town in the same area but with less significance and smaller area and population. Modern Manimajra near Chandigarh was a town which was captured by Garibdas in 1821 along with 48 other villages. Manimajra, after the British annexation of Punjab, was given the status of a kingdom and Gopal Singh became its first ruler.
Kot literally means fort. Kots were walled residential areas and usually located on mounds, elevated patches of land or on the foothills. Bhagat Kabir observes: ‘ek kot panch sikdar’ meaning that to create/ safeguard one kot more than one powerful person (sikdar) was required. Some of the examples are Sialkot, Raikot and Dharamkot.
Garh, also meaning fort, was usually perched on a hill-top and was not essentially a residential area to begin with. The purpose of Garh was military and the fort offered a secure wall to the residents. Garhs with passage of time became residential areas when nomadic life attained stability. Fatehgarh, Hoalgarh, Lohgarh, Keshgarh and Anandgarh are some of the examples.
Garhis were safe homes or shelter homes of residents of an area. Kachi Garhi in Chamkaur Sahib is an example.
My other query to Balwinder was over the meaning of Pur, examples being Hoshiarpur, Haripur, and Rampur. While one of the explanations described pur as a village but interestingly Balwinder pointed out it was a town or a village which had to be reached either by crossing a bridge or via a boat.
Wala and Wali also mean habitats. Walas have names of prominent personalities as their prefixes. For example Attari-wala, NihalSingh-wala and Hussaini-wala, the last being named after Muslim pir, Baba Hussainiwala. Walis have names of lesser known people as their prefix or suffix. Examples are- Hiran -Wali near Fazilka and Moranwali in Hoshiarpur district.
Balwinder also checked out the meaning of the word Chak which literally means village. The home of the fourth Sikh Guru was called Guru Da Chak (later Chak Ramdas) after which the precendent to call villages with Chak as prefix or suffix was set. Examples are Chak Fatehsingh, Chak Ramdas, Chak Sheranwali.
Collecting this material has been gratifying but I am still not satisfied and scholars who have some additional information are free to write to help document this information for progeny.
As for the Chesters, Hams and Shires, there’s always a next time.
[Courtesy: Hindustan Times]
August 30, 2011
Conversation about this article
1: Karnail Singh (Bidston, United Kingdom.), August 30, 2011, 10:35 AM.
I understand that, generally, place names described the people, the wild life, the country side where the people lived and in Britain the roots are mainly from Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian and French influences. The first "Shires" were created by the Anglo-Saxons, areas controlled by the Royal Official called Shire Reeve or Sheriff. Originally, areas were sub-divided into 100, now into districts. "Ham" I think, Celtic in origin, meant a homestead. Cheshire meant "camp of soldiers" and indicated the Roman presence. The best name in the world is Punjab! Thanks for the amusing article, Khushwant Singh ji.
2: Pardeep Singh Nagra (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), August 30, 2011, 3:00 PM.
Thank you for the interesting article. It surely helps to get a sociological and anthropological perspective for things we take for granted. It also helps me understand the region in East Lahore, Punjab in the old maps which was labled Nagracut/ Nagrakot, as it was usually shown with mountains and was probably on the elevated areas or the foothills, as you described.
3: Roopinder Singh Bains (Surrey, British Columbia, Canada), August 30, 2011, 3:52 PM.
Many villages in Punjab have the suffix Kalan or Khurd, meaning 'big' and 'small" respectively. My own village is Nangal Kalan and a few miles away is Nangal Khurd.
4: Roopinder Singh Bains (Surrey, British Columbia, Canada), August 30, 2011, 3:55 PM.
Regarding villages ending in 'Pur', perhaps the suffix is derived from 'paar'? - to cross, since you had to cross the river to get to them.
5: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), August 30, 2011, 4:23 PM.
The town of "Toba Tek Singh", now in Pakistan, still evokes the memory of the gentle Sikh who served water to the thirsty. It is also immortalized by Manto in his famous story of 'Toba Tek Singh'. Two or three years after the 1947 Partition, it occurred to the governments of India and Pakistan to exchange their lunatics in the same manner as they had exchanged their criminals. The Muslim lunatics in India were to be sent over to Pakistan and the Hindu and Sikh lunatics in Pakistani asylums were to be handed over to India ...
6: Pritam Singh Grewal (Canada), August 30, 2011, 6:48 PM.
Popular suffixes 'Kalan' and 'Khurd' denote large and small sizes ... e.g., villages Assi Kalan and Assi Khurd in Ludhiana district. Well, there is this 'ana' too, e.g. Ludhi+ana and Mastuana, Nathana. Another well-known suffix is 'sar' as in Amritsar, Mukatsar. 'Sar' means a pond or pool and it is taken from the word 'sarovar'.
7: Morrissey (Manchester, United Kingdom), August 31, 2011, 12:46 PM.
This is all making sense now. Nagar means 'way', so I wonder if Nagrakot refers to a fort on the way to the Khyber Pass. Hari Singh Nalwa had a number of forts in the region.
8: Manjeet Singh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), August 31, 2011, 7:07 PM.
It's an interesting article. Normally villages were set up in squares for security purposes. Each corner of the square had a head called "chaudhari', i.e "chau" meaning "four" whilst "dari" referred to "dar", i.e., "door" or "gate". Hence, there were four chaudharis in a village. This can be verified from Bhai Kahn Singh's Mahan Kosh. These chaudharis were lookouts, as well as heads of each section of the square. As villages became more amorphous, these chaudhris became petty chiefs whilst the head of the village was called Sikdaar - nowadays - sirdar or sardar. Each Sikh is now called Sardar because each is expected to be a leader in his own right! As for the shabad by Bhagat Kabir ji: "Ek kot panch sikdara ..." [GGS:793], it is wrongly presented. In that shabad, Bhagat Kabir is speaking of the one body fort which has five sikdaars who demand "halaa" [tax]. These 5 are really the 5 vikaars or vices. Bhagat Kabir says that their demand is ridiculous because he did not ever till their land, i.e., he did not enagage in these vikaars/ vices. 'jimi nahi mai kisi ki boyee aiasaa dehn dukhalaa ..." So Bhagat ji is not saying that more than one sikdaar was required. These sikdaars are the cause of moral and spiritual decay. They have to be overcome. The thrust of Bhagat Kabir's shabad is that these sikdaars are unfairly trying to rule and demand subservience to themselves.
9: Blighty Singh (London, United Kingdom), September 05, 2011, 3:31 PM.
The origins of English place names are actually quite straight-forward: Places ending in 'Ham' mean they were once farmsteads. Places ending in 'bourne' indicate that the original settlement was based next to a stream. Places ending in 'ford' indicate that it was originally a crossing from one place to another. Places ending in 'chester' indicate that it was originally a Roman encampment (from the latin 'castra'). A place ending in 'pool' indicates that it was / is a shipping port. Places ending in 'ley' indicate that it was a village of Saxons. In contrast, places ending in 'thorpe' indicate that it was a Viking settlement. These little differences are, of course, important because they run alongside the origin and development of the English language ... where Saxon / Norman words sit alongside Danish and Viking words for the same thing. From our own Sikh-Brit point of view though, I suppose the most interesting example is the city of Birmingham. That literally translates as the village where shoddy goods are made.
10: Gopinath (Delhi, India), December 05, 2011, 12:52 AM.
Interesting essay. As a historian, when I was traveling through Punjab I was intrigued by these place-name suffixes. Thanks.
11: Poonam Singh (Chandigarh, Punjab), June 28, 2012, 6:06 AM.
Majra should be seen in the context of mujaaraas of a feudal lord, living in his vicinity. Majri is just a smaller such habitation. Majra and place of abode thus become synonymous.
12: Ghulam Mustapha (United Kingdom), February 01, 2014, 9:43 PM.
Pleased to see this article.
13: S Singh (India), February 16, 2015, 4:42 AM.
Very informative and well documented. Useful: it gives answers to things that always intrigued me. Many thanks.
14: Bikram Thapa (Chandigarh, Punjab), May 19, 2015, 8:25 AM.
Even around Chandigarh here in Punjab, there are lot of places which have names ending with Majra. Now I understand what it stands for. Thanks