Rarh Region - Different Names and Etymology

Different Names and Etymology

Different names of the region as endonyms are usually variations of the term Rāṛh. It is worth noting that the grapheme ঢ় /ṛh/ is basically the same as ঢ /ḑh/, the only difference being one dot under the ঢ and they belong to the same morphophoneme. The interchangeable variations Radha, Rarha, Ladha, Lara are observed in the oldest Jain book of codes Acaranga Sutra of the 6th century BC. Some other sources use the endonyms Lala, Rara and Lada. According to the linguist Sarkar the Chinese called Rarh as Lati, the Greek as Ganga Ridae and the Aryans as Rāṭṭha. Moreover many Greek, Roman and Egyptian sources use the variations of Gangaridai, Gangaridae, Gangaritai and Gangaridum with the sense of a state, nation or civilisation which existed more or less in the same or a larger extent of Rarh. Megasthenes, Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny, Arrian, Diodorus Siculus, Quintus Curtius Rufus and Plutarch all wrote about Gangaridae.

The etymology of the word Rarh is not clear however there are many authors suggesting that it originates from a local language of Austroasiatic family. It could have originated from any of the following words of the Santali language; lar means "thread", rarh means "tune" and larh means "snake". And according to Sarkar, the word originates from Proto-Austroasiatic *Rāŗhā or *Rāŗho which means "land of red soil" or "land of laterite".

The etymology of the word Gangaridae is also not clear. According to the historian Dr. Atul Sur, Pliny and Ptolemy it means Ganga-Ridai (Rarh of the Ganges - Ganges' Rarh). However according to other scholars it might derive as Ganga-Hrd (land with Ganges in its heart), Ganga-Rashtra (State of the Ganges) or Gonda-Ridai (Land of the Gonds). Megasthenes call the people of Gangaridae as Gangarides. Diodorus Siculus describes Gangaridae as "a nation possessing the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size."