[Below posted are few paragraphs from a paper by Prof. Kamal Prakash Malla, read at the 18th Annual Conference of the Linguistic Society of Nepal, published a year later in Nepalese Linguistics Vol. 15 (November, 1998), pp.19-28. As the title suggests, the paper is an etymological analysis of word Sagaramatha - सगरमाथा, a Nepali word common in Nepal today for the world's highest peak Mt. Sagaramatha. Posted also are two comments: one by Sudeshna Sarkar who writes particularly on Nepal for Indo-Asian News Service, (IANS) -India's largest independent newswire service. Ms. Sarkar writes, " His name is Radhanath Sikdar. Sikandar is Islamic while Radhanath is a Hindu name" and wants correction of the word and Prof. Malla has also replied to her comment below. Ms. Sarkar's comment was initially received to the post Why Not Rename World's Highest Peak - 'Mt. Chomolungma' Instead ? But Sikandar comes also from "Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great. Alexander is common name in western world also. - Editor]
By Kamal Prakash Malla
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| A towering Mt. Sagaramatha 8848 M |
- The Peak XV (29029 ft), now known variously as Mount Everest, Kang-chomo-lungma, and Sagaramatha, was found to be the highest peak in the world by the Trigonometric Survey of India in 1852 and it was named Mount Everest on May 11, 1857 by the Royal Geographical Society of London after Sir George Everest, the first Surveyor General of India. The actual discoverer of its height was, however, a Bengali employee of the Survey of India, Mr Radhanatha Sikdar.
- Brian Hodgson, who was the British Resident in the Court of Nepal for more than twenty years, wrote in protest saying that there were local names of the peak. The main one, he thought, was Devadhaung-Bhairavthan-Nyanam (Hodgson, 1874:27)
- When the survey of
- Not finding a Nepali name for the world’s highest peak on the first-ever published scientific map of the K
- This sentimental or nationalistic need was soon fulfilled by Acharya by publishing an essay entitled,” Sagaramatha Jhyamolongma” in recently launched Nepali monthly, Sharada Vol IV 8 ( Poush 1995; 1939 January), a piece later collected in an anthology of Nepali prose prescribed for secondary schools in Nepal.
- The essay gives an etymological interpretation of the Nepali name as well as the Tibetan name of the peak. Although Baburam Acharya studied ,mathematics, Dharmashastra, and Grammar for his Acharya degree in Benaras he was well-versed not only in Sanskrit, Nepali, and Hindi but also in a few other New Indo-Aryan languages. However, his analysis and interpretation of the Tibetan name of the peak as “a match-making bird” clearly showed that he did not know any Tibetan or Newari, let alone any Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in the Solu-Khumbu or Sunkosi area. His interpretation of the Tibetan name for the peak was disastrously conjectural.
- As for the proposed or discovered Nepali name for the peak, Sagara-matha, in the essay at least Acharya did not mention where exactly or how he collected that name - on the field or through second-hand or third-hand informants or from some documents. When I casually met him in person in the Royal Press Secretary's Office on Friday July 14, 1967, I asked him about the source of his information: where or how he got the word. From the brief conversation, it became painfully clear to me that he picked up the name from a third-hand source - through his local staff in the Education Department !(Read full paper here)
COMMENT(S)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
Date: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 3:49 AM
Subject: Renaming Mt Everest
To: himalayanvoice@gmail.com
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| Radhanath Sikdar, the discoverer of world' tallest peak Mt. Sagaramatha |
It is not Radhanath Sikandar, as you and others have been referring to the survey official repeatedly. His name is Radhanath Sikdar. Sikandar is Islamic while Radhanath is a Hindu name. How could the two have been together at that time! It really raises doubts about the debate's awareness and erudition level.
Sudesna Sarkar
Editor, New Delhi
India
India
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kamal Malla
Date: Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 9:11 AM
Subject: Thanks for the Correction!
To: "Sudesha Sarkar"
Cc: The Himalayan Voice
Dear Ms. Sarkar,
I am grateful to you for drawing attention to the correct name. The survey officer's surname is, indeed, Sikdar, not Sikandar.
Nepalese Linguistics Vol 15 (1998) certainly was not an ideal academic publication in physical shape, size, and printing standard. From type face, proof-reading to diacritics there is enough room to be critical of the issue. Printed with little care, it contains my paper. I will certainly check if the mistake was in my original or committed while word processing The file that the Himalayan Voice posted is a pdf I downloaded from the Digital Himalayan Project which didn't even scan the paper properly. These details are given, not to condone, but to confess the error-- a serious one indeed involving religious identity.
Like you, I too feel that the debate is getting a little out of focus. As no one is moderating it irrelevant points abound the web page. To begin with, the debate was launched with a call "to jettison the alien name of the peak", currently inspired by American photographer, Jeff Botz. Each participant in the debate has merely approved a name according to one's personal preferences. Why one name is preferable to others is none too clear to me. The debate is overheated though the available choices seem limited to Sanskrit or Nepali or Tibetan/Limbu. The local villagers call the peak SAAGAR-MAATHAA, after the name of their village. This name is recorded in the Survey Maps of Nepal and India
What is the crux of our problem? It is that we dislike, not only an alien name, but also any name which is not either Sanskrit or Nepali. As the late Acharya Baburam wrote, Tibeto-Burman names don't "sound sweet" (See his famed essay, 1939). The power of this superstition is so overwhelming that even enlightened participants in our debate are unwilling to believe that there could be names in local speech for a peak so close to their village.
If one looks at the map of Nepal Himalaya, there are several kinds of name. Some are given because of the shape or form of the peak, e.g., Machaapuchre, others such as Annapurna or Gauri-Shankar are called so apparently because they resemble the divine beings. Each has, however, a meaning or sense. I believe each name has a meaning given by those who first named it.
I, for one, was not promoting any name, nor for renaming the peak as such. I was simply analyzing how the peak was named by the British just as it was done by the Nepal Government BY EXERCISING POLITICAL POWER, in total disregard for what the people of the region, particularly the villagers of Saagar, call the peak after the name of their village.
Long before anybody, Swami Pranavananda in his book , Explorations in Tibet
The only point I was "arguing" is that the name is derived from the name of the village, Saagar located at the same longitude as the peak, a name clearly non-Sanskrit as all names in the Khambuwan.
Maatha is not commonly used for a peak in Nepali., nor is Sagar used for the sky in Sanskrit. Few dictionaries list these words for the sense claimed by the Nepal Government.
All survey maps clearly show the village, Saagar. I have, therefore, raised serious doubts about the officially approved name, Sagarmaathaa, particularly the fake etymology ( the brow of the sky/heaven) proposed by the man who did it
Influenced by Morris. Swadesh, as a linguist I have been interested in place names as a key to human geography and prehistory. Fully aware of the recent Chinese media drive to change the name of the peak as "a colonial hang over" (it began with an editorial in People's Daily, see Time News Magazine for June 16, 1952 ),
I am not taking any "ideological" position. I was merely discussing how the peak was named, not how it should be. So the adjectives liberally used by you scoffing at our low cultural literacy and "level of awareness and erudition", deserves rethinking, perhaps.
Besides, some Bengalis do seem to have confusing surnames. Is Sarkar/Sircar a Muslim surname ? It is an Arabic or Persian word, isn't it?
Sincerely,
Professor Emeritus of English and Linguistics,
Currently in USA.
