[INDOLOGY] Identififying Ceylonese toponym Cauraga(s)hing

[Olivelle, J P]

Dear Jan:

Even though I know Sinhalese, I was unable to crack the term, which is probably mangled. So I asked Gananath and Ranjini Obeyesekere, who work in this period. This is what Ranjini said:

The location is possibly  in the region bordering the Mahiyangane hills that divide the Dumbara valley area ( the wetter Kandy side of the mountains)  from the East Coast dry heat.  Perhaps this is the name of a village located on the border around the area where he was held ..
The word was probably Caura gas hinna.  There are many places which have the suffix -- gas hinna.. Caura  gas may be a kind of tree after which the area was named. I do not know of that tree.  The nearest I can think of was
Karuvala gas --  the ebony tree named ; karuvala'

So, caura is probably some kind of tree; Ranjini suggests “karuvala” ebony. The term “gas” is tree in Sinhala, and we often add that to the name of the specific tree: so, pol gas is coconut tree.

The term hinna probably refers to the place (I have asked for the exact meaning of the term, and will let you know when I get a response).

Best,

Patrick Olivelle



On Nov 1, 2019, at 5:44 AM, Jan Filipský via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info<mailto:indology at list.indology.info>> wrote:

Dear All,
A student of mine is trying to identify the Ceylonese/Sri Lankan toponym „Cauragashing“ mentioned by the British sailor Robert Knox in his book An Historical Relation of Ceylon (1681), p. 4. According to the author, it is a mountain „about the middle of the land“ obviously separating the Wet and Dry zones of the island he had personally visited, describing his experience as follows: „as oftentimes I have seen, being on the one side of a Mountain called Cauragas hing, rainy and wet weather, and as soon as I came on the other, dry, and so exceeding hot, that I could scarcely walk on the ground, being, as the manner there is, barefoot.“
One may infer that Knox refers to the Central (Kandyan) highlands, playing the role of a major watershed, a natural geographic divide; if so, could anybody explain the local name Cauraga(s)hing? If one may venture a speculation, couldn’t it refer to the whole mass of the highlands where the rebels (sinh. caura, cora) go to (sinh. ga) – perhaps, in haste (sinh. hingu)? Sincere apologies to all knowledgeable colleagues for unsubstantiated fantasizing and many thanks for elucidating.
With best regards,
Jan Filipsky, Praha

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