The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c6.11.4

v1.c6.11.4

In corroboration of this derivation it may be observed that in Sanskrit, *Utkala* means a birdcatcher, a term which is peculiarly appropriate to a *kola* ( *Anglice Cole* ), whether of the *Oḍ* or any other tribe. According to Colnel Wilford, Utkala is equal to *udkala*, and “implies the great and famous country of Cola”;¹⁵ it is the same with the “*Encolla*” of Nonnius mentioned in his *Dionysiacs*.¹⁶ Dr. Hunter, in his Dissertation on the non-Aryan Languages of India, accepts *Oḍ* to be the archetype of *Oḍra*, and then points out its previous transmutations through three different stages. “The specific term for man among a large section of the Indian aborigines is”, he observes, “*ha* or *ho*, lengthening through the *Visarga* into *hah*, *has*, *haḍ* (*har*) *hoḍ* (*hor*)”. Dropping the *h* of the last by a process of cockneyism of which instances may be met with in many Indian vernaculars and notably in that of Dacca, where the common people are as averse to pronounce the initial *h* as a London labourer, the remnant is *Oḍ* “whence, *Oḍra*, *Uriyā*, *Urihay*, *Oḍāoñ*”, etc.¹⁷ He takes *kala*, however, to be also a modification of *ho*, and if this be admitted, the question arises as to how the same word should occur in two such markedly different forms as *ut* and *kala* in the compound *Utkala*.