Oronymy in Yogini Tantra: An Onomastic Study with Special Reference to Kamrup District of Assam

Abstract

Onomastics is an interdisciplinary field of studies that examines all types of proper names, such as personal names (Anthroponyms) and placenames (Toponyms). By studying names, Onomastics provides insights into culture, history, social practices, and even cognitive processes. Study of placenames is undoubtedly an essential practice for human kind. Oronymy is another branch of Onomastic study that deals basically with a specific type of toponym that refers to name of a mountain or a hill (known as Oronym). As these refer to interdisciplinary fields of research, students of language and literature also do research on it. References to various oronyms, that is names of such hills or geographical landscapes are found extensively in Yogini Tantra, a sixteenth or seventeenth century anonymous literary and religious text dealing especially with Kingdom of Kamrupa (old Kingdom of Assam, India). The present paper is an attempt to locate some such oronyms and to trace their historical and mythological roots found especially in Yogini Tantra and to study them from onomastic point of view. The present paper considers the names of hills that are in the current district of Kamrup in Assam.