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Know the Etymology: 132
Place Name of the Day: Saturday, 01 August 2009 Kandy / Senkadagala / MahanuwaraKaṇḍi / Seṅkaḍagala / Mahānuvara Ka'ndi Cheng+kada+gala Mahaa+nuvara The enclosure / The red hill of difficult side / The great city
 Google Earth image of the city of Kandy. Note the Dalada Maligawa – palace complex, the original part of the inner city of Kandy, between the hill and the lake.
, Kandy [Photo courtesy: freewebs.com/lynseysmith copyright Lynsey Smith, 2004]) The Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Tooth Relic), Kandy [Photo courtesy: freewebs.com/lynseysmith copyright Lynsey Smith, 2004]
 The casket containing the Tooth Relic [Photo courtesy: daladamaligawa.org]
 is located in the complex facing Dalada Maligawa. The other temples in the complex are dedicated to Mahavishnu (Upulvan in Sinhala tradition), Paththini (Ka’n’naki) and Kataragama Deviyo (Murukan). The last one is situated outside of the complex. Shrine of a folk deity or guardian demon, Dedi Munda (equated to southern Tamil Nadu folk cults of Mu’ndan, Thadi Veeran and Mu’nda Maadan) is also found attached to the Vishnu temple of the complex. Thadi Mu’ndan in Tamil means a corpulent person. [Photo courtesy: Jamie Parkins, Barmy Army Descends, TravelPod, 2007]) Natha Devale, built in Dravidian architecture and dated to 13th century CE, is older than Dalada Maligawa and is the earliest structure found in Kandy today. The temple of the deity Natha (equated with Siva) is located in the complex facing Dalada Maligawa. The other temples in the complex are dedicated to Mahavishnu (Upulvan in Sinhala tradition), Paththini (Ka’n’naki) and Kataragama Deviyo (Murukan). The last one is situated outside of the complex. Shrine of a folk deity or guardian demon, Dedi Munda (equated to southern Tamil Nadu folk cults of Mu’ndan, Thadi Veeran and Mu’nda Maadan) is also found attached to the Vishnu temple of the complex. Thadi Mu’ndan in Tamil means a corpulent person. [Photo courtesy: Jamie Parkins, Barmy Army Descends, TravelPod, 2007]
Ever since the relic’s arrival from the Kalinga country (Orissa / Andra) in the 4th century CE to Anuradhapura, it was shifted from place to place whenever the capitals changed and ‘Dalada Maligawa’ relic temples were built in all these capitals. The founder of the kingdom of Kandy, Vimaladarmasuriya brought it to Kandy in the late 16th century CE. Ka’ndi is an often-found suffix in the Eezham Tamil place names, meaning a locality, sector, quarters etc. Ka’ndiya found in the Sinhala place names is of equivalent shades of meaning. The toponymic meanings of these words are not found either in the Tamil or Sinhala dictionaries, but they are cognates of Kaṇṭa / Kaṇṭaka in Sanskrit, meaning boundary of a village, Ka’ndam, found used in the Changkam Tamil diction meaning a piece, portion etc (also meaning geographical divisions in the old Tamil lexicons) and Kaṇḍa / Kaaṇḍa, meaning a part, portion, section, chapter etc in Pali / Prakrit / Sinhala. The word-form Ka’ndi is used in the Tamil fishermen’s dialect to mean enclosures made in shallow sea to catch fish. The word Ka’ndi is also found in the place names of Tamil Nadu. Kandiyoor (Ka’ndi-oor) near Thanjavur, mentioned in the Theavaaram hymns, is an example attesting to the antiquity of the usage of the word in Tamil toponyms at least since 7th century CE. The toponym Kandy for the city under discussion seems to be only a few centuries old, as the old name for the place found in the records is Senkadagala. Probably Ka’ndi in the context of this city meant the citadel part, the inner sector that was fortified or enclosed, housing palaces and temples. The native reference to the inner part of the capital, after its development into a city, probably became the toponym for the entire city in the colonial references. But note that it was the Tamil form Ka’ndi and not the Sinhala form Ka’ndiya that became popular in usage. The old name Senkadagala (Cheng-kada-gala), originated from the landscape, means the red hill of the difficult side. All the components of this toponym are of Dravidian etymology. The root word of the first component Che/Se, which becomes Seng/Cheng, Sem/Chem etc in compounds, means red (DED 1931). The word Kadam (adjective: Kada) that is often found in the names of hills stands for difficult terrain, side of a hill, etc (DED 1438). It shares similar shades of meaning in its Sinhala cognate Gada. The third component Gala is a cognate of Kal, meaning stone, rock, hill etc., and is a popular suffix in toponyms associated with hills, rocky terrain etc. (DED 1298). The location of the old part of the city of Kandy is adjacent to a difficult hill and the terrain is deep red in colour. Protection by the difficult hills determined the choice of the location for the capital. An example for the occurrence of the component Kadam in place names is Veang-kadam (also Thiru-veang-kadam), a toponym of much antiquity found in the Changkam Tamil diction for Thirupathi. Veang-kadam or Veng-kadam simply means the hill having a barren and difficult side. Mahaa Nuwara, which means the great city, is another name for Kandy that has found popular usage in Sinhala today. Nuwara, according to Clough’s dictionary, is the colloquial Sinhala form of the word Nagara that means a town or city in all South Asian languages. Nuwara is found as a component in many old Sinhala place names. Interestingly, two equivalent forms are found in the Eezham Tamil literary and epigraphical usage: The word Nuvarai was referring to a city in the 15th century Eezham Tamil historiographical literature, Vaiyaa Paadal (verse 77) and the word Navarai is found as a cognate of Nuwara, in the Tamil part of the tri-lingual inscription of Galle, dated to early 15th century CE. Some related place names: See column on Polika’ndi for place names having the components Ka’ndi and Ka’ndiya See columns on Galle and Bambaragala for place names having the component Gala Cheng-koadu, Thiruch-cheng-koadu: The red hill. A place near Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. Cheng-kun’ram: The red hill. A place near Chennai. Cheng-koaddai: The red fort. A place in the Tamil Nadu – Kerala border. Veang-kadam: Thiruppathi in Andra, bordering Tamil Nadu Pe’n’naa-kadam: A place near Viruththaasalam in Tamil Nadu. Kadappaa: A place of difficult hills in Andra Predesh Uda-nuwara and Yati-nuwara: Upper and lower parts of the city. Localities of Kandy. Alut-nuvara: The new town. A place in Gegalle district. Devi-nuwara: The city of the deity. Presently called Dondra. In the Tamil part of the tri-lingual inscription of Galle the place was called Thea-navarai. Thea is deity in old Tamil. First published: Saturday, 01 August 2009, 09:48
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