Lumbini is a province made up of hill and Terai districts. The Kham Magar community is dominant here. There are also Khas and Arya. The Tharu community is also equally settled. Many hill districts and places in Lumbini have names that reflect the Magar language.

It seems that Khas Arya also has an identity in the name of Gol Bishesh. The history of some districts of Lumbini, including Butwal, is also linked to the family of the Sen and Shah dynasty kings and Jung Bahadur Rana. Along with Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, the names of various districts of the province and the villages and places within it reflect collective feelings and culture. How did the ancestors give names that identify the place and culture? What is there in the name?

Let's enter Butwal first. Butwal is the name that has now been transformed from Buddhavalli, Batauli, Khasyuli. There are different opinions and rumors about the name Butwal. In the past, it was also pronounced as Batauli, Khasyuli and Phattphat Buddhavalli. According to history, the family of Gautam Buddha's mother Mayadevi was in Devdaha, east of present-day Butwal.

Yogi Narharinath's book 'Hamro Desh Darshan' explains the history of Butwal from the Dwapar Yuga to the time of Buddha. Batauli was a rest stop for the trading posts of Tibet in China and Gorakhpur in India, the foothills of the mountains, and the top of Madhesh. History has been written connecting Butwal from Ram to Buddha. The stories of the Hindu god Ram visiting Gandaki through Batauli (Tinau West) to bathe in Gulmi, visiting Gandaki through Ramnadi in Palpa, and visiting Gandaki through Khasyauli (Tinau East) to reach Ayodhya have also been written in various books.

Butwal is the place where Buddha played in his childhood. A wall was built around Buddha to play. That wall was called Valli. The area where Buddha played within those four walls was called Buddhavalli. It is now also called Jitgadhi. Quoting some lines written in Yogi Narharinath's book, Tikaram Panthi has written, 'The name Butwal originated from the word Buddhavalli.' According to him, since it is located near the Buddha's mawli and Buddha used to play, Buddhavalli was corrupted and became called Butwal through Batauli.

The history of Butwal is not limited to that. According to another legend, the British army came to attack the Jitgadhi fort in 1872. After General Wood saw the path to the mountain covered in dense forest (Chure Pahad), he ordered his soldiers to come and understand what was there. The soldiers searched and studied, but found nothing. Then the soldiers replied, 'There is nothing, but a wall' (there is only a wall), so it became 'Batwal' and Butwal, says Ramgopal Lakaul, an old businessman of Butwal. It is also mentioned in books that Butwal became Butwal through 'Batwal'.

According to another popular belief, people from the hilly and Terai districts around Butwal came to buy and collect the salt, oil, clothes and various goods they needed, so it started to be called a 'Batulne' place. Gradually, the word Batulne was corrupted and became Batauli and became Butwal. Former deputy mayor of Butwal Sub-metropolitan City and historian Bimal Bahadur Shakya also said that there is an opinion that Batauli was formed by people gathering from different places.

According to others, the Khas kingdom's army used to rest around Butwal when going to attack Kathmandu and when returning. Since the Khas used to come and stay from time to time, Batauli was also called Khasyuli. But Palpa historian Jhapendra GC said that since traders of the 'Butola' caste came from the west and settled in the present-day Butwal, Butwal was named Batauli, and since the hilly Khas came and settled around Golpark in Butwal in the present-day, it was called Khasyuli.

'Batauli is not the market of today, it was the market of that time,' he said, 'There is a history of Amar Singh Thapa staying in Batauli when he went for western integration.' According to history, Amar Singh Thapa, who was nicknamed Badakaji, received the order for western integration in 1804.

From Bhalubang in Dang to Thabang in Rolpa

Bhalubang is the center of Rapti rural municipality in Dang, the capital of Lumbini Province. Bhalubang is also the place where the forests of the Chure hills and the banks of the Rapti River connect. In the Kham language, ‘Bang’ means an open meadow connected to a mountain or in the lap of a mountain. Therefore, it is said that since ancient times, bears in the Chure region came to the riverbank to search for food and roam, so it is called ‘Bhalubang’.

There is also an argument that the current name Bhalubang is a corruption of the earlier ‘Balungbang’. According to Tek Bahadur Kham Magar, author of Kham Magar words, dialects and folklore, in the Kham language, ‘Ba’ means bird and ‘Lung’ means stone. He says that there is a legend that Balungbang is called because there are birds-like stones in the meadow near the forest.

Rolpa is a hilly district about 130 kilometers away from Bhalubang in Dang. Rolpa is a district where Kham Magars are in the majority. There are villages in this district with the word 'Bang' attached to them, including Thabang, Libang, Khabang, Chalabang, Mandibang. Thabang in Rolpa is a village with ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity. It is entirely inhabited by Kham Magars. Now, Thabang Rural Municipality has been formed by incorporating many villages and settlements in that area.

In the Kham Magar language, 'Th' means a barely standing land, and 'Bang' means a flat land. It is called Thabang because the settlement is located on a land with a river on three sides and a flat land in the middle. Bal Bahadur Gharti, a social activist from Rolpa, says that the name Thabang comes from the language and culture of the Kham Magar community. He has also published a book on Magar culture. ‘More than 60 percent of the names of places in Rolpa and Rukum have Bang attached to them in front or behind,’ he says, ‘and the identity of the Kham Magars is also connected to that.’

Gharti said that the names of most of the settlements in Rukum, including Hukam, Maikot, Lukam, Chunbang, which are located near Rolpa, are also connected to Magar culture and local geography. According to him, ‘Hu’ means a hill or a ravine. ‘Kam’ means farming. He said that places were named with such words based on the people living in the hills and ravines and the work they do.

Argha, Khanchi and Gulmi

The name of Arghakhanchi is associated with the kings of the then Thakuri dynasty. There is a history that Jung Bahadur Rana was born in 1874 in Balkot, present-day Arghakhanchi. Arghakhanchi and Gulmi were in the same district until 2018. Argha and Khanchi were two kingdoms in Arghakhanchi. Towards the end of the 14th century, the Shah dynasty kings ruled Argha and Khanchi.

According to Rajendra Acharya, a historian and cultural expert of Arghakhanchi, there were 24 small kingdoms in the western region. The kings used to choose high places for security and war. After the kings left those high places, they became temples and are now known as 'Kot'. There were also small kingdoms in Dang, Rolpa, Pyuthan, Palpa, and Rupandehi. Acharya said that the Sen kings once lived in Palpa by forming the kingdoms of Baldhengadhi, Mathagadhi, and Nuwakotgadhi. He informed that all the forts including Argha and Khanchi are still preserved as heritage sites of historical importance.

The origin of the word Argha is that the goddess emerged when curd was offered in the temple of Bhagwati, and the word Khanchi is also believed to have been corrupted to become Khanchi because the treasurer was the one who collected taxes from the government. Argha and Khanchi were combined to form Arghakhanchi after the separation of Gulmi.

Ruru Kshetra from Ruru Kanya

There is a lot of disagreement about the naming of Ruru Kshetra (Ridi), which is the main religious place of Gulmi. Rajaram Subedi, the author of the book Historical Glimpse of Gulmi, has mentioned that Ruru, i.e. deer, breastfed the daughter of Devdatta Rishi and named her Ruru Kanya, hence the name Ruru Kshetra later came to be known as Ruru Kshetra. ‘Since the Ruru girl was saved by doing severe penance in Ridi, this place came to be known as Ruru Kshetra after that girl’, he mentioned, ‘Later, it is said that Ridi started being called from that Ruru Kshetra.’

Now the name of the municipality has been changed to Ruru Kshetra Rural Municipality. According to religious beliefs, a person comes with three debts ‘God debt, Father debt and Rishi debt’ at birth. It is believed that a person who bathes at the confluence of the Kaligandaki flowing from the Himalayas, i.e. Dobhan, which is in the Ruru Kshetra, gets his sins washed away, hence this place started being called Rini and later there is a popular belief that the word Rini got corrupted and became ‘Ridi’.

According to another belief, the word ‘Ridi’ comes from the Magar language. In the Magar language, ‘Ri’ means black or murky and ‘D’ means water. That is, there is an argument that it is called Ridi because the Kaligandaki is an area where murky water flows, said Ganesh Shripali of Gulmi, who is doing a PhD on the festivals, language, and culture of this area.