The derivation of the word Gond is uncertain. It is the name given
to the tribe by the Hindus or Muhammadans, as their own name for
themselves is Koitur or Koi. General Cunningham considered that the
name Gond probably came from Gauda, the classical term for part of
the United Provinces and Bengal. A Benares inscription relating to one
of the Chedi kings of Tripura or Tewar (near Jubbulpore) states that
he was of the Haihaya tribe, who lived on the borders of the Nerbudda
in the district of the Western Gauda in the Province of Malwa. Three
or four other inscriptions also refer to the kings of Gauda in the
same locality. Gauda, however, was properly and commonly used as the
name of part of Bengal. There is no evidence beyond a few doubtful
inscriptions of its having ever been applied to any part of the
Central Provinces. The principal passage in which General Cunningham
identifies Gauda with the Central Provinces is that in which the king
of Gauda came to the assistance of the ruler of Malwa against the
king of Kanauj, elder brother of the great Harsha Vardhana, and slew
the latter king in A.D. 605. But Mr. V. A. Smith holds that Gauda
in this passage refers to Bengal and not to the Central Provinces;
[38] and General Cunningham's argument on the locality of Gauda is
thus rendered extremely dubious, and with it his derivation of the
name Gond. In fact it seems highly improbable that the name of a large
tribe should have been taken from a term so little used and known in
this special application. Though in the Imperial Gazetteer [39] the
present writer reproduced General Cunningham's derivation of the term
Gond, it was there characterised as speculative, and in the light of
the above remarks now seems highly improbable. Mr. Hislop considered
that the name Gond was a form of Kond, as he spelt the name of the
Khond tribe. He pointed out that k and g are interchangeable. Thus
Gotalghar, the empty house where the village young men sleep, comes
from Kotal, a led horse, and ghar, a house. Similarly, Koikopal,
the name of a Gond subtribe who tend cattle, is from Koi or Gond,
and gopal, a cowherd. The name by which the Gonds call themselves
is Koi or Koitur, while the Khonds call themselves Ku, which word
Sir G. Grierson considers to be probably related to the Gond name
Koi. Further, he states that the Telugu people call the Khonds, Gond
or Kod (Kor). General Cunningham points out that the word Gond in the
Central Provinces is frequently or, he says, usually pronounced Gaur,
which is practically the same sound as god, and with the change
of G to K would become Kod. Thus the two names Gond and Kod, by
which the Telugu people know the Khonds, are practically the same
as the names Gond and God of the Gonds in the Central Provinces,
though Sir G. Grierson does not mention the change of g to k in
his account of either language. It seems highly probable that the
designation Gond was given to the tribe by the Telugus. The Gonds
speak a Dravidian language of the same family as Tamil, Canarese
and Telugu, and therefore it is likely that they come from the south
into the Central Provinces. Their route may have been up the Godavari
river into Chanda; from thence up the Indravati into Bastar and the
hills south and east of the Chhattisgarh plain; and up the Wardha and
Wainganga to the Districts of the Satpura Plateau. In Chanda, where
a Gond dynasty reigned for some centuries, they would be in contact
with the Telugus, and here they may have got their name of Gond,
and carried it with them into the north and east of the Province. As
already seen, the Khonds are called Gond by the Telugus, and Kandh
by the Uriyas. The Khonds apparently came up more towards the east
into Ganjam and Kalahandi. Here the name of Gond or Kod, given them
by the Telugus, may have been modified into Kandh by the Uriyas,
and from the two names came the English corruption of Khond. The
Khond and Gondi languages are now dissimilar. Still they present
certain points of resemblance, and though Sir G. Grierson does not
discuss their connection, it appears from his highly interesting
genealogical tree of the Dravidian languages that Khond or Kui and
Gondi are closely connected. These two languages, and no others, occupy
an intermediate position between the two great branches sprung from
the original Dravidian language, one of which is mainly represented
by Telugu and the other by Tamil, Canarese and Malayalam. [40] Gondi
and Khond are shown in the centre as the connecting link between the
two great branches. Gondi is more nearly related to Tamil and Khond to
Telugu. On the Telugu side, moreover, Khond approaches most closely
to Kolami, which is a member of the Telugu branch. The Kolams are a
tribe of Wardha and Berar, sometimes considered an offshoot of the
Gonds; at any rate, it seems probable that they came from southern
India by the same route as the Gonds. Thus the Khond language is
intermediate between Gondi and the Kolami dialect of Wardha and Berar,
though the Kolams live west of the Gonds and the Khonds east. And a
fairly close relationship between the three languages appears to be
established. Hence the linguistic evidence appears to afford strong
support to the view that the Khonds and Gonds may originally have
been one tribe. Further, Mr. Hislop points out that a word for god,
pen, is common to the Gonds and Khonds; and the Khonds have a god
called Bura Pen, who might be the same as Bura Deo, the great god
of the Gonds. Mr. Hislop found Kodo Pen and Pharsi Pen as Gond gods,
[41] while Pen or Pennu is the regular word for god among the
Khonds. This evidence seems to establish a probability that the
Gonds and Khonds were originally one tribe in the south of India,
and that they obtained separate names and languages since they left
their original home for the north. The fact that both of them speak
languages of the Dravidian family, whose home is in southern India,
makes it probable that the two tribes originally belonged there, and
migrated north into the Central Provinces and Orissa. This hypothesis
is supported by the traditions of the Gonds.