MAGARS, MAGYARS, MUGARS & MOGHULS

[Allen W Thrasher]

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George van Driem, Languages of the Himalayas, Brill, 2001 (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Section 2. India. vol. 10), v. 2, p. 780, has this to say (I have rendered his standard transliteration into Harvard-Kyoto):

"Before the 1990 revolution, a rare Magar periodical entitled LaGghalI [sic: it should be LAGghalI- AT] appeared irregularly.  In the atmosphere of political fervour prevailing in the years following the Nepalese revolution of 1990, various booklets were published which made fantastic claims. One such claim [identified BrAhmI script as of Magar origin].  Another claim was that the Magars are related to the Magyars or Hungarians, a fact which is argued solely on the basis of the similarity of the name, e.g. BuDA Magar (VS2053b). The latter claim must, however, be seen as just a recent episode in  a long tradition of pseudo-scholarly publications attempting to relate the Magyars with any and every distant group. [Uxbond 1928 used this as part of a theory linking with Magyars with the Mundas and as far afield as the Maoris.]

Parts in square brackets are my summary.

Citations:
BuDa Magar, HarSa BahAdur. VS BhAdra 2053b (AD 1996). Magar jAti ra unkA sAmAjik saMskAr. Kathmandu: ZrImatI PuSpAvatI BuDA Magar. 

Uxbond, F.A.  1938 Munda-Magyar-Maori, an INdian link bertween the antipodes: new tracks of Hungarian origins. London, Luzac and Co.

Van Driem considers Magar a Bodic language within the Tibeto-Burma, which further subdivision within the Bodic not yet clear.  However, he uses the term Magaric to include Magar and Kham.

Allen Thrasher


Allen W. Thrasher, Ph.D.
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