t must be
sought for outside the language of the Aryans. "In Sanskrit _savara_
simply means 'a corpse.' From Herodotus, however, we learn that
the Scythian word for an axe was _sagaris_, and as 'g' and 'v' are
interchangeable letters _savar_ is the same word as _sagar_. It seems
therefore not unreasonable to infer that the tribe who were so called
took their name from their habit of carrying axes. Now it is one of the
striking peculiarities of the Savars that they are rarely seen without
an axe in their hands. The peculiarity has been frequently noticed
by all who have seen them." [629] The above opinion of Cunningham,
which is of course highly speculative, is disputed by Mr. Crooke,
who says that "The word Savara, if it be, as some believe, derived
from _sava_ a corpse, comes from the root _sav_ 'to cause to decay,'
and need not necessarily therefore be of non-Aryan origin, while on
the other hand no distinct inference can be drawn from the use of the
axe by the Savars, when it is equally used by various other Dravidian
jungle tribes such as the Korwas, Bhuiyas and the like." [630]
In the classical stories of their origin the first ancestor of the
Savars is sometimes described as a Bhil. The word Savar is mentioned
in several Sanskrit works written between 800 B.C. and A.D. 1200, and
it seems probable that they are a Munda tribe who occupied the tracts
of country which they live in prior to the arrival of the Gonds. The
classical name Savar has been corrupted into various forms. Thus
in the Bundeli dialect '_ava_' changes into '_au_' and a nasal is
sometimes interpolated. _Savar_ has here become Saunr or Saonr. The
addition of 'a' at the end of the word sometimes expresses contempt,
and Savar becomes Savara as Chamar is corrupted into _Chamra_. In the
Uriya country 'v' is changed into 'b' and an aspirate is interpolated,
and thus Savara became Sabra or Sahara, as Gaur has become Gahra. The
word Sahara, Mr. Crooke remarks, [631] has excited speculation as
to its derivation from Arabic, in which Sahara means a wilderness;
and the name of the Savars has accordingly been deduced from the same
source as the great Sahara desert. This is of course incorrect.

2. Tribal legends

Various stories of the origin of the Savars are given in Sanskrit
literature. In the Aitareya Brahmana they are spoken of as the
descendants of Vishwamitra, while in the Mahabharat they are said
to have been created by Kamdhenu, Vasishtha's won