WHAT DOES THE WORD "HAZARIBAGH" MEAN?

Subhashis Das.

The meaning of the name of our beloved town, Hazaribagh is an enigma to us. 

Many have interpreted the name of Hazaribagh as the "Land of Thousand Tigers" or even as the "Land of Thousand gardens".

Actually the name "Hazaribagh" has been formed by the confluence of two words; "Hazari" and "Bagh", of which the former is a "breed of mango" (look at the photograph below) and the later "bagh" is suggestive of "a garden". 

The name Hazaribagh, therefore means, the "Orchard or Garden of Hazari Mangoes". 

Photograph of the "Hazari Mangoes" in the mango festival of Delhi. It is this mango that has lent its name to the town.

Photo credit: Lalit Vijay

Sir John Houlton proposes that Hazaribagh received its name from a village called OCUNHAZARI (as shown in the old maps). Ocunhazari is believed to have derived its name from two villages of Okni (it is a thriving mohallah today) and Hazari. 

Hazaribagh in olden days was known all over for its grove of Hazari mangoes which  perhaps lay somewhere within the premises of the present day town beside the Bagodar-Katkamsandi road; a highway believed to have been built in 1782 connecting  the cities of the then Calcutta and Benares. It was in this mango grove travellers and troops took shelter during their journey to Calcutta or Benares.

Ruskin bond in one of his stories "GARDEN OF A THOUSAND TREES" from his book "THE BOOK OF NATURE" writes about our good old Hazaribagh and how the town obtained its name. I have uploaded this small story below:

(Left click on the pages below to expand their sizes)

Hazaribagh once a most beautiful town planned by the British and described as "...a paradise on earth..." by F.B. Bradly-Birt (read in the description above) is an ugly place today with roads that no more can be called avenues (refer to Bradly-Birt's book: Chotanagpore, a Little Known Province of the Empire)) with the trees on either side of the roads having disappeared. The streets being overcrowded, messy, filthy, loud traffic jams are a constant feature of the town making even walking to the market place a difficult exercise.