balochracehistor00damerich

22 THE BALOCH RACE
however, thinks that Badroch, or Badrosh, in Balochi may
be taken as ' equivalent to Gadrosh, or Gadros, of the
more ancient Pehlevi, or Zend, and to Gadros-ii, or
Gedrosii, of the Greeks. Badroch, from the interchange-
ability of the liquids r and I, is equivalent to Badloch,
out of which the d must naturally drop, leaving Baloch
equivalent to " the Gedrosii." '
With regard to this derivation, it may be remarked that
no such word as ' bad ' or gad ' is found in the ancient
languages, and that while a modern g or gw often
represents in Persian (and still more often in Balochi) an
original v, the reverse process is unknown. An ancient
G, such as is found in the name Gedrosia, dating from
the fourth century B.C., can hardly be represented by a
By as in Baloch. If I have been successful in showing
that the Baloch name was not known in Mekran before the
thirteenth century, it seems a useless task to attempt
to associate them with the Gedrosii of sixteen hundred
years before.
Baloch is a Persian word, which, in addition to its use
as a proper name, means, as explained in the Burhan-i-
Qati' and other dictionaries, a cockscomb or crest. It
seems possible that the proper name was originally a nickname
derived from the use of such a crest or badge ; many
tribal names are uncomplimentary nicknames, like our
Whig and Tory, and others applied to religious sects. A
passage in the ' Shahnama ' affords some support to this
theory. In the enumeration of the warriors of Kai
Khusran's army, the poet comes to the Baloch led by
Ashkash, and in one text he describes them as
1
Intent on war, with exalted cockscomb crests.' 1 This
1 This passage is an example of the extraordinary variety of read-
ings in the text of the ' Shahnama.'
In Mohl's text the passage reads (ii., p. 586),