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A Study of Etymology of Arakan Rohingya and Rakhine

INTRODUCTION
ARAKAN is the modern name, in the ancient times the country was known as Arakan Desh 1 or Rakkhapura 2 or Roshango Desh.3 According to northern face of the Ananda Chandra stone pillar of Chandra dynasty (8th Century) at Shitthaung Pagoda in Mrauk-U, the name of the country is mentioned as Arakandesh since the inscription was written in Photo Bengali ( Shay-bray Bengali Sabay). The people of Arakan is known as Arakanese and again they are sub-divided as Arakanese Buddhist and Arakanese Muslim. According to the Rakhine Rajawan, early Buddhist missionaries called Arakan as Rakkhapura and the Arakanese Buddhist is known as Rakhine. According to Rohingya writers and poets of Arakan Royal Court, the country is known as Roshango Desh and Arakanese Muslim is known as Rohingya. Due to geographical location of Arakan, the western most province of Burma (Myanmar), for most part of its history was an independent kingdom. In this article, we are going to discuss first the location, population and people of Arakan and then the etymology of Arakan, Rohang, Rohingya, Rakhine and the Magh. In conclusion, we will discuss some observations on the Rohingya Muslims of Arakan.