तमसा

Feminine of तमस (tamasa, “dark-coloured; darkness”), thematicised from तमस् (tamas, “darkness”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *témHos (“darkness”).

Cognate with many Indo-European river names, most notably English Thames; see there for more.

Compare the semantically similar Sanskrit असिक्नी (asiknī, “Chenab river; the night”).

• (Classical Sanskrit) IPA^(key): /t̪ɐ.mɐ.s̪ɑː/

तमसा • (tamasā) stem, f

1. Tamasa, Tamsa, Tons (a river and tributary of the Ganga in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, India)
   • c. 400 BCE, Mahābhārata 3.224.23:

     तमसा नर्मदा चैव नदी गोदावरी तथा ।
     वेण्णा प्रवेणी भीमा च मेद्रथा चैव भारत ॥

     tamasā narmadā caiva nadī godāvarī tathā.
     veṇṇā praveṇī bhīmā ca medrathā caiva bhārata.

     […] the Tamasa, the Narmada, the Godavari, the Vena, the Upavena, the Bhima, the Vadawa, the Bharati […]

   • c. 500 BCE – 100 BCE, Rāmāyaṇa 1.2.3:

     स मुहूर्तं गते तस्मिन्देवलोकं मुनिस्तदा ।
     जगाम तमसातीरं जाह्नव्यास्त्वविदूरतः ॥

     sa muhūrtaṃ gate tasmindevalokaṃ munistadā.
     jagāma tamasātīraṃ jāhnavyāstvavidūrataḥ.

     • 1998—2008 translation by Sri Desiraju Hanumanta Rao

       Then, on Narada's going to the world of gods in a trice, that sage Valmiki went to the banks of Tamasa river not far from Jahnavi river.

   • c. 300 CE, Harivaṃśa 12828
   • c. 400 CE, Kālidāsa, Raghuvaṃśa 9.16

• Bhojpuri: टौंस (ṭauns)
• Gujarati: તોન્સ (tons)
• Hindustani:

  Hindi: टौंस (ṭa͠us)

  Urdu: ٹَوںس (ṭa͠us)

Borrowings

• → Bhojpuri: तमसा (tamᵊsā) (learned)
• → Gujarati: તમસા (tamsā) (learned)
• → Hindi: तमसा (tamsā) (learned)
• → Malayalam: തമസാ (tamasā) (learned)
• → Tamil: தமசா (tamacā) (learned)

• Monier Williams (1899) “तमसा”, in A Sanskrit–English Dictionary, […], new edition, Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 438.