Bhubaneswar, April 26: Development commissioner and additional chief secretary R. Balakrishnan yesterday hailed the state as a "living laboratory of diversity". He was talking at the seventh edition of Sanskruti Charcha, a monthly event hosted by the Odisha State Archives to promote discussions on various issues related to the state's cultural heritage.

With his professional commitments taking him to unusual locations in his 33-year-long career, Balakrishnan talked at length about the multi-layered socio-cultural foundations of the state.

He felt that the state's pluralistic cultural pattern was evident from the names of various places.

Deriving similarities and migration patterns in names of two different places, he said: "There is a place at Nimapada in Puri called Osian. An area by the same name exists in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Such instances do not happen accidentally. There must have been groups of people who had travelled between these two places."

He said that while migrating, people not only carry with themselves materialistic thi-ngs, but also the names of places.

"These names, thus, stand witness to the rise and fall of civilisations. Also, the names of places are the fossilised representations of the past," he said.

His penchant for research grew when he worked closely with the tribal communities of Koraput.

"People in these areas have lived together for thousands of years with tolerance (towards other communities). There are tribals speaking the Kui that is a Dravidian language," he added.

He felt that unknown villages were the treasure troves of historical significances. "Names of a number of prominent places have changed over the years owing to political influences but the names of rural villages remain unchanged," he said.

Balakrishnan has been involved in toponymy (the study of the names of various places) research for the last 25 years. He also spoke about his comparative study of identical places names in Odisha and Indonesia.

'There are innumerable instances of similar names in these places. These names are not only restricted to the coastal belts, but also reach out to interior areas. Thus, there existed a multi-layered transaction between the southeast nations and ancient Kalinga which was a both-way and continuous process," he added.

Many civil servants, writers, historians and researchers attended the event.