Mar: यवतमाळ yavatamāḷa
‘Barley Plain’ City/District, Maharashtra
From Mar: yava, ‘barley’ [Hordeum hexastichon]; and māḷa, ‘uncultivated plain’.
This barley can grow to 1.2m and can be harvested from the wild for food and raw materials.
Another suggestion is ‘row of mountains’ [Mar: māḷa, ‘garland’, ‘row’, ‘line’] but I have been unable to trace yavat/yavata as Marathi for ‘mountain’.
Sometimes listed as a as a hill station, Yavatmal has a history as a cotton growing, ginning and pressing region.
Yavatmal Municipal Council Sbj1976
