[1652.—"Invited by Lady Gerrard I went to London, where we had a greate supper; all the vessels, which were innumerable, were of Porcelan, she having the most ample and richest collection of that curiositie in England."—Evelyn, Diary, March 19.]
1726.—In a list of the treasures left by Akbar, which is given by Valentijn, we find:
"In Porcelyn, &c., Ropias 2507747."—iv. (Suratte), 217.
1880.—"'Vasella quidem delicatiora et caerulea et venusta, quibus inhaeret nescimus quid elegantiae, porcellana vocantur, quasi (sed nescimus quare) a porcellis. In partibus autem Britanniae quae septentrionem spectant, vocabulo forsan analogo, vasa grossiora et fusca pigs appellant barbari, quasi (sed quare iterum nescimus) a porcis.' Narrischchen und Weitgeholt, Etymol. Universale, s.v. 'Blue China.'"—Motto to An Ode in Brown Pig, St. James's Gazette, July 17.
PORGO, s. We know this word only from its occurrence in the passage {727a}quoted; and most probably the explanation suggested by the editor of the Notes is correct, viz. that it represents Port. peragua. This word is perhaps the same as pirogue, used by the French for a canoe or 'dug-out'; a term said by Littré to be (piroga) Carib. [On the passage from T. B. quoted below Sir H. Yule has the following note: "J. (i.e. T.) B., the author, gives a rough drawing. It represents the Purgoe as a somewhat high-sterned lighter, not very large, with five oar-pins a side. I cannot identify it exactly with any kind of modern boat of which I have found a representation. It is perhaps most like the palwār. I think it must be an Orissa word, but I have not been able to trace it in any dictionary, Uriya or Bengali." On this Col. Temple says: "The modern Indian palwār (Malay palwa) is a skiff, and would not answer the description." Anderson (loc. cit.) mentions that in 1685 several "well-laden Purgoes" and boats had put in for shelter at Rameswaram to the northward of Madapollam, i.e. on the Coromandel Coast. There seems to be no such word known there now. I think, however, that the term Purgoo is probably an obsolete Anglo-Indian corruption of an Indian corruption of the Port. term barco, barca, a term used for any kind of sailing boat by the early Portuguese visitors to the East (e.g. D'Alboquerque, Hak. Soc. ii. 230; Vasco da Gama, Hak. Soc. 77, 240).]
[1669-70.—"A Purgoo: These Vse for the most part between Hugly and Pyplo and Ballasore: with these boats they carry goods into ye Roads on board English and Dutch, &c. Ships, they will liue a longe time in ye Sea, beinge brought to anchor by ye Sterne, as theire Vsual way is."—MS. by T. B.[ateman], quoted by Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam, p. 266.]
1680.—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Jany. 30, "records arrival from the Bay of the 'Success,' the Captain of which reports that a Porgo [Peragua?, a fast-sailing vessel, Clipper] drove ashore in the Bay about Peply...."—Notes and Exts. No. iii. p. 2.
[1683.—"The Thomas arrived with ye 28 bales of Silk taken out of the Purga."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 65.
[1685.—"In Hoogly letter to Fort St. George, dated February 6 Porgo occurs coupled with 'bora' (Hind. bhar, 'a lighter')."—Pringle, Diary Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 165.]
PORTIA, s. In S. India the common name of the Thespesia {727b}populnea, Lam. (N.O. Malvaceae), a favourite ornamental tree, thriving best near the sea. The word is a corruption of Tamil Puarassu, 'Flower-king'; [pu-varasu, from pu, 'flower,' arasu, 'peepul tree']. In Ceylon it is called Suria gansuri, and also the Tulip-tree.
1742.—"Le bois sur lequel on les met (les toiles), et celui qu'on employe pour les battre, sont ordinairement de tamarinier, ou d'un autre arbe nommé porchi."—Lett. Edif. xiv. 122.
1860.—"Another useful tree, very common in Ceylon, is the Suria, with flowers so like those of a tulip that Europeans know it as the tulip tree. It loves the sea air and saline soils. It is planted all along the avenues and streets in the towns near the coast, where it is equally valued for its shade and the beauty of its yellow flowers, whilst its tough wood is used for carriage-shafts and gun-stocks."—Tennent's Ceylon, i. 117.
1861.—"It is usual to plant large branches of the portia and banyan trees in such a slovenly manner that there is little probability of the trees thriving or being ornamental."—Cleghorn, Forests and Gardens of S. India, 197.
PORTO NOVO, n.p. A town on the coast of South Arcot, 32 m. S. of Pondicherry. The first mention of it that we have found is in Bocarro, Decada, p. 42 (c. 1613). The name was perhaps intended to mean 'New Oporto,' rather than 'New Haven,' but we have not found any history of the name. [The Tamil name is Parangi-pēṭṭai, 'European town,' and it is called by Mahommedans Maḥmūd-bandar.]
1718.—"At Night we came to a Town called Porta Nova, and in Malabarish Pirenkī Potei (Parangipēṭṭai)."—Propagation of the Gospel, &c., Pt. ii. 41.
1726.—"The name of this city (Porto Novo) signifies in Portuguese New Haven, but the Moors call it Mohhammed Bendar ... and the Gentoos Perringepeente."—Valentijn, Choromandel, 8.
PORTO PIQUENO, PORTO GRANDE, nn.pp. 'The Little Haven and the Great Haven'; names by which the Bengal ports of Satigam (q.v.) and Chatigam (see CHITTAGONG) respectively were commonly known to the Portuguese in the 16th century.
1554.—"Porto Pequeno de Bemgala ... Cowries are current in the country; 80 cowries make 1 pone (see PUN); of these pones 48 are equal to 1 larin more or less."—A. Nunes, 37.
1554.—"Porto Grande de Bemgala. The maund (mão), by which they weigh all goods, contains 40 seers (ceros), each seer 182⁄5 ounces...."—A. Nunes, 37.
1568.—"Io mi parti d'Orisa per Bengala al Porto Picheno ... s'entra nel fiume Ganze, dalla bocca del qual fiume sino a Satagan (see SATIGAM) città, oue si fanno negotij, et oue i mercadanti si riducono, sono centi e venti miglia, che si fanno in diciotto hore a remi, cioè, in tre crescenti d'acqua, che sono di sei hore l'uno."—Ces. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 392.
1569.—"Partissemo di Sondiua, et giungessemo in Chitigan il gran porto di Bengala, in tempo che già i Portoghesi haueuano fatto pace o tregua con i Rettori."—Ibid. 396.
1595.—"Besides, you tell me that the traffic and commerce of the Porto Pequeno of Bemguala being always of great moment, if this goes to ruin through the Mogors, they will be the masters of those tracts."—Letter of the K. of Portugal, in Archiv. Port. Orient., Fascic. 3, p. 481.
1596.—"And so he wrote me that the Commerce of Porto Grande of Bengala is flourishing, and that the King of the Country had remitted to the Portuguese 3 per cent. of the duties that they used to pay."—Ibid. p. 580.
1598.—"When you thinke you are at the point de Gualle, to be assured thereof, make towards the Iland, to know it ... where commonlie all the shippes know the land, such I say as we sayle to Bengalen, or to any of the Hauens thereof, as Porto Pequeno or Porto Grande, that is the small, or the great Haven, where the Portingalles doe traffique...."—Linschoten, Book III. p. 324.
[c. 1617.—"Port Grande, Port Pequina," in Sir T. Roe's List, Hak. Soc. ii. 538.]
POSTEEN, s. An Afghan leathern pelisse, generally of sheep-skin with the fleece on. Pers. postīn, from post, 'a hide.'
1080.—"Khwája Ahmad came on some Government business to Ghaznín, and it was reported to him that some merchants were going to Turkistán, who were returning to Ghaznín in the beginning of winter. The Khwája remembered that he required a certain number of postins (great coats) every year for himself and sons...."—Nizám-ul-Mulk, in Elliot, ii. 497.
1442.—"His Majesty the Fortunate Khākān had sent for the Prince of Kālikūt, horses, pelisses (postīn) and robes woven of gold...."—Abdurazzāk, in Not. et Extr. xiv. Pt. i. 437.
[c. 1590.—"In the winter season there is no need of poshtins (fur-lined coats)...."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 337.]
1862.—"Otter skins from the Hills and Kashmir, worn as Postīns by the Yarkandis."—Punjab Trade Report, p. 65.
POTTAH, s. Hind. and other vernaculars, paṭṭā, &c. A document specifying the conditions on which lands are held; a lease or other document securing rights in land or house property.
1778.—"I am therefore hopeful you will be kindly pleased to excuse me the five lacs now demanded, and that nothing may be demanded of me beyond the amount expressed in the pottah."—The Rajah of Benares to Hastings, in Articles of Charge against H., Burke, vi. 591.
[1860.—"By the Zumeendar, then, or his under tenant, as the case may be, the land is farmed out to the Ryuts by pottahs, or agreements...."—Grant, Rural Life in Bengal, 67.
PRA, PHRA, PRAW, s. This is a term constantly used in Burma, familiar to all who have been in that country, in its constant application as a style of respect, addressed or applied to persons and things of especial sanctity or dignity. Thus it is addressed at Court to the King; it is the habitual designation of the Buddha and his images and dagobas; of superior ecclesiastics and sacred books; corresponding on the whole in use, pretty closely to the Skt. Śṛī. In Burmese the word is written bhurā, but pronounced (in Arakan) p'hrā, and in modern Burma Proper, with the usual slurring of the r, P'hyā or Pyā. The use of the term is not confined to Burma; it is used in quite a similar way in Siam, as may be seen in the quotation below from Alabaster; the word is used in the same form P'hra among the Shans; and in the form Prea, it would seem, in Camboja. Thus Garnier speaks of Indra and Vishnu under their Cambojan epithets as Prea En and Prea Noreai (Nārāyaṇa); of the figure of Buddha entering nirvāna, as Prea Nippan; of the King who built the great temple of Angkor Wat as Prea Kot Melea, of the King reigning at the time of the expedition as Prea Ang Reachea Vodey, of various sites of temples as Preacon, Preacan, Prea Pithu, &c. (Voyage d'Exploration, i. 26, 49, 388, 77, 85, 72).
The word p'hrā appears in composition in various names of Burmese kings, as of the famous Alomp'hra (1753-60), founder of the late dynasty, and of his son Bodoah-p'hra (1781-1819). In the former instance the {729a}name is, according to Sir A. Phayre, Alaung-p'hrā, i.e. the embryo Buddha, or Bodisatva. A familiar Siamese example of use is in the Phrā Bāt, or sacred foot-mark of Buddha, a term which represents the Śṛi Pada of Ceylon.
The late Prof. H. H. Wilson, as will be seen, supposed the word to be a corruption of Skt. prabhu (see PARVOE). But Mr. Alabaster points, under the guidance of the Siamese spelling, rather to Skt. vara, 'pre-eminent, excellent.' This is in Pali varo, "excellent, best, precious, noble" (Childers). A curious point is that, from the prevalence of the term phrā in all the Indo-Chinese kingdoms, we must conclude that it was, at the time of the introduction of Buddhism into those countries, in predominant use among the Indian or Ceylonese propagators of the new religion. Yet we do not find any evidence of such a use of either prabhu or vara. The former would in Pali be pabbho. In a short paper in the Bijdragen of the Royal Institute of the Hague (Dl. X. 4de Stuk, 1885), Prof. Kern indicates that this term was also in use in Java, in the forms Bra and pra, with the sense of 'splendid' and the like; and he cites as an example Bra-Wijaya (the style of several of the medieval kings of Java), where Bra is exactly the representative of Skt. Śṛī.
1688.—"I know that in the country of Laos the Dignities of Pa-ya and Meuang, and the honourable Epithets of Pra are in use; it may be also that the other terms of Dignity are common to both Nations, as well as the Laws."—De la Loubère, Siam, E.T. 79.
" "The Pra-Clang, or by a corruption of the Portugueses, the Barcalon, is the officer, who has the appointment of the Commerce, as well within as without the Kingdom.... His name is composed of the Balie word Pra, which I have so often discoursed of, and of the word Clang, which signifies Magazine."—Ibid. 93.
" "Then Sommona-Codom (see GAUTAMA) they call Pra-Boute-Tchaou, which verbatim signifies the Great and Excellent Lord."—Ibid. 134.
1795.—"At noon we reached Meeaday, the personal estate of the Magwoon of Pegue, who is oftener called, from this place, Meeaday Praw, or Lord of Meeaday."—Symes, Embassy to Ava, 242.
1855.—"The epithet Phra, which occupies so prominent a place in the ceremonial and religious vocabulary of the Siamese and Burmese, has been the subject of a good {729b}deal of nonsense. It is unfortunate that our Burmese scholars have never (I believe) been Sanskrit scholars, nor vice versâ, so that the Palee terms used in Burma have had little elucidation. On the word in question, Professor H. H. Wilson has kindly favoured me with a note: 'Phrá is no doubt a corruption of the Sanskrit Prabhu, a Lord or Master; the h of the aspirate bh is often retained alone, leaving Prahu which becomes Práh or Phra.'"—Sir H. Yule, Mission to Ava, 61.
1855.—"All these readings (of documents at the Court) were intoned in a high recitative, strongly resembling that used in the English cathedral service. And the long-drawn Phyá-á-á-á! (My Lord), which terminated each reading, added to the resemblance, as it came in exactly like the Amen of the Liturgy."—Ibid. 88.
1859.—"The word Phra, which so frequently occurs in this work, here appears for the first time; I have to remark that it is probably derived from, or of common origin with, the Pharaoh of antiquity. It is given in the Siamese dictionaries as synonymous with God, ruler, priest, and teacher. It is in fact the word by which sovereignty and sanctity are associated in the popular mind."—Bowring, Kingdom and People of Siam, [i. 35].
1863.—"The title of the First King (of Siam) is Phra-Chom-Klao-Yu-Hua and spoken as Phra Phutthi-Chao-Yu-Hua.... His Majesty's nose is styled in the Pali form Phra-Nasa.... The Siamese term the (Catholic) missionaries, the Preachers of the Phra-Chao Phu-Sang, i.e. of God the Creator, or the Divine Lord Builder.... The Catholic missionaries express 'God' by Phra-Phutthi-Chao ... and they explain the Eucharist as Phra-Phutthi-Kaya (Kaya = 'Body')."—Bastian, Reise, iii. 109, and 114-115.
1870.—"The most excellent Parā, brilliant in his glory, free from all ignorance, beholding Nibbāna the end of the migration of the soul, lighted the lamp of the law of the Word."—Rogers, Buddhagosha's Parables, tr. from the Burmese, p. 1.
1871.—"Phra is a Siamese word applied to all that is worthy of the highest respect, that is, everything connected with religion and royalty. It may be translated as 'holy.' The Siamese letters p—h—r commonly represent the Sanskrit v—r. I therefore presume the word to be derived from the Sanskrit 'vri'—'to choose, or to be chosen,' and 'vara'—'better, best, excellent,' the root of ἄριστος."—Alabaster, The Wheel of the Law, 164.
PRAAG, sometimes PIAGG, n.p. Properly Prayāga, 'the place of sacrifice,' the old Hindu name of Allahabad, and especially of the river confluence, since remote ages a place of pilgrimage.
c. A.D. 638.—"Le royaume de Polo-ye-kia (Prayâga) a environ 5000 li de tour. La {730a}capitale, qui est située au confluent de deux fleuves, a environ 20 li de tour.... Dans la ville, il y a un temple des dieux qui est d'une richesse éblouissante, et où éclatent une multitude de miracles.... Si quel qu'un est capable de pousser le mépris de la vie jusqu' à se donner la mort dans ce temple, il obtient le bonheur eternel et les joies infinies des dieux.... Depuis l'antiquité jusqu' à nos jours, cette coutume insensée n'a pas cessé un instant."—Hiouen-Thsang, in Pèl. Boudd. ii. 276-79.
c. 1020.—"... thence to the tree of Barāgi, 12 (parasangs). This is at the confluence of the Jumna and Ganges."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 55.
1529.—"The same day I swam across the river Ganges for my amusement. I counted my strokes, and found that I crossed over at 33 strokes. I then took breath and swam back to the other side. I had crossed by swimming every river that I had met with, except the Ganges. On reaching the place where the Ganges and Jumna unite, I rowed over in the boat to the Piâg side...."—Baber, 406.
1585.—"... Frõ Agra I came to Prage, where the riuer Jemena entreth into the mightie riuer Ganges, and Iemena looseth his name."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 386.
PRACRIT, s. A term applied to the older vernacular dialects of India, such as were derived from, or kindred to, Sanskrit. Dialects of this nature are used by ladies, and by inferior characters, in the Sanskrit dramas. These dialects, and the modern vernaculars springing from them, bear the same relation to Sanskrit that the "Romance" languages of Europe bear to Latin, an analogy which is found in many particulars to hold with most surprising exactness. The most completely preserved of old Prakrits is that which was used in Magadha, and which has come down in the Buddhist books of Ceylon under the name of Pali (q.v.). The first European analysis of this language bears the title "Institutiones Linguae Pracriticae. Scripsit Christianus Lassen, Bonnae ad Rhenum, 1837." The term itself is Skt. prākṛita, 'natural, unrefined, vulgar,' &c.
1801.—"Sanscrita is the speech of the Celestials, framed in grammatical institutes, Pracrita is similar to it, but manifold as a provincial dialect, and otherwise."—Sanskrit Treatise, quoted by Colebrooke, in As. Res. vii. 199.
PRAYA, s. This is in Hong-Kong the name given to what in most foreign settlements in China is called the Bund; i.e. the promenade or drive {730b}along the sea. It is Port. praia, 'the shore.'
[1598.—"Another towne towards the North, called Villa de Praya (for Praya is as much as to say, as strand)."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 278.]
PRESIDENCY (and PRESIDENT), s. The title 'President,' as applied to the Chief of a principal Factory, was in early popular use, though in the charters of the E.I.C. its first occurrence is in 1661 (see Letters Patent, below). In Sainsbury's Calendar we find letters headed "to Capt. Jourdain, president of the English at Bantam" in 1614 (i. 297-8); but it is to be doubted whether this wording is in the original. A little later we find a "proposal by Mr. Middleton concerning the appointment of two especial factors, at Surat and Bantam, to have authority over all other factors; Jourdain named." And later again he is styled "John Jourdain, Captain of the house" (at Bantam; see pp. 303, 325), and "Chief Merchant at Bantam" (p. 343).
1623.—"Speaking of the Dutch Commander, as well as of the English President, who often in this fashion came to take me for an airing, I should not omit to say that both of them in Surat live in great style, and like the grandees of the land. They go about with a great train, sometimes with people of their own mounted, but particularly with a great crowd of Indian servants on foot and armed, according to custom, with sword, target, bow and arrows."—P. della Valle, ii. 517.
" "Our boat going ashore, the President of the English Merchants, who usually resides in Surat, and is chief of all their business in the E. Indies, Persia, and other places dependent thereon, and who is called Sign. Thomas Rastel[225] ... came aboard in our said boat, with a minister of theirs (so they term those who do the priest's office among them)."—Ibid. ii. 501-2; [Hak. Soc. i. 19].
1638.—"As soon as the Commanders heard that the (English) President was come to Suhaly, they went ashore.... The two dayes following were spent in feasting, at which the Commanders of the two Ships treated the President, who afterwards returned to Suratta.... During my abode at Suratta, I wanted for no divertisement; for I ... found company at the Dutch President's, who had his Farms there ... {731a}inasmuch as I could converse with them in their own Language."—Mandelslo, E.T., ed. 1669, p. 19.
1638.—"Les Anglois ont bien encore vn bureau à Bantam, dans l'Isle de Jaua, mais il a son President particulier, qui ne depend point de celuy de Suratta."—Mandelslo, French ed. 1659, p. 124.
" "A mon retour à Suratta ie trouvay dans la loge des Anglois plus de cinquante marchands, que le President auoit fait venir de tous les autres Bureaux, pour rendre compte de leur administration, et pour estre presens à ce changement de Gouuernement."—Ibid. 188.
1661.—"And in case any Person or Persons, being convicted and sentenced by the President and Council of the said Governor and Company, in the said East Indies, their Factors or Agents there, for any Offence by them done, shall appeal from the same, that then, and in every such case, it shall and may be lawful to and for the said President and Council, Factor or Agent, to seize upon him or them, and to carry him or them home Prisoners to England."—Letters Patent to the Governor and Company of Merchants of London, trading with the E. Indies, 3d April.
1670.—The Court, in a letter to Fort St. George, fix the amount of tonnage to be allowed to their officers (for their private investments) on their return to Europe:
| "Presidents and Agents, at Surat, Fort St. George, and Bantam |
5 tonns. |
| Chiefes, at Persia, the Bay (q.v.), Mesulapatam, and Macassar: Deputy at Bombay, and Seconds at Surat, Fort St. George, and Bantam |
3 tonns." |
| In Notes and Exts., No. i. p. 3. |
1702.—"Tuesday 7th Aprill.... In the morning a Councill ... afterwards having some Discourse arising among us whether the charge of hiring Calashes, &c., upon Invitations given us from the Shabander or any others to go to their Countrey Houses or upon any other Occasion of diverting our Selves abroad for health, should be charged to our Honble Masters account or not, the President and Mr. Loyd were of opinion to charge the same.... But Mr. Rouse, Mr. Ridges, and Mr. Master were of opinion that Batavia being a place of extraordinary charge and Expense in all things, the said Calash hire, &c., ought not to be charged to the Honourable Company's Account."—MS. Records in India Office.
The book containing this is a collocation of fragmentary MS. diaries. But this passage pertains apparently to the proceedings of President Allen Catchpole and his council, belonging to the Factory of Chusan, from which they were expelled by the Chinese in 1701-2; they stayed some time at Batavia on their way home. Mr. Catchpole (or Ketchpole) was soon afterwards chief of an English settlement made {731b}upon Pulo Condore, off the Cambojan coast. In 1704-5, we read that he reported favourably on the prospects of the settlement, requesting a supply of young writers, to learn the Chinese language, anticipating that the island would soon become an important station for Chinese trade. But Catchpole was himself, about the end of 1705, murdered by certain people of Macassar, who thought he had broken faith with them, and with him all the English but two (see Bruce's Annals, 483-4, 580, 606, and A. Hamilton, ii. 205 [ed. 1744]). The Pulo Condore enterprise thus came to an end.
1727.—"About the year 1674, President Aungier, a gentleman well qualified for governing, came to the Chair, and leaving Surat to the Management of Deputies, came to Bombay, and rectified many things."—A. Hamilton, i. 188.
PRICKLY-HEAT, s. A troublesome cutaneous rash (Lichen tropicus) in the form of small red pimples, which itch intolerably. It affects many Europeans in the hot weather. Fryer (pub. 1698) alludes to these "fiery pimples," but gives the disease no specific name. Natives sometimes suffer from it, and (in the south) use a paste of sandal-wood to alleviate it. Sir Charles Napier in Sind used to suffer much from it, and we have heard him described as standing, when giving an interview during the hot weather, with his back against the edge of an open door, for the convenience of occasional friction against it. [See RED-DOG.]
1631.—"Quas Latinus Hippocrates Cornelius Celsus papulas, Plinius sudamina vocat ... ita crebra sunt, ut ego adhuc neminem noverim qui molestias has effugerit, non magis quam morsas culicum, quos Lusitani Mosquitas vocant. Sunt autem haec papulae rubentes, et asperae aliquantum, per sudorem in cutem ejectæ; plerumque a capite ad calcem usque, cum summo pruritu, et assiduo scalpendi desiderio erumpentes."—Jac. Bontii, Hist. Nat. &c., ii. 18, p. 33.
1665.—"The Sun is but just now rising, yet he is intolerable; there is not a Cloud in the Sky, not a breath of Wind; my horses are spent, they have not seen a green Herb since we came out of Lahor; my Indians, for all their black, dry, and hard skin, sink under it.  To give you some notion of its intensity, the placid Lord William (Bentinck) has been found sprawling on a table on his back; and Sir Henry Gwillin, one of the Madras Judges, who is a Welshman, and a fiery Briton in all senses, was discovered by a visitor rolling on his own floor, roaring like a baited bull."—Lord Minto in India, June 29.
1813.—"Among the primary effects of a hot climate (for it can hardly be called a disease) we may notice prickly heat."—Johnson, Influence of Trop. Climates, 25.
PRICKLY-PEAR, s. The popular name, in both E. and W. Indies, of the Opuntia Dillenii, Haworth (Cactus Indica, Roxb.), a plant spread all over India, and to which Roxburgh gave the latter name, apparently in the belief of its being indigenous in that country. Undoubtedly, however, it came from America, wide as has been its spread over Southern Europe and Asia. On some parts of the Mediterranean shores (e.g. in Sicily) it has become so characteristic that it is hard to realize the fact that the plant had no existence there before the 16th century. Indeed at Palermo we have heard this scouted, and evidence quoted in the supposed circumstance that among the mosaics of the splendid Duomo of Monreale (12th century) the fig-leaf garments of Adam and Eve are represented as of this uncompromising material. The mosaic was examined by one of the present writers, with the impression that the belief has no good foundation. [See 8th ser. Notes and Queries, viii. 254.] The cactus fruit, yellow, purple, and red, which may be said to form an important article of diet in the Mediterranean, and which is now sometimes seen in London shops, is not, as far as we know, anywhere used in India, except in times of famine. No cactus is named in Drury's Useful Plants of India. And whether the Mediterranean plants form a different species, or varieties merely, as compared with the Indian Opuntia, is a matter for inquiry. The fruit of the Indian plant is smaller and less succulent. There is a good description of the plant and fruit in Oviedo, with a good {732b}cut (see Ramusio's Ital. version, bk. viii. ch. xxv.). That author gives an amusing story of his first making acquaintance with the fruit in S. Domingo, in the year 1515.
Some of the names by which the Opuntia is known in the Punjab seem to belong properly to species of Euphorbia. Thus the Euphorbia Royleana, Bois., is called tsūī, chū, &c.; and the Opuntia is called Kābulī tsūī, Gangi sho, Kanghi chū, &c. Gangi chū is also the name of an Euphorbia sp. which Dr. Stewart takes to be the E. Neriifolia, L. (Punjab Plants, pp. 101 and 194-5). [The common name in Upper India for the prickly pear is nāgphanī, 'snake-hood,' from its shape.] This is curious; for although certain cactuses are very like certain Euphorbias, there is no Euphorbia resembling the Opuntia in form.
The Zaḳūm mentioned in the Āīn (Gladwin, 1800, ii. 68; [Jarrett, ii. 239; Sidi Ali, ed. Vambery, p. 31] as used for hedges in Guzerat, is doubtless Euphorbia also. The Opuntia is very common as a hedge plant in cantonments, &c., and it was much used by Tippoo as an obstruction round his fortifications. Both the E. Royleana and the Opuntia are used for fences in parts of the Punjab. The latter is objectionable, from harbouring dirt and reptiles; but it spreads rapidly both from birds eating the fruit, and from the facility with which the joints take root.
1685.—"The Prickly-Pear, Bush, or Shrub, of about 4 or 5 foot high ... the Fruit at first is green, like the Leaf.... It is very pleasant in taste, cooling and refreshing; but if a Man eats 15 or 20 of them they will colour his water, making it look like Blood."—Dampier, i. 223 (in W. Indies).
1764.—
"On this lay cuttings of the prickly pear;
They soon a formidable fence will shoot."
Grainger, Bk. i.
[1829.—"The castle of Bunai ... is covered with the cactus, or prickly pear, so abundant on the east side of the Aravali."—Tod, Annals, Calcutta reprint, i. 826.]
1861.—"The use of the prickly pear" (for hedges) "I strongly deprecate; although impenetrable and inexpensive, it conveys an idea of sterility, and is rapidly becoming a nuisance in this country."—Cleghorn, Forests and Gardens, 285.
PROME, n.p. An important place in Pegu above the Delta. The name is Talaing, properly Brun. The {733a}Burmese call it Pyé or (in the Aracanese form in which the r is pronounced) Pré and Pré-myo ('city').
1545.—"When he (the K. of Bramaa) was arrived at the young King's pallace, he caused himself to be crowned King of Prom, and during the Ceremony ... made that poor Prince, whom he had deprived of his Kingdom, to continue kneeling before him, with his hands held up.... This done he went into a Balcone, which looked on a great Market-place, whither he commanded all the dead children that lay up and down the streets, to be brought, and then causing them to be hacked very small, he gave them, mingled with Bran, Rice, and Herbs, to his Elephants to eat."—Pinto, E.T. 211-212 (orig. clv.).
c. 1609.—"... this quarrel was hardly ended when a great rumour of arms was heard from a quarter where the Portuguese were still fighting. The cause of this was the arrival of 12,000 men, whom the King of Pren sent in pursuit of the King of Arracan, knowing that he had fled that way. Our people hastening up had a stiff and well fought combat with them; for although they were fatigued with the fight which had been hardly ended, those of Pren were so disheartened at seeing the Portuguese, whose steel they had already felt, that they were fain to retire."—Bocarro, 142. This author has Prom (p. 132) and Porão (p. 149). [Also see under AVA.]
1755.—"Prone ... has the ruins of an old brick wall round it, and immediately without that, another with Teak Timber."—Capt. G. Baker, in Dalrymple, i. 173.
1795.—"In the evening, my boat being ahead, I reached the city of Peeaye-mew, or Prome, ... renowned in Birman history."—Symes, pp. 238-9.
PROW, PARAO, &c., s. This word seems to have a double origin in European use; the Malayāl. pāṛu, 'a boat,' and the Island word (common to Malay, Javanese, and most languages of the Archipelago) prāū or prāhū. This is often specifically applied to a peculiar kind of galley, "Malay Prow," but Crawfurd defines it as "a general term for any vessel, but generally for small craft." It is hard to distinguish between the words, as adopted in the earlier books, except by considering date and locality.
1499.—"The King despatched to them a large boat, which they call paráo, well manned, on board which he sent a Naire of his with an errand to the Captains...."—Correa, Lendas, I. i. 115.
1510.—(At Calicut) "Some other small ships are called Parao, and they are boats of ten paces each, and are all of a piece, and go with oars made of cane, and the mast also is made of cane."—Varthema, 154.
1510.—"The other Persian said: 'O Sir, what shall we do?' I replied: 'Let us go along this shore till we find a parao, that is, a small bark.'"—Ibid. 269.
1518.—"Item; that any one possessing a zambuquo (see SAMBOOK) or a parao of his own and desiring to go in it may do so with all that belongs to him, first giving notice two days before to the Captain of the City."—Livro dos Privilegios da Cidade de Goa, in Archiv. Port. Orient. Fascic. v. p. 7.
1523.—"When Dom Sancho (Dom Sancho Anriquez; see Correa, ii. 770) went into Muar to fight with the fleet of the King of Bintam which was inside the River, there arose a squall which upset all our paraos and lancharas at the bar mouth...."—Lembrança de Cousas de India, p. 5.
1582.—"Next daye after the Capitaine Generall with all his men being a land, working upon the ship called Berrio, there came in two little Paraos."—Castañeda (tr. by N. L.), f. 62v.
1586.—"The fifth and last festival, which is called Sapan Donon, is one in which the King (of Pegu) is embarked in the most beautiful parò, or boat...."—G. Balbi, f. 122.
1606.—Gouvea (f. 27v) uses parò.
" "An howre after this comming a board of the hollanders came a prawe or a canow from Bantam."—Middleton's Voyage, c. 3 (v).
[1611.—"The Portuguese call their own galiots Navires (navios) and those of the Malabars, Pairaus. Most of these vessels were Chetils (see CHETTY), that is to say merchantmen. Immediately on arrival the Malabars draw up their Pados or galliots on the beach."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 345.
1623.—"In the Morning we discern'd four ships of Malabar Rovers near the shore (they called them Paroes and they goe with Oars like our Galeots or Foists."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 201.]
[1666.—"Con secreto previno Lope de Soarez veinte bateles, y gobernandolo y entrando por un rio, hallaron el peligro de cinco naves y ochenta paraos con mucha gente resuelta y de valor."—Faria y Sousa, Asia, i. 66.
1673.—"They are owners of several small Provoes, of the same make, and Canooses, cut out of one entire Piece of Wood."—Fryer, 20. Elsewhere (e.g. 57, 59) he has Proes.
1727.—"The Andemaners had a yearly Custom to come to the Nicobar Islands, with a great number of small Praws, and kill or take Prisoners as many of the poor Nicobareans as they could overcome."—A. Hamilton, ii. 65 [ed. 1744].
1816.—"... Prahu, a term under which the Malays include every description of vessel."—Raffles, in As. Res. xii. 132.
1817.—"The Chinese also have many brigs ... as well as native-built prahus."—Raffles, Java, i. 203.
1868.—"On December 13th I went on board a prau bound for the Aru Islands."—Wallace, Malay Archip. 227.
PUCKA, adj. Hind. pakkā, 'ripe, mature, cooked'; and hence substantial, permanent, with many specific applications, of which examples have been given under the habitually contrasted term cutcha (q.v.). One of the most common uses in which the word has become specific is that of a building of brick and mortar, in contradistinction to one of inferior material, as of mud, matting, or timber. Thus:
[1756.—"... adjacent houses; all of them of the strongest Pecca work, and all most proof against our Mettal on ye Bastions." Capt. Grant, Report on Siege of Calcutta, ed. by Col. Temple, Ind. Ant., 1890, p. 7.]
1784.—"The House, Cook-room, bottle-connah, godown, &c., are all pucka-built."—In Seton-Karr, i. 41.
1824.—"A little above this beautiful stream, some miserable pucka sheds pointed out the Company's warehouses."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 259-60.
1842.—"I observe that there are in the town (Dehli) many buildings pucka-built, as it is called in India."—Wellington to Ld. Ellenborough, in Indian Adm. of Ld. E., p. 306.
1857.—"Your Lahore men have done nobly. I should like to embrace them; Donald, Roberts, Mac, and Dick are, all of them, pucca trumps."—Lord Lawrence, in Life, ii. 11.
1869.—"... there is no surer test by which to measure the prosperity of the people than the number of pucka houses that are being built."—Report of a Sub-Committee on Proposed Indian Census.
This application has given rise to a substantive pucka, for work of brick and mortar, or for the composition used as cement and plaster.
1727.—"Fort William was built on an irregular Tetragon of Brick and Mortar, called Puckah, which is a Composition of Brick-dust, Lime, Molasses, and cut Hemp, and when it comes to be dry, it is as hard and tougher than firm Stone or Brick."—A. Hamilton, ii. 19; [ed. 1744, ii. 7].
The word was also sometimes used substantively for "pucka pice" (see CUTCHA).
c. 1817.—"I am sure I strive, and strive, and yet last month I could only lay by eight rupees and four puckers."—Mrs. Sherwood's Stories, 66.
In (Stockdale's) Indian Vocabulary of 1788 we find another substantive use, but it was perhaps even then inaccurate.
1788.—"Pucka—A putrid fever, generally fatal in 24 hours."
Another habitual application of pucka and cutcha distinguishes between two classes of weights and measures. The existence of twofold weight, the pucka ser and the cutcha, used to be very general in India. It was equally common in Medieval Europe. Almost every city in Italy had its libra grossa and libra sottile (e.g. see Pegolotti, 4, 34, 153, 228, &c.), and we ourselves still have them, under the names of pound avoirdupois and pound troy.
1673.—"The Maund Pucka at Agra is double as much (as the Surat Maund)."—Fryer, 205.
1760.—"Les pacca cosses ... repondent à une lieue de l'Isle de France."—Lett. Edif. xv. 189.
1803.—"If the rice should be sent to Coraygaum, it should be in sufficient quantities to give 72 pucca seers for each load."—Wellington, Desp. (ed. 1837), ii. 43.
In the next quotation the terms apply to the temporary or permanent character of the appointments held.
1866.—"Susan. Well, Miss, I don't wonder you're so fond of him. He is such a sweet young man, though he is cutcha. Thank goodness, my young man is pucka, though he is only a subordinate Government Salt Chowkee."—Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow, 222.
The remaining quotations are examples of miscellaneous use:
1853.—"'Well, Jenkyns, any news?' 'Nothing pucka that I know of.'"—Oakfield, ii. 57.
1866.—"I cannot endure a swell, even though his whiskers are pucka."—Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow, in Fraser, lxxiii. 220.
The word has spread to China:
"Dis pukka sing-song makee show
How smart man make mistake, galow."
Leland, Pidgin English Sing-Song, 54.
PUCKAULY, s.; also PUCKAUL. Hind. pakhālī, 'a water-carrier.' In N. India the pakhāl [Skt. payas, 'water,' khalla, 'skin'] is a large water-skin (an entire ox-hide) of some 20 gallons content, of which a pair are carried by a bullock, and the pakhālī is the man who fills the skins, and supplies the water thus. In the Madras Drill Regulations for 1785 (33), ten puckalies are allowed to a battalion. (See also Williamson's V. M. (1810), i. 229.)
[1538.—Referring to the preparations for the siege of Diu, "which they brought from all the wells on the island by all the bullocks they could collect with their water-skins, which they call pacals (Pacais)."—Couto, Dec. V. Bk. iii. ch. 2.]
1780.—"There is another very necessary establishment to the European corps, which is two buccalies to each company: these are two large leathern bags for holding water, slung upon the back of a bullock...."—Munro's Narrative, 183.
1803.—"It (water) is brought by means of bullocks in leathern bags, called here puckally bags, a certain number of which is attached to every regiment and garrison in India. Black fellows called Puckauly-boys are employed to fill the bags, and drive the bullocks to the quarters of the different Europeans."—Percival's Ceylon, 102.
1804.—"It would be a much better arrangement to give the adjutants of corps an allowance of 26 rupees per mensam, to supply two puckalie men, and two bullocks with bags, for each company."—Wellington, iii. 509.
1813.—"In cities, in the armies, and with Europeans on country excursions, the water for drinking is usually carried in large leather bags called pacaulies, formed by the entire skin of an ox."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 140; [2nd ed. i. 415].
1842.—"I lost no time in confidentially communicating with Capt. Oliver on the subject of trying some experiments as to the possibility of conveying empty 'puckalls' and 'mussucks' by sea to Suez."—Sir G. Arthur, in Ellenborough's Ind. Admin. 219.
[1850.—"On the reverse flank of companies march the Pickalliers, or men driving bullocks, carrying large leather bags filled with water...."—Hervey, Ten Years in India, iii. 335.]
PUCKEROW, v. This is properly the imperative of the Hind. verb pakṛānā, 'to cause to be seized,' pakṛāo, 'cause him to be seized'; or perhaps more correctly of a compound verb pakaṛāo, 'seize and come,' or in our idiom, 'Go and seize.' But puckerow belongs essentially to the dialect of the European soldier, and in that becomes of itself a verb 'to puckerow,' i.e. to lay hold of (generally of a recalcitrant native). The conversion of the Hind. imperative into an Anglo-Indian verb infinitive, is not uncommon; compare bunow, dumbcow, gubbrow, lugow, &c.
1866.—"Fanny, I am cutcha no longer. Surely you will allow a lover who is pucka to puckero!"—Trevelyan, The Dawk Bungalow, 390.
PUDIPATAN, n.p. The name of a very old seaport of Malabar, which {735b}has now ceased to have a place in the Maps. It lay between Cannanore and Calicut, and must have been near the Waddakaré of K. Johnston's Royal Atlas. [It appears in the map in Logan's Malabar as Putuppatanam or Putappanam.] The name is Tamil, Pudupaṭṭana, 'New City.' Compare true form of Pondicherry.
c. 545.—"The most notable places of trade are these ... and then five marts of Malé from which pepper is exported, to wit, Parti, Mangaruth (see MANGALORE), Salopatana, Nalopatana, Pudopatana...."—Cosmas Indicopleustes, Bk. xi. (see in Cathay, &c. p. clxxviii.).
c. 1342.—"Buddfattan, which is a considerable city, situated upon a great estuary.... The haven of this city is one of the finest; the water is good, the betel-nut is abundant, and is exported thence to India and China."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 87.
c. 1420.—"A quâ rursus se diebus viginti terrestri viâ contulit ad urbem portumque maritimum nomine Pudifetaneam."—Conti, in Poggio, de Var. Fort.
1516.—"... And passing those places you come to a river called Pudripatan, in which there is a good place having many Moorish merchants who possess a multitude of ships, and here begins the Kingdom of Calicut."—Barbosa, in Ramusio, i. f. 311v. See also in Stanley's Barbosa Pudopatani, and in Tohfat-ul-Mujahideen, by Rowlandson, pp. 71, 157, where the name (Budfattan) is misread Buduftun.
[PUG, s. Hind. pag, Skt. padaka, 'a foot'; in Anglo-Indian use the footmarks of an animal, such as a tiger.
[1831.—"... sanguine we were sometimes on the report of a bura pug from the shikaree."—Orient. Sport. Mag. reprint 1873, ii. 178.
[1882.—"Presently the large square 'pug' of the tiger we were in search of appeared."—Sanderson, Thirteen Years, 30.]
PUGGRY, PUGGERIE, s. Hind. pagṛī, 'a turban.' The term being often used in colloquial for a scarf of cotton or silk wound round the hat in turban-form, to protect the head from the sun, both the thing and name have of late years made their way to England, and may be seen in London shop-windows.
c. 1200.—"Prithirâja ... wore a pagari ornamented with jewels, with a splendid toro. In his ears he wore pearls; on his neck a pearl necklace."—Chand Bardai E.T. by Beames, Ind. Ant. i. 282.
[1627.—"... I find it is the common mode of the Eastern People to shave the head all save a long lock which superstitiously {736a}they leave at the very top, such especially as wear Turbans, Mandils, Dustars, and Puggarees."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1677, p. 140.]
1673.—"They are distinguished, some according to the consanguinity they claim with Mahomet, as a Siad is akin to that Imposture, and therefore only assumes to himself a Green Vest and Puckery (or Turbat)...."—Fryer, 93; [comp. 113].
1689.—"... with a Puggaree or Turbant upon their Heads."—Ovington, 314.
1871.—"They (the Negro Police in Demarara) used frequently to be turned out to parade in George Town streets, dressed in a neat uniform, with white puggries framing in their ebony faces."—Jenkins, The Coolie.
PUGGY, s. Hind. pagī (not in Shakespear's Dict., nor in Platts), from pag (see PUG), 'the foot.' A professional tracker; the name of a caste, or rather an occupation, whose business is to track thieves by footmarks and the like. On the system, see Burton, Sind Revisited, i. 180 seqq.
[1824.—"There are in some of the districts of Central India (as in Guzerat) puggees, who have small fees on the village, and whose business it is to trace thieves by the print of their feet."—Malcolm, Central India, 2nd ed. ii. 19.]
1879.—"Good puggies or trackers should be employed to follow the dacoits during the daytime."—Times of India, Overland Suppt., May 12, p. 7.
PUHUR, PORE, PYRE, &c., s. Hind. pahar, pahr, from Skt. prahara. 'A fourth part of the day and of the night, a watch' or space of 8 ghaṛīs (see GHURRY).
c. 1526.—"The natives of Hindostân divide the night and day into 60 parts, each of which they denominate a Gheri; they likewise divide the night into 4 parts, and the day into the same number, each of which they call a Pahar or watch, which the Persians call a Pâs."—Baber, 331.
[c. 1590.—"The Hindu philosophers divide the day and night into four parts, each of which they call a pahr."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, iii. 15.]
1633.—"Par." See under GHURRY.
1673.—"Pore." See under GONG.
1803.—"I have some Jasooses selected by Col. C's brahmin for their stupidity, that they might not pry into state secrets, who go to Sindia's camp, remain there a phaur in fear...."—M. Elphinstone, in Life, i. 62.
PULÁ, s. In Tamil pillai, Malayāl. pilla, 'child'; the title of a superior class of (so-called) Śūdras, [especially {736b}curnums]. In Cochin and Travancore it corresponds with Nāyar (see NAIR). It is granted by the sovereign, and carries exemption from customary manual labour.
1553.—"... pulas, who are the gentlemen" (fidalgos).—Castanheda, iv. 2.
[1726.—"O Saguate que o Commendor tinha remetido como gristnave amim e as Pulamares temos ca recebid."—Ratification, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 13.]
PULICAT, n.p. A town on the Madras coast, which was long the seat of a Dutch factory. Bp. Caldwell's native friend Seshagiri Śāstri gives the proper name as pala-Vêlkāḍu, 'old Velkāḍu or Verkāḍu,' the last a place-name mentioned in the Tamil Sivaite Tevāram (see also Valentijn below). [The Madras Gloss. gives Pazhaverk-kādu, 'old acacia forest,' which is corroborated by Dr. Hultzsch (Epigraphia Indica, i. 398).]
1519.—"And because he had it much in charge to obtain all the lac (alacre) that he could, the Governor learning from merchants that much of it was brought to the Coast of Choromandel by the vessels of Pegu and Martaban which visited that coast to procure painted cloths and other coloured goods, such as are made in Paleacate, which is on the coast of Choromandel, whence the traders with whom the Governor spoke brought it to Cochin; he, having got good information on the whole matter, sent a certain Frolentine (sic, frolentim) called Pero Escroco, whom he knew, and who was good at trade, to be factor on the coast of Choromandel...."—Correa, ii. 567.
1533.—"The said Armenian, having already been at the city of Paleacate, which is in the Province of Choromandel and the Kingdom of Bisnaga, when on his way to Bengal, and having information of the place where the body of S. Thomas was said to be, and when they arrived at the port of Paleacate the wind was against their going on...."—Barros, III. vii. 11.
[1611.—"The Dutch had settled a factory at Pellacata."—Danvers, Letters, i. 133; in Foster, ii. 83, Pollicat.]
1726.—"Then we come to Palleam Wedam Caddoe, called by us for shortness Palleacatta, which means in Malabars 'The old Fortress,' though most commonly we call it Castle Geldria."—Valentijn, Chorom. 13.
" "The route I took was along the strip of country between Porto Novo and Paleiacatta. This long journey I travelled on foot; and preached in more than a hundred places...."—Letter of the Missionary Schultze, July 19, in Notices of Madras, &c., p. 20.
1727.—"Policat is the next Place of Note to the City and Colony of Fort St {737a}George.... It is strengthned with two Forts, one contains a few Dutch soldiers for a Garrison, the other is commanded by an Officer belonging to the Mogul."—A. Hamilton, i. 372, [ed. 1744].
[1813.—"Pulecat handkerchiefs." See under PIECE-GOODS.]
PULTUN, s. Hind. palṭan, a corruption of Battalion, possibly with some confusion of platoon or péloton. The S. India form is pataulam, patālam. It is the usual native word for a regiment of native infantry; it is never applied to one of Europeans.
1800.—"All I can say is that I am ready primed, and that if all matters suit I shall go off with a dreadful explosion, and shall probably destroy some campoos and pultons which have been indiscreetly pushed across the Kistna."—A. Wellesley to T. Munro, in Mem. of Munro, by Arbuthnot, lxix.
[1895.—"I know lots of Sahibs in a pultoon at Bareilly."—Mrs Croker, Village Tales and Jungle Tragedies, 60.]
PULWAH, PULWAR, s. One of the native boats used on the rivers of Bengal, carrying some 12 to 15 tons. Hind. palwār. [For a drawing see Grierson, Bihar Village Life, p. 42.]
1735.—"... We observed a boat which had come out of Samboo river, making for Patna: the commandant detached two light pulwaars after her...."—Holwell, Hist. Events, &c., i. 69.
[1767.—"... a Peon came twice to Noon-golah, to apply for polwars...."—Verelst, View of Bengal, App. 197.]
1780.—"Besides this boat, a gentleman is generally attended by two others; a pulwah for the accommodation of the kitchen, and a smaller boat, a paunchway" (q.v.).—Hodges, p. 39.
1782.—"To be sold, Three New Dacca Pulwars, 60 feet long, with Houses in the middle of each."—India Gazette, Aug. 31.
1824.—"The ghât offered a scene of bustle and vivacity which I by no means expected. There were so many budgerows and pulwars, that we had considerable difficulty to find a mooring place."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 131.
1860.—"The Pulwar is a smaller description of native travelling boat, of neater build, and less rusticity of character, sometimes used by a single traveller of humble means, and at others serves as cook-boat and accommodation for servants accompanying one of the large kind of boats...."—Grant, Rural Life in Bengal, p. 7, with an illustration.
PULWAUN, s. P.—H. pahlwān, [which properly means 'a native of ancient Persia' (see PAHLAVI). Mr. {737b}Skeat notes that in Malay the word becomes pahlāwan, probably from a confusion with Malay āwan, 'to fight']. A champion; a professed wrestler or man of strength.
[1753.—"... the fourth, and least numerous of these bodies, were choice men of the Pehlevans...."—Hanway, iii. 104.
[1813.—"When his body has by these means imbibed an additional portion of vigour, he is dignified by the appellation of Puhlwan."—Broughton, Letters, ed. 1892, p. 165.]
1828.—"I added a pehlivân or prize-fighter, a negro whose teeth were filed into saws, of a temper as ferocious as his aspect, who could throw any man of his weight to the ground, carry a jackass, devour a sheep whole, eat fire, and make a fountain of his inside, so as to act as a spout."—Hajji Baba in England, i. 15.
PUN, s. A certain number of cowries, generally 80; Hind. paṇa. (See under COWRY). The Skt. paṇa is 'a stake played for a price, a sum,' and hence both a coin (whence fanam, q.v.) and a certain amount of cowries.
1554.—"Pone." (See under PORTO PIQUENO.)
1683.—"I was this day advised that Mr. Charnock putt off Mr. Ellis's Cowries at 34 pund to ye Rupee in payment of all ye Peons and Servants of the Factory, whereas 38 punds are really bought by him for a Rupee...."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 2; [Hak. Soc. i. 122].
1760.—"We now take into consideration the relief of the menial servants of this Settlement, respecting the exorbitant price of labor exacted from them by tailors, washermen, and barbers, which appear in near a quadruple (pro)portion compared with the prices paid in 1755. Agreed, that after the 1st of April they be regulated as follows:
PUNCH, s. This beverage, according to the received etymology, was named from the Pers. panj, or Hind. and Mahr. pānch, both meaning 'five'; because composed of five ingredients, viz. arrack, sugar, lime-juice, spice, and water. Fryer may be considered to give something like historical evidence of its origin; but there is {738a}also something of Indian idiom in the suggestion. Thus a famous horse-medicine in Upper India is known as battīsī, because it is supposed to contain 32 ('battīs') ingredients.
The Greeks also had a "Punch," πενταπλόα, as is shown in the quotation from Athenaeus. Their mixture does not sound inviting. Littré gives the etymology correctly from the Pers. panj, but the 5 elements à la française, as tea, sugar, spirit, cinnamon, and lemon-peel,—no water therefore!
Some such compound appears to have been in use at the beginning of the 17th century under the name of Larkin (q.v.). Both Dutch and French travellers in the East during that century celebrate the beverage under a variety of names which amalgamate the drink curiously with the vessel in which it was brewed. And this combination in the form of Bole-ponjis was adopted as the title of a Miscellany published in 1851, by H. Meredith Parker, a Bengal civilian, of local repute for his literary and dramatic tastes. He had lost sight of the original authorities for the term, and his quotation is far astray. We give them correctly below.
c. 210.—"On the feast of the Scirrha at Athens he (Aristodemus on Pindar) says a race was run by the young men. They ran this race carrying each a vine-branch laden with grapes, such as is called ōschus; and they ran from the temple of Dionysus to that of Athena Sciras. And the winner receives a cup such as is called 'Five-fold,' and of this he partakes joyously with the band of his comrades. But the cup is called πενταπλόα because it contains wine and honey and cheese and flour, and a little oil."—Athenaeus, XI. xcii.
1638.—"This voyage (Gombroon to Surat) ... we accomplished in 19 days.... We drank English beer, Spanish sack, French wine, Indian spirit, and good English water, and made good Palepunzen."—Mandelslo, (Dutch ed. 1658), p. 24. The word Palepunzen seems to have puzzled the English translator (John Davis, 2nd ed. 1669), who has "excellent good sack, English beer, French wines, Arak, and other refreshments." (p. 10).
1653.—"Bolleponge est vn mot Anglois, qui signifie vne boisson dont les Anglois vsent aux Indes faite de sucre, suc de limon, eau de vie, fleur de muscade, et {738b}biscuit roty."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 534.
[1658.—"Arriued this place where found the Bezar almost Burnt and many of the People almost starued for want of Foode which caused much Sadnes in Mr. Charnock and my Selfe, but not soe much as the absence of your Company, which wee haue often remembered in a bowle of the cleerest Punch, hauing noe better Liquor."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. iii. cxiv.]
1659.—"Fürs Dritte, Pale bunze getituliret, von halb Wasser, halb Brantwein, dreyssig, vierzig Limonien, deren Körnlein ausgespeyet werden, und ein wenig Zucker eingeworfen; wie dem Geschmack so angenehm nicht, also auch der Gesundheit nicht."—Saar, ed. 1672, 60.
[1662.—"Amongst other spirituous drinks, as Punch, &c., they gave us Canarie that had been carried to and fro from the Indies, which was indeed incomparably good."—Evelyn, Diary, Jan. 16.]
c. 1666.—"Neánmoins depuis qu'ils (les Anglois) ont donné ordre, aussi bien que les Hollandois, que leurs equipages ne boivent point tant de Bouleponges ... il n'y a pas tant de maladies, et il ne leur meurt plus tant de monde. Bouleponge est un certain breuvage composé d'arac ... avec du suc de limons, de l'eau, et un peu de muscade rapée dessus: il est assez agréable au gout, mais c'est la peste du corps et de la santé."—Bernier, ed. 1723, ii. 335 (Eng. Tr. p. 141); [ed. Constable, 441].
1670.—"Doch als men zekere andere drank, die zij Paleponts noemen, daartusschen drinkt, zo word het quaat enigsins geweert."—Andriesz, 9. Also at p. 27, "Palepunts."
We find this blunder of the compound word transported again to England, and explained as a 'hard word.'
1672.—Padre Vincenzo Maria describes the thing, but without a name:
"There are many fruites to which the Hollanders and the English add a certain beverage that they compound of lemon-juice, aqua-vitae, sugar, and nutmegs, to quench their thirst, and this, in my belief, augments not a little the evil influence."—Viaggio, p. 103.
1673.—"At Nerule is the best Arach or Nepa (see NIPA) de Goa, with which the English on this Coast make that enervating Liquor called Paunch (which is Indostan for Five), from Five Ingredients; as the Physicians name their Composition Diapente; or from four things, Diatessaron."—Fryer, 157.
1674.—"Palapuntz, a kind of Indian drink, consisting of Aqua-vitae, Rose-water, juyce of Citrons and Sugar."—Glossographia, &c., by T. E.
[1675.—"Drank part of their boules of Punch (a liquor very strange to me)."—H. Teonge, Diary, June 1.]
1682.—"Some (of the Chinese in Batavia) also sell Sugar-beer, as well as cooked dishes and Sury (see SURA), arak or Indian brandy; wherefrom they make Mussak and Follepons, as the Englishmen call it."—Nieuhoff, Zee en Lant-Reize, ii. 217.
1683.—"... Our owne people and mariners who are now very numerous, and insolent among us, and (by reason of Punch) every day give disturbance."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 8; [Hak. Soc. i. 123].
1688.—"... the soldiers as merry as Punch could make them."—In Wheeler, i. 187.
1689.—"Bengal (Arak) is much stronger spirit than that of Goa, tho' both are made use of by the Europeans in making Punch."—Ovington, 237-8.
1694.—"If any man comes into a victualling house to drink punch, he may demand one quart good Goa arak, half a pound of sugar, and half a pint of good lime water, and make his own punch...."—Order Book of Bombay Govt., quoted by Anderson, p. 281.
1705.—"Un bon repas chez les Anglais ne se fait point sans bonne ponse qu'on sert dans un grand vase."—Sieur Luillier, Voy. aux Grandes Indes, 29.
1771.—"Hence every one (at Madras) has it in his Power to eat well, tho' he can afford no other Liquor at Meals than Punch, which is the common Drink among Europeans, and here made in the greatest Perfection."—Lockyer, 22.
1724.—"Next to Drams, no Liquor deserves more to be stigmatised and banished from the Repasts of the Tender, Valetudinary, and Studious, than Punch."—G. Cheyne, An Essay on Health and Longevity, p. 58.
1791.—"Dès que l'Anglais eut cessé de manger, le Paria ... fit un signe à sa femme, qui apporta ... une grande calebasse pleine de punch, qu'elle avoit preparé, pendant le souper, avec de l'eau, et du jus de citron, et du jus de canne de sucre...."—B. de St. Pierre, Chaumière Indienne, 56.
PUNCH-HOUSE, s. An Inn or Tavern; now the term is chiefly used by natives (sometimes in the hybrid form Punch-ghar, [which in Upper India is now transferred to the meeting-place of a Municipal Board]) at the Presidency towns, and applied to houses frequented by seamen. Formerly the word was in general Anglo-Indian use. [In the Straits the Malay Panc-haus is, according to Mr. Skeat, still in use, though obolescent.]
[1661.—"... the Commandore visiting us, wee delivering him another examination of a Persee (Parsee), who kept a Punch house, where the murder was committed...."—Forrest, Bombay Letters, Home Series, i. 189.]
1671-2.—"It is likewise enordered and declared hereby that no Victuallar, Punch-house, or other house of Entertainment shall be permitted to make stoppage at the pay day of their wages...."—Rules, in Wheeler, iii. 423.
1676.—Major Puckle's "Proposals to the Agent about the young men at Metchlepatam.
"That some pecuniary mulct or fine be imposed ... for misdemeanours.
* * * * *
"6. Going to Punch or Rack-houses without leave or warrantable occasion.
"Drubbing any of the Company's Peons or servants."
* * * * *
—In Notes and Exts., No. I. p. 40.
1688.—"... at his return to Achen he constantly frequented an English Punch-house, spending his Gold very freely."—Dampier, ii. 134.
" "Mrs. Francis, wife to the late Lieutenant Francis killed at Hoogly by the Moors, made it her petition that she might keep a Punch-house for her maintenance."—In Wheeler, i. 184.
1697.—"Monday, 1st April ... Mr. Cheesely having in a Punch-house, upon a quarrel of words, drawn his Sword ... and being taxed therewith, he both doth own and justify the drawing of the sword ... it thereupon ordered not to wear a sword while here."—In Wheeler, i. 320.
1727.—"... Of late no small Pains and Charge have been bestowed on its Buildings (of the Fort at Tellichery); but for what Reason I know not ... unless it be for small Vessels ... or to protect the Company's Ware-house, and a small Punch-house that stands on the Sea-shore...."—A. Hamilton, i. 299 [ed. 1744].
1789.—"Many ... are obliged to take up their residence in dirty punch-houses."—Munro's Narrative, 22.
1810.—"The best house of that description which admits boarders, and which are commonly called Punch-houses."—Williamson, V.M. i. 135.
PUNCHAYET, s. Hind. panchāyat, from pānch, 'five.' A council (properly of 5 persons) assembled as a Court of Arbiters or Jury; or as a committee of the people of a village, of the members of a Caste, or whatnot, to decide on questions interesting the body generally.
1778.—"The Honourable William Hornby, Esq., President and Governor of His Majesty's Castle and Island of Bombay, &c.
"The humble Petition of the Managers of the Panchayet of Parsis at Bombay...."—Dosambhai Framji, H. of the Parsis, 1884, ii. 219.
1810.—"The Parsees ... are governed by their own panchaït or village Council. {740a}The word panchaït literally means a Council of five, but that of the Guebres in Bombay consists of thirteen of the principal merchants of the sect."—Maria Graham, 41.
1813.—"The carpet of justice was spread in the large open hall of the durbar, where the arbitrators assembled: there I always attended, and agreeably to ancient custom, referred the decision to a panchaeet or jury of five persons."—Forbes, Or. Mem., ii. 359; [in 2nd ed. (ii. 2) Panchaut].
1819.—"The punchayet itself, although in all but village causes it has the defects before ascribed to it, possesses many advantages. The intimate acquaintance of the members with the subject in dispute, and in many cases with the characters of the parties, must have made their decisions frequently correct, and ... the judges being drawn from the body of the people, could act on no principles that were not generally understood."—Elphinstone, in Life, ii. 89.
1821.—"I kept up punchayets because I found them ... I still think that the punchayet should on no account be dropped, that it is an excellent institution for dispensing justice, and in keeping up the principles of justice, which are less likely to be observed among a people to whom the administration of it is not at all intrusted."—Ibid. 124.
1826.—"... when he returns assemble a punchayet, and give this cause patient attention, seeing that Hybatty has justice."—Pandurang Hari, 31; [ed. 1873, i. 42].
1832.—Bengal Regn. VI. of this year allows the judge of the Sessions Court to call in the alternative aid of a punchayet, in lieu of assessors, and so to dispense with the futwa. See LAW-OFFICER.
1853.—"From the death of Runjeet Singh to the battle of Sobraon, the Sikh Army was governed by 'Punchayets' or 'Punches'—committees of the soldiery. These bodies sold the Government to the Sikh chief who paid the highest, letting him command until murdered by some one who paid higher."—Sir C. Napier, Defects of Indian Government, 69.
1873.—"The Council of an Indian Village Community most commonly consists of five persons ... the panchayet familiar to all who have the smallest knowledge of India."—Maine, Early Hist. of Institutions, 221.
PUNDIT, s. Skt. paṇḍita, 'a learned man.' Properly a man learned in Sanskrit lore. The Pundit of the Supreme Court was a Hindu Law-Officer, whose duty it was to advise the English Judges when needful on questions of Hindu Law. The office became extinct on the constitution of the 'High Court,' superseding the Supreme Court and Sudder Court, under the Queen's Letters Patent of May 14, 1862.
In the Mahratta and Telegu countries, the word Paṇḍit is usually pronounced Pant (in English colloquial Punt); but in this form it has, as with many other Indian words in like case, lost its original significance, and become a mere personal title, familiar in Mahratta history, e.g. the Nānā Dhundopant of evil fame.
Within the last 30 or 35 years the term has acquired in India a peculiar application to the natives trained in the use of instruments, who have been employed beyond the British Indian frontier in surveying regions inaccessible to Europeans. This application originated in the fact that two of the earliest men to be so employed, the explorations by one of whom acquired great celebrity, were masters of village schools in our Himālayan provinces. And the title Pundit is popularly employed there much as Dominie used to be in Scotland. The Pundit who brought so much fame on the title was the late Nain Singh, C.S.I. [See Markham, Memoir of Indian Surveys, 2nd ed. 148 seqq.]
1574.—"I hereby give notice that ... I hold it good, and it is my pleasure, and therefore I enjoin on all the pandits (panditos) and Gentoo physicians (phisicos gentios) that they ride not through this City (of Goa) or the suburbs thereof on horseback, nor in andors and palanquins, on pain of paying, on the first offence 10 cruzados, and on the second 20, pera o sapal,[226] with the forfeiture of such horses, andors, or palanquins, and on the third they shall become the galley-slaves of the King my Lord...."—Procl. of the Governor Antonio Moriz Barreto, in Archiv. Port. Orient. Fascic. 5, p. 899.
1604.—"... llamando tãbien en su compania los Põditos, le presentaron al Nauabo."—Guerrero, Relaçion, 70.
1616.—"... Brachmanae una cum Panditis comparentes, simile quid iam inde ab orbis exordio in Indostane visum negant."—Jarric, Thesaurus, iii. 81-82.
1663.—"A Pendet Brachman or Heathen Doctor whom I had put to serve my Agah ... would needs make his Panegyrick ... and at last concluded seriously with this: When you put your Foot into the Stirrup, My Lord, and when you march on Horseback in the front of the Cavalry, the Earth trembleth under your Feet, the eight Elephants that hold it up upon their Heads not being able to support it."—Bernier, E.T., 85; [ed. Constable, 264].
1688.—"Je feignis donc d'être malade, et d'avoir la fièvre; on fit venir aussitôt un Pandite ou médicin Gentil."—Dellon, Rel. de l'Inq. de Goa, 214.
1785.—"I can no longer bear to be at the mercy of our pundits, who deal out Hindu law as they please; and make it at reasonable rates, when they cannot find it ready made."—Letter of Sir W. Jones, in Mem. by Ld. Teignmouth, 1807, ii. 67.
1791.—"Il était au moment de s'embarquer pour l'Angleterre, plein de perplexité et d'ennui, lorsque les brames de Bénarés lui apprirent que le brame supérieur de la fameuse pagode de Jagrenat ... était seul capable de resoudre toutes les questions de la Société royale de Londres. C'était en effet le plus fameux pandect, ou docteur, dont on eût jamais oui parler."—B. de St. Pierre, La Chaumière Indienne. The preceding exquisite passage shows that the blunder which drew forth Macaulay's flaming wrath, in the quotation lower down, was not a new one.
1798.—"... the most learned of the Pundits or Bramin lawyers, were called up from different parts of Bengal."—Raynal, Hist. i. 42.
1856.—"Besides ... being a Pundit of learning, he (Sir David Brewster) is a bundle of talents of various kinds."—Life and Letters of Sydney Dobell, ii. 14.
1860.—"Mr. Vizetelly next makes me say that the principle of limitation is found 'amongst the Pandects of the Benares....' The Benares he probably supposes to be some Oriental nation. What he supposes their Pandects to be I shall not presume to guess.... If Mr. Vizetelly had consulted the Unitarian Report, he would have seen that I spoke of the Pundits of Benares, and he might without any very long and costly research have learned where Benares is and what a Pundit is."—Macaulay, Preface to his Speeches.
1877.—"Colonel Y——. Since Nain Singh's absence from this country precludes my having the pleasure of handing to him in person, this, the Victoria or Patron's Medal, which has been awarded to him, ... I beg to place it in your charge for transmission to the Pundit."—Address by Sir R. Alcock, Prest. R. Geog. Soc., May 28.
"Colonel Y—— in reply, said: ... Though I do not know Nain Singh personally, I know his work.... He is not a topographical automaton, or merely one of a great multitude of native employés with an average qualification. His observations {741b}have added a larger amount of important knowledge to the map of Asia than those of any other living man, and his journals form an exceedingly interesting book of travels. It will afford me great pleasure to take steps for the transmission of the Medal through an official channel to the Pundit."—Reply to the President, same date.
PUNJAUB, n.p. The name of the country between the Indus and the Sutlej. The modern Anglo-Indian province so-called, now extends on one side up beyond the Indus, including Peshāwar, the Derajāt, &c., and on the other side up to the Jumna, including Delhi. [In 1901 the Frontier Districts were placed under separate administration.] The name is Pers. Panj-āb, 'Five Rivers.' These rivers, as reckoned, sometimes include the Indus, in which case the five are (1) Indus, (2) Jelam (see JELUM) or Behat, the ancient Vitasta which the Greeks made Ὑδάσπης (Strabo) and Βιδάσπης (Ptol.), (3) Chenāb, ancient Chandrabāgha and Āsiknī. Ptolemy preserves a corruption of the former Sanskrit name in Σανδαβάλ, but it was rejected by the older Greeks because it was of ill omen, i.e. probably because Grecized it would be Ξανδροφάγος, 'the devourer of Alexander.' The alternative Āsiknī they rendered Ἀκεσίνης. (4) Rāvī, the ancient Airāvatī, Ὑάρωτης (Strabo), Ὑδραώτης (Arrian), Ἄδρις or Ῥούαδις (Ptol.). (5) Biās, ancient Vipāsā, Ὕφασις (Arrian), Βιβάσιος (Ptol.). This excluded the Sutlej, Satadru, Hesydrus of Pliny, Ζαράδρος or Ζαδάδρης (Ptol.), as Timur excludes it below. We may take in the Sutlej and exclude the Indus, but we can hardly exclude the Chenāb as Wassāf does below.
No corresponding term is used by the Greek geographers. "Putandum est nomen Panchanadae Graecos aut omnino latuisse, aut casu quodam non ad nostra usque tempora pervenisse, quod in tanta monumentorum ruina facile accidere potuit" (Lassen, Pentapotamia, 3). Lassen however has termed the country Pentepotamia in a learned Latin dissertation on its ancient geography. Though the actual word Panjāb is Persian, and dates from Mahommedan times, the corresponding Skt. Panchanada is ancient and genuine, occurring in the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa. The name Panj-āb in older Mahommedan writers is applied to the Indus river, after {742a}receiving the rivers of the country which we call Punjaub. In that sense Panj-nad, of equivalent meaning, is still occasionally used. [In S. India the term is sometimes applied to the country watered by the Tumbhadra, Wardha, Malprabha, Gatprabha and Kistna (Wilks, Hist. Sketches, Madras reprint, i. 405).]
We remember in the newspapers, after the second Sikh war, the report of a speech by a clergyman in England, who spoke of the deposition of "the bloody Punjaub of Lahore."
B.C. x.—"Having explored the land of the Pahlavi and the country adjoining, there had then to be searched Panchanada in every part; the monkeys then explore the region of Kashmīr with its woods of acacias."—Rāmāyaṇa, Bk. iv. ch. 43.
c. 940.—Maṣ'ūdī details (with no correctness) the five rivers that form the Mihrān or Indus. He proceeds: "When the Five Rivers which we have named have past the House of Gold which is Mūltān, they unite at a place three days distant from that city, between it and Manṣūra at a place called Doshāb."—i. 377-8.
c. 1020.—"They all (Sind, Jhailam, Irāwa, Biah) combine with the Satlader (Sutlej) below Múltán, at a place called Panjnad, or 'the junction of the five rivers.' They form a very wide stream."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 48.
c. 1300.—"After crossing the Panj-āb, or five rivers, namely Sind, Jelam, the river of Loháwar (i.e. of Lahore, viz. the Rāvī), Satlút, and Bīyah...."—Wassāf, in Elliot, iii. 36.
c. 1333.—"By the grace of God our caravan arrived safe and sound at Banj-āb, i.e. at the River of the Sind. Banj (panj) signifies 'five,' and āb, 'water;' so that the name signifies 'the Five Waters.' They flow into this great river, and water the country."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 91.
c. 1400.—"All these (united) rivers (Jelam, Chenáb, Ráví, Bíyáh, Sind) are called the Sind or Panj-áb, and this river falls into the Persian Gulf near Thatta."—The Emp. Timur, in Elliot, iii. 476.
[c. 1630.—"He also takes a Survey of Pang-ob...."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1677, p. 63. He gives a list of the rivers in p. 70.]
1648.—"... Pang-ab, the chief city of which is Lahor, is an excellent and fruitful province, for it is watered by the five rivers of which we have formerly spoken."—Van Twist, 3.
" "The River of the ancient Indus, is by the Persians and Magols called Pang-ab, i.e. the Five Waters."—Ibid. i.
1710.—"He found this ancient and famous city (Lahore) in the Province Panschaap, by the side of the broad and fish-abounding river Rari (for Ravi)."—Valentijn, iv. (Suratte), 282.
1790.—"Investigations of the religious ceremonies and customs of the Hindoos, written in the Carnatic, and in the Punjab, would in many cases widely differ."—Forster, Preface to Journey.
1793.—"The Province, of which Lahore is the capital, is oftener named Panjab than Lahore."—Rennell's Memoir, 3rd ed. 82.
1804.—"I rather think ... that he (Holkar) will go off to the Punjaub. And what gives me stronger reason to think so is, that on the seal of his letter to me he calls himself 'the Slave of Shah Mahmoud, the King of Kings.' Shah Mahmoud is the brother of Zemaun Shah. He seized the musnud and government of Caubul, after having defeated Zemaun Shah two or three years ago, and put out his eyes."—Wellington, Desp. under March 17.
1815.—"He (Subagtageen) ... overran the fine province of the Punjaub, in his first expedition."—Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i. 316.
PUNKAH, s. Hind. pankhā.
a. In its original sense a portable fan, generally made from the leaf of the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis, or 'fan-shaped'), the natural type and origin of the fan. Such pankhās in India are not however formed, as Chinese fans are, like those of our ladies; they are generally, whether large or small, of a bean-shape, with a part of the dried leaf-stalk adhering, which forms the handle.
b. But the specific application in Anglo-Indian colloquial is to the large fixed and swinging fan, formed of cloth stretched on a rectangular frame, and suspended from the ceiling, which is used to agitate the air in hot weather. The date of the introduction of this machine into India is not known to us. The quotation from Linschoten shows that some such apparatus was known in the 16th century, though this comes out clearly in the French version alone; the original Dutch, and the old English translation are here unintelligible, and indicate that Linschoten (who apparently never was at Ormuz) was describing, from hearsay, something that he did not understand. More remarkable passages are those which we take from Dozy, and from El-Fakhrī, which show that the true Anglo-Indian punka was known to the Arabs as early as the 8th century.
a.—
1710.—"Aloft in a Gallery the King sits in his chaire of State, accompanied with his {743a}Children and chiefe Vizier ... no other without calling daring to goe vp to him, saue onely two Punkaws to gather wind."—W. Finch, in Purchas, i. 439. The word seems here to be used improperly for the men who plied the fans. We find also in the same writer a verb to punkaw:
"... behind one punkawing, another holding his sword."—Ibid. 433.
Terry does not use the word:
1616.—"... the people of better quality, lying or sitting on their Carpets or Pallats, have servants standing about them, who continually beat the air upon them with Flabella's, or Fans, of stiffned leather, which keepe off the flyes from annoying them, and cool them as they lye."—Ed. 1665, p. 405.
1663.—"On such occasions they desire nothing but ... to lie down in some cool and shady place all along, having a servant or two to fan one by turns, with their great Pankas, or Fans."—Bernier, E.T., p. 76; [ed. Constable, 241].
1787.—"Over her head was held a punker."—Sir C. Malet, in Parl. Papers, 1821, 'Hindoo Widows.'
1809.—"He ... presented me ... two punkahs."—Lord Valentia, i. 428.
1881.—"The chair of state, the sella gestatoria, in which the Pope is borne aloft, is the ancient palanquin of the Roman nobles, and, of course, of the Roman Princes ... the fans which go behind are the punkahs of the Eastern Emperors, borrowed from the Court of Persia."—Dean Stanley, Christian Institutions, 207.
b.—
c. 1150-60.—"Sous le nom de Khaich on entend des étoffes de mauvais toile de lin qui servent à différents usages. Dans ce passage de Rhazès (c. A.D. 900) ce sont des ventilateurs faits de cet étoffe. Ceci se pratique de cette manière: on en prend un morceau de la grandeur d'un tapis, un peu plus grand ou un peu plus petit selon les dimensions de la chambre, et on le rembourre avec des objets qui ont de la consistance et qui ne plient pas facilement, par exemple avec du sparte. L'ayant ensuite suspendu au milieu de la chambre, on le fait tirer et lacher doucement et continuellement par un homme placé dans le haut de l'appartement. De cette manière il fait beaucoup de vent et rafraichit l'air. Quelquefois on le trempe dans de l'eau de rose, et alors il parfume l'air en même temps qu'il le rafraichit."—Glossaire sur le Mançouri, quoted in Dozy et Engelmann, p. 342. See also Dozy, Suppt. aux Dictt. Arabes, s.v. Khaich.
1166.—"He (Ibn Hamdun the Kātib) once recited to me the following piece of his composition, containing an enigmatical description of a linen fan: (1)
"'Fast and loose, it cannot touch what it tries to reach; though tied up it moves swiftly, and though a prisoner it is free. Fixed in its place it drives before it the gentle breeze; though its path lie closed up {743b}it moves on in its nocturnal journey.'"—Quoted by Ibn Khallikan, E.T. iii. 91.
"(1) The linen fan (Mirwaha-t al Khaish) is a large piece of linen, stretched on a frame, and suspended from the ceiling of the room. They make use of it in Irâk. See de Sacy's Hariri, p. 474."—Note by MacGuckin de Slane, ibid. p. 92.
c. 1300.—"One of the innovations of the Caliph Manṣūr (A.D. 753-774) was the Khaish of linen in summer, a thing which was not known before his time. But the Sāsānian Kings used in summer to have an apartment freshly plastered (with clay) every day, which they inhabited, and on the morrow another apartment was plastered for them."—El-Fakhrī, ed. Ahlwardt, p. 188.
1596.—"And (they use) instruments like swings with fans, to rock the people in, and to make wind for cooling, which they call cattaventos."—Literal Transln. from Linschoten, ch. 6.
1598.—"And they vse certaine instruments like Waggins, with bellowes, to beare all the people in, and to gather winde to coole themselves withall, which they call Cattaventos."—Old English Translation, by W. P., p. 16; [Hak. Soc. i. 52].
The French version is really a brief description of the punka:
1610.—"Ils ont aussi du Cattaventos qui sont certains instruments pendus en l'air es quels se faisant donner le bransle ils font du vent qui les rafraichit."—Ed. 1638, p. 17.
The next also perhaps refers to a suspended punka:
1662.—"... furnished also with good Cellars with great Flaps to stir the Air, for reposing in the fresh Air from 12 till 4 or 5 of the Clock, when the Air of these Cellars begins to be hot and stuffing."—Bernier, p. 79; [ed. Constable, 247].
1807.—"As one small concern succeeds another, the punkah vibrates gently over my eyes."—Lord Minto in India, 27.
1810.—"Were it not for the punka (a large frame of wood covered with cloth) which is suspended over every table, and kept swinging, in order to freshen the air, it would be scarcely possible to sit out the melancholy ceremony of an Indian dinner."—Maria Graham, 30.
" Williamson mentions that punkahs "were suspended in most dining halls."—Vade Mecum, i. 281.
1823.—"Punkas, large frames of light wood covered with white cotton, and looking not unlike enormous fire-boards, hung from the ceilings of the principal apartments."—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 28.
1852.—
"Holy stones with scrubs and slaps
(Our Christmas waits!) prelude the day;
For holly and festoons of bay
Swing feeble punkas,—or perhaps
A windsail dangles in collapse."
Christmas on board a P. and O., near the Equator.
1875.—"The punkah flapped to and fro lazily overhead."—Chesney, The Dilemma, ch. xxxviii.
Mr. Busteed observes: "It is curious that in none of the lists of servants and their duties which are scattered through the old records in the last century (18th), is there any mention of the punka, nor in any narratives referring to domestic life in India then, that have come under our notice, do we remember any allusion to its use.... The swinging punka, as we see it to-day, was, as every one knows, an innovation of a later period.... This dates from an early year in the present century."—Echoes of Old Calcutta, p. 115. He does not seem, however, to have found any positive evidence of the date of its introduction. ["Hanging punkahs are said by one authority to have originated in Calcutta by accident towards the close of the last (18th) century. It is reported that a clerk in a Government office suspended the leaf of a table, which was accidentally waved to and fro by a visitor. A breath of cool air followed the movement, and suggested the idea which was worked out and resulted in the present machine" (Carey, Good Old Days of John Company, i. 81). Mr. Douglas says that punkahs were little used by Europeans in Bombay till 1810. They were not in use at Nuncomar's trial in Calcutta (1775), Bombay and W. India, ii. 253.]
PUNSAREE, s. A native drug-seller; Hind. pansārī. We place the word here partly because C. P. Brown says 'it is certainly a foreign word,' and assigns it to a corruption of dispensarium; which is much to be doubted. [The word is really derived from Skt. paṇyaśāla, 'a market, warehouse.']
[1830.—"Beside this, I purchased from a pansaree some application for relieving the pain of a bruise."—Frazer, The Persian Adventurer, iii. 23.]
PURDAH, s. Hind. from Pers. parda, 'a curtain'; a portière; and especially a curtain screening women from the sight of men; whence a woman of position who observes such rules of seclusion is termed parda-nishīn, 'one who sits behind a curtain.' (See GOSHA.)
1809.—"On the fourth (side) a purdah was stretched across."—Ld. Valentia, i. 100.
1810.—"If the disorder be obstinate, the doctor is permitted to approach the purdah (i.e. curtain, or screen) and to put the hand through a small aperture ... in order to feel the patient's pulse."—Williamson, V. M. i. 130.
[1813.—"My travelling palankeen formed my bed, its purdoe or chintz covering my curtains."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 109.]
1878.—"Native ladies look upon the confinement behind the purdah as a badge of rank, and also as a sign of chastity, and are exceedingly proud of it."—Life in the Mofussil, i. 113.
[1900.—"Charitable aid is needed for the purdah women."—Pioneer Mail, Jan. 21.]
PURDESEE, s. Hind. paradeśī usually written pardesī, 'one from a foreign country.' In the Bombay army the term is universally applied to a sepoy from N. India. [In the N.W.P. the name is applied to a wandering tribe of swindlers and coiners.]
PURWANNA, PERWAUNA, s. Hind. from Pers. parwāna, 'an order; a grant or letter under royal seal; a letter of authority from an official to his subordinate; a license or pass.'
1682.—"... we being obliged at the end of two months to pay Custom for the said goods, if in that time we did not procure a Pherwanna for the Duan of Decca to excuse us from it."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 10; [Hak. Soc. i. 34].
1693.—"... Egmore and Pursewaukum were lately granted us by the Nabob's purwannas."—Wheeler, i. 281.
1759.—"Perwanna, under the Coochuck (or the small seal) of the Nabob Vizier Ulma Maleck, Nizam ul Muluck Bahadour, to Mr. John Spenser."—In Cambridge's Acct. of the War, 230. (See also quotation under HOSBOLHOOKUM.)
1774.—"As the peace has been so lately concluded, it would be a satisfaction to the Rajah to receive your parwanna to this purpose before the departure of the caravan."—Bogle's Diary, in Markham's Tibet, p. 50. But Mr. Markham changes the spelling of his originals.
PUTCHOCK, s. This is the trade-name for a fragrant root, a product of the Himālaya in the vicinity of Kashmīr, and forming an article of export from both Bombay and Calcutta to the Malay countries and to China, where it is used as a chief ingredient of the Chinese pastille-rods commonly called jostick. This root was recognised by the famous Garcia de Orta as {745a}the Costus of the ancients. The latter took their word from the Skt. kusṭha, by a modification of which name—kuṭ—it is still known and used as a medicine in Upper India. De Orta speaks of the plant as growing about Mandu and Chitore, whence it was brought for sale to Ahmadābād; but his informants misled him. The true source was traced in situ by two other illustrious men, Royle and Falconer, to a plant belonging to the N. O. Compositae, Saussurea Xappe, Clarke, for which Dr. Falconer, not recognising the genus, had proposed the name of Aucklandia Costus verus, in honour of the then Governor-General. The Costus is a gregarious plant, occupying open, sloping sides of the mountains, at an elevation of 8000 to 9000 feet. See article by Falconer in Trans. Linn. Soc. xix. 23-31.
The trade-name is, according to Wilson, the Telugu pāch'chāku, 'green leaf,' but one does not see how this applies. (Is there, perhaps, some confusion with Patch? see PATCHOULI). De Orta speaks as if the word, which he writes pucho, were Malay. Though neither Crawfurd nor Favre gives the word, in this sense, it is in Marsden's earlier Malay Dict.: "Pūchok, a plant, the aromatic leaves of which are an article of trade; said by some to be Costus indicus, and by others the Melissa, or Laurus." [On this Mr. Skeat writes: "Puchok is the Malay word for a young sprout, or the growing shoot of a plant. Puchok in the special sense here used is also a Malay word, but it may be separate from the other. Klinkert gives puchok as a sprout or shoot and also as a radish-like root (indigenous in China (sic), used in medicine for fumigation, &c.). Apparently it is always the root and not the leaves of the plant that are used, in which case Marsden may have confused the two senses of the word."] In the year 1837-38 about 250 tons of this article, valued at £10,000, were exported from Calcutta alone. The annual import into China at a later date, according to Wells Williams, was 2,000 peculs or 120 tons (Middle Kingdom, ed. 1857, ii. 308). In 1865-66, the last year for which the details of such minor exports are found in print, the quantity exported from Calcutta was only 492½ cwt., or 24⅝ {745b}tons. In 1875 the value of the imports at Hankow and Chefoo was £6,421. [Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. ii. p. 482, Bombay Gazetteer, xi. 470.]
1516.—See Barbosa under CATECHU.
1520.—"We have prohibited (the export of) pepper to China ... and now we prohibit the export of pucho and incense from these parts of India to China."—Capitulo de hum Regimento del Rey a Diogo Ayres, Feitor da China, in Arch. Port. Orient., Fasc. v. 49.
1525.—"Pucho of Cambaya worth 35 tangas a maund."—Lembranças, 50.
[1527.—Mr. Whiteway notes that in a letter of Diogo Calvo to the King, dated Jan. 17, pucho is mentioned as one of the imports to China.—India Office MS. Corpo Chronologico, vol. i.]
1554.—"The baar (see BAHAR) of pucho contains 20 faraçolas (see FRAZALA), and an additional 4 of picota (q.v.), in all 24 faraçolas...."—A. Nunes, 11.
1563.—"I say that costus in Arabic is called cost or cast; in Guzarate it is called uplot (upaleta); and in Malay, for in that region there is a great trade and consumption thereof, it is called pucho. I tell you the name in Arabic, because it is called by the same name by the Latins and Greeks, and I tell it you in Guzerati, because that is the land to which it is chiefly carried from its birth-place; and I tell you the Malay name because the greatest quantity is consumed there, or taken thence to China."—Garcia, f. 72.
c. 1563.—"... Opium, Assa Fetida, Puchio, with many other sortes of Drugges."—Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 343.
[1609.—"Costus of 2 sorts, one called pokermore, the other called Uplotte (see Garcia, above)."—Danvers, Letters, i. 30.]
1617.—"5 hampers pochok...."—Cocks, Diary, i. 294.
1631.—"Caeterum Costus vulgato vocabulo inter mercatores Indos Pucho, Chinensibus Potsiock, vocatur ... vidi ego integrum Picol, quod pondus centum et viginti in auctione decem realibus distribui."—Jac. Bontii, Hist. Nat., &c., lib. iv. p. 46.
1711.—In Malacca Price Currant, July 1704: "Putchuck or Costus dulcis."—Lockyer, 77.
1726.—"Patsjaak (a leaf of Asjien (Acheen?) that is pounded to powder, and used in incense)...."—Valentijn, Choro. 34.
1727.—"The Wood Ligna dulcis grows only in this country (Sind). It is rather a Weed than a Wood, and nothing of it is useful but the Root, called Putchock, or Radix dulcis.... There are great quantities exported from Surat, and from thence to China, where it generally bears a good Price...."—A. Hamilton, i. 126; [ed. 1744, i. 127].
1808.—"Elles emploient ordinairement ... une racine aromatique appelée pieschtok, qu'on coupe par petits morceaux, {746a}et fait bouillir dans de l'huile de noix de coco. C'est avec cette huile que les danseuses se graissent...."—Haafner, ii. 117.
1862.—"Koot is sent down country in large quantities, and is exported to China, where it is used as incense. It is in Calcutta known under the name of 'Patchuk.'"—Punjab Trade Report, cvii.
PUTLAM, n.p. A town in Ceylon on the coast of the bay or estuary of Calpentyn; properly Puṭṭalama; a Tamil name, said by Mr. Fergusson to be puthu- (pudu?) alam, 'New Salt-pans.' Ten miles inland are the ruins of Tammana Newera, the original Tambapanni (or Taprobane), where Vijaya, the first Hindu immigrant, established his kingdom. And Putlam is supposed to be the place where he landed.
1298.—"The pearl-fishers ... go post to a place callen Bettelar, and (then) go 60 miles into the gulf."—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 16.
c. 1345.—"The natives went to their King and told him my reply. He sent for me, and I proceeded to his presence in the town of Baṭṭāla, which was his capital, a pretty little place, surrounded by a timber wall and towers."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 166.
1672.—"Putelaon...."—Baldaeus (Germ.), 373.
1726.—"Portaloon or Putelan."—Valentijn, Ceylon, 21.
PUTNEE, PUTNEY, s.
a. Hind. and Beng. paṭṭanī, or paṭnī, from v. paṭ-nā, 'to be agreed or closed' (i.e. a bargain). Goods commissioned or manufactured to order.
1755.—"A letter from Cossimbazar mentions they had directed Mr. Warren Hastings to proceed to the Putney aurung (q.v.) in order to purchase putney on our Honble. Masters' account, and to make all necessary enquiries."—Fort William Consns., Nov. 10. In Long, 61.
b. A kind of sub-tenure existing in the Lower Provinces of Bengal, the patnīdār, or occupant of which "holds of a Zemindar a portion of the Zemindari in perpetuity, with the right of hereditary succession, and of selling or letting the whole or part, so long as a stipulated amount of rent is paid to the Zemindar, who retains the power of sale for arrears, and is entitled to a regulated fee or fine upon transfer" (Wilson, q.v.). Probably both a and b are etymologically the same, and connected with paṭṭā (see POTTAH).
[1860.—"A perpetual lease of land held under a Zumeendar is called a putnee,—and {746b}the holder is called a putneedar, who not only pays an advanced rent to the Zumeendar, but a handsome price for the same."—Grant, Rural Life in Bengal, 64.]
PUTTÁN, PATHÁN, n.p. Hind. Paṭhān. A name commonly applied to Afghans, and especially to people in India of Afghan descent. The derivation is obscure. Elphinstone derives it from Pushtūn and Pukhtūn, pl. Pukhtāna, the name the Afghans give to their own race, with which Dr. Trumpp [and Dr. Bellew (Races of Afghanistan, 25) agree. This again has been connected with the Pactyica of Herodotus (iii. 102, iv. 44).] The Afghans have for the name one of the usual fantastic etymologies which is quoted below (see quotation, c. 1611). The Mahommedans in India are sometimes divided into four classes, viz. Paṭhāns; Mughals (see MOGUL), i.e. those of Turki origin; Shaikhs, claiming Arab descent; and Saiyyids, claiming also to be descendants of Mahommed.
1553.—"This State belonged to a people called Patane, who were lords of that hill-country. And as those who dwell on the skirts of the Pyrenees, on this side and on that, are masters of the passes by which we cross from Spain to France, or vice versâ, so these Patan people are the masters of the two entrances to India, by which those who go thither from the landward must pass...."—Barros, IV. vi. 1.
1563.—"... This first King was a Patane of certain mountains that march with Bengala."—Garcia, Coll. f. 34.
1572.—
"Mas agora de nomes, et de usança,
Novos, et varios são os habitantes,
Os Delijs, os Patãnes que em possança
De terra, e gente são mais abundantes."
Camões, vii. 20.
[By Aubertin:
"But now inhabitants of other name
And customs new and various there are found,
The Delhis and Patans, who in the fame
Of land and people do the most abound."]
1610.—"A Pattan, a man of good stature."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 220.
c. 1611.—"... the mightiest of the Afghan people was Kais.... The Prophet gave Kais the name of Abd Ulrasheed ... and ... predicted that God would make his issue so numerous that they, with respect to the establishment of the Faith, would outvie all other people; the angel Gabriel having revealed to him that their attachment to the Faith would, in strength, be like the wood upon which they lay the keel when constructing a ship, which wood the seamen call Pathan: on this account he conferred upon Abd Ulrasheed the title {747a}of Pathan[227] also."—Hist. of the Afghans, E.T., by Dorn, i. 38.
[1638.—"... Ozmanchan a Puttanian...."—Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1677, p. 76.]
1648.—"In general the Moors are a haughty and arrogant and proud people, and among them the Pattans stand out superior to the others in dress and manners."—Van Twist, 58.
1666.—"Martin Affonso and the other Portuguese delivered them from the war that the Patanes were making on them."—Faria y Sousa, Asia Portuguesa, i. 343.
1673.—"They are distinguished, some according to the Consanguinity they claim with Mahomet; as a Siad is a kin to that Imposture.... A Shiek is a Cousin too, at a distance, into which Relation they admit all new made Proselytes. Meer is somewhat allied also.... The rest are adopted under the Name of the Province ... as Mogul, the Race of the Tartars ... Patan, Duccan."—Fryer, 93.
1681.—"En estas regiones ay vna cuyas gentes se dizen los Patanes."—Martinez de la Puente, Compendio, 21.
1726.—"... The Patans (Patanders) are very different in garb, and surpass in valour and stout-heartedness in war."—Valentijn, Choro. 109.
1757.—"The Colonel (Clive) complained bitterly of so many insults put upon him, and reminded the Soubahdar how different his own conduct was, when called upon to assist him against the Pytans."—Ives, 149.
1763.—"The northern nations of India, although idolaters ... were easily induced to embrace Mahomedanism, and are at this day the Affghans or Pitans."—Orme, i. 24, ed. 1803.
1789.—"Moormen are, for the most part, soldiers by profession, particularly in the cavalry, as are also ... Pitans."—Munro, Narr. 49.
1798.—"... Afghans, or as they are called in India, Patans."—G. Forster, Travels, ii. 47.
[PUTTEE, PUTTY, s. Hind. paṭṭī.
a. A piece or strip of cloth, bandage; especially used in the sense of a ligature round the lower part of the leg used in lieu of a gaiter, originally introduced from the Himālaya, and now commonly used by sportsmen and soldiers. A special kind of cloth appears in the old trade-lists under the name of puteahs (see PIECE GOODS).
1875.—"Any one who may be bound for a long march will put on leggings of a peculiar sort, a bandage about 6 inches wide and four yards long, wound round from the ankle up to just below the knee, and then fastened by an equally long string, attached to the upper end, which is lightly wound many times round the calf of the leg. This, which is called patawa, is a much cherished piece of dress."—Drew, Jummoo, 175.
1900.—"The Puttee leggings are excellent for peace and war, on foot or on horseback."—Times, Dec. 24.
b. In the N.W.P. "an original share in a joint or coparcenary village or estate comprising many villages; it is sometimes defined as the smaller subdivision of a mahal or estate" (Wilson). Hence Putteedaree, paṭṭidārī used for a tenure of this kind.
1852.—"Their names were forthwith scratched off the collector's books, and those of their eldest sons were entered, who became forthwith, in village and cutcherry parlance, lumberdars of the shares of their fathers, or in other words, of puttee Shere Singh and puttee Baz Singh."—Raikes, Notes on the N.W.P. 94.
c. In S. India, soldiers' pay.
1810.—"... hence in ordinary acceptation, the pay itself was called puttee, a Canarese word which properly signifies a written statement of any kind."—Wilks, Hist. Sketches, Madras reprint, i. 415.]
PUTTYWALLA, s. Hind. paṭṭā-wālā, paṭṭī-wālā (see PUTTEE), 'one with a belt.' This is the usual Bombay term for a messenger or orderly attached to an office, and bearing a belt and brass badge, called in Bengal chuprassy or peon (qq.v.), in Madras usually by the latter name.
1878.—"Here and there a belted Government servant, called a Puttiwālā, or Paṭṭawālā, because distinguished by a belt...."—Monier Williams, Modern India, 34.
PUTWA, s. Hind. patwā. The Hibiscus sabdariffa, L., from the succulent acid flowers of which very fair jelly is made in Anglo-Indian households. [It is also known as the Rozelle or Red Sorrel (Watt, Econ. Dict. iv. 243). Riddell (Domest. Econ. 337) calls it "Oseille or Roselle jam and jelly."]
PYE, s. A familiar designation among British soldiers and young officers for a Pariah-dog (q.v.); a {748a}contraction, no doubt, of the former word.
[1892.—"We English call him a pariah, but this word, belonging to a low, yet by no means degraded class of people in Madras, is never heard on native lips as applied to a dog, any more than our other word 'pie.'"—L. Kipling, Beast and Man, 266.]
PYJAMMAS, s. Hind. pāē-jāma (see JAMMA), lit. 'leg-clothing.' A pair of loose drawers or trowsers, tied round the waist. Such a garment is used by various persons in India, e.g. by women of various classes, by Sikh men, and by most Mahommedans of both sexes. It was adopted from the Mahommedans by Europeans as an article of dishabille and of night attire, and is synonymous with Long Drawers, Shulwáurs, and Mogul-breeches. [For some distinctions between these various articles of dress see Forbes-Watson, (Textile Manufactures, 57).] It is probable that we English took the habit like a good many others from the Portuguese. Thus Pyrard (c. 1610) says, in speaking of Goa Hospital: "Ils ont force calsons sans quoy ne couchent iamais les Portugais des Indes" (ii. p. 11; [Hak. Soc. ii. 9]). The word is now used in London shops. A friend furnishes the following reminiscence: "The late Mr. B——, tailor in Jermyn Street, some 40 years ago, in reply to a question why pyjammas had feet sewn on to them (as was sometimes the case with those furnished by London outfitters) answered: 'I believe, Sir, it is because of the White Ants!'"
[1828—
"His chief joy smoking a cigar
In loose Paee-jams and native slippers."
Orient. Sport. Mag., reprint 1873, i. 64.]
1881.—"The rest of our attire consisted of that particularly light and airy white flannel garment, known throughout India as a pajama suit."—Haekel, Ceylon, 329.
PYKE, PAIK, s. Wilson gives only one original of the term so expressed in Anglo-Indian speech. He writes: "Páík or Páyik, corruptly Pyke, Hind. &c. (from S. padātika), Páík or Páyak, Mar. A footman, an armed attendant, an inferior police and revenue officer, a messenger, a courier, a village watchman: in Cuttack the Páíks formerly constituted a local militia, holding land of the {748b}Zamindárs or Rájas by the tenure of military service," &c., quoting Bengal Regulations. [Platts also treats the two words as identical.] But it seems clear to us that there are here two terms rolled together:
a. Pers. Paik, 'a foot-runner or courier.' We do not know whether this is an old Persian word or a Mongol introduction. According to Hammer Purgstall it was the term in use at the Court of the Mongol princes, as quoted below. Both the words occur in the Āīn, but differently spelt, and that with which we now deal is spelt paik (with the fatḥa point).
c. 1590.—"The Jilaudár (see under JULIBDAR) and the Paik (a runner). Their monthly pay varies from 1200 to 120d. (dāms), according to their speed and manner of service. Some of them will run from 50 to 100 kroh (Coss) per day."—Āīn, E.T. by Blochmann, i. 138 (see orig. i. 144).
1673.—At the Court of Constantinople: "Les Peiks venoient ensuite, avec leurs bonnets d'argent doré ornés d'un petit plumage de héron, un arc et un carquois chargé de flèches."—Journal d'A. Galland, i. 98.
1687.—"... the under officers and servants called Agiam-Oglans, who are designed to the meaner uses of the Seraglio ... most commonly the sons of Christians taken from their Parents at the age of 10 or 12 years.... These are: 1, Porters, 2, Bostangies or Gardiners ... 5, Paicks and Solacks...."—Sir Paul Rycaut, Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 19.
1761.—"Ahmad Sultán then commissioned Sháh Pasand Khán ... the harkáras (see HURCARRA) and the Paiks, to go and procure information as to the state and strength of the Mahratta army."—Muhammad Jáfar Shámlu, in Elliot, viii. 151-2.
1840.—"The express-riders (Eilbothen) accomplished 50 farsangs a-day, so that an express came in 4 days from Khorasan to Tebris [Tabrīz).... The Foot-runners carrying letters (Peik), whose name at least is maintained to this day at both the Persian and Osmanli Courts, accomplished 30 farsangs a-day."—Hammer Purgstall, Gesch. der Golden Horde, 243.
[1868.—"The Payeke is entrusted with the tchilim (see CHILLUM) (pipe), which at court (Khiva) is made of gold or silver, and must be replenished with fresh water every time it is filled with tobacco."—Vambery, Sketches, 89.]
b. Hind. pāīk and pāyik (also Mahr.) from Skt. padātika, and padika, 'a foot-soldier,' with the other specific application given by Wilson, exclusive of 'courier.' In some narratives the word seems to answer exactly to peon. {749a}In the first quotation, which is from the Āīn, the word, it will be seen, is different from that quoted under (a) from the same source.
c. 1590.—"It was the custom in those times, for the palace (of the King of Bengal) to be guarded by several thousand pykes (pāyak), who are a kind of infantry. An eunuch entered into a confederacy with these guards, who one night killed the King, Futteh Shah, when the Eunuch ascended the throne, under the title of Barbuck Shah."—Gladwin's Tr., ed. 1800, ii. 19 (orig. i. 415; [Jarrett (ii. 149) gives the word as Páyiks].
In the next quotation the word seems to be the same, though used for 'a seaman.' Compare uses of Lascar.
c. 1615.—"(His fleet) consisted of 20 beaked vessels, all well manned with the sailors whom they call paiques, as well as with Portuguese soldiers and topazes who were excellent musketeers; 50 hired jalias (see GALLEVAT) of like sort and his own (Sebastian Gonçalves's) galliot (see GALLEVAT), which was about the size of a patacho, with 14 demi-falcons on each broadside, two pieces of 18 to 20 lbs. calibre in the forecastle, and 60 Portuguese soldiers, with more than 40 topazes and Cafres (see CAFFER)."—Bocarro, Decada, 452.
1722.—Among a detail of charges at this period in the Zemindárry of Rājshāhī appears:
"9. Paikan, or the pikes, guard of villages, everywhere necessary ... 2,161 rupees."—Fifth Report, App. p. 345.
The following quotation from an Indian Regulation of Ld. Cornwallis's time is a good example of the extraordinary multiplication of terms, even in one Province in India, denoting approximately the same thing:
1792.—"All Pykes, Chokeydars (see CHOKIDAR), Pasbans, Dusauds, Nigabans,[228] Harees (see HARRY), and other descriptions of village watchmen are declared subject to the orders of the Darogah (see DAROGA)...."—Regns. for the Police ... passed by the G.-G. in C., Dec. 7.
" "The army of Assam was a militia organised as follows. The whole male population was bound to serve either as soldiers or labourers, and was accordingly divided into sets of four men each, called gotes, the individuals comprising the gotes being termed pykes."—Johnstone's Acct. of Welsh's Expedition to Assam, 1792-93-94 (commd. by Gen. Keatinge).
1802.—After a detail of persons of rank in Midnapore:
"None of these entertain armed followers except perhaps ten or a dozen Peons for state, but some of them have Pykes in considerable numbers, to keep the peace on their estates. These Pykes are under the magistrate's orders."—Fifth Report, App. p. 535.
1812.—"The whole of this last-mentioned numerous class of Pykes are understood to have been disbanded, in compliance with the new Police regulations."—Fifth Report, 71.
1872.—"... Dalais or officers of the peasant militia (Paiks). The Paiks were settled chiefly around the fort on easy tenures."—Hunter's Orissa, ii. 269.
PYSE! interjection. The use of this is illustrated in the quotations. Notwithstanding the writer's remark (below) it is really Hindustani, viz. po'is, 'look out!' or 'make way!' apparently from Skt. paśya, 'look! see!' (see Molesworth's Mahr. Dict. p. 529, col. c; Fallon's Hind. Dict., p. 376, col. a; [Platts, 282b].
[1815.—"... three men came running up behind them, as if they were clearing the road for some one, by calling out 'pice! pice!' (make way, make way)...."—Elphinstone's Report on Murder of Gungadhur Shastry, in Papers relating to E.I. Affairs, p. 14.]
1883.—"Does your correspondent Col. Prideaux know the origin of the warning called out by buggy drivers to pedestrians in Bombay, 'Pyse'? It is not Hindustani."—Letter in N. & Q., Ser. VI. viii. p. 388.
[Other expressions of the same kind are Malayāl. po, 'Get out of the way!' and Hind. Mahr. khis, khis, from khisnā, 'to drop off.'
1598.—"As these hayros goe in the streetes, they crie po, po, which is to say, take heede."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 280.
1826.—"I was awoke from disturbed rest by cries of kis! kis! (clear the way)."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 46.]
[QUAMOCLIT, s. The Ipomaea quamoclitis, the name given by Linnaeus to the Red Jasmine. The word is a corruption of Skt. Kāma-latā, 'the creeper of Kāma, god of love.'
1834.—"This climber, the most beautiful and luxuriant imaginable, bears also the name of Kamalāta 'Love's Creeper.' Some {750a}have flowers of snowy hue, with a delicate fragrance...."—Wanderings of a Pilgrim, i. 310-11.]
QUEDDA, n.p. A city, port, and small kingdom on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, tributary to Siam. The name according to Crawfurd is Malay kadáh, 'an elephant-trap' (see KEDDAH). [Mr. Skeat writes: "I do not know what Crawfurd's authority may be, but kedah does not appear in Klinkert's Dict.... In any case the form taken by the name of the country is Kĕdah. The coralling of elephants is probably a Siamese custom, the method adopted on the E. coast, where the Malays are left to themselves, being to place a decoy female elephant near a powerful noose."] It has been supposed sometimes that Kadáh is the Κῶλι or Κῶλις of Ptolemy's sea-route to China, and likewise the Kalah of the early Arab voyagers, as in the Fourth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman (see Procgs. R. Geog. Soc. 1882, p. 655; Burton, Arabian Nights, iv. 386). It is possible that these old names however represent Kwala, 'a river mouth,' a denomination of many small ports in Malay regions. Thus the port that we call Quedda is called by the Malays Kwala Batrang.
1516.—"Having left this town of Tanassary, further along the coast towards Malaca, there is another seaport of the Kingdom of Ansiam, which is called Queda, in which also there is much shipping, and great interchange of merchandise."—Barbosa, 188-189.
1553.—"... The settlements from Tavay to Malaca are these: Tenassary, a notable city, Lungur, Torrão, Queda, producing the best pepper on all that coast, Pedão, Perá, Solungor, and our City of Malaca...."—Barros, I. ix. 1.
1572.—
"Olha Tavai cidade, onde começa
De Sião largo o imperio tão comprido:
Tenassarí, Quedá, que he so cabeça
Das que pimenta alli tem produzido."
Camões, x. 123.
By Burton:
"Behold Tavái City, whence begin
Siam's dominions, Reign of vast extent;
Tenassarí, Quedá of towns the Queen
that bear the burthen of the hot piment."
1598.—"... to the town and Kingdome of Queda ... which lyeth under 6 degrees and a halfe; this is also a Kingdome like Tanassaria, it hath also some wine, as Tanassaria hath, and some small quantitie of Pepper."—Linschoten, p. 31; [Hak. Soc. i. 103].
1614.—"And so ... Diogo de Mendonça ... sending the galliots (see GALLEVAT) on before, embarked in the jalia (see GALLEVAT) of João Rodriguez de Paiva, and coming to Queda, and making an attack at daybreak, and finding them unprepared, he burnt the town, and carried off a quantity of provisions and some tin" (calaim, see CALAY).—Bocarro, Decada, 187.
1838.—"Leaving Penang in September, we first proceeded to the town of Quedah lying at the mouth of a river of the same name."—Quedah, &c., by Capt. Sherard Osborne, ed. 1865.
QUEMOY, n.p. An island at the east opening of the Harbour of Amoy. It is a corruption of Kin-măn, in Chang-chau dialect Kin-muin, meaning 'Golden-door.'
QUI-HI, s. The popular distinctive nickname of the Bengal Anglo-Indian, from the usual manner of calling servants in that Presidency, viz. 'Koī hai?' 'Is any one there?' The Anglo-Indian of Madras was known as a Mull, and he of Bombay as a Duck (qq.v.).
1816.—"The Grand Master, or Adventures of Qui Hi in Hindostan, a Hudibrastic Poem; with illustrations by Rowlandson."
1825.—"Most of the household servants are Parsees, the greater part of whom speak English.... Instead of 'Koee hue,' Who's there? the way of calling a servant is 'boy,' a corruption, I believe, of 'bhae,' brother."—Heber, ed. 1844, ii. 98. [But see under BOY.]
c. 1830.—"J'ai vu dans vos gazettes de Calcutta les clameurs des quoihaés (sobriquet des Européens Bengalis de ce côté) sur la chaleur."—Jacquemont, Corresp. ii. 308.
QUILOA, n.p. i.e. Kilwa, in lat. 9° 0′ S., next in remoteness to Sofāla, which for a long time was the ne plus ultra of Arab navigation on the East Coast of Africa, as Capt. Boyados was that of Portuguese navigation on the West Coast. Kilwa does not occur in the Geographies of Edrisi or Abulfeda, though Sofāla is in both. It is mentioned in the Roteiro, and in Barros's account of Da Gama's voyage. Barros had access to a native chronicle of Quiloa, and says it was founded about A.H. 400, and a little more than 70 years after Magadoxo and Brava, by a Persian Prince from Shiraz.
1220.—"Kilwa, a place in the country of Zenj, a city."—Yāḳūt, (orig.), iv. 302.
c. 1330.—"I embarked at the town of Makdashau (Magadoxo), making for the {751a}country of the Sawāḥil, and the town of Kulwā, in the country of the Zenj...."—Ibn Batuta, ii. 191. [See under SOFALA.]
1498.—"Here we learned that the island of which they told us in Mocombiquy as being peopled by Christians is an island at which dwells the King of Mocombiquy himself, and that the half is of Moors, and the half of Christians, and in this island is much seed-pearl, and the name of the island is Quyluee...."—Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama, 48.
1501.—"Quilloa è cittade in Arabia in vna insuletta giunta a terra firma, ben popolata de homini negri et mercadanti: edificata al modo nr̃o: Quiui hanno abundantia de auro: argento: ambra: muschio: et perle: ragionevolmente vesteno panni de sera: et bambaxi fini."—Letter of K. Emanuel, 2.
1506.—"Del 1502 ... mandò al viaggio naue 21, Capitanio Don Vasco de Gamba, che fu quello che discoperse l'India ... e nell'andar de li, del Cao de Bona Speranza, zonse in uno loco chiamato Ochilia; la qual terra e dentro uno rio...."—Leonardo Ca' Masser, 17.
1553.—"The Moor, in addition to his natural hatred, bore this increased resentment on account of the chastisement inflicted on him, and determined to bring the ships into port at the city of Quiloa, that being a populous place, where they might get the better of our ships by force of arms. To wreak this mischief with greater safety to himself he told Vasco da Gama, as if wishing to gratify him, that in front of them was a city called Quiloa, half peopled by Christians of Abyssinia and of India, and that if he gave the order the ships should be steered thither."—Barros, I. iv. 5.
1572.—
"Esta ilha pequena, que habitamos,
He em toda esta terra certa escala
De todos os que as ondas navegamos
De Quilóa, de Mombaça, a de Sofala."
Camões, i. 54.
By Burton:
"This little island, where we now abide,
of all this seaboard is the one sure place
for ev'ry merchantman that stems the tide
from Quiloa, or Sofala, or Mombas...."
QUILON, n.p. A form which we have adopted from the Portuguese for the name of a town now belonging to Travancore; once a very famous and much frequented port of Malabar, and known to the Arabs as Kaulam. The proper name is Tamil, Kollam, of doubtful sense in this use. Bishop Caldwell thinks it may be best explained as 'Palace' or 'royal residence,' from Kolu, 'the royal Presence,' or Hall of Audience. [Mr. Logan says: "Kollam is only an abbreviated form of Koyilagam or Kovilagam, {751b}'King's house'" (Malabar, i. 231, note).] For ages Kaulam was known as one of the greatest ports of Indian trade with Western Asia, especially trade in pepper and brazil-wood. It was possibly the Malé of Cosmas in the 6th century (see MALABAR), but the first mention of it by the present name is about three centuries later, in the Relation translated by Reinaud. The 'Kollam era' in general use in Malabar dates from A.D. 824; but it does not follow that the city had no earlier existence. In a Syriac extract (which is, however, modern) in Land's Anecdota Syriaca (Latin, i. 125; Syriac, p. 27) it is stated that three Syrian missionaries came to Kaulam in A.D. 823, and got leave from King Shakīrbīrtī to build a church and city at Kaulam. It would seem that there is some connection between the date assigned to this event, and the 'Kollam era'; but what it is we cannot say. Shakīrbīrtī is evidently a form of Chakravartti Rāja (see under CHUCKERBUTTY). Quilon, as we now call it, is now the 3rd town of Travancore, pop. (in 1891) 23,380; there is little trade. It had a European garrison up to 1830, but now only one Sepoy regiment.
In ecclesiastical narratives of the Middle Ages the name occurs in the form Columbum, and by this name it was constituted a See of the Roman Church in 1328, suffragan of the Archbishop of Sultaniya in Persia; but it is doubtful if it ever had more than one bishop, viz. Jordanus of Severac, author of the Mirabilia often quoted in this volume. Indeed we have no knowledge that he ever took up his bishopric, as his book was written, and his nomination occurred, both during a visit to Europe. The Latin Church however which he had founded, or obtained the use of, existed 20 years later, as we know from John de' Marignolli, so it is probable that he had reached his See. The form Columbum is accounted for by an inscription (see Ind. Antiq. ii. 360) which shows that the city was called Kolamba, [other forms being Kelambapaṭṭana, or Kālambapaṭṭana (Bombay Gazetteer, vol. i. pt. i. 183)]. The form Palumbum also occurs in most of the MSS. of Friar Odoric's Journey; this is the more difficult to account for, unless it was a mere play (or a trick of memory) on the kindred meanings of columba {752a}and palumbes. A passage in a letter from the Nestorian Patriarch Yeshu'yab (c. 650-60) quoted in Assemani (iii. pl. i. 131), appears at that date to mention Colon. But this is an arbitrary and erroneous rendering in Assemani's Latin. The Syriac has Kalah, and probably therefore refers to the port of the Malay regions noticed under CALAY and QUEDDA.
851.—"De ce lieu (Mascate) les navires mettent la voile pour l'Inde, et se dirigent vers Koulam-Malay; la distance entre Mascate et Koulam-Malay est d'un mois de marche, avec un vent modéré."—Relation, &c., tr. by Reinaud, i. 15.
1166.—"Seven days from thence is Chulam, on the confines of the country of the sun-worshippers, who are descendants of Kush ... and are all black. This nation is very trustworthy in matters of trade.... Pepper grows in this country.... Cinnamon, ginger, and many other kinds of spices also grow in this country."—Benjamin of Tudela, in Early Travels in Palestine, 114-115.
c. 1280-90.—"Royaumes de Ma-pa-'rh. Parmi tous les royaumes étrangers d'au-de-là des mers, il n'y eut que Ma-pa-'rh et Kiu-lan (Mabar and Quilon) sur lesquels on ait pu parvenir à établir une certaine sujétion; mais surtout Kiu-lan ... (Année 1282). Cette année ... Kiu-lan a envoyé un ambassadeur à la cour (mongole) pour présenter en tribut des marchandises precieuses et un singe noir."—Chinese Annals, quoted by Pauthier, Marc Pol, ii. 603, 643.
1298.—"When you quit Maabar and go 500 miles towards the S.W. you come to the Kingdom of Coilum. The people are idolators, but there are also some Christians and some Jews," &c.—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 22.
c. 1300.—"Beyond Guzerat are Kankan and Tána; beyond them the country of Malibár, which from the boundary of Karoha to Kúlam, is 300 parasangs in length.... The people are all Samánis, and worship idols...."—Rashíduddín, in Elliot, i. 68.
c. 1310.—"Ma'bar extends in length from Kúlam to Níláwar (Nellore) nearly 300 parasangs along the sea-coast...."—Wassáf, in Elliot, iii. 32.
c. 1322.—"... as I went by the sea ... towards a certain city called Polumbum (where groweth the pepper in great store)...."—Friar Odoric, in Cathay, p. 71.
c. 1322.—"Poi venni a Colonbio, ch'è la migliore terra d'India per mercatanti. Quivi è il gengiovo in grande copia e del bueno del mondo. Quivi vanno tutti ignudi salvo che portano un panno innanzi alla vergogna, ... e legalosi di dietro."—Palatine MS. of Odoric, in Cathay, App., p. xlvii.
c. 1328.—"In India, whilst I was at Columbum, were found two cats having {752b}wings like the wings of bats...."—Friar Jordanus, p. 29.
1330.—"Joannes, &c., nobili viro domino Nascarenorum et universis sub eo Christianis Nascarenis de Columbo gratiam in praesenti, quae ducat ad gloriam in futuro ... quatenus venerabilem Fratrem nostrum Jordanum Catalani episcopum Columbensem ... quem nuper ad episcopalis dignatatis apicem auctoritate apostolica diximus promovendum...."—Letter of Pope John XXII. to the Christians of Coilon, in Odorici Raynaldi Ann. Eccles. v. 495.
c. 1343.—"The 10th day (from Calicut) we arrived at the city of Kaulam, which is one of the finest of Malībār. Its markets are splendid, and its merchants are known under the name of Ṣūlī (see CHOOLIA). They are rich; one of them will buy a ship with all its fittings and load it with goods from his own store."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 10.
c. 1348.—"And sailing on the feast of St. Stephen, we navigated the Indian Sea until Palm Sunday, and then arrived at a very noble city of India called Columbum, where the whole world's pepper is produced.... There is a church of St. George there, of the Latin communion, at which I dwelt. And I adorned it with fine paintings, and taught there the holy Law."—John Marignolli, in Cathay, &c., pp. 342-344.
c. 1430.—"... Coloen, civitatem nobilem venit, cujus ambitus duodecim millia passuum amplectitur. Gingiber qui colobi (colombi) dicitur, piper, verzinum, cannellae quae crassae appellantur, hac in provincia, quam vocant Melibariam, leguntur."—Conti, in Poggius de Var. Fortunae.
c. 1468-9.—"In the year Bhavati (644) of the Kolamba era, King Adityavarmâ the ruler of Vânchi ... who has attained the sovereignty of Cherabaya Maṇdalam, hung up the bell...."—Inscr. in Tinnevelly, see Ind. Antiq. ii. 360.
1510.—"... we departed ... and went to another city called Colon.... The King of this city is a Pagan, and extremely powerful, and he has 20,000 horsemen, and many archers. This country has a good port near to the sea-coast. No grain grows here, but fruits as at Calicut, and pepper in great quantities."—Varthema, 182-3.
1516.—"Further on along the same coast towards the south is a great city and good sea-port which is named Coulam, in which dwell many Moors and Gentiles and Christians. They are great merchants and very rich, and own many ships with which they trade to Cholmendel, the Island of Ceylon, Bengal, Malaca, Samatara, and Pegu.... There is also in this city much pepper."—Barbosa, 157-8.
1572.—
"A hum Cochim, e a outro Cananor
A qual Chalé, a qual a ilha da Pimenta,
A qual Coulao, a qual da Cranganor,
E os mais, a quem o mais serve, e contenta...."
Camões, vii. 35.
By Burton:
"To this Cochim, to that falls Cananor,
one hath Chalé, another th' Isle Piment,
a third Coulam, a fourth takes Cranganor,
the rest is theirs with whom he rests content."
1726.—"... Coylang."—Valentijn, Choro., 115.
1727.—"Coiloan is another small principality. It has the Benefit of a River, which is the southermost Outlet of the Couchin Islands; and the Dutch have a small Fort, within a Mile of it on the Sea-shore.... It keeps a Garrison of 30 Men, and its trade is inconsiderable."—A. Hamilton, i. 333 [ed. 1744].
QUIRPELE, s. This Tamil name of the mungoose (q.v.) occurs in the quotation which follows: properly Kīrippiḷḷai, ['little squeaker'].
1601.—"... bestiolia quaedam Quil sive Quirpele vocata, quae aspectu primo viverrae...."—De Bry, iv. 63.
RADAREE, s. P.—H. rāh-dārī, from rāh-dār, 'road-keeper.' A transit duty; sometimes 'black-mail.' [Rāh-dārī is very commonly employed in the sense of sending prisoners, &c., by escort from one police post to another, as along the Grand Trunk road].
1620.—"Fra Nicolo Ruigiola Francescano genovese, il quale, passagiero, che d'India andava in Italia, partito alcuni giorni prima da Ispahan ... poco di qua lontano era stato trattenuto dai rahdari, o custodi delle strade...."—P. della Valle, ii. 99.
1622.—"At the garden Pelengon we found a rahdar or guardian of the road, who was also the chief over certain other rahdari, who are usually posted in another place 2 leagues further on."—Ibid. ii. 285.
1623.—"For Rahdars, the Khan has given them a firman to free them, also firmans for a house...."—Sainsbury, iii. p. 163.
[1667.—"... that the goods ... may not be stopped ... on pretence of taking Rhadaryes, or other dutyes...."—Phirmaan of Shaw Orung Zeeb, in Forrest, Bombay Letters, Home Series, i. 213.]
1673.—"This great officer, or Farmer of the Emperor's Custom (the Shawbunder [see SHABUNDER]), is obliged on the Roads to provide for the safe travelling for Merchants by a constant Watch ... for which Rhadorage, or high Imposts, are allowed {753b}by the Merchants, both at Landing and in their passage inland."—Fryer, 222.
1685.—"Here we were forced to compound with the Rattaree men, for ye Dutys on our goods."—Hedges, Diary, Dec. 15; [Hak. Soc. i. 213. In i. 100, Rawdarrie].
c. 1731.—"Nizámu-l Mulk ... thus got rid of ... the ráhdárí from which latter impost great annoyance had fallen upon travellers and traders."—Kháfi Khán, in Elliot, vii. 531.
[1744.—"Passing the river Kizilazan we ascended the mountains by the Rahdar (a Persian toll) of Noglabar...."—Hanway, i. 226.]
RAGGY, s. Rāgī (the word seems to be Dec. Hindustani, [and is derived from Skt. rāga, 'red,' on account of the colour of the grain]. A kind of grain, Eleusine Coracana, Gaertn.; Cynosurus Coracanus, Linn.; largely cultivated, as a staple of food, in Southern India.
1792.—"The season for sowing raggy, rice, and bajera from the end of June to the end of August."—Life of T. Munro, iii. 92.
1793.—"The Mahratta supplies consisting chiefly of Raggy, a coarse grain, which grows in more abundance than any other in the Mysore Country, it became necessary to serve it out to the troops, giving rice only to the sick."—Dirom, 10.
[1800.—"The Deccany Mussulmans call it Ragy. In the Tamil language it is called Kevir (kēzhvaragu)."—Buchanan, Mysore, i. 100.]
RAINS, THE, s. The common Anglo-Indian colloquial for the Indian rainy season. The same idiom, as chuvas, had been already in use by the Portuguese. (See WINTER).
c. 1666.—"Lastly, I have imagined that if in Delhi, for example, the Rains come from the East, it may yet be that the Seas which are Southerly to it are the origin of them, but that they are forced by reason of some Mountains ... to turn aside and discharge themselves another way...."—Bernier, E.T., 138; [ed. Constable, 433].
1707.—"We are heartily sorry that the Rains have been so very unhealthy with you."—Letter in Orme's Fragments.
1750.—"The Rains ... setting in with great violence, overflowed the whole country."—Orme, Hist., ed. 1803, i. 153.
1868.—"The place is pretty, and although it is 'the Rains,' there is scarcely any day when we cannot get out."—Bp. Milman, in Memoir, p. 67.
[RAIS, s. Ar. ra'īs, from ra's, 'the head,' in Ar. meaning 'the captain, or master, not the owner of a ship;' in {754a}India it generally means 'a native gentleman of respectable position.'
1610.—"... Reyses of all our Nauyes."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 435.
1785.—"... their chief (more worthless in truth than a horsekeeper)." In note—"In the original the word syse is introduced for the sake of a jingle with the word Ryse (a chief or leader)."—Tippoo's Letters, 18.
1870.—"Raees." See under RYOT.
1900.—"The petition was signed by representative landlords, raises."—Pioneer Mail, April 13.]
RAJA, RAJAH, s. Skt. rājā, 'king.' The word is still used in this sense, but titles have a tendency to degenerate, and this one is applied to many humbler dignitaries, petty chiefs, or large Zemindars. It is also now a title of nobility conferred by the British Government, as it was by their Mahommedan predecessors, on Hindus, as Nawāb is upon Moslem. Rāī, Rāo, Rānā, Rāwal, Rāya (in S. India), are other forms which the word has taken in vernacular dialects or particular applications. The word spread with Hindu civilisation to the eastward, and survives in the titles of Indo-Chinese sovereigns, and in those of Malay and Javanese chiefs and princes.
It is curious that the term Rājā cannot be traced, so far as we know, in any of the Greek or Latin references to India, unless the very questionable instance of Pliny's Rachias be an exception. In early Mahommedan writers the now less usual, but still Indian, forms Rāō and Rāī, are those which we find. (Ibn Batuta, it will be seen, regards the words for king in India and in Spain as identical, in which he is fundamentally right.) Among the English vulgarisms of the 18th century again we sometimes find the word barbarised into Roger.
c. 1338.—"... Bahā-uddīn fled to one of the heathen Kings called the Rāī Kanbīlah. The word Rāī among those people, just as among the people of Rūm, signifies 'King.'"—Ibn Batuta, iii. 318. The traveller here refers, as appears by another passage, to the Spanish Rey.
[1609.—"Raiaw." See under GOONT.]
1612.—"In all this part of the East there are 4 castes.... The first caste is that of the Rayas, and this is a most noble race from which spring all the Kings of Canara...."—Couto, V. vi. 4.
[1615.—"According to your direction I have sent per Orincay (see ORANKAY) {754b}Beege Roger's junk six pecculles (see PECUL) of lead."—Foster, Letters, iv. 107.