# Hobson-Jobson/M

M
MĀ-BĀP, s. 'Āp mā-bāp hai khudāwand!' 'You, my Lord, are my mother and father!' This is an address from a native, seeking assistance, or begging release from a penalty, or reluctant to obey an order, which the young ṣāhib hears at first with astonishment, but soon as a matter of course.
MABAR, n.p. The name given in the Middle Ages by the Arabs to that coast of India which we call Coromandel. The word is Ar. ma'bar, 'the ferry or crossing-place.' It is not clear how the name came to be applied, whether because the Arab vessels habitually touched at its ports, or because it was the place of crossing to Ceylon, or lastly whether it was not an attempt to give meaning to some native name. [The Madras Gloss. says it was so called because it was the place of crossing from Madura to Ceylon; also see Logan, Malabar, i. 280.] We know no occurrence of the term earlier than that which we give from Abdallatīf.
1279-86.—In M. Pauthier's notes on Marco Polo very curious notices are extracted from Chinese official annals regarding the communications, in the time of Kublai Kaan, between that Emperor and Indian States, including Ma-pa-'rh.—(See pp. 600-605).
c. 1292.—"When you leave the Island of Seilan and sail westward about 60 miles, page 526byou come to the great province of Maabar, which is styled India the Greater: it is the best of all the Indies, and is on the mainland."—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 16.
c. 1300.—"The merchants export from Ma'bar silken stuffs, aromatic roots; large pearls are brought from the sea. The productions of this country are carried to 'Irák, Khorásán, Syria, Russia and Europe."—Rashīduddīn, in Elliot, i. 69.
1303.—"In the beginning of this year (703 H.), the Maliki-'Azam, Takiú-d-dín ... departed from the country of Hind to the passage (ma'bar) of corruption. The King of Ma'bar was anxious to obtain his property and wealth, but Malik Mu'azzam Siráju-d-dín, son of the deceased, having secured his goodwill, by the payment of 200,000 dínárs, not only obtained the wealth, but rank also of his father."—Wassáf, in Elliot, iii. 45.
1310.—"The country of Ma'bar, which is so distant from Dehli that a man travelling with all expedition could only reach it after a journey of 12 months, there the arrow of any holy warrior had not yet reached."—Amír Khusrú, in Elliot, iii. 85.
c. 1330.—"The third part (of India) is Ma'bar, which begins some three or four days journey to the eastward of Kaulam; this territory lies to the east of Malabar.... It is stated that the territory Ma'bar begins at the Cape Kumhari, a name which applies both to a mountain and a city.... Biyyardāwal is the residence of the Prince of Ma'bar, for whom horses are imported from foreign countries."—Abulfeda, in Gildemeister, p. 185. We regret to see that M. Guyard, in his welcome completion of Reinaud's translation of Abulfeda, absolutely, in some places, substitutes "Coromandel" for "Ma'bar." It is French fashion, but a bad one.
c. 1498.—"Zo deser stat Kangera anlenden alle Kouffschyff die in den landen zo doyn hauen, ind lijcht in eyner provincie Moabar genant."—Pilgerfahrt des Ritters Arnold von Harff (a fiction-monger), p. 140.
MACAO, n.p.
a. The name applied by the Portuguese to the small peninsula and the city built on it, near the mouth of Canton River, which they have occupied since 1557. The place is called by the Chinese Ngao-măn (Ngao, 'bay or inlet,' Măn, 'gate'). The Portuguese name is alleged to be taken from A-mā-ngao, 'the Bay of Ama,' i.e. of the Mother, the so-called page 527a'Queen of Heaven,' a patroness of seamen. And indeed Amacao is an old form often met with.
c. 1570.—"On the fifth day of our voyage it pleased God that we arrived at ... Lampacau, where at that time the Portugals exercised their commerce with the Chineses, which continued till the year 1557, when the Mandarins of Canton, at the request of the Merchants of that Country, gave us the port of Macao, where the trade now is; of which place (that was but a desart Iland before) our countrymen made a very goodly plantation, wherein there were houses worth three or four thousand Duckats, together with a Cathedral Church...."—Pinto, in Cogan, p. 315.
1584.—"There was in Machao a religious man of the order of the barefoote friars of S. Francis, who vnderstanding the great and good desire of this king, did sende him by certaine Portugal merchants ... a cloth whereon was painted the day of iudgement and hell, and that by an excellent workman."—Mendoza, ii. 394.
1585.—"They came to Amacao, in Iuly, 1585. At the same time it seasonably hapned that Linsilan was commanded from the court to procure of the Strangers at Amacao, certaine goodly feathers for the King."—From the Jesuit Accounts, in Purchas, iii. 330.
1599 ... —"Amacao." See under MONSOON.
1602.—"Being come, as heretofore I wrote your Worship, to Macao a city of the Portugals, adjoyning to the firme Land of China, where there is a Colledge of our Company."—Letter from Diego de Pantoia, in Purchas, iii. 350.
[1611.—"There came a Jesuit from a place called Langasack (see LANGASAQUE), which place the Carrack of Amakau yearly was wont to come."—Danvers, Letters, i. 146.]
1615.—"He adviseth me that 4 juncks are arrived at Langasaque from Chanchew, which with this ship from Amacau, will cause all matters to be sould chepe."—Cocks's Diary, i. 35.
[" "... carried them prisoners aboard the great ship of Amacan."—Foster, Letters, iv. 46.]
page 527bb. MACAO, MACCAO, was also the name of a place on the Pegu River which was the port of the city so called in the day of its greatness. A village of the name still exists at the spot.
1568.—"Si fa commodamente il viaggio sino a Maccao distante da Pegu dodeci miglia, e qui si sbarca."—Ces. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 395.
1587.—"From Cirion we went to Macao, &c."—R. Fitch, in Hakl. ii. 391. (See DELING).
MACAREO, s. A term applied by old voyagers to the phenomenon of the bore, or great tidal wave as seen especially in the Gulf of Cambay, and in the Sitang Estuary in Pegu. The word is used by them as if it were an Oriental word. At one time we were disposed to think it might be the Skt. word makara, which is applied to a mythological sea-monster, and to the Zodiacal sign Capricorn. This might easily have had a mythological association with the furious phenomenon in question, and several of the names given to it in various parts of the world seem due to associations of a similar kind. Thus the old English word Oegir or Eagre for the bore on the Severn, which occurs in Drayton, "seems to be a reminiscence of the old Scandinavian deity Oegir, the god of the stormy sea." [This theory is rejected by N.E.D. s.v. Eagre.] One of the Hindi names for the phenomenon is Menḍhā, 'The Ram'; whilst in modern Guzerat, according to R. Drummond, the natives call it ghoṛā, "likening it to the war horse, or a squadron of them." But nothing could illustrate the naturalness of such a figure as makara, applied to the bore, better than the following paragraph in the review-article just quoted (p. 401), which was evidently penned without any allusion to or suggestion of such an page 528aorigin of the name, and which indeed makes no reference to the Indian name, but only to the French names of which we shall presently speak:
Take also the following:
But unfortunately we can find no evidence of the designation of the phenomenon in India by the name of makara or the like; whilst both mascaret (as indicated in the quotation just made) and macrée are found in French as terms for the bore. Both terms appear to belong properly to the Garonne, though mascaret has of late began on the Seine to supplant the old term barre, which is evidently the same as our bore. [The N.E.D. suggests O. N. bára, 'wave.'] Littré can suggest no etymology for mascaret; he mentions a whimsical one which connects the word with a place on the Garrone called St. Macaire, but only to reject it. There would be no impossibility in the transfer of an Indian word of this kind to France, any more than in the other alternative of the transfer of a French term to India in such a way that in the 16th century visitors to that country should have regarded it as an indigenous word, if we had but evidence of its Indian existence. The date of Littré's earliest quotation, which we borrow below, is also unfavourable to the probability of transplantation from India. There remains the possibility that the word is Basque. The Saturday Reviewer already quoted says that he could find nothing approaching to Mascaret in a Basque French Dict., but this hardly seems final.
The vast rapidity of the flood-tide in the Gulf of Cambay is mentioned by page 528bMaṣ'ūdī, who witnessed it in the year H. 303 (A.D. 915) i. 255; also less precisely by Ibn Batuta (iv. 60). There is a paper on it in the Bo. Govt. Selections, N.S. No. xxvi., from which it appears that the bore wave reaches a velocity of 10½ knots. [See also Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd. ed. i. 313.]
1568.—"These Sholds (G. of Cambay) are an hundred and foure-score miles about in a straight or gulfe, which they call Macareo (Maccareo in orig.) which is as much as to say a race of a Tide."—Master C. Frederick, Hakl. ii. 342; [and comp. ii. 362].
1583.—"And having sailed until the 23d of the said month, we found ourselves in the neighbourhood of the Macareo (of Martaban) which is the most marvellous thing that ever was heard of in the way of tides, and high waters.... The water in the channel rises to the height of a high tree, and then the boat is set to face it, waiting for the fury of the tide, which comes on with such violence that the noise is that of a great earthquake, insomuch that the boat is soused from stem to stern, and carried by that impulse swiftly up the channel."—Gasparo Balbi, ff. 91v, 92.
1613.—"The Macareo of waves is a disturbance of the sea, like water boiling, in which the sea casts up its waves in foam. For the space of an Italian mile, and within that distance only, this boiling and foaming occurs, whilst all the rest of the sea is smooth and waveless as a pond.... And the stories of the Malays assert that it is caused by souls that are passing the Ocean from one region to another, or going in cafilas from the Golden Chersonesus ... to the river Ganges."—Godinho de Eredia, f. 41v. [See Skeat, Malay Magic, 10 seq.]
1644.—"... thence to the Gulf of Cambaya with the impetuosity of the currents which are called Macareo, of whose fury strange things are told, insomuch that a stone thrown with force from the hand even in the first speed of its projection does not move more swiftly than those waters run."—Bocarro, MS.
1727.—"A Body of Waters comes rolling in on the Sand, whose Front is above two Fathoms high, and whatever Body lies in its Way it overturns, and no Ship can evade its Force, but in a Moment is overturned, this violent Boer the Natives called a Mackrea."—A. Hamilton, ii. 33; [ed. 1744, ii. 32].
MACASSAR, n.p. In Malay Mangkasar, properly the name of a people of Celebes (q.v.), but now the name of a Dutch seaport and seat of Government on the W. coast of the S.W. peninsula of that spider-like island. The last quotation refers to a time when we occupied the place, an episode of Anglo-Indian history almost forgotten.
[1610.—"Selebes or Makassar, wherein are spent and uttered these wares following."—Danvers, Letters, i. 71.
[1664-5.—"... and anon to Gresham College, where, among other good discourse, there was tried the great poyson of Maccassa upon a dogg, but it had no effect all the time we sat there."—Pepys, Diary, March 15; ed. Wheatley, iv. 372.]
MACE, s.
a. The crimson net-like mantle, which envelops the hard outer shell of the nutmeg, when separated and dried constitutes the mace of commerce. Hanbury and Flückiger are satisfied that the attempt to identify the Macir, Macer, &c., of Pliny and other ancients with mace is a mistake, as indeed the sagacious Garcia also pointed out, and Chr. Acosta still more precisely. The name does not seem to be mentioned by Maṣ'ūdī; it is not in the list of aromatics, 25 in number, which he details (i. 367). It is mentioned by Edrisi, who wrote c. 1150, and whose information generally was of much older date, though we do not know what word he uses. The fact that nutmeg and mace are the product of one plant seems to have led to the fiction that clove and cinnamon also came from that same plant. It is, however, true that a kind of aromatic bark was known in the Arab pharmacopœia of the Middle Ages under the name of ḳirfat-al-ḳaranful page 529bor 'bark of clove,' which may have been either a cause of the mistake or a part of it. The mistake in question, in one form or another, prevailed for centuries. One of the authors of this book was asked many years ago by a respectable Mahommedan of Delhi if it were not the case that cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg were the produce of one tree. The prevalence of the mistake in Europe is shown by the fact that it is contradicted in a work of the 16th century (Bodaei, Comment. in Theophrastum, 992); and by the quotation from Funnel.
The name mace may have come from the Ar. basbāsa, possibly in some confusion with the ancient macir. [See Skeat, Concise Dict. who gives F. macis, which was confused with M. F. macer, probably Lat. macer, macir, doubtless of Eastern origin.]
c. 1347.—"The fruit of the clove is the nutmeg, which we know as the scented nut. The flower which grows upon it is the mace (basbāsa). And this is what I have seen with my own eyes."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 243.
c. 1370.—"A gret Yle and great Contree, that men clepen Java.... There growen alle manere of Spicerie more plentyfous liche than in any other contree, as of Gyngevere, Clowegylofres, Canelle, Zedewalle, Notemuges, and Maces. And wytethe wel, that the Notemuge bereth the Maces. For righte as the Note of the Haselle hath an Husk withouten, that the Note is closed in, til it be ripe, and after falleth out; righte so it is of the Notemuge and of the Maces."—Sir John Maundeville, ed. 1866, p. 187-188. This is a remarkable passage for it is interpolated by Maundeville, from superior information, in what he is borrowing from Odoric. The comparison to the hazel-nut husk is just that used by Hanbury & Flückiger (Pharmacographia, 1st ed. 456).
c. 1430.—"Has (insulas Java) ultra xv dierum cursu duae reperiuntur insulae, orientem versus. Altera Sandai appellata, in quâ nuces muscatae et maces, altera Bandam nomine, in quâ solâ gariofali producuntur."—Conti, in Poggius, De Var. Fortunae.
1514.—"The tree that produces the nut (meg) and macis is all one. By this ship I send you a sample of them in the green state."—Letter of Giov. da Empoli, in Archiv. Stor. Ital. 81.
1563.—"It is a very beautiful fruit, and pleasant to the taste; and you must know page 530athat when the nut is ripe it swells, and the first cover bursts as do the husks of our chestnuts, and shows the maça, of a bright vermilion like fine grain (i.e. coccus); it is the most beautiful sight in the world when the trees are loaded with it, and sometimes the mace splits off, and that is why the nutmegs often come without the mace."—Garcia, f. 129v-130.
[1602-3.—"In yo$^r$ Provision you shall make in Nutmeggs and Mace haue you a greate care to receiue such as be good."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 36; also see 67.]
MACE, s.
b. Jav. and Malay mās. [Mr. Skeat writes: "Mās is really short for amās or emās, one of those curious forms with prefixed a, as in the case of abada, which are probably native, but may have been influenced by Portuguese."] A weight used in Sumatra, being, according to Crawfurd, 1-16th of a Malay tael (q.v.), or about 40 grains (but see below). Mace is also the name of a small gold coin of Achīn, weighing 9 grs. and worth about 1s. 1d. And mace was adopted in the language of European traders in China to denominate the tenth part of the Chinese liang or tael of silver; the 100th part of the same value being denominated in like manner candareen (q.v.). The word is originally Skt. māsha, 'a bean,' and then 'a particular weight of gold' (comp. CARAT, RUTTEE).
1554.—"The weight with which they weigh (at Malaca) gold, musk, seed-pearl, coral, calambuco ... consists of cates which contain 20 tael, each tael 16 mazes, each maz 20 cumduryns. Also one paual 4 mazes, one maz 4 cupões (see KOBANG), one cupão 5 cumduryns (see CANDAREEN)."—A. Nunez, 39.
1598.—"Likewise a Tael of Malacca is 16 Mases."—Linschoten, 44; [Hak. Soc. i. 149].
1599.—"Bezar sive Bazar (i.e. Bezoar, q.v.) per Masas venditur."—De Bry, ii. 64.
1625.—"I have also sent by Master Tomkins of their coine (Achin) ... that is page 530bof gold named a Mas, and is ninepence halfpenie neerest."—Capt. T. Davis, in Purchas, i. 117.
1813.—"Milburn gives the following table of weights used at Achin, but it is quite inconsistent with the statements of Crawfurd and Linschoten above.
| 4 | copangs | = 1 mace |
| 5 | mace | = 1 mayam |
| 16 | mayam | = 1 tale |
| 5 | tales | = 1 bancal |
| 20 | bancals | = 1 catty |
| 200 | catties | = 1 bahar." |
MACHEEN, MAHACHEEN, n.p. This name, Mahā-chīna, "Great China," is one by which China was known in India in the early centuries of our era, and the term is still to be heard in India in the same sense in which Al-Birūnī uses it, saying that all beyond the great mountains (Himālaya) is Mahā-chīn. But "in later times the majority, not knowing the meaning of the expression, seem to have used it pleonastically coupled with Chīn, to denote the same thing, Chīn and Māchīn, a phrase having some analogy to the way Sind and Hind was used to express all India, but a stronger one to Gog and Magog, as applied to the northern nations of Asia." And eventually Chīn was discovered to be the eldest son of Japhet, and Māchīn his grandson; which is much the same as saying that Britain was the eldest son of Brut the Trojan, and Great Britain his grandson! (Cathay and the Way Thither, p. cxix.).
In the days of the Mongol supremacy in China, when Chinese affairs were for a time more distinctly conceived in Western Asia, and the name of Manzi as denoting Southern China, unconquered by the Mongols till 1275, was current in the West, it would appear that this name was confounded with Māchīn, and the latter thus acquired a specific but erroneous application. One author of the 16th century also (quoted by Klaproth, J. As. Soc. ser. 2, tom. i. 115) distinguishes Chīn and Māchīn as N. and S. China, but this distinction seems never to have been entertained by the Hindus. Ibn Batuta sometimes distinguishes Ṣīn (i.e. Chīn) as South China from Khitāi (see CATHAY) as North China. In times when intimacy with page 531aChina had again ceased, the double name seems to have recovered its old vagueness as a rotund way of saying China, and had no more plurality of sense than in modern parlance Sodor and Man. But then comes an occasional new application of Māchīn to Indo-China, as in Conti (followed by Fra Mauro). An exceptional application, arising from the Arab habit of applying the name of a country to the capital or the chief port frequented by them, arose in the Middle Ages, through which Canton became known in the West as the city of Māchīn, or in Persian translation Chīnkalān, i.e. Great Chīn.
Mahāchīna as applied to China:
"'It is situated,' replied he (Hwen T'sang), 'to the N.E. of this kingdom, and is distant several ten-thousands of li. It is the country which the Indian people call Mahāchīna.'"—Pèl. Bouddh. ii. 254-255.
c. 641.—"Mohochintan." See quotation under CHINA.
c. 1030.—"Some other mountains are called Harmakút, in which the Ganges has its source. These are impassable from the side of the cold regions, and beyond them lies Māchīn."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 46.
1501.—In the Letter of Amerigo Vespucci on the Portuguese discoveries, written from C. Verde, 4th June, we find mention among other new regions of Marchin. Published in Baldelli Boni's Il Milione, p. ciii.
c. 1590.—"Adjoining to Asham is Tibet, bordering upon Khatai, which is properly Mahacheen, vulgarly called Macheen. The capital of Khatai is Khan Baleegh, 4 days' journey from the sea."—Ayeen, by Gladwin, ed. 1800, ii. 4; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 118].
Applied to Southern China.
page 531bApplied to Indo-China:
Chin and Machin:
c. 1440.—"Poi si retrova in quella istessa provincia di Zagatai Sanmarcant città grandissima e ben popolata, por la qual vanno e vengono tutti quelli di Cini e Macini e del Cataio, o mercanti o viandanti che siano."—Barbaro, in Ramusio, ii. f. 106v.
c. 1442.—"The merchants of the 7 climates from Egypt ... from the whole of the realms of Chīn and Māchīn, and from the city of Khānbālik, steer their course to this port."--Abdurrazāk, in Notices et Extraits, xiv. 429.
Mahāchīn or Chīn Kalān, for Canton.
c. 1300.—"This canal extends for a distance of 40 days' navigation from Khānbāligh to Khingsaī and Zaitūn, the ports frequented by the ships that come from India, and from the city of Māchīn."—Rashīd-uddin, in Cathay, &c., 259-260.
c. 1332.—"... after I had sailed eastward over the Ocean Sea for many days I came to that noble province Manzi.... The first city to which I came in this country was called Cens-Kalan, and 'tis a city as big as three Venices."—Odoric, in Cathay, &c., 103-105.
c. 1347.—"In the evening we stopped at another village, and so on till we arrived at Sīn-Kalān, which is the city of Ṣīn-ul-Ṣīn ... one of the greatest of cities, and one of those that has the finest of bazaars. One of the largest of these is the porcelain bazaar, and from it china-ware is exported to the other cities of China, to India, and to Yemen."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 272.
MĀCHIS, s. This is recent Hind. for 'lucifer matches.' An older and purer phrase for sulphur-matches is dīwā-, dīyā-salāī.
MADAPOLLAM, n.p. This term, applying to a particular kind of cotton page 532acloth, and which often occurs in prices current, is taken from the name of a place on the Southern Delta-branch of the Godavery, properly Mādhavapalam, [Tel. Mādhavayya-pālemu, 'fortified village of Mādhava']. This was till 1833 [according to the Madras Gloss. 1827] the seat of one of the Company's Commercial Agencies, which was the chief of three in that Delta; the other two being Bunder Malunka and Injeram. Madapollam is now a staple export from England to India; it is a finer kind of white piece-goods, intermediate between calico and muslin.
1673.—"The English for that cause (the unhealthiness of Masulipatam), only at the time of shipping, remove to Medopollon, where they have a wholesome Seat Forty Miles more North."—Fryer, 35.
[1684-85.—"Mr. Benj$^a$ Northey having brought up Musters of the Madapoll$^m$ Cloth, Itt is thought convenient that the same be taken of him...."—Pringle, Diary Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iv. 49.]
c. 1840.—"Pierrette eut de jolies chemises en Madapolam."—Balzac, Pierrette.
MADRAFAXAO, s. This appears in old Portuguese works as the name of a gold coin of Guzerat; perhaps representing Muẓaffar-shāhī. There were several kings of Guzerat of this name. The one in question was probably Muẓaffar-Shah II. (1511-1525), of whose coinage Thomas mentions a gold piece of 185 grs. (Pathán Kings, 353).
MADRAS, n.p. This alternative name of the place, officially called by its founders Fort St. George, first appears about the middle of the 17th century. Its origin has been much debated, but with little result. One derivation, backed by a fictitious legend, derives the name from an imaginary Christian fisherman called page 532bMadarasen; but this may be pronounced philologically impossible, as well as otherwise unworthy of serious regard. Lassen makes the name to be a corruption of Manda-rājya, 'Realm of the Stupid!' No one will suspect the illustrious author of the Indische Alterthumskunde to be guilty of a joke; but it does look as if some malign Bengalee had suggested to him this gibe against the "Benighted"! It is indeed curious and true that, in Bengal, sepoys and the like always speak of the Southern Presidency as Mandrāj. In fact, however, all the earlier mentions of the name are in the form of Madraspatanam, 'the city of the Madras,' whatever the Madras may have been. The earliest maps show Madraspatanam as the Mahommedan settlement corresponding to the present Triplicane and Royapettah. The word is therefore probably of Mahommedan origin; and having got so far we need not hesitate to identify it with Madrasa, 'a college.' The Portuguese wrote this Madaraza (see Faria y Sousa, Africa Portuguesa, 1681, p. 6); and the European name probably came from them, close neighbours as they were to Fort St. George, at Mylapore or San Thomé. That there was such a Madrasa in existence is established by the quotation from Hamilton, who was there about the end of the 17th century. Fryer's Map (1698, but illustrating 1672-73) represents the Governor's House as a building of Mahommedan architecture, with a dome. This may have been the Madrasa itself. Lockyer also (1711) speaks of a "College," of which the building was "very ancient"; formerly a hospital, and then used apparently as a residence for young writers. But it is not clear whether the name "College" was not given on this last account. [The Madras Admin. Man. says: "The origin of this name has been much discussed. Madrissa, a Mahommedan school, has been suggested, which considering the date at which the name is first found seems fanciful. Manda is in Sanscrit 'slow.' Mandarāz was a king of the lunar race. page 533aThe place was probably called after this king" (ii. 91). The Madras Gloss. again writes: "Hind. Madrās, Can. Madarāsu, from Tel. Mandaradzu, name of a local Telegu Royer," or ruler. The whole question has been discussed by Mr. Pringle (Diary Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. i. 106 seqq.). He points out that while the earliest quotation given below is dated 1653, the name, in the form Madrazpatam, is used by the President and Council of Surat in a letter dated 29th December, 1640 (I. O. Records, O. C. No. 1764); "and the context makes it pretty certain that Francis Day or some other of the factors at the new Settlement must have previously made use of it in reference to the place, or 'rather,' as the Surat letter says, 'plot of ground' offered to him. It is no doubt just possible that in the course of the negotiations Day heard or caught up the name from the Portuguese, who were at the time in friendly relations with the English; but the probabilities are certainly in the opposite direction. The nayak from whom the plot was obtained must almost certainly have supplied the name, or what Francis Day conceived to be the name. Again, as regards Hamilton's mention of a 'college,' Sir H. Yule's remark certainly goes too far. Hamilton writes, 'There is a very Good Hospital in the Town, and the Company's Horse-stables are neat, but the old College where a good many Gentlemen Factors are obliged to lodge, is ill-kept in repair.' This remark taken together with that made by Lockyer ... affords proof, indeed, that there was a building known to the English as the 'College.' But it does not follow that this, or any, building was distinctively known to Musulmans as the 'madrasa.' The 'old College' of Hamilton may have been the successor of a Musulman 'madrasa' of some size and consequence, and if this was so the argument for the derivation would be strengthened. It is however equally possible that some old buildings within the plot of territory acquired by Day, which had never been a 'madrasa,' was turned to use as a College or place where the young writers should live and receive instruction; and in this case the argument, so far as it rests on a mention of 'a College' by Hamilton page 533band Lockyer, is entirely destroyed. Next as regards the probability that the first part of 'Madraspatanam' is 'of Mahommedan origin.' Sir H. Yule does not mention that date of the maps in which Madraspatanam is shown 'as the Mahommedan settlement corresponding to the present Triplicane and Royapettah'; but in Fryer's map, which represents the fort as he saw it in 1672, the name 'Madirass'—to which is added 'the Indian Town with flat houses'—is entered as the designation of the collection of houses on the north side of the English town, and the next makes it evident that in the year in question the name of Madras was applied chiefly to the crowded collection of houses styled in turn the 'Heathen,' the 'Malabar,' and the 'Black' town. This consideration does not necessarily disprove the supposed Musulman origin of 'Madras,' but it undoubtedly weakens the chain of Sir H. Yule's argument." Mr. Pringle ends by saying: "On the whole it is not unfair to say that the chief argument in favour of the derivation adopted by Sir H. Yule is of a negative kind. There are fatal objections to whatever other derivations have been suggested, but if the mongrel character of the compound 'Madrasa-patanam' is disregarded, there is no fatal objection to the derivation from 'madrasa.'... If however that derivation is to stand, it must not rest upon such accidental coincidences as the use of the word 'College' by writers whose knowledge of Madras was derived from visits made from 30 to 50 years after the foundation of the colony."]
c. 1665.—"Le Roi de Golconde a de grands Revenus.... Les Douanes des marchandises qui passent sur ses Terres, et celles des Ports de Masulipatan et de Madrespatan, lui rapportent beaucoup."—Thevenot, v. 306.
1672.—"... following upon Madraspatan, otherwise called Chinnepatan, where the English have a Fort called St. George, page 534achiefly garrisoned by Toepasses and Mistices; from this place they annually send forth their ships, as also from Suratte."—Baldaeus, Germ. ed. 152.
1673.—"Let us now pass the Pale to the Heathen Town, only parted by a wide Parrade, which is used for a Buzzar, or Mercate-place. Maderas then divides itself into divers long streets, and they are checquered by as many transverse. It enjoys some Choultries for Places of Justice; one Exchange; one Pagod...."—Fryer, 38-39.
1726.—"The Town or Place, anciently called Chinapatnam, now called Madraspatnam, and Fort St. George."—Letters Patent, in Charters of E.I. Company, 368-9.
MADRAS, s. This name is applied to large bright-coloured handkerchiefs, of silk warp and cotton woof, which were formerly exported from Madras, and much used by the negroes in the W. Indies as head-dresses. The word is preserved in French, but is now obsolete in England.
MADREMALUCO, n.p. The name given by the Portuguese to the Mahommedan dynasty of Berar, called 'Imād-shāhī. The Portuguese name represents the title of the founder 'Imād-ul-Mulk, ('Pillar of the State'), otherwise Fath Ullah 'Imād Shāh. The dynasty was the most obscure of those founded upon the dissolution of the Bāhmani monarchy in the Deccan. (See COTAMALUCO, IDALCAN, MELIQUE VERIDO, NIZAMALUCO, SABAIO.) It began about 1484, and in 1572 was merged in the kingdom of page 534bAhmednagar. There is another Madremaluco (or 'Imād-ul-Mulk) much spoken of in Portuguese histories, who was an important personage in Guzerat, and put to death with his own hand the king Sikandar Shāh (1526) (Barros, IV. v. 3; Correa, ii. 272, 344, &c.; Couto, Decs. v. and vi. passim).
1553.—"The Madre Maluco was married to a sister of the Hidalchan (see IDALCAN), and the latter treated this brother-in-law of his, and Meleque Verido as if they were his vassals, especially the latter."—Barros, IV. vii. 1.
1563.—"The Imademaluco or Madremaluco, as we corruptly style him, was a Circassian (Cherques) by nation, and had originally been a Christian, and died in 1546.... Imad is as much as to say 'prop,' and thus the other (of these princes) was called Imadmaluco, or 'Prop of the Kingdom.'..."—Garcia, f. 36v.
MADURA, n.p., properly Madurei, Tam. Mathurai. This is still the name of a district in S. India, and of a city which appears in the Tables of Ptolemy as "Μόδουρα βασίλειον Πανδιόνος." The name is generally supposed to be the same as that of Mathurā, the holy and much more ancient city of Northern India, from which the name was adopted (see MUTTRA), but modified after Tamil pronunciation. [On the other hand, a writer in J. R. As. Soc. (xiv. 578, n. 3) derives Madura from the Dravidian Madur in the sense of 'Old Town,' and suggests that the northern Mathura may be an offshoot from it.] Madura was, from a date, at least as early as the Christian era, the seat of the Pāṇḍya sovereigns. These, according to Tamil tradition, as stated by Bp. Caldwell, had previously held their residence at Kolkei on the Tamraparni, the Κόλχοι of Ptolemy. (See Caldwell, pp. 16, 95, 101). The name of Madura, probably as adopted from the holier northern Muttra, seems to have been a favourite among the Eastern settlements under Hindu influence. Thus we have page 535aMatura in Ceylon; the city and island of Madura adjoining Java; and a town of the same name (Madura) in Burma, not far north of Mandalé, Madeya of the maps.
[c. 1315.—"Mardi." See CRORE.]
c. 1347.—"The Sultan stopped a month at Fattan, and then departed for his capital. I stayed 15 days after his departure, and then started for his residence, which was at Mutra, a great city with wide streets.... I found there a pest raging of which people died in brief space ... when I went out I saw only the dead and dying."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 200-1.
MADURA FOOT, s. A fungoidal disease of the foot, apparently incurable except by amputation, which occurs in the Madura district, and especially in places where the 'Black soil' prevails. Medical authorities have not yet decided on the causes or precise nature of the disease. See Nelson, Madura, Pt. i. pp. 91-94; [Gribble, Cuddapah, 193].
MAGADOXO, n.p. This is the Portuguese representation, which has passed into general European use, of Makdashau, the name of a town and State on the Somālī coast in E. Africa, now subject to Zanzibar. It has been shown by one of the present writers that Marco Polo, in his chapter on Madagascar, has made some confusion between Magadoxo and that island, mixing up particulars relating to both. It is possible that the name of Madagascar was really given from Makdashau, as Sir R. Burton supposes; but he does not give any authority for his statement that the name of Madagascar "came from Makdishú (Magadoxo) ... whose Sheikh invaded it" (Comment. on Camões, ii. 520). [Owen (Narrative, i. 357) writes the name Mukdeesha, and Boteler (Narrative, ii. 215) says it is pronounced by page 535bthe Arabs Mākŏdĭsha. The name is said to be Magaad-el-Shata, "Harbour of the Sheep," and the first syllable has been identified with that of Maqdala and is said to mean "door" in some of the Galla dialects (Notes & Queries, 9 ser. ii. 193, 310. Also see Mr. Gray's note on Pyrard, Hak. Soc. i. 29, and Dr. Burnell on Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 19.]
1498.—"And we found ourselves before a great city with houses of several stories, and in the midst of the city certain great palaces; and about it a wall with four towers; and this city stood close upon the sea, and the Moors call it Magadoxó. And when we were come well abreast of it, we discharged many bombards (at it), and kept on our way along the coast with a fine wind on the poop."—Roteiro, 102.
1505.—"And the Viceroy (Don Francisco D'Almeida) made sail, ordering the course to be made for Magadaxo, which he had instructions also to make tributary. But the pilots objected saying that they would miss the season for crossing to India, as it was already the 26th of August...."—Correa, i. 560.
1514.—"... The most of them are Moors such as inhabit the city of Zofalla ... and these people continue to be found in Mazambic, Melinda, Mogodecio, Marachilue (read Brava Chilve, i.e. Brava and Quiloa), and Mombazza; which are all walled cities on the main land, with houses and streets like our own; except Mazambich."—Letter of Giov. da Empoli, in Archiv. Stor. Ital.
1516.—"Further on towards the Red Sea there is another very large and beautiful town called Magadoxo, belonging to the Moors, and it has a King over it, and is a place of great trade and merchandise."—Barbosa, 16.
1532.—"... and after they had passed Cape Guardafu, Dom Estevão was going along in such depression that he was like to die of grief, on arriving at Magadoxo, they stopped to water. And the King of the country, hearing that there had come a son of the Count Admiral, of whom all had ample knowledge as being the first to discover and navigate on that coast, came to the shore to see him, and made great offers of all that he could require."—Couto, IV. viii. 2.
page 536aMAGAZINE, s. This word is, of course, not Anglo-Indian, but may find a place here because of its origin from Ar. makhāzin, plur. of al-makhzan, whence Sp. almacen, almagacen, magacen, Port. almazem, armazem, Ital. magazzino, Fr. magazin.
MAHÁJUN, s. Hind. from Skt. mahā-jan, 'great person.' A banker and merchant. In Southern and Western India the vernacular word has various other applications which are given in Wilson.
c. 1861.—
"Down there lives a Mahajun—my father gave him a bill, I have paid the knave thrice over, and here I'm paying him still. He shows me a long stamp paper, and must have my land—must he? If I were twenty years younger, he should get six feet by three." Sir A. C. Lyall, The Old Pindaree.
MAHANNAH, s. (See MEEANA.)
MAHÉ, n.p. Properly Māyēl̤i. [According to the Madras Gloss. the Mal. name is Mayyazhi, mai, 'black,' azhi, 'river mouth'; but the title is from the French Mahé, being one of the names of Labourdonnais.] A small settlement on the Malabar coast, 4 m. S.E. of Tellicherry, where the French established a factory for the sake of the pepper trade in 1722, and which they still retain. It is not now of any importance.
MAHI, n.p. The name of a considerable river flowing into the upper part page 536bof the Gulf of Cambay. ["The height of its banks, and the fierceness of its floods; the deep gullies through which the traveller has to pass on his way to the river, and perhaps, above all, the bad name of the tribes on its banks, explain the proverb: 'When the Mahi is crossed, there is comfort'" (Imp. Gazetteer, s.v.).]
MAHOUT, s. The driver and tender of an elephant. Hind. mahā-wat, from Skt. mahā-mātra, 'great in measure,' a high officer, &c., so applied. The Skt. term occurs in this sense in the Mahābhārata (e.g. iv. 1761, &c.). The Mahout is mentioned in the 1st Book of Maccabees as 'the Indian.' It is remarkable that we find what is apparently mahā-mātra, in the sense of a high officer in Hesychius:
c. 1590.—"Mast elephants (see MUST). There are five and a half servants to each, viz., first a Mahawat, who sits on the neck of the animal and directs its movements.... He gets 200 dáms per month.... Secondly a Bhói, who sits behind, upon the rump of the elephant, and assists in battle, and in quickening the speed of the animal; but he often performs the duties of the Mahawat.... Thirdly the Met'hs (see MATE).... A Met'h fetches fodder, and assists in caparisoning the elephant...."—Āīn, ed. Blochmann, i. 125.
1648.—"... and Mahouts for the elephants...."—Van Twist, 56.
1826.—"I will now pass over the term of my infancy, which was employed in learning to read and write—my preceptor being a mahouhut, or elephant-driver—and will take up my adventures."—Pandurang Hari, 21; [ed. 1873, i. 28].
MAHRATTA, n.p. Hind. Marhaṭā, Marhaṭṭā, Marhāṭā (Marhaṭī, Marahṭī, Marhaiṭī), and Marāṭhā. The name of a famous Hindu race, from the old Skt. name of their country, Mahā-rāshṭra, 'Magna Regio.' [On the other hand H. A. Acworth (Ballads of the Marathas, Intro. vi.) derives the word from a tribal name page 537aRaṭhī or Raṭhā, 'chariot fighters,' from raṭh, 'a chariot,' thus Mahā-Raṭhā means 'Great Warrior.' This was transferred to the country and finally Sanskritised into Mahā-rāshṭra. Again some authorities (Wilson, Indian Caste, ii. 48; Baden-Powell, J. R. As. Soc., 1897, p. 249, note) prefer to derive the word from the Mhār or Mahār, a once numerous and dominant race. And see the discussion in the Bombay Gazetteer, I. pt. ii. 143 seq.]
640.—"De là il prit la direction du Nord-Ouest, traversa une vaste forêt, et ... il arriva au royaume de Mo-ho-la-to (Mahārāshṭra)...."—Pèl. Bouddh. i. 202; [Bombay Gazetteer, I. pt. ii. 353].
c. 1030.—"De Dhar, en se dirigeant vers le midi, jusqu'à la rivière de Nymyah on comte 7 parasanges; de là à Mahrat-dessa 18 paras."—Albirúni, in Reinaud's Fragmens, 109.
c. 1294-5.—"Alá-ud-dín marched to Elichpúr, and thence to Ghati-lajaura ... the people of that country had never heard of the Mussulmans; the Mahratta land had never been punished by their armies; no Mussulman King or Prince had penetrated so far."—Zía-ud-dín Barní, in Elliot, iii. 150.
c. 1328.—"In this Greater India are twelve idolatrous Kings, and more.... There is also the Kingdom of Maratha which is very great."—Friar Jordanus, 41.
1673.—"They tell their tale in Moratty; by Profession they are Gentues."—Fryer, 174.
1747.—"Agreed on the arrival of these Ships that We take Five Hundred (500) Peons more into our Service, that the 50 Moratta Horses be augmented to 100 as We found them very usefull in the last Skirmish...."—Consn. at Ft. St. David, Jan. 6 (MS. Record in India Office).
1748.—"That upon his hearing the Mirattoes had taken Tanner's Fort ..."—In Long, p. 5.
c. 1760.—"... those dangerous and powerful neighbors the Morattoes; who being now masters of the contiguous island of Salsette ..."—Grose, ii. 44.
" "The name of Morattoes, or Marattas, is, I have reason to think, a derivation in their country-language, or by corruption, from Mar-Rajah."—Ibid. ii. 75.
1765.—"These united princes and people are those which are known by the general name of Maharattors; a word compounded of Rattor and Maahah; the first being the name of a particular Raazpoot (or Rajpoot) page 537btribe; and the latter, signifying great or mighty (as explained by Mr. Fraser)...."—Holwell, Hist. Events, &c., i. 105.
c. 1769.—Under a mezzotint portrait: "The Right Honble George Lord Pigot, Baron Pigot of Patshul in the Kingdom of Ireland, President and Governor of and for all the Affairs of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies, on the Coast of Choromandel, and Orixa, and of the Chingee and Moratta Countries, &c., &c., &c."
c. 1842.—
"... Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat; Where in wild Mahratta battle fell my father evil starr'd." —Tennyson, Locksley Hall.
The following is in the true Hobson-Jobson manner:
MAHRATTA DITCH, n.p. An excavation made in 1742, as described in the extract from Orme, on the landward sides of Calcutta, to protect the settlement from the Mahratta bands. Hence the term, or for shortness 'The Ditch' simply, as a disparaging name for Calcutta (see DITCHER). The line of the Ditch corresponded nearly with the outside of the existing Circular Road, except at the S.E. and S., where the work was never executed. [There is an excavation known by the same name at Madras excavated in 1780. (Murray, Handbook, 1859, p. 43).]
1757.—"That the Bounds of Calcutta are to extend the whole Circle of Ditch dug upon the Invasion of the Marattes; also 600 yards without it, for an Esplanade."—Articles of Agreement sent by Colonel Clive (previous to the Treaty with the Nabob of May 14). In Memoirs of the Revolution in Bengal, 1760, p. 89.
1782.—"To the Proprietors and Occupiers of Houses and other Tenements within the page 538aMahratta Entrenchment."—India Gazette, Aug. 10.
[1840.—"Less than a hundred years ago, it was thought necessary to fortify Calcutta against the horsemen of Berar, and the name of the Mahratta Ditch still preserves the memory of the danger."—Macaulay, Essay on Clive.]
MAHSEER, MASEER, MASAL, &c. Hind. mahāsir, mahāser, mahāsaulā, s. The name is applied to perhaps more than one of the larger species of Barbus (N.O. Cyprinidae), but especially to B. Mosul of Buchanan, B. Tor, Day, B. megalepis, McLelland, found in the larger Himālayan rivers, and also in the greater perennial rivers of Madras and Bombay. It grows at its largest, to about the size of the biggest salmon, and more. It affords also the highest sport to Indian anglers; and from these circumstances has sometimes been called, misleadingly, the 'Indian salmon.' The origin of the name Mahseer, and its proper spelling, are very doubtful. It may be Skt. mahā-śiras, 'big-head,' or mahā-śalka, 'large-scaled.' The latter is most probable, for the scales are so large that Buchanan mentions that playing cards were made from them at Dacca. Mr. H. S. Thomas suggests mahā-āsya, 'great mouth.' [The word does not appear in the ordinary dicts.; on the whole, perhaps the derivation from mahā-śiras is most probable.]
1822.—"Mahasaula and Tora, variously altered and corrupted, and with various additions may be considered as genuine appellations, amongst the natives for these fishes, all of which frequent large rivers."—F. Buchanan Hamilton, Fishes of the Ganges, 304.
MAINATO, s. Tam. Mal. Mainātta, a washerman or dhoby (q.v.).
c. 1542.—"In this inclosure do likewise remain all the Landresses, by them called Maynates, which wash the linnen of the City (Pequin), who, as we were told, are above an hundred thousand."—Pinto, in Cogan, p. 133. The original (cap. cv.) has todos os mainatos, whose sex Cogan has changed.
1554.—"And the farm (renda) of mainatos, which farm prohibits any one from washing clothes, which is the work of a mainato, except by arrangement with the farmer (Rendeiro)...."—Tombo, &c., 53.
[1598.—"There are some among them that do nothing els but wash cloathes: ... they are called Maynattos."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 260.
[c. 1610.—"These folk (the washermen) are called Menates."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 71.]
MAISTRY, MISTRY, sometimes even MYSTERY, s. Hind. mistrī. This word, a corruption of the Portuguese mestre, has spread into the vernaculars all over India, and is in constant Anglo-Indian use. Properly 'a foreman,' 'a master-workman'; but used also, at least in Upper India, for any artizan, as rāj-mistrī (properly Pers. rāz), 'a mason or bricklayer,' lohār-mistrī, 'a blacksmith,' &c. The proper use of the word, as noted above, corresponds precisely to the definition of the Portuguese word, as applied to artizans in Bluteau: "Artifice que sabe bem o seu officio. Peritus artifex.... Opifex, alienorum operum inspector." In W. and S. India maistry, as used in the household, generally means the cook, or the tailor. (See CALEEFA.)
Mastèr (Мастеръ) is also the Russian term for a skilled workman, and has given rise to several derived adjectives. There is too a similar word in modern Greek, μαγίστωρ.
1524.—"And the Viceroy (D. Vasco da Gama) sent to seize in the river of the Culymutys four newly-built caturs, and fetched them to Cochin. These were built page 539avery light for fast rowing, and were greatly admired. But he ordered them to be burned, saying that he intended to show the Moors that we knew how to build better caturs than they did; and he sent for Mestre Vyne the Genoese, whom he had brought to build galleys, and asked him if he could build boats that would row faster than the Malabar paraos (see PROW). He answered: 'Sir, I'll build you brigantines fast enough to catch a mosquito....'"—Correa, ii. 830.
[1548.—"He ordered to be collected in the smithies of the dockyard as many smiths as could be had, for he had many misteres."—Ibid. iv. 663.]
1554.—"To the mestrè of the smith's shop (ferraria) 30,000 reis of salary and 600 reis for maintenance" (see BATTA).—S. Botelho, Tombo, 65.
1800.—"... I have not yet been able to remedy the mischief done in my absence, as we have the advantage here of the assistance of some Madras dubashes and maistries" (ironical).—Wellington, i. 67.
1883.—"... My mind goes back to my ancient Goanese cook. He was only a maistry, or more vulgarly a bobberjee (see BOBACHEE), yet his sonorous name recalled the conquest of Mexico, or the doubling of the Cape."—Tribes on My Frontier, 35.
MAJOON, s. Hind. from Ar. ma'jūn, lit. 'kneaded,' and thence what old medical books call 'an electuary' (i.e. a compound of medicines kneaded with syrup into a soft mass), but especially applied to an intoxicating confection of hemp leaves, &c., sold in the bazar. [Burton, Ar. Nights, iii. 159.] In the Deccan the form is ma'jūm. Moodeen Sheriff, in his Suppt. to the Pharmac. of India, writes maghjūn. "The chief ingredients in making it are ganja (or hemp) leaves, milk, ghee, poppy-seeds, flowers of the thorn-apple (see DATURA), the powder of nux vomica, and sugar" (Qanoon-e-Islam, Gloss. lxxxiii).
1563.—"And this they make up into an electuary, with sugar, and with the things above-mentioned, and this they call maju."—Garcia, f. 27v.
1781.—"Our ill-favoured guard brought in a dose of majum each, and obliged us to eat it ... a little after sunset the surgeon came, and with him 30 or 40 Caffres, who seized us, and held us fast till the operation (circumcision) was performed."—Soldier's letter quoted in Hon. John Lindsay's Journal page 539bof Captivity in Mysore, Lives of Lindsays, iii. 293.
MALABAR, n.p.
a. The name of the sea-board country which the Arabs called the 'Pepper-Coast,' the ancient Kerala of the Hindus, the Λιμύρικη, or rather Διμύρικη, of the Greeks (see TAMIL), is not in form indigenous, but was applied, apparently, first by the Arab or Arabo-Persian mariners of the Gulf. The substantive part of the name, Malai, or the like, is doubtless indigenous; it is the Dravadian term for 'mountain' in the Sanskritized form Malaya, which is applied specifically to the southern portion of the Western Ghauts, and from which is taken the indigenous term Malayālam, distinguishing that branch of the Dravidian language in the tract which we call Malabar. This name—Male or Malai, Malīah, &c.,—we find in the earlier post-classic notices of India; whilst in the great Temple-Inscription of Tanjore (11th century) we find the region in question called Malai-nāḍu (nāḍu, 'country'). The affix bār appears attached to it first (so far as we are aware) in the Geography of Edrisi (c. 1150). This (Persian?) termination, bār, whatever be its origin, and whether or no it be connected either with the Ar. barr, 'a continent,' on the one hand, or with the Skt. vāra, 'a region, a slope,' on the other, was most assuredly applied by the navigators of the Gulf to other regions which they visited besides Western India. Thus we have Zangī-bār (mod. Zanzibar), 'the country of the Blacks'; Kalāh-bār, denoting apparently the coast of the Malay Peninsula; and even according to the dictionaries, Hindū-bār for India. In the Arabic work which affords the second of these examples (Relation, &c., tr. by Reinaud, i. 17) it is expressly explained: "The word bār serves to indicate that which is both a coast and a kingdom." It will be seen from the quotations below that in the Middle Ages, even after the establishment of the use of this termination, the exact form of the name as given by foreign travellers and writers, varies considerably. But, from the time of page 540athe Portuguese discovery of the Cape route, Malavar, or Malabar, as we have it now, is the persistent form. [Mr. Logan (Manual, i. 1) remarks that the name is not in use in the district itself except among foreigners and English-speaking natives; the ordinary name is Malayālam or Malāyam, 'the Hill Country.']
c. 645.—"To the south this kingdom is near the sea. There rise the mountains called Mo-la-ye (Malaya), with their precipitous sides, and their lofty summits, their dark valleys and their deep ravines. On these mountains grows the white sandalwood."—Hwen T'sang, in Julien, iii. 122.
851.—"From this place (Maskat) ships sail for India, and run for Kaulam-Malai; the distance from Maskat to Kaulam-Malai is a month's sail with a moderate wind."—Relation, &c., tr. by Reinaud, i. 15. The same work at p. 15 uses the expression "Country of Pepper" (Balad-ul-falfal).
890.—"From Sindán to Malí is five days' journey; in the latter pepper is to be found, also the bamboo."—Ibn Khurdádba, in Elliot, i. 15.
c. 1030.—"You enter then on the country of Lárán, in which is Jaimúr (see under CHOUL), then Maliah, then Kánchí, then Dravira (see DRAVIDIAN)."—Al-Birúni, in Reinaud, Fragmens, 121.
c. 1150.—"Fandarina (see PANDARANI) is a town built at the mouth of a river which comes from Maníbár, where vessels from India and Sind cast anchor."—Idrisi, in Elliot, i. 90.
c. 1200.—"Hari sports here in the delightful spring ... when the breeze from Malaya is fragrant from passing over the charming lavanga" (cloves).—Gīta Govinda.
1270.—"Malibar is a large country of India, with many cities, in which pepper is produced."—Kazwīnī, in Gildemeister, 214.
1293.—"You can sail (upon that sea) between these islands and Ormes, and (from Ormes) to those parts which are called (Minibar), is a distance of 2,000 miles, in a direction between south and south-east; then 300 miles between east and south-east from Minibar to Maabar" (see MABAR).—Letter of Fr. John of Montecorvino, in Cathay, i. 215.
1298.—"Melibar is a great kingdom lying towards the west.... There is in page 540bthis kingdom a great quantity of pepper."—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 25.
c. 1300.—"Beyond Guzerat are Kankan (see CONCAN) and Tāna; beyond them the country of Malíbár, which from the boundary of Karoha to Kúlam (probably from Gheriah to Quilon) is 300 parasangs in length."—Rashíduddín, in Elliot, i. 68.
c. 1320.—"A certain traveller states that India is divided into three parts, of which the first, which is also the most westerly, is that on the confines of Kerman and Sind, and is called Gūzerāt; the second Manībār, or the Land of Pepper, east of Gūzerāt."—Abulfeda, in Gildemeister, 184.
c. 1322.—"And now that ye may know how pepper is got, let me tell you that it groweth in a certain empire, whereunto I came to land, the name whereof is Minibar."—Friar Odoric, in Cathay, &c., 74.
c. 1343.—"After 3 days we arrived in the country of the Mulaibār, which is the country of Pepper. It stretches in length a distance of two months' march along the sea-shore."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 71.
c. 1348-49.—"We embarked on board certain junks from Lower India, which is called Minubar."—John de' Marignolli, in Cathay, 356.
c. 1420-30.—"... Departing thence he ... arrived at a noble city called Coloen.... This province is called Melibaria, and they collect in it the ginger called by the natives colombi, pepper, brazil-wood, and the cinnamon, called canella grossa."—Conti, corrected from Jones's tr. in India in XVth Cent. 17-18.
c. 1442.—"The coast which includes Calicut with some neighbouring ports, and which extends as far as (Kael), a place situated opposite to the Island of Serendib ... bears the general name of Melībār."—Abdurrazzāk, ibid. 19.
1459.—Fra Mauro's great Map has Milibar.
1514.—"In the region of India called Melibar, which province begins at Goa, and extends to Cape Comedis (Comorin)...."—Letter of Giov. da Empoli, 79. It is remarkable to find this Florentine using this old form in 1514.
1516.—"And after that the Moors of Meca discovered India, and began to navigate near it, which was 610 years ago, they used to touch at this country of Malabar on account of the pepper which is found there."—Barbosa, 102.
1553.—"We shall hereafter describe particularly the position of this city of Calecut, and of the country of Malauar in which it stands."—Barros, Dec. I. iv. c. 6. In the following chapter he writes Malabar.
1554.—"From Diu to the Islands of Dib. Steer first S.S.E., the pole being made by five inches, side towards the land in the direction of E.S.E. and S.E. by E. till you see the mountains of Moníbár."—The Mohit, in J. As. Soc. Ben. v. 461.
page 541a1572.—
"Esta provincia cuja porto agora Tomado tendes, Malabar se chama: Do culto antiguo os idolos adora, Que cà por estas partes se derrama." Camões, vii. 32.
By Burton:
"This province, in whose Ports your ships have tane refuge, the Malabar by name is known; its ántique rite adoreth idols vain, Idol-religion being broadest sown."
Since De Barros Malabar occurs almost universally.
[1623.—"... Mahabar Pirates...."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 121.]
MALABAR, n.p.
b. This word, through circumstances which have been fully elucidated by Bishop Caldwell in his Comparative Grammar (2nd ed. 10-12), from which we give an extract below, was applied by the Portuguese not only to the language and people of the country thus called, but also to the Tamil language and the people speaking Tamil. In the quotations following, those under A apply, or may apply, to the proper people or language of Malabar (see MALAYALAM); those under B are instances of the misapplication to Tamil, a misapplication which was general (see e.g. in Orme, passim) down to the beginning of the last century, and which still holds among the more ignorant Europeans and Eurasians in S. India and Ceylon.
(A.)
1572.—
"Leva alguns Malabares, que tomou Por força, dos que o Samorim mandara." Camões, ix. 14.
page 541b[By Aubertin:
"He takes some Malabars he kept on board By force, of those whom Samorin had sent ..."]
1582.—"They asked of the Malabars which went with him what he was?"—Castañeda, (tr. by N. L.) f. 37v.
1602.—"We came to anchor in the Roade of Achen ... where we found sixteene or eighteene saile of shippes of diuers Nations, some Goserats, some of Bengala, some of Calecut, called Malabares, some Pegues, and some Patanyes."—Sir J. Lancaster, in Purchas, i. 153.
(B.)
1680.—"Whereas it hath been hitherto accustomary at this place to make sales and alienations of houses in writing in the Portuguese, Gentue, and Mallabar languages, from which some inconveniences have arisen...."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Sept 9, in Notes and Extracts, No. iii. 33.
[1682.—"An order in English Portuguez Gentue & Mallabar for the preventing the transportation of this Countrey People and makeing them slaves in other Strange Countreys...."—Pringle, Diary Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. i. 87.]
1718.—"This place (Tranquebar) is altogether inhabited by Malabarian Heathens."—Propn. of the Gospel in the East, Pt. i. (3rd ed.), p. 18.
" "Two distinct languages are necessarily required; one is the Damulian, commonly called Malabarick."—Ibid. Pt. iii. 33.
1734.—"Magnopere commendantes zelum, ac studium Missionariorum, qui libros sacram Ecclesiae Catholicae doctrinam, rerumque sacrarum monumenta continentes, pro Indorum Christi fidelium eruditione in linguam Malabaricam seu Tamulicam transtulere."—Brief of Pope Clement XII., in Norbert, ii. 432-3. These words are adopted from Card. Tournon's decree of 1704 (see ibid. i. 173).
c. 1760.—"Such was the ardent zeal of M. Ziegenbalg that in less than a year he attained a perfect knowledge of the Malabarian tongue.... He composed also a Malabarian dictionary of 20,000 words."—Grose, i. 261.
1782.—"Les habitans de la côte de Coromandel sont appellés Tamouls; les Européens les nomment improprement Malabars."—Sonnerat, i. 47.
page 542aIn the following passage the word Malabars is misapplied still further, though by a writer usually most accurate and intelligent:
MALABAR-CREEPER, s. Argyreia malabarica, Choisy.
[MALABAR EARS, s. The seed vessels of a tree which Ives calls Codaga palli.
MALABAR HILL, n.p. This favourite site of villas on Bombay Island is stated by Mr. Whitworth to have acquired its name from the fact that the Malabar pirates, who haunted this coast, used to lie behind it.
[MALABAR OIL, s. "The ambiguous term 'Malabar Oil' is applied to a mixture of the oil obtained from the livers of several kinds of fishes frequenting the Malabar Coast of India and the neighbourhood of Karachi."—Watt, Econ. Dict. v. 113.]
MALABAR RITES. This was a name given to certain heathen and superstitious practices which the Jesuits of the Madura, Carnatic, and Mysore Missions permitted to their converts, in spite of repeated prohibitions by the Popes. And though these practices were finally condemned page 542bby the Legate Cardinal de Tournon in 1704, they still subsist, more or less, among native Catholic Christians, and especially those belonging to the (so-called) Goa Churches. These practices are generally alleged to have arisen under Father de' Nobili ("Robertus de Nobilibus"), who came to Madura about 1606. There can be no doubt that the aim of this famous Jesuit was to present Christianity to the people under the form, as it were, of a Hindu translation!
The nature of the practices of which we speak may be gathered from the following particulars of their prohibition. In 1623 Pope Gregory XV., by a constitution dated 31st January, condemned the following:—1. The investiture of Brahmans and certain other castes with the sacred thread, through the agency of Hindu priests, and with Hindu ceremonies. For these Christian ceremonies were to be substituted; and the thread was to be regarded as only a civil badge. 2. The ornamental use of sandalwood paste was permitted, but not its superstitious use, e.g., in mixture with cowdung ashes, &c., for ceremonial purification. 3. Bathing as a ceremonial purification. 4. The observance of caste, and the refusal of high-caste Christians to mix with low-caste Christians in the churches was disapproved.
The quarrels between Capuchins and Jesuits later in the 17th century again brought the Malabar Rites into notice, and Cardinal de Tournon was sent on his unlucky mission to determine these matters finally. His decree (June 23, 1704) prohibited:—1. A mutilated form of baptism, in which were omitted certain ceremonies offensive to Hindus, specifically the use of 'saliva, sal, et insufflatio.' 2. The use of Pagan names. 3. The Hinduizing of Christian terms by translation. 4. Deferring the baptism of children. 5. Infant marriages. 6. The use of the Hindu tali (see TALEE). 7. Hindu usages at marriages. 8. Augury at marriages, by means of a coco-nut. 9. The exclusion of women from churches during certain periods. 10. Ceremonies on a girl's attainment of puberty. 11. The making distinctions between Pariahs and others. 12. The assistance of Christian musicians at heathen ceremonies. 13. The use page 543aof ceremonial washings and bathings. 14. The use of cowdung-ashes. 15. The reading and use of Hindu books.
With regard to No. 11 it may be observed that in South India the distinction of castes still subsists, and the only Christian Mission in that quarter which has really succeeded in abolishing caste is that of the Basel Society.
MALABATHRUM, s. There can be very little doubt that this classical export from India was the dried leaf of various species of Cinnamomum, which leaf was known in Skt. as tamāla-pattra. Some who wrote soon after the Portuguese discoveries took, perhaps not unnaturally, the pān or betel-leaf for the malabathrum of the ancients; and this was maintained by Dean Vincent in his well-known work on the Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, justifying this in part by the Ar. name of the betel, tambūl, which is taken from Skt. tāmbūla, betel; tāmbūla-pattra, betel-leaf. The tamāla-pattra, however, the produce of certain wild spp. of Cinnamomum, obtained both in the hills of Eastern Bengal and in the forests of Southern India, is still valued in India as a medicine and aromatic, though in no such degree as in ancient times, and it is usually known in domestic economy as tejpāt, or corruptly tezpāt, i.e. 'pungent leaf.' The leaf was in the Arabic Materia Medica under the name of sādhaj or sādhajī Hindī, as was till recently in the English Pharmacopœia as Folium indicum, which will still be found in Italian drug-shops. The matter is treated, with his usual lucidity and abundance of local knowledge, in the Colloquios of Garcia de Orta, of which we give a short extract. This was evidently unknown to Dean Vincent, as he repeats the very errors which Garcia dissipates. Garcia also notes that confusion of Malabathrum and Folium indicum with spikenard, which is traceable in Pliny as well as among the Arab pharmacologists. The ancients did no doubt apply the name Malabathrum to some other substance, an unguent or solid extract. Rheede, we may notice, mentions that in his time in Malabar, oils in high medical estimation were made from both leaves and root of the "wild cinnamon" of that coast, and that from page 543bthe root of the same tree a camphor was extracted, having several of the properties of real camphor and more fragrance. (See a note by one of the present writers in Cathay, &c., pp. cxlv.-xlvi.) The name Cinnamon is properly confined to the tree of Ceylon (C. Zeylanicum). The other Cinnamoma are properly Cassia barks. [See Watt. Econ. Dict. ii. 317 seqq.]
c. A.D. 70.—"We are beholden to Syria for Malabathrum. This is a tree that beareth leaves rolled up round together, and seeming to the eie withered. Out of which there is drawn and pressed an Oile for perfumers to use.... And yet there commeth a better kind thereof from India.... The rellish thereof ought to resemble Nardus at the tongue end. The perfume or smell that ... the leafe yeeldeth when it is boiled in wine, passeth all others. It is straunge and monstrous which is observed in the price; for it hath risen from one denier to three hundred a pound."—Pliny, xii. 26, in Ph. Holland.
c. A.D. 90.—"... Getting rid of the fibrous parts, they take the leaves and double them up into little balls, which they stitch through with the fibres of the withes. And these they divide into three classes.... And thus originate the three qualities of Malabathrum, which the people who have prepared them carry to India for sale."—Periplus, near the end. [Also see Yule, Intro. Gill, River of Golden Sand, ed. 1883, p. 89.]
1563.—"R. I remember well that in speaking of betel you told me that it was not folium indu, a piece of information of great value to me; for the physicians who put themselves forward as having learned much from these parts, assert that they are the same; and what is more, the modern writers ... call betel in their works tembul, and say that the Moors give it this name....
"O. That the two things are different as I told you is clear, for Avicenna treats them in two different chapters, viz., in 259, which treats of folium indu, and in 707, which treats of tambul ... and the folium indu is called by the Indians Tamalapatra, which the Greeks and Latins corrupted into Malabathrum," &c.—Garcia, ff. 95v, 96.
c. 1690.—"Hoc Tembul seu Sirium, licet vulgatissimum in India sit folium, distinguendum est a Folio Indo seu Malabathro, Arabibus Cadegi Hindi, in Pharmacopoeis, et Indis, Tamala-patra et folio Indo dicto,... A nostra autem natione intellexi Malabathrum nihil aliud esse quam folium canellae, seu cinnamomi sylvestris."—Rumphius, v. 337.
page 544ac. 1760.—"... quand l'on considère que les Indiens appellent notre feuille Indienne tamalapatra on croit d'apercevoir que le mot Grec μαλάβατρον en a été anciennement dérivé."—(Diderot) Encyclopédie, xx. 846.
MALACCA, n.p. The city which gives its name to the Peninsula and the Straits of Malacca, and which was the seat of a considerable Malay monarchy till its capture by the Portuguese under D'Alboquerque in 1511. One naturally supposes some etymological connection between Malay and Malacca. And such a connection is put forward by De Barros and D'Alboquerque (see below, and also under MALAY). The latter also mentions an alternative suggestion for the origin of the name of the city, which evidently refers to the Ar. mulāḳāt, 'a meeting.' This last, though it appears also in the Sijara Malayu, may be totally rejected. Crawfurd is positive that the place was called from the word malaka, the Malay name of the Phyllanthus emblica, or emblic Myrobalan (q.v.), "a tree said to be abundant in that locality"; and this, it will be seen below, is given by Godinho de Eredia as the etymology. Malaka again seems to be a corruption of the Skt. amlaka, from amla, 'acid.' [Mr. Skeat writes: "There can be no doubt that Crawfurd is right, and that the place was named from the tree. The suggested connection between Malayu and Malaka appears impossible to me, and, I think, would do so to any one acquainted with the laws of the language. I have seen the Malaka tree myself and eaten its fruit. Ridley in his Botanical Lists has laka-laka and malaka which he identifies as Phyllanthus emblica, L. and P. pectinatus Hooker (Euphorbiaceae). The two species are hardly distinct, but the latter is the commoner form. The fact is that the place, as is so often the case among the Malays, must have taken its name from the Sungei Malaka, or Malaka River."]
1498.—"Melequa ... is 40 days from Qualecut with a fair wind ... hence proceeds all the clove, and it is worth there 9 crusados for a bahar (q.v.), and likewise nutmeg other 9 crusados the bahar; and there is much porcelain and much silk, and much tin, of which they make money, but the money is of large size and little value, so that it takes 3 farazalas (see Frazala) of it to make a crusado. Here too are many large parrots all red like fire."—Roteiro de V. da Gama, 110-111.
1510.—"When we had arrived at the city of Melacha, we were immediately presented to the Sultan, who is a Moor ... I believe that more ships arrive here than in any other place in the world...."—Varthema, 224.
1511.—"This Paremiçura gave the name of Malaca to the new colony, because in the language of Java, when a man of Palimbão flees away they call him Malayo.... Others say that it was called Malaca because of the number of people who came there from one part and the other in so short a space of time, for the word Malaca also signifies to meet.... Of these two opinions let each one accept that which he thinks to be the best, for this is the truth of the matter."—Commentaries of Alboquerque, E.T. by Birch, iii. 76-77.
1516.—"The said Kingdom of Ansyane (see Siam) throws out a great point of land into the sea, which makes there a cape, where the sea returns again towards China to the north; in this promontory is a small kingdom in which there is a large city called Malaca."—Barbosa, 191.
1553.—"A son of Paramisora called Xaquem Darxa, (i.e. Sikandar Shāh) ... to form the town of Malaca, to which he gave that name in memory of the banishment of his father, because in his vernacular tongue (Javanese) this was as much as to say 'banished,' and hence the people are called Malaios."—De Barros, II. vi. 1.
" "That which he (Alboquerque) regretted most of all that was lost on that vessel, was two lions cast in iron, a first-rate work, and most natural, which the King of China had sent to the King of Malaca, and which King Mahamed had kept, as an honourable possession, at the gate of his Palace, whence Affonso Alboquerque carried them off, as the principal item of his triumph on the capture of the city."—Ibid. II. vii. 1.
page 545a1572.—
"Nem tu menos fugir poderás deste Postoque rica, e postoque assentada Là no gremio da Aurora, onde nasceste, Opulenta Malaca nomeada! Assettas venenosas, que fizeste, Os crises, com que j'á te vejo armada, Malaios namorados, Jaos valentes, Todos farás ao Luso obedientes." Camões, x. 44.
By Burton:
"Nor shalt thou 'scape the fate to fall his prize, albeit so wealthy, and so strong thy site there on Aurora's bosom, whence thy rise, thou Home of Opulence, Malacca hight! The poysoned arrows which thine art supplies, the Krises thirsting, as I see, for fight, th' enamoured Malay-men, the Javan braves, all of the Lusian shall become the slaves."
1612.—"The Arabs call it Malakat, from collecting all merchants."—Sijara Malayu, in J. Ind. Arch. v. 322.
MALADOO, s. Chicken maladoo is an article in the Anglo-Indian menu. It looks like a corruption from the French cuisine, but of what? [Maladoo or Manadoo, a lady informs me, is cold meat, such as chicken or mutton, cut into slices, or pounded up and re-cooked in batter. The Port. malhado, 'beaten-up,' has been suggested as a possible origin for the word.]
MALAY, n.p. This is in the Malay language an adjective, Malāyu; thus orang Malāyu, 'a Malay'; tāna [tānah] Malāyu, 'the Malay country'; bahāsa [bhāsa] Malāyu, 'the Malay language.'
In Javanese the word malāyu signifies 'to run away,' and the proper name has traditionally been derived from this, in reference to the alleged foundation of Malacca by Javanese fugitives; but we can hardly attach importance to this. It may be worthy at least of consideration whether the name was not of foreign, i.e. of S. Indian origin, and connected with the Malāya of the Peninsula (see under MALABAR). [Mr. Skeat writes: "The tradition given me by Javanese in the Malay States was that the name was applied to Javanese refugees, who peopled the S. of Sumatra. Whatever be the original meaning of the word, it is probable that it started its page 545blife-history as a river-name in the S. of Sumatra, and thence became applied to the district through which the river ran, and so to the people who lived there; after which it spread with the Malay dialect until it included not only many allied, but also many foreign, tribes; all Malay-speaking tribes being eventually called Malays without regard to racial origin. A most important passage in this connection is to be found in Leyden's Tr. of the 'Malay Annals' (1821), p. 20, in which direct reference to such a river is made: 'There is a country in the land of Andalás named Paralembang, which is at present denominated Palembang, the raja of which was denominated Damang Lebar Dawn (chieftain Broad-leaf), who derived his origin from Raja Sulan (Chulan?), whose great-grandson he was. The name of its river Muartatang, into which falls another river named Sungey Malayu, near the source of which is a mountain named the mountain Sagantang Maha Miru.' Here Palembang is the name of a well-known Sumatran State, often described as the original home of the Malay race. In standard Malay 'Damang Lebar Dawn' would be 'Dĕmang Lebar Daun.' Raja Chulan is probably some mythical Indian king, the story being evidently derived from Indian traditions. 'Muartatang' may be a mistake for Muar Tenang, which is a place one heard of in the Peninsula, though I do not know for certain where it is. 'Sungey Malayu' simply means 'River Malayu.' 'Sagantang Maha Miru' is, I think, a mistake for Sa-guntang Maha Miru, which is the name used in the Peninsula for the sacred central mountain of the world on which the episode related in the Annals occurred" (see Skeat, Malay Magic, p. 2).]
It is a remarkable circumstance, which has been noted by Crawfurd, that a name which appears on Ptolemy's Tables as on the coast of the Golden Chersonese, and which must be located somewhere about Maulmain, is Μαλεοῦ Κῶλον, words which in Javanese (Malāyu-Kulon) would signify "Malays of the West." After this the next (possible) occurrence of the name in literature is in the Geography of Edrisi, who describes Malai as a great island in the eastern page 546aseas, or rather as occupying the position of the Lemuria of Mr. Sclater, for (in partial accommodation to the Ptolemaic theory of the Indian Sea) it stretched eastward nearly from the coast of Zinj, i.e. of Eastern Africa, to the vicinity of China. Thus it must be uncertain without further accounts whether it is an adumbration of the great Malay islands (as is on the whole probable) or of the Island of the Malagashes (Madagascar), if it is either. We then come to Marco Polo, and after him there is, we believe, no mention of the Malay name till the Portuguese entered the seas of the Archipelago.
c. 1150.—"The Isle of Malai is very great.... The people devote themselves to very profitable trade; and there are found here elephants, rhinoceroses, and various aromatics and spices, such as clove, cinnamon, nard ... and nutmeg. In the mountains are mines of gold, of excellent quality ... the people also have windmills."—Edrisi, by Jaubert, i. 945.
c. 1273.—A Chinese notice records under this year that tribute was sent from Siam to the Emperor. "The Siamese had long been at war with the Maliyi, or Maliurh, but both nations laid aside their feud and submitted to China."—Notice by Sir T. Wade, in Bowring's Siam, i. 72.
c. 1292.—"You come to an Island which forms a kingdom, and is called Malaiur. The people have a king of their own, and a peculiar language. The city is a fine and noble one, and there is a great trade carried on there. All kinds of spicery are to be found there."—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 8.
c. 1539.—"... as soon as he had delivered to him the letter, it was translated into the Portugal out of the Malayan tongue wherein it was written."—Pinto, E.T. p. 15.
1548.—"... having made a breach in the wall twelve fathom wide, he assaulted it with 10,000 strangers, Turks, Abyssins, Moors, Malauares, Achems, Jaos, and Malayos."—Ibid. p. 279.
1553.—"And so these Gentiles like the Moors who inhabit the sea-coasts of the Island (Sumatra), although they have each their peculiar language, almost all can speak the Malay of Malacca as being the most general language of those parts."—Barros, III. v. 1.
" "Everything with them is to be a gentleman; and this has such prevalence in those parts that you will never find a native Malay, however poor he may be, who will set his hand to lift a thing of his own or anybody else's; every service must be done by slaves."—Ibid. II. vi. 1.
[Mr. Skeat writes: "The word Malaya is now often applied by English writers to the Peninsula as a whole, and from this the term Malaysia as a term of wider application (i.e. to the Archipelago) has been coined (see quotation of 1610 above). The former is very frequently miswritten by English writers as 'Malay,' a barbarism which has even found place on the title-page of a book—'Travel and Sport in Burma, Siam and Malay, by John Bradley, London, 1876.'"]
MALAYĀLAM. This is the name applied to one of the cultivated Dravidian languages, the closest in its relation to the Tamil. It is spoken along the Malabar coast, on the Western side of the Ghauts (or Malāya mountains), from the Chandragiri River on the North, near Mangalore (entering the sea in 12° 29′), beyond which the language is, for a limited distance, Tulu, and then Canarese, to Trevandrum on the South (lat. 8° 29′), where Tamil begins to supersede it. Tamil, however, also intertwines with Malayālam all along Malabar. The term Malayālam properly applies to territory, not language, and might be rendered "Mountain region" [See under MALABAR, and Logan, Man. of Malabar, i. 90.]
MALDIVES, MALDIVE ISLDS., n.p. The proper form of this name appears to be Male-dīva; not, as the estimable Garcia de Orta says, Nale-dīva; whilst the etymology which he gives is certainly wrong, hard as it may be to say what is the right one. The people of the islands formerly designated themselves and their country by a form of the word for 'island' which we have in the Skt. dvīpa and the Pali dīpo. We find this reflected in the Divi of Ammianus, and in the Dīva and Dība-jāt (Pers. plural) of old Arab geographers, whilst it survives in letters of the 18th century addressed to the Ceylon page 547aGovernment (Dutch) by the Sultan of the Isles, who calls his kingdom Divehi Rajjé, and his people Divehe mīhun. Something like the modern form first appears in Ibn Batuta. He, it will be seen, in his admirable account of these islands, calls them, as it were, Mahal-dives, and says they were so called from the chief group Mahal, which was the residence of the Sultan, indicating a connection with Mahal, 'a palace.' This form of the name looks like a foreign 'striving after meaning.' But Pyrard de Laval, the author of the most complete account in existence, also says that the name of the islands was taken from Malé, that on which the King resided. Bishop Caldwell has suggested that these islands were the dives, or islands, of Malé, as Malebār (see MALABAR) was the coast-tract or continent, of Malé. It is, however, not impossible that the true etymology was from mālā, 'a garland or necklace,' of which their configuration is highly suggestive. [The Madras Gloss. gives Malayāl. māl, 'black,' and dvīpa, 'island,' from the dark soil. For a full account of early notices of the Maldives, see Mr. Gray's note on Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 423 seqq.] Milburn (Or. Commerce, i. 335) says: "This island was (these islands were) discovered by the Portuguese in 1507." Let us see!
c. 545.—"And round about it (Sielediba or Taprobane, i.e. Ceylon) there are a number of small islands, in all of which you find fresh water and coco-nuts. And these are almost all set close to one another."—Cosmas, in Cathay, &c., clxxvii.
851.—"Between this Sea (of Horkand) and the Sea called Lāravi there is a great number of isles; their number, indeed, it is said, amounts to 1,900; ... the distance from island to island is 2, 3, or 4 parasangs. They are all inhabited, and all produce coco-palms.... The last of these islands is Serendīb, in the Sea of Horkand; it is the chief of all; they give the islands the name of Dībajāt" (i.e. Dības).—Relation, &c., tr. by Reinaud, i. 4-5.
c. 1030.—"The special name of Dīva is given to islands which are formed in the sea, and which appear above water in the form of accumulations of sand; these sands continually augment, spread, and unite, page 547btill they present a firm aspect ... these islands are divided into two classes, according to the nature of their staple product. Those of one class are called Dīva-Kūzah (or the Cowry Divahs), because of the cowries which are gathered from coco-branches planted in the sea. The others are called Dīva-Kanbar, from the word kanbar (see COIR), which is the name of the twine made from coco-fibres, with which vessels are stitched."—Al-Birūnī, in Reinaud, Fragmens, 124.
1150.—See also Edrisi, in Jaubert's Transl. i. 68. But the translator prints a bad reading, Raibiḥāt, for Dībajāt.
c. 1343.—"Ten days after embarking at Calecut we arrived at the Islands called Dhībat-al-Mahal.... These islands are reckoned among the wonders of the World; there are some 2000 of them. Groups of a hundred, or not quite so many, of these islands are found clustered into a ring, and each cluster has an entrance like a harbour-mouth, and it is only there that ships can enter.... Most of the trees that grow on these islands are coco-palms.... They are divided into regions or groups ... among which are distinguished ... 3$^o$ Mahal, the group which gives a name to the whole, and which is the residence of the Sultans."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 110 seqq.
1442.—Abdurrazzak also calls them "the isles of Dīva-Mahal."—In Not. et Exts. xiv. 429.
1503.—"But Dom Vasco ... said that things must go on as they were to India, and there he would inquire into the truth. And so arriving in the Gulf (golfão) where the storm befel them, all were separated, and that vessel which steered badly, parted company with the fleet, and found itself at one of the first islands of Maldiva, at which they stopped some days enjoying themselves. For the island abounded in provisions, and the men indulged to excess in eating cocos, and fish, and in drinking bad stagnant water, and in disorders with women; so that many died."—Correa, i. 347.
[1512.—"Mafamede Maçay with two ships put into the Maldive islands (ilhas de Maldiva)."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 30.]
1563.—"R. Though it be somewhat to interrupt the business in hand,—why is that chain of islands called 'Islands of Maldiva'?
"O. In this matter of the nomenclature of lands and seas and kingdoms, many of our people make great mistakes even in regard to our own lands; how then can you expect that one can give you the rationale of etymologies of names in foreign tongues? But, nevertheless, I will tell you what I have heard say. And that is that the right name is not Maldiva, but Nalediva; for nale in Malabar means 'four,' and diva 'island,' so that in the Malabar tongue the name is as much as to say 'Four Isles.'... And in the same way we call a certain island that is 12 leagues from Goa Angediva (see ANCHEDIVA), because there are five in the group, and so the name in Malabar page 548ameans 'Five Isles,' for ange is 'five.' But these derivations rest on common report, I don't detail them to you as demonstrable facts."—Garcia, Colloquios, f. 11.
1572.—"Nas ilhas de Maldiva." (See COCO-DE-MER.)
c. 1610.—"Ce Royaume en leur langage s'appelle Malé-ragué, Royaume de Malé, et des autres peuples de l'Inde il s'appelle Malé-divar, et les peuples diues ... L'Isle principale, comme j'ay dit, s'appelle Malé, qui donne le nom à tout le reste des autres; car le mot Diues signifie vn nombre de petites isles amassées."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 63, 68, ed. 1679. [Hak. Soc. i. 83, 177.]
MALUM, s. In a ship with English officers and native crew, the mate is called mālum sāhib. The word is Ar. mu'allim, literally 'the Instructor,' and is properly applied to the pilot or sailing-master. The word may be compared, thus used, with our 'master' in the Navy. In regard to the first quotation we may observe that Nākhuda (see NACODA) is, rather than Mu'allim, 'the captain'; though its proper meaning is the owner of the ship; the two capacities of owner and skipper being doubtless often combined. The distinction of Mu'allim from Nākhuda accounts for the former title being assigned to the mate.
1541.—"Meanwhile he sent three caturs (q.v.) to the Port of the Malems (Porto dos Malemos) in order to get some pilot.... In this Port of the Bandel of the Malems the ships of the Moors take pilots when they enter the Straits, and when they return they leave them here again."—Correa, iv. 168.
page 548b1553.—"... among whom (at Melinda) came a Moor, a Guzarate by nation, called Malem Cana, who, as much for the satisfaction he had in conversing with our people, as to please the King, who was inquiring for a pilot to give them, agreed to accompany them."—Barros, I. iv. 6.
c. 1590.—"Mu'allim or Captain. He must be acquainted with the depths and shallow places of the Ocean, and must know astronomy. It is he who guides the ship to her destination, and prevents her falling into dangers."—Āīn, ed. Blochmann, i. 280.
MAMIRAN, MAMIRA, s. A medicine from old times of much repute in the East, especially for eye-diseases, and imported from Himalayan and Trans-Himalayan regions. It is a popular native drug in the Punjab bazars, where it is still known as mamīra, also as pīlīārī. It seems probable that the name is applied to bitter roots of kindred properties but of more than one specific origin. Hanbury and Flückiger describe it as the rhizome of Coptis Teeta, Wallich, tīta being the name of the drug in the Mishmi country at the head of the Assam Valley, from which it is imported into Bengal. But Stewart states explicitly that the mamīra of the Punjab bazars is now "known to be" mostly, if not entirely, derived from Thalictrum foliosum D.C., a tall plant which is common throughout the temperate Himālaya (5000 to 8000 feet) and on the Kasia Hills, and is exported from Kumaun under the name of Momiri. [See Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. iv. 42 seq.] "The Mamira of the old Arab writers was identified with Χελιδόνιον μέγα, by which, however, Löw (Aram. Pflanzennamen, p. 220) says they understood curcuma longa." W.R.S.
c. 1020.—"Memirem quid est? Est lignum sicut nodi declinans ad nigredinem ... page 549amundificat albuginem in oculis, et acuit visum: quum ex eo fit collyrium et abstergit humiditatem grossam...." &c.—Avicennae Opera, Venet. 1564, p. 345 (lib. ii. tractat. ii.).
The glossary of Arabic terms by Andreas de Alpago of Belluno, attached to various early editions of Avicenna, gives the following interpretation: "Memirem est radix nodosa, non multum grossa, citrini coloris, sicut curcuma; minor tamen est et subtilior, et asportatur ex Indiâ, et apud physicos orientales est valde nota, et usitatur in passionibus oculi."
c. 1100.—"Memiram Arabibus, χελιδόνιον μέγα Graecis," &c.—Io. Serapionis de Simpl. Medicam. Historia, Lib. iv. cap. lxxvi. (ed. Ven. 1552, f. 106).
c. 1200.—"Some maintain that this plant ('urūk al-ṣábaghīn) is the small kurkum (turmeric), and others that it is mamīrān.... The kurkum is brought to us from India.... The mamīrān is imported from China, and has the same properties as kurkum."—Ibn Baithar, ii. 186-188.
c. 1550.—"But they have a much greater appreciation of another little root which grows in the mountains of Succuir (i.e. Suchau in Shensi), where the rhubarb grows, and which they call Mambroni-Chini (i.e. Mamīrān-i-Chīnī). This is extremely dear, and is used in most of their ailments, but especially when the eyes are affected. They grind it on a stone with rose water, and anoint the eyes with it. The result is wonderfully beneficial."—Hajji Mahommed's Account of Cathay, in Ramusio, ii. f. 15v.
Also the following we borrow from Dozy's Suppl. aux Dictt. Arabes:—
c. 1665.—"These caravans brought back Musk, China-wood, Rubarb, and Mamiron, which last is a small root exceeding good for ill eyes."—Bernier, E.T. 136; [ed. Constable, 426].
MAMLUTDAR, s. P.—H. mu'āmalatdār (from Ar. mu'āmala, 'affairs, business'), and in Mahr. māmlatdār. Chiefly used in Western India. page 549bFormerly it was the designation, under various native governments, of the chief civil officer of a district, and is now in the Bombay Presidency the title of a native civil officer in charge of a Talook, corresponding nearly to the Tahseeldar of a pergunna in the Bengal Presidency, but of a status somewhat more important.
MAMOOL, s.; MAMOOLEE, adj. Custom, Customary. Ar.—H. ma'mūl. The literal meaning is 'practised,' and then 'established, customary.' Ma'mūl is, in short, 'precedent,' by which all Orientals set as much store as English lawyers, e.g. "And Laban said, It must not so be done in our country (lit. It is not so done in our place) to give the younger before the firstborn."—Genesis xxix. 26.
MAMOOTY, MAMOTY, MOMATTY, s. A digging tool of the form usual all over India, i.e. not in the shape of a spade, but in that of a hoe, with the helve at an acute angle with the blade. [See FOWRA.] The word is of S. Indian origin, Tamil manvĕtti, 'earth-cutter'; and its vernacular use is confined to the Tamil regions, but it has long been an established term in the list of ordnance stores all over India, and thus has a certain prevalence in Anglo-Indian use beyond these limits.
MANCHUA, s. A large cargo-boat, with a single mast and a square sail, much used on the Malabar coast. This is the Portuguese form; the original Malayālam word is manji, [manchi, Skt. maṇcha, 'a cot,' so called apparently from its raised platform for cargo,] and nowadays a nearer approach to this, manjee, &c., is usual.
1525.—"Quatro lancharas (q.v.) grandes e seis qualaluzes (see CALALUZ) e manchuas que se remam muyto."—Lembrança das Cousas de India, p. 8.
1552.—"Manchuas que sam navios de remo."—Castanheda, ii. 362.
c. 1610.—"Il a vne petite Galiote, qu'ils appellent Manchouës, fort bien couverte ... et faut huit ou neuf hommes seulement pour la mener."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 26; [Hak. Soc. ii. 42].
[1623.—"... boats which they call Maneive, going with 20 or 24 Oars."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 211; Mancina in ii. 217.
[1679.—"I commanded the shibbars and manchuas to keepe a little ahead of me."—Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. clxxxiv.]
1682.—"Ex hujusmodi arboribus excavatis naviculas Indi conficiunt, quas Mansjoas appellant, quarum nonullae longitudine 80, latitudine 9 pedum mensuram superant."—Rheede, Hort. Malabar, iii. 27.
MANDADORE, s. Port. mandador, 'one who commands.'
MANDALAY, MANDALÉ, n.p. The capital of the King of Burmah, founded in 1860, 7 miles north of the preceding capital Amarapura, and between 2 and 3 miles from the left bank of the Irawadi. The name was taken from that of a conical isolated hill, rising high above the alluvial plain of the Irawadi, and crowned by a gilt pagoda. The name of the hill (and now of the city at its base) probably represents Mandara, the sacred mountain which in Hindu mythology served the gods as a churning-staff at the churning of the sea. The hill appears as Mandiye-taung in Major Grant Allan's Map of the Environs of Amarapura (1855), published in the Narrative of Major Phayre's Mission, but the name does not occur in the Narrative itself.
MANDARIN, s. Port. Mandarij, Mandarim. Wedgwood explains and derives the word thus: "A Chinese officer, a name first made known to us by the Portuguese, and like the Indian caste, erroneously supposed to be a native term. From Portuguese mandar, to hold authority, command, govern, &c." So also T. Hyde in the quotation below. Except as regards the word having been first made known to us by the Portuguese, this is an old and persistent mistake. What sort of form would mandarij be as a derivative from mandar? The Portuguese might have applied to Eastern officials some such word as mandador, which a preceding article (see MANDADORE) shows that they did apply in certain cases. But the parallel to the assumed origin of mandarin from mandar would be that English voyagers on visiting China, or some other country in the far East, should have invented, as a title for the officials of that country, a new and abnormal derivation from 'order,' and called them orderumbos.
The word is really a slight corruption of Hind. (from Skt.) mantri, 'a counsellor, a Minister of State,' for which it was indeed the proper old pre-Mahommedan term in India. It has been adopted, and specially affected in various Indo-Chinese countries, and particularly by the Malays, among whom it is habitually applied to the highest class of public officers (see Crawfurd's Malay Dict. s.v. [and Klinkert, who writes manteri, colloquially mentri]). Yet Crawfurd himself, strange to say, adopts the current explanation as from the Portuguese (see J. Ind. Archip. iv. 189). [Klinkert adopts the Skt. derivation.] It is, no doubt, probable that the instinctive "striving after meaning" may have shaped the corruption of mantri into a semblance of mandar. Marsden is still more oddly perverse, videns meliora, deteriora secutus, when he says: "The officers next in rank to the Sultan are Mantree, page 551awhich some apprehend to be a corruption of the word Mandarin, a title of distinction among the Chinese" (H. of Sumatra, 2nd ed. 285). Ritter adopts the etymology from mandar, apparently after A. W. Schlegel. The true etymon is pointed out in Notes and Queries in China and Japan, iii. 12, and by one of the present writers in Ocean Highways for Sept. 1872, p. 186. Several of the quotations below will show that the earlier applications of the title have no reference to China at all, but to officers of state, not only in the Malay countries, but in Continental India. We may add that mantri (see MUNTREE) is still much in vogue among the less barbarous Hill Races on the Eastern frontier of Bengal (e.g. among the Kasias (see COSSYA) as a denomination for their petty dignitaries under the chief. Gibbon was perhaps aware of the true origin of mandarin; see below.
[1522.—"... and for this purpose he sent one of his chief mandarins (mandarim)."—India Office MSS. in an Agreement made by the Portuguese with the "Rey de Sunda," this Sunda being that of the Straits.]
1524.—(At the Moluccas) "and they cut off the heads of all the dead Moors, and indeed fought with one another for these, because whoever brought in seven heads of enemies, they made him a knight, and called him manderym, which is their name for Knight."—Correa, ii. 808.
c. 1540.—"... the which corsairs had their own dealings with the Mandarins of those ports, to whom they used to give many and heavy bribes to allow them to sell on shore what they plundered on the sea."—Pinto, cap. 1.
1552.—(At Malacca) "whence subsist the King and the Prince with their mandarins, who are the gentlemen."—Castanheda, iii. 207.
" (In China). "There are among them degrees of honour, and according to their degrees of honour is their service; gentlemen (fidalgos) whom they call mandarins ride on horseback, and when they pass along the streets the common people make way for them."—Ibid. iv. 57.
1553.—"Proceeding ashore in two or three boats dressed with flags and with a page 551bgrand blare of trumpets (this was at Malacca in 1508-9).... Jeronymo Teixeira was received by many Mandarijs of the King, these being the most noble class of the city."—De Barros, Dec. II. liv. iv. cap. 3.
" "And he being already known to the Mandarijs (at Chittagong, in Bengal), and held to be a man profitable to the country, because of the heavy amounts of duty that he paid, he was regarded like a native."—Ibid. Dec. IV. liv. ix. cap. 2.
" "And from these Cellates and native Malays come all the Mandarins, who are now the gentlemen (fidalgos) of Malaca."—Ibid. II. vi. 1.
1598.—"They are called ... Mandorijns, and are always borne in the streetes, sitting in chariots which are hanged about with Curtaines of Silke, covered with Clothes of Gold and Silver, and are much given to banketing, eating and drinking, and making good cheare, as also the whole land of China."—Linschoten, 39; [Hak. Soc. i. 135].
1610.—"The Mandorins (officious officers) would have interverted the king's command for their own covetousnesse" (at Siam).—Peter Williamson Floris, in Purchas, i. 322.
1612.—"Shah Indra Brama fled in like manner to Malacca, where they were graciously received by the King, Mansur Shah, who had the Prince converted to Islamism, and appointed him to be a Mantor."—Sijara Malayu, in J. Ind. Arch. v. 730.
c. 1663.—"Domandò il Signor Carlo se mandarino è voce Chinese. Disse esser Portoghese, e che in Chinese si chiamano Quoan, che signifia signoreggiare, comandare, gobernare."—Viaggio del P. Gio. Grueber, in Thevenot, Divers Voyages.
1682.—In the Kingdome of Patane (on E. coast of Malay Peninsula) "The King's counsellors are called Mentary."—Nieuhof, Zee en Lant-Reize, ii. 64.
c. 1690.—"Mandarinorum autem nomine intelliguntur omnis generis officiarii, qui a mandando appellantur mandarini linguâ Lusitanicâ, quae unica Europaea est in oris Chinensibus obtinens."—T. Hyde, De Ludis Orientalibus, in Syntagmata, Oxon. 1767, ii. 266.
1719.—"... one of the Mandarins, a kind of viceroy or principal magistrate in the province where they reside."—Robinson Crusoe, Pt. ii.
1726.—"Mantrís. Councillors. These give rede and deed in things of moment, and otherwise are in the Government next to the King...." (in Ceylon).—Valentijn, Names, &c., 6.
1727.—"Every province or city (Burma) has a Mandereen or Deputy residing at Court, which is generally in the City of Ava, the present Metropolis."—A. Hamilton, ii. 43, [ed. 1744, ii. 42].
1774.—"... presented to each of the Batchian Manteries as well as the two officers a scarlet coat."—Forrest, V. to N. Guinea, p. 100.
page 552a1788.—"... Some words notoriously corrupt are fixed, and as it were naturalized in the vulgar tongue ... and we are pleased to blend the three Chinese monosyllables Con-fû-tzee in the respectable name of Confucius, or even to adopt the Portuguese corruption of Mandarin."—Gibbon, Preface to his 4th volume.
Used as an adjective:
MANDARIN LANGUAGE, s. The language spoken by the official and literary class in China, as opposed to local dialects. In Chinese it is called Kuan-Hua. It is substantially the language of the people of the northern and middle zones of China, extending to Yun-nan. It is not to be confounded with the literary style which is used in books. [See Ball, Things Chinese, 169 seq.]
MANGALORE, n.p. The only place now well known by this name is (a) Mangaḷ-ūr, a port on the coast of Southern Canara and chief town of that district, in lat. 12° 51′ N. In Mīr Husain Ali's Life of Haidar it is called "Gorial Bunder," perhaps a corr. of Kandiāl, which is said in the Imp. Gaz. to be the modern native name. [There is a place called Gurupura close by; see Madras Gloss. s.v. Goorpore.] The name in this form is found in an inscription of the 11th century, whatever may have been its original form and etymology. [The present name is said to be taken from the temple of Mangalā Devī.] But the name in approximate forms (from mañgala, 'gladness') is common in India. One other port (b) on the coast of Peninsular Guzerat was formerly well known, now commonly called Mungrole. And page 552banother place of the name (c) Manglavar in the valley of Swat, north of Peshāwar, is mentioned by Hwen T'sang as a city of Gandhāra. It is probably the same that appears in Skt. literature (see Williams, s.v. Mangala) as the capital of Udyāna.
a. Mangalore of Canara.
c. 545.—"And the most notable places of trade are these ... and then the five ports of Malé from which pepper is exported, to wit, Parti, Mangaruth...."—Cosmas, in Cathay, &c. clxxvii.
[c. 1300.—"Manjarur." See under SHINKALI.]
c. 1343.—"Quitting Fākanūr (see BACANORE) we arrived after three days at the city of Manjarūr, which is large and situated on an estuary.... It is here that most of the merchants of Fars and Yemen land; pepper and ginger are very abundant."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 79-80.
1442.—"After having passed the port of Bendinaneh (see PANDARANI) situated on the coast of Melibar, (he) reached the port of Mangalor, which forms the frontier of the kingdom of Bidjanagar...."—Abdurrazzāk, in India in the XVth Cent., 20.
1516.—"There is another large river towards the south, along the sea-shore, where there is a very large town, peopled by Moors and Gentiles, of the kingdom of Narsinga, called Mangalor.... They also ship there much rice in Moorish ships for Aden, also pepper, which thenceforward the earth begins to produce."—Barbosa, 83.
b. Mangalor or Mungrole in Guzerat.
"Συραστρηνῆς ... Συράστρα κώμη Μονόγλωσσον εμποριον ..." Ptolemy, VII. i. 3.
1516.—"... there is another town of commerce, which has a very good port, and is called Surati Mangalor, where also many ships of Malabar touch."—Barbosa, 59.
1536.—"... for there was come another catur with letters, in which the Captain of Diu urgently called for help; telling how the King (of Cambay) had equipped large squadrons in the Ports of the Gulf ... alleging ... that he was sending them to Mangalor to join others in an expedition against Sinde ... and that all this was false, for he was really sending them in the expectation that the Rumis would come to page 553aMangalor next September...."—Correa, iv. 701.
1648.—This place is called Mangerol by Van Twist, p. 13.
c. Manglavar in Swat.
MANGELIN, s. A small weight, corresponding in a general way to a carat (q.v.), used in the S. of India and in Ceylon for weighing precious stones. The word is Telegu maṇjāḷi; in Tamil maṇjāḍi, [from Skt. manju, 'beautiful']; the seed of the Adenanthera pavonina (Compare RUTTEE). On the origin of this weight see Sir W. Elliot's Coins of S. India. The maṇjāḍi seed was used as a measure of weight from very early times. A parcel of 50 taken at random gave an average weight of 4.13 grs. Three parcels of 10 each, selected by eye as large, gave average 5.02 and 5.03 (op. cit. p. 47).
1554.—(In Ceylon) "A calamja contains 20 mamgelins, each mamgelim 8 grains of rice; a Portugues of gold weighs 8 calamjas and 2 mangelins."—A. Nunez, 35.
1584.—"There is another sort of weight called Mangiallino, which is 5 graines of Venice weight, and therewith they weigh diamants and other jewels."—Barret, in Hakl. ii. 409.
1611.—"Quem não sabe a grandeza das minas de finissimos diamantes do Reyno de Bisnaga, donde cada dia, e cada hora se tiram peças de tamanho de hum ovo, e muitas de sessenta e oitenta mangelins."—Couto, Dialogo do Soldato Pratico, 154.
1665.—"Le poids principal des Diamans est le mangelin; il pèse cinq grains et trois cinquièmes."—Thevenot, v. 293.
MANGO, s. The royal fruit of the Mangifera indica, when of good quality is one of the richest and best fruits in the world. The original of the word is Tamil mān-kāy or mān-gāy, i.e. mān fruit (the tree being māmarum, 'mān-tree'). The Portuguese formed from this manga, which we have adopted as mango. The tree is wild in the forests of various parts of India; but the fruit of the wild tree is uneatable.
The word has sometimes been supposed to be Malay; but it was in fact introduced into the Archipelago, along with the fruit itself, from S. India. Rumphius (Herb. Amboyn. i. 95) traces its then recent introduction into the islands, and says that it is called (Malaicè) "mangka, vel vulgo Manga et Mapelaam." This last word is only the Tamil Māpaḷam, i.e. 'mān fruit' again. The close approximation of the Malay mangka to the Portuguese form might suggest that the latter name was derived from Malacca. But we see manga already used by Varthema, who, according to Garcia, never really went beyond Malabar. [Mr. Skeat writes: "The modern standard Malay word is mangga, from which the Port. form was probably taken. The other Malay form quoted from Rumphius is in standard Malay mapĕlam, with mĕpĕlam, hĕmpĕlam, ampĕlam, and 'pĕlam or 'plam as variants. The Javanese is pĕlĕm."]
The word has been taken to Madagascar, apparently by the Malayan colonists, whose language has left so large an impression there, in the precise shape mangka. Had the fruit been an Arab importation it is improbable that the name would have been introduced in that form.
The N. Indian names are Ām and Amba, and variations of these we find in several of the older European writers. Thus Fr. Jordanus, who had been in the Konkan, and appreciated the progenitors of the Goa and page 554aBombay Mango (c. 1328), calls the fruit Aniba. Some 30 years later John de' Marignolli calls the tree "amburan, having a fruit of excellent fragrance and flavour, somewhat like a peach" (Cathay, &c., ii. 362). Garcia de Orta shows how early the Bombay fruit was prized. He seems to have been the owner of the parent tree. The Skt. name is Amra, and this we find in Hwen T'sang (c. 645) phoneticised as 'An-mo-lo.
The mango is probably the fruit alluded to by Theophrastus as having caused dysentery in the army of Alexander. (See the passage s.v. JACK).
c. 1334.—"The mango tree ('anba) resembles an orange-tree, but is larger and more leafy; no other tree gives so much shade, but this shade is unwholesome, and whoever sleeps under it gets fever."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 125. At ii. 185 he writes 'anbā. [The same charge is made against the tamarind; see Burton, Ar. Nights, iii. 81.]
c. 1349.—"They have also another tree called Amburan, having a fruit of excellent fragrance and flavour, somewhat like a peach."—John de' Marignolli, in Cathay, &c., 362.
1510.—"Another fruit is also found here, which is called Amba, the stem of which is called Manga," &c.—Varthema, 160-161.
c. 1526.—"Of the vegetable productions peculiar to Hindustân one is the mango (ambeh).... Such mangoes as are good are excellent...." &c.—Baber, 324.
1563.—"O. Boy! go and see what two vessels those are coming in—you see them from the varanda here—and they seem but small ones.
"Servant. I will bring you word presently.
"S. Sir! it is Simon Toscano, your tenant in Bombay, and he brings this hamper of mangas for you to make a present to the Governor, and says that when he has moored the boat he will come here to stop.
"O. He couldn't have come more à propos. I have a manga-tree (mangueira) in that island of mine which is remarkable for both its two crops, one at this time of year, the other at the end of May, and much as the other crop excels this in quality for fragrance and flavour, this is just as remarkable for coming out of season. But come, let us taste them before His Excellency. Boy! take out six mangas."—Garcia, ff. 134v, 135. This author also mentions that the mangas of Ormuz were the most page 554bcelebrated; also certain mangas of Guzerat, not large, but of surpassing fragrance and flavour, and having a very small stone. Those of Balaghat were both excellent and big; the Doctor had seen two that weighed 4 arratel and a half (4$^1$⁄$_5$ lbs.); and those of Bengal, Pegu, and Malacca were also good.
[1569.—"There is much fruit that comes from Arabia and Persia, which they call mangoes (mangas), which is very good fruit."—Cronica dos Reys Dormuz, translated from the Arabic in 1569.]
c. 1590.—"The Mangoe (Anba).... This fruit is unrivalled in colour, smell, and taste; and some of the gourmands of Túrán and Irán place it above musk melons and grapes.... If a half-ripe mango, together with its stalk to a length of about two fingers, be taken from the tree, and the broken end of its stalk be closed with warm wax, and kept in butter or honey, the fruit will retain its taste for two or three months."—Āīn, ed. Blochmann, i. 67-68.
[1614.—"Two jars of Manges at rupees 4½."—Foster, Letters, iii. 41.
[1615.—"George Durois sent in a present of two pottes of Mangeas."—Cocks's Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 79.]
" "There is another very licquorish fruit called Amangues growing on trees, and it is as bigge as a great quince, with a very great stone in it."—De Monfart, 20.
1622.—P. della Valle describes the tree and fruit at Miná (Minao) near Hormuz, under the name of Amba, as an exotic introduced from India. Afterwards at Goa he speaks of it as "manga or amba."—ii. pp. 313-14, and 581; [Hak. Soc. i. 40].
1631.—"Alibi vero commemorat mangae speciem fortis admodum odoris, Terebinthinam scilicet, et Piceae arboris lacrymam redolentes, quas propterea nostri stinkers appellant."—Piso on Bontius, Hist. Nat. p. 95.
[1663.—"Ambas, or Mangues, are in season during two months in summer, and are plentiful and cheap; but those grown at Delhi are indifferent. The best come from Bengale, Golkonda, and Goa, and these are indeed excellent. I do not know any sweet-meat more agreeable."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 249.]
1673.—Of the Goa Mango, Fryer says justly: "When ripe, the Apples of the Hesperides are but Fables to them; for Taste, the Nectarine, Peach, and Apricot fall short...."—p. 182.
1679.—"Mango and saio (see SOY), two sorts of sauces brought from the East Indies."—Locke's Journal, in Ld. King's Life, 1830, i. 249.
page 555a1727.—"The Goa mango is reckoned the largest and most delicious to the taste of any in the world, and I may add, the wholesomest and best tasted of any Fruit in the World."—A. Hamilton, i. 255, [ed. 1744, i. 258].
The name has been carried with the fruit to Mauritius and the West Indies. Among many greater services to India the late Sir Proby Cautley diffused largely in Upper India the delicious fruit of the Bombay mango, previously rare there, by creating and encouraging groves of grafts on the banks of the Ganges and Jumna canals. It is especially true of this fruit (as Sultan Baber indicates) that excellence depends on the variety. The common mango is coarse and strong of turpentine. Of this only an evanescent suggestion remains to give peculiarity to the finer varieties. [A useful account of these varieties, by Mr. Maries, will be found in Watt, Econ. Dict. v. 148 seqq.]
MANGO-BIRD, s. The popular Anglo-Indian name of the beautiful golden oriole (Oriolus aureus, Jerdon). Its "loud mellow whistle" from the mango-groves and other gardens, which it affects, is associated in Upper India with the invasion of the hot weather.
MANGO-FISH, s. The familiar name of an excellent fish (Polynemus Visua of Buchanan, P. paradiseus of Day), in flavour somewhat resembling the smelt, but, according to Dr. Mason, nearly related to the mullets. It appears in the Calcutta market early in the hot season, and is much prized, especially when in roe. The Hindustani name is tapsī or tapassī, 'an ascetic,' or 'penitent,' but we do not know the rationale of the name. Buchanan says that it is owing to the long fibres (or free rays), proceeding from near the head, which lead the natives to associate it with penitents who are forbidden to shave. [Dr. page 555bGrierson writes: "What the connection of the fish with a hermit was I never could ascertain, unless it was that like wandering Fakīrs, they disappear directly the rains begin. Compare the uposatha of the Buddhists." But tapasya means 'produced by heat,' and is applied to the month Phāgun (Feb.-March) when the fish appears; and this may be the origin of the name.]
MANGO-SHOWERS, s. Used in Madras for showers which fall in March and April, when the mangoes begin to ripen.
MANGO-TRICK. One of the most famous tricks of Indian jugglers, in which they plant a mango-stone, and show at brief intervals the tree shooting above ground, and successively producing leaves, flowers, and fruit. It has often been described, but the description given by the Emperor Jahāngīr in his Autobiography certainly surpasses all in its demand on our belief.
c. 1650.—"Then they thrust a piece of stick into the ground, and ask'd the Company what Fruit they would have. One told them he would have Mengues; then one of the Mountebanks hiding himself in the middle of a Sheet, stoopt to the ground five or six times one after another. I was so curious to go upstairs, and look out of a window, to see if I could spy what the Mountebank did, and perceived that after he had cut himself under the armpits with a Razor, he rubb'd the stick with his Blood. After the two first times that he rais'd himself, the stick seemed to the very eye to grow. The third time there sprung out branches with young buds. The fourth time the tree was covered with leaves; and the fifth time it bore flowers.... The English Minister protested that he could not give his consent that any Christian should be Spectator of such delusions. So that as soon as he saw that these Mountebanks had of a dry stick, in less than half-an-hour, made a Tree four or five foot high, that bare leaves and flowers as in the Spring-time: he went about to break it, protesting that he would not give the Communion to any person that should stay any longer to see those things."—Tavernier, Travels made English, by J.P., ii. 36; [ed. Ball, i. 67, seq.].
1667.—"When two of these Jauguis (see JOGEE) that are eminent, do meet, and you stir them up on the point and power of their knowledge or Jauguisme, you shall see them do such tricks out of spight to one another, that I know not if Simon Magus could have outdone them. For they divine what one thinketh, make the Branch of a Tree blossome and bear fruit in less than an hour, hatch eggs in their bosome in less than half a quarter of an hour, and bring forth such birds as you demand.... I mean, if what is said of them is true.... For, as for me, I am with all my curiosity none of those happy Men, that are present at, and see these great feats."—Bernier, E.T. 103; [ed. Constable, 321].
1673.—"Others presented a Mock-Creation of a Mango-Tree, arising from the Stone in a short space (which they did in Hugger-Mugger, being very careful to avoid being discovered) with Fruit Green and Ripe; so that a Man must stretch his Fancy, to imagine it Witchcraft; though the common Sort think no less."—Fryer, 192.
1690.—"Others are said to raise a Mango-Tree, with ripe Fruit upon its Branches, in the space of one or two Hours. To confirm which Relation, it was affirmed confidently page 556bto me, that a Gentleman who had pluckt one of these Mangoes, fell sick upon it, and was never well as long as he kept it 'till he consulted a Bramin for his Health, who prescrib'd his only Remedy would be the restoring of the Mango, by which he was restor'd to his Health again."—Ovington, 258-259.
1726.—"They have some also who will show you the kernel of a mango-fruit, or may be only a twig, and ask if you will see the fruit or this stick planted, and in a short time see a tree grow from it and bear fruit: after they have got their answer the jugglers (Koorde-danssers) wrap themselves in a blanket, stick the twig into the ground, and then put a basket over them (&c. &c.).
"There are some who have prevailed on these jugglers by much money to let them see how they have accomplished this.
"These have revealed that the jugglers made a hole in their bodies under the armpits, and rubbed the twig with the blood from it, and every time that they stuck it in the ground they wetted it, and in this way they clearly saw it to grow and to come to the perfection before described.
Our own experience does not go beyond Dr. Fryer's, and the hugger-mugger performance that he disparages. But many others have testified to more remarkable skill. We once heard a traveller of note relate with much spirit such an exhibition as witnessed in the Deccan. The narrator, then a young officer, determined with a comrade, at all hazards of fair play or foul, to solve the mystery. In the middle of the trick one suddenly seized the conjuror, whilst the other uncovered and snatched at the mango-plant. But lo! it came from the earth with a root, and the mystery was darker than ever! We tell the tale as it was told.
It would seem that the trick was not unknown in European conjuring of the 16th or 17th centuries, e.g.
MANGOSTEEN, s. From Malay manggusta (Crawfurd), or manggistan (Favre), in Javanese Manggis. [Mr. Skeat writes: "The modern standard Malay form used in the W. coast of the Peninsula is manggis, as in Javanese, the forms manggusta and manggistan never being heard there. The Siamese page 557aform maangkhut given in M‘Farland's Siamese Grammar is probably from the Malay manggusta. It was very interesting to me to find that some distinct trace of this word was still preserved in the name of this fruit at Patani-Kelantan on the E. coast, where it was called bawah 'seta (or 'setar), i.e. the 'setar fruit,' as well as occasionally mestar or mesetar, clearly a corruption of some such old form as manggistar."] This delicious fruit is known throughout the Archipelago, and in Siam, by modifications of the same name; the delicious fruit of the Garcinia Mangostana (Nat. Ord. Guttiferae). It is strictly a tropical fruit, and, in fact, near the coast does not bear fruit further north than lat. 14°. It is a native of the Malay Peninsula and the adjoining islands.
"O. What I have heard of the mangostan is that 'tis one of the most delicious fruits that they have in these regions...."—Garcia, f. 151v.
1598.—"There are yet other fruites, as ... Mangostaine [in Hak. Soc. Mangestains] ... but because they are of small account I thinke it not requisite to write severallie of them."—Linschoten, 96; [Hak. Soc. ii. 34].
1631.—
"Cedant Hesperii longe hinc, mala aurea, fructus, Ambrosiâ pascit Mangostan et nectare divos—— ... Inter omnes Indiae fructus longe sapidissimus." Jac. Bontii, lib. vi. cap. 28, p. 115.
1645.—"Il s'y trouue de plus vne espece de fruit propre du terroir de Malaque, qu'ils nomment Mangostans."—Cardim, Rel. de la Prov. de Japon, 162.
[1662.—"The Mangosthan is a Fruit growing by the Highwayes in Java, upon bushes, like our Sloes."—Mandelslo, tr. Davies, Bk. ii. 121 (Stanf. Dict.).]
MANGROVE, s. The sea-loving genera Rhizophora and Avicennia derive this name, which applies to both, from some happy accident, but from which of two sources may be doubtful. For while the former genus is, according to page 557bCrawfurd, called by the Malays manggi-manggi, a term which he supposes to be the origin of the English name, we see from Oviedo that one or other was called mangle in S. America, and in this, which is certainly the origin of the French manglier, we should be disposed also to seek the derivation of the English word. Both genera are universal in the tropical tidal estuaries of both Old World and New. Prof. Sayce, by an amusing slip, or oversight probably of somebody else's slip, quotes from Humboldt that "maize, mangle, hammock, canoe, tobacco, are all derived through the medium of the Spanish from the Haytian mahiz, mangle, hamaca, canoa, and tabaco." It is, of course, the French and not the English mangle that is here in question. [Mr. Skeat observes: "I believe the old English as well as French form was mangle, in which case Prof. Sayce would be perfectly right. Mangrove is probably mangle-grove. The Malay manggi-manggi is given by Klinkert, and is certainly on account of the reduplication, native. But I never heard it in the Peninsula, where mangrove is always called bakau."] The mangrove abounds on nearly all the coasts of further India, and also on the sea margin of the Ganges Delta, in the backwaters of S. Malabar, and less luxuriantly on the Indus mouths.
" "So coming to the coast, embarked in a great Canoa with some 30 Indians, and 5 Christians, whom he took with him, and coasted along amid solitary places and islets, passing sometimes into the sea itself for 4 or 5 leagues,—among certain trees, lofty, dense and green, which grow in the very sea-water, and which they call mangle."—Ibid. f. 224.
1553.—"... by advice of a Moorish pilot, who promised to take the people by night to a place where water could be got ... and either because the Moor desired to land many times on the shore by which he was conducting them, seeking to get away from the hands of those whom he was conducting, or because he was page 558areally perplext by its being night, and in the middle of a great growth of mangrove (mangues) he never succeeded in finding the wells of which he spoke."—Barros, I. iv. 4.
MANILLA-MAN, s. This term is applied to natives of the Philippines, who are often employed on shipboard, and especially furnish the quartermasters (Seacunny, q.v.) in Lascar crews on the China voyage. But Manilla-man seems also, from Wilson, to be used in S. India as a hybrid from Telug. manelā vādu, 'an itinerant dealer in coral and gems'; perhaps in this sense, as he says, from Skt. maṇi, 'a jewel,' but with some blending also of the Port. manilha, 'a bracelet.' (Compare COBRA-MANILLA.)
MANJEE, s. The master, or steersman, of a boat or any native river-craft; Hind. mānjhī, Beng. mājī and mājhī, [all from Skt. madhya, 'one who stands in the middle']. The word is also a title borne by the head men among the Pahāris or Hill-people of Rājmahal (Wilson), [and as equivalent for Majhwār, the name of an important Dravidian tribe on the borders of the N.W. Provinces and Chota Nāgpur].
[1706.—"Manjee." See under HARRY.]
1781.—"This is to give notice that the principal Gaut Mangies of Calcutta have entered into engagements at the Police Office to supply all Persons that apply there with Boats and Budgerows, and to give security for the Dandies."—India Gazette, Feb. 17.
1784.—"Mr. Austin and his head bearer, who were both in the room of the budgerow, are the only persons known to be drowned. The manjee and dandees have not appeared."—In Seton-Karr, i. 25.
1810.—"Their manjies will not fail to take every advantage of whatever distress, page 558bor difficulty, the passenger may labour under."—Williamson, V. M. i. 148.
For the Pahari use, see Long's Selections, p. 561.
MANNICKJORE, s. Hind. mānikjoṛ; the white-necked stork (Ciconia leucocephala, Gmelin); sometimes, according to Jerdon, called in Bengal the 'Beef-steak bird,' because palatable when cooked in that fashion. "The name of Manikjor means the companion of Manik, a Saint, and some Mussulmans in consequence abstain from eating it" (Jerdon). [Platts derives it from mānik, 'a ruby.']
MANUCODIATA. (See BIRD OF PARADISE.)
MARAMUT, MURRUMUT, s. Hind. from Ar. maramma(t), 'repair.' In this sense the use is general in Hindustani (in which the terminal t is always pronounced, though not by the Arabs), whether as applied to a stocking, a fortress, or a ship. But in Madras Presidency the word had formerly a very specialised sense as the recognised title of that branch of the Executive which included the conservation of irrigation tanks and the like, and which was worked under the District Civil Officers, there being then no separate department of the State in charge of Civil Public Works. It is a curious illustration of the wide spread at one time of Musulman power that the same Arabic word, in the form Marama, is still applied in Sicily to a standing committee charged with repairs to the Duomo or Cathedral of Palermo. An analogous instance of the wide grasp of the Saracenic power is mentioned by one of the Musulman authors whom Amari quotes in his History of the Mahommedan rule in Sicily. It is that the Caliph Al-Māmūn, under whom conquest was advancing in India and in Sicily simultaneously, ordered that the idols taken from the infidels in India should be sent for sale to the infidels in Sicily!
MARGOSA, s. A name in the S. of India and Ceylon for the Nīm (see NEEM) tree. The word is a corruption of Port. amargosa, 'bitter,' indicating the character of the tree. This gives rise to an old Indian proverb, traceable as far back as the Jātakas, that you cannot sweeten the nīm tree though you water it with syrup and ghee (Naturam expellas furcâ, &c.).
1782.—"... ils lavent le malade avec de l'eau froide, ensuite ils le frottent rudement avec de la feuille de Margosier."—Sonnerat, i. 208.
MARKHORE, s. Pers. mār-khōr, 'snake-eater.' A fine wild goat of the Western Himālaya; Capra megaceros, Hutton.
MARTABAN, n.p. This is the conventional name, long used by all the trading nations, Asiatic and European, for a port on the east of the Irawadi Delta and of the Sitang estuary, formerly of great trade, but now in comparative decay. The original name is Talaing, Mūt-ta-man, the meaning of which we have been unable to ascertain.
page 559b1545.—"At the end of these two days the King ... caused the Captains that were at the Guard of the Gates to leave them and retire; whereupon the miserable City of Martabano was delivered to the mercy of the Souldiers ... and therein showed themselves so cruel-minded, that the thing they made least reckoning of was to kill 100 men for a crown."—Pinto, in Cogan, 203.
1553.—"And the towns which stand outside this gulf of the Isles of Pegu (of which we have spoken) and are placed along the coast of that country, are Vagara, Martaban, a city notable in the great trade that it enjoys, and further on Rey, Talaga, and Tavay."—Barros, I. ix. 1.
1568.—"Trouassimo nella città di Martauan intorno a nouanta Portoghesi, tra mercadanti e huomini vagabondi, li quali stauano in gran differenza co' Rettorì della città."—Ces. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 393.
1586.—"The city of Martaban hath its front to the south-east, south, and south-west, and stands on a river which there enters the sea ... it is a city of Mauparagia, a Prince of the King of Pegu's."—Gasparo Balbi, f. 129v, 130v.
1680.—"That the English may settle ffactorys at Serian, Pegu, and Ava ... and alsoe that they may settle a ffactory in like manner at Mortavan...."—Articles to be proposed to the King of Barma and Pegu in Notes and Exts., No. iii. p. 8.
MARTABAN, s. This name was given to vessels of a peculiar pottery, of very large size, and glazed, which were famous all over the East for many centuries, and were exported from Martaban. They were sometimes called Pegu jars, and under that name specimens were shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851. We have not been able to obtain recent information on the subject of this manufacture. The word appears to be now obsolete in India, except as a colloquial term in Telegu. [The word is certainly not obsolete in Upper India: "The 'martaban' (Plate ii. fig. 10) is a small deep jar with an elongated body, which is used by Hindus and Muhammadans to keep pickles and acid articles" (Hallifax, Mono. of Punjab Pottery, p. 9). In the endeavour to supply a Hindi derivation it has been derived from imrita-bān, 'the holder of the water of immortality.' In the Arabian Nights page 560athe word appears in the form bartaman, and is used for a crock in which gold is buried. (Burton, xi. 26). Mr. Bell saw some large earthenware jars at Malé, some about 2 feet high, called rumba; others larger and barrel-shaped, called mātabān. (Pyrard, Hak. Soc. i. 259.) For the modern manufacture, see Scott, Gazetteer of Upper Burma, 1900, Pt. i. vol. ii. 399 seq.]
(?).—"Un grand bassin de Martabani."—1001 Jours, ed. Paris 1826, ii. 19. We do not know the date of these stories. The French translator has a note explaining "porcelaine verte."
1508.—"The lac (lacre) which your Highness desired me to send, it will be a piece of good luck to get, because these ships depart early, and the vessels from Pegu and Martaban come late. But I hope for a good quantity of it, as I have given orders for it."—Letter from the Viceroy Dom Francisco Almeida to the King. In Correa, i. 900.
1516.—"In this town of Martaban are made very large and beautiful porcelain vases, and some of glazed earthenware of a black colour, which are highly valued among the Moors, and they export them as merchandize."—Barbosa, 185.
1598.—"In this towne many of the great earthen pots are made, which in India are called Martauanas, and many of them carryed throughout all India, of all sortes both small and great; some are so great that they will hold full two pipes of water. The cause why so many are brought into India is for that they vse them in every house, and in their shippes insteede of caskes."—Linschoten, p. 30; [Hak. Soc. i. 101; see also i. 28, 268].
c. 1610.—"... des iarres les plus belles, les mieux vernis et les mieux façonnées que j'aye veu ailleurs. Il y en a qui tiennent autant qu'vne pippe et plus. Elles se font au Royaume de Martabane, d'ou on les apporte, et d'où elles prennent leur nom par toute l'Inde."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 179; [Hak. Soc. i. 259].
1615.—"Vasa figulina quae vulgo Martabania dicuntur per Indiam nota sunt.... Per Orientem omnem, quin et Lusitaniam, horum est usus."—Jarric, Thesaurus Rer. Indic. pt. ii. 389.
1673.—"Je vis un vase d'une certaine terre verte qui vient des Indes, dont les Turcs ... font un grand estime, et qu'ils acheptent bien cher à cause de la propriété qu'elle a de se rompre à la présence du poison.... Ceste terre se nomme Merdebani."—Journal d' Ant. Galland, ii. 110.
page 560b1673.—"... to that end offer Rice, Oyl, and Cocoe-Nuts in a thick Grove, where they piled an huge Heap of long Jars like Mortivans."—Fryer, 180.
1688.—"They took it out of the cask, and put it into earthen Jars that held about eight Barrels apiece. These they call Montaban Jars, from a town of that name in Pegu, whence they are brought, and carried all over India."—Dampier, ii. 98.
c. 1690.—"Sunt autem haec vastissimae ac turgidae ollae in regionibus Martavana et Siama confectae, quae per totam transferuntur Indiam ad varios liquores conservandos."—Rumphius, i. ch. iii.
1711.—"... Pegu, Quedah, Jahore and all their own Coasts, whence they are plentifully supply'd with several Necessarys, they otherwise must want; As Ivory, Beeswax, Mortivan and small Jars, Pepper, &c."—Lockyer, 35.
1726.—"... and the Martavaans containing the water to drink, when empty require two persons to carry them."—Valentijn, v. 254.
" "The goods exported hitherward (from Pegu) are ... glazed pots (called Martavans after the district where they properly belong), both large and little."—Ibid. v. 128.
1727.—"Martavan was one of the most flourishing Towns for Trade in the East.... They make earthen Ware there still, and glaze them with Lead-oar. I have seen some Jars made there that could contain two Hogsheads of Liquor."—A. Hamilton, i. 63, [ed. 1744, ii. 62].
1740.—"The Pay Master is likewise ordered ... to look out for all the Pegu Jars in Town, or other vessels proper for keeping water."—In Wheeler, iii. 194.
Such jars were apparently imitated in other countries, but kept the original name. Thus Baillie Fraser says that "certain jars called Martaban were manufactured in Oman."—Journey into Khorasan, 18.
1851.—"Assortment of Pegu Jars as used in the Honourable Company's Dispensary at Calcutta."
MARTIL, MARTOL, s. A hammer. Hind. mārtol, from Port. martello, but assisted by imaginary connection with Hind. mār-nā, 'to strike.'
MARTINGALE, s. This is no specially Anglo-Indian word; our excuse for introducing it is the belief that it is of Arabic origin. Popular assumption, we believe, derives the name from a mythical Colonel Martingale. But the word seems to come to us from the French, in which language, besides the English use, page 561aLittré gives chausses à la martingale as meaning "culottes dont le pont était placé par derriere," and this he strangely declares to be the true and original meaning of the word. His etymology, after Ménage, is from Martigues in Provence, where, it is alleged, breeches of this kind were worn. Skeat seems to accept these explanations. [But see his Concise Dict., where he inclines to the view given in this article, and adds: "I find Arab. rataka given by Richardson as a verbal root, whence ratak, going with a short quick step."] But there is a Span. word al-martaga, for a kind of bridle, which Urrea quoted by Dozy derives from verb Arab. rataka, "qui, à la IVe forme signifie 'effecit ut brevibus assibus incederet.'" This is precisely the effect of a martingale. And we venture to say that probably the word bore its English meaning originally also in French and Spanish, and came from Arabic direct into the latter tongue. Dozy himself, we should add, is inclined to derive the Span. word from al-mirta'a, 'a halter.'
MARWÁREE, n.p. and s. This word Mārwāṛī, properly a man of the Mārwār [Skt. maru, 'desert'], or Jodhpur country in Rājputāna, is used in many parts of India as synonymous with Banya (see BANYAN) or Sowcar, from the fact that many of the traders and money-lenders have come originally from Mārwār, most frequently Jains in religion. Compare the Lombard of medieval England, and the caorsino of Dante's time.
MARYACAR, n.p. According to R. Drummond and a MS. note on the India Library copy of his book R. Catholics in Malabar were so called. Marya Karar, or 'Mary's People.' [The word appears to be really marakkar, of which two explanations are given. Logan (Malabar, i. 332 note) says that Marakkar means 'doer or follower of the Law' (marggam), and is applied to a foreign religion, like that of Christians and Mohammedans. The Madras Gloss. (iii. 474) derives it page 561bfrom Mal. marakkalam, 'boat,' and kar, a termination showing possession, and defines it as a "titular appellation of the Moplah Mahommedans on the S.W. coast."]
MASCABAR, s. This is given by C. P. Brown (MS. notes) as an Indo-Portuguese word for 'the last day of the month,' quoting Calcutta Review, viii. 345. He suggests as its etymon Hind. mās-ke-ba'ad, 'after a month.' [In N. Indian public offices the māskabār is well known as the monthly statement of cases decided during the month. It has been suggested that it represents the Port. mes-acabar, 'end of the month'; but according to Platts, it is more probably a corruption of Hind. māsik-wār or mās-kā-wār.]
MASH, s. Hind. māsh, [Skt. māsha, 'a bean']; Phaseolus radiatus, Roxb. One of the common Hindu pulses. [See MOONG.]
MASKEE. This is a term in Chinese "pigeon," meaning 'never mind,' 'n'importe,' which is constantly in the mouths of Europeans in China. It is supposed that it may be the corruption or ellipsis of a Portuguese expression, but nothing satisfactory has been suggested. [Mr. Skeat writes: "Surely this is simply Port. mas que, probably imported direct through Macao, in the sense of 'although, even, in spite of,' like French malgre. And this seems to be its meaning in 'pigeon':
"That nightey tim begin chop-chop, One young man walkee—no can stop. Maskee snow, maskee ice! He cally flag with chop so nice— Topside Galow! 'Excelsior,' in 'pigeon.'"]
MASULIPATAM, n.p. This coast town of the Madras Presidency is sometimes vulgarly called Machhli-patan or Machhli-bandar, or simply Bandar (see BUNDER, 2); and its name explained (Hind. machhlī, 'fish') as Fish-town, [the Madras Gloss. says from an old tradition of a whale being stranded on the shore.] The etymology may originally have had such a connection, but there can be no doubt that the name is a trace of the Μαισωλία and Μαισώλου ποταμοῦ ἐκβολαὶ which we find in Ptolemy's page 562aTables; and of the Μασαλία producing muslins, in the Periplus. [In one of the old Logs the name is transformed into Mesopotamia (J. R. As. Soc., Jan. 1900, p. 158). In a letter of 1605-6 it appears as Mesepatamya (Birdwood, First Letter Book, 73).
[1615.—"Only here are no returns of any large sum to be employed, unless a factory at Messepotan."—Ibid. iv. 5.]
1619.—"Master Methwold came from Missulapatam in one of the country Boats."—Pring, in Purchas, i. 638.
[1623.—"Mislipatan." P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 148.
[c. 1661.—"It was reported, at one time, that he was arrived at Massipatam...."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 112.]
c. 1681.—"The road between had been covered with brocade velvet, and Machlibender chintz."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 370.
1684.—"These sort of Women are so nimble and active that when the present king went to see Maslipatan, nine of them undertook to represent the figure of an Elephant; four making the four feet, four the body, and one the trunk; upon which the King, sitting in a kind of Throne, made his entry into the City."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 65; [ed. Ball, i. 158].
1789.—"Masulipatam, which last word, by the bye, ought to be written Machlipatan (Fish-town), because of a Whale that happened to be stranded there 150 years ago."—Note on Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 370.
MATE, MATY, s. An assistant under a head servant; in which sense or something near it, but also sometimes in the sense of a 'head-man,' the word is in use almost all over India. In the Bengal Presidency we have a mate-bearer for the assistant body-servant (see BEARER); the mate attendant on an elephant under the mahout; a mate (head) of coolies or jomponnies (qq.v.) (see JOMPON), &c. And in Madras the maty is an under-servant, whose business it is to clean crockery, knives, &c., to attend to lamps, and so forth.
The origin of the word is obscure, if indeed it has not more than one origin. Some have supposed it to be taken from the English word in the sense of comrade, &c.; whilst Wilson page 562bgives meṭṭi as a distinct Malayālam word for an inferior domestic servant, [which the Madras Gloss. derives from Tamil mel, 'high']. The last word is of very doubtful genuineness. Neither derivation will explain the fact that the word occurs in the Āīn, in which the three classes of attendants on an elephant in Akbar's establishment are styled respectively Mahāwat, Bhoī, and Meth; two of which terms would, under other circumstances, probably be regarded as corruptions of English words. This use of the word we find in Skt. dictionaries as meṭha, meṇṭha, and meṇḍa, 'an elephant-keeper or feeder.' But for the more general use we would query whether it may not be a genuine Prakrit form from Skt. mitra, 'associate, friend'? We have in Pali metta, 'friendship,' from Skt. maitra.
1810.—"In some families mates or assistants are allowed, who do the drudgery."—Williamson, V. M. i. 241.
1837.—"One matee."—See Letters from Madras, 106.
1872.—"At last the morning of our departure came. A crowd of porters stood without the veranda, chattering and squabbling, and the mate distributed the boxes and bundles among them."—A True Reformer, ch. vi.
MATRANEE, s. Properly Hind. from Pers. mihtarānī; a female sweeper (see MEHTAR). [In the following extract the writer seems to mean Bhaṭhiyāran or Bhaṭhiyārin, the wife of a Bhaṭhiyāra or inn-keeper.
MATROSS, s. An inferior class of soldier in the Artillery. The word is quite obsolete, and is introduced here because it seems to have survived a good deal longer in India than in England, and occurs frequently in old Indian narratives. It is Germ. page 563amatrose, Dutch matroos, 'a sailor,' identical no doubt with Fr. matelot. The origin is so obscure that it seems hardly worth while to quote the conjectures regarding it. In the establishment of a company of Royal Artillery in 1771, as given in Duncan's Hist. of that corps, we have besides sergeants and corporals, "4 Bombardiers, 8 Gunners, 34 Matrosses, and 2 Drummers." A definition of the Matross is given in our 3rd quotation. We have not ascertained when the term was disused in the R.A. It appears in the Establishment as given by Grose in 1801 (Military Antiq. i. 315). As far as Major Duncan's book informs us, it appears first in 1639, and has disappeared by 1793, when we find the men of an artillery force divided (excluding sergeants, corporals, and bombardiers) into First Gunners, Second Gunners, and Military Drivers.
1745.—"... We were told with regard to the Fortifications, that no Expense should be grudged that was necessary for the Defence of the Settlement, and in 1741, a Person was sent out in the character of an Engineer for our Place; but ... he lived not to come among us; and therefore, we could only judge of his Merit and Qualifications by the Value of his Stipend, Six Pagodas a Month, or about Eighteen Pence a Day, scarce the Pay of a common Matross...."—Letter from Mr. Barnett to the Secret Committee, in Letter to a Proprietor of the E.I. Co., p. 45.
1757.—"I have with me one Gunner, one Matross, and two Lascars."—Letter in Dalrymple, Or. Repert. i. 203.
1779.—"Matrosses are properly apprentices to the gunner, being soldiers in the royal regiment of artillery, and next to them; they assist in loading, firing, and spunging the great guns. They carry firelocks, and march along with the guns and store-waggons, both as a guard, and to give their assistance in every emergency."—Capt. G. Smith's Universal Military Dictionary.
1792.—"Wednesday evening, the 25th inst., a Matross of Artillery deserted from the Mount, and took away with him his firelock, and nine rounds of powder and ball."—Madras Courier, Feb. 2.
MATT, s. Touch (of gold). Tamil mārru (pron. māṭṭu), perhaps from page 563bSkt. mātra, 'measure.' Very pure gold is said to be 9 mārru, inferior gold of 5 or 6 mārru.
[1680.—"Matt." See under BATTA.]
1693.—"Gold, purified from all other metals ... by us is reckoned as of four-and-Twenty Carats, but by the blacks is here divided and reckoned as of ten mat."—Havart, 106.
1727.—At Mocha ... "the Coffee Trade brings in a continual Supply of Silver and Gold ... from Turkey, Ebramies and Mograbis, Gold of low Matt."—A. Hamilton, i. 43, [ed. 1744].
The same word was used in Japan for a measure, sometimes called a fathom.
MAUMLET, s. Domestic Hind. māmlat, for 'omelet'; [Māmlēt is 'marmalade'].
MAUND, s. The authorised Anglo-Indian form of the name of a weight (Hind. man, Mahr. maṇ), which, with varying values, has been current over Western Asia from time immemorial. Professor Sayce traces it (mana) back to the Accadian language. But in any case it was the Babylonian name for $^1$⁄$_{80}$ of a talent, whence it passed, with the Babylonian weights and measures, almost all over the ancient world. Compare the men or mna of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions, preserved in the emna or amna of the Copts, the Hebrew māneh, the Greek μνᾶ, and the Roman mina. The introduction of the word into India may have occurred during the extensive commerce of the Arabs with that country during the 8th and 9th centuries; possibly at an earlier date. Through the Arabs also we find an old Spanish word almena, and in old French almène, for a weight of about 20 lbs. (Marcel Devic).
The quotations will show how the Portuguese converted man into mão, of which the English made maune, and so (probably by the influence of the page 564aold English word maund) our present form, which occurs as early as 1611. Some of the older travellers, like Linschoten, misled by the Portuguese mão, identified it with the word for 'hand' in that language, and so rendered it.
The values of the man as weight, even in modern times, have varied immensely, i.e. from little more than 2 lbs. to upwards of 160. The 'Indian Maund,' which is the standard of weight in British India, is of 40 sers, each ser being divided into 16 chhiṭāks; and this is the general scale of sub-division in the local weights of Bengal, and Upper and Central India, though the value of the ser varies. That of the standard ser is 80 tolas (q.v.) or rupee-weights, and thus the maund = 82$^2$⁄$_7$ lbs. avoirdupois. The Bombay maund (or man) of 48 sers = 28 lbs.; the Madras one of 40 sers = 25 lbs. The Palloda man of Aḥmadnagar contained 64 sers, and was = 163¼ lbs. This is the largest man we find in the 'Useful Tables.' The smallest Indian man again is that of Colachy in Travancore, and that = 18 lbs. 12 oz. 13 dr. The Persian Tabrīzī man is, however, a little less than 7 lbs.; the man shāhī twice that; the smallest of all on the list named is the Jeddah man = 2 lbs. 3 oz. 9¾ dr.
B.C. 667.—We find Nergal-sarra-nacir lending "four manehs of silver, according to the maneh of Carchemish."—Ibid.
c. B.C. 524.—"Cambyses received the Libyan presents very graciously, but not so the gifts of the Cyrenaeans. They had sent no more than 500 minae of silver, which Cambyses, I imagine, thought too little. He therefore snatched the money from them, and with his own hand scattered it among the soldiers."—Herodot. iii. ch. 13 (E.T. by Rawlinson).
c. A.D. 70.—"Et quoniam in mensuris quoque ac ponderibus crebro Graecis nominibus utendum est, interpretationem eorum semel in hoc loco ponemus: ... mna, quam nostri minam vocant pendet drachmas Atticas c."—Pliny, xxi., at end.
c. 1020.—"The gold and silver ingots page 564bamounted to 700,400 mans in weight."—Al 'Utbi, in Elliot, ii. 35.
1040.—"The Amír said:—'Let us keep fair measure, and fill the cups evenly.'... Each goblet contained half a man."—Baihaki, ibid. ii. 144.
c. 1343.—
| "The Mena of Sarai makes in Genoa weight | lb. 6 oz. 2 |
| The Mena of Organci (Urghanj) in Genoa | lb. 3 oz. 9 |
| The Mena of Oltrarre (Otrār) in Genoa | lb. 3 oz. 9 |
| The Mena of Armalecho (Al-maligh) in Genoa | lb. 2 oz. 8 |
| The Mena of Camexu (Kancheu in N.W. China) | lb. 2" |
| Pegolotti, 4. ||
1563.—"The value of stones is only because people desire to have them, and because they are scarce, but as for virtues, those of the loadstone, which staunches blood, are very much greater and better attested than those of the emerald. And yet the former sells by maos, which are in Cambay ... equal to 26 arratels each, and the latter by ratis, which weigh 3 grains of wheat."—Garcia, f. 159v.
1598.—"They have another weight called Mao, which is a Hand, and is 12 pounds."—Linschoten, 69; [Hak. Soc. i. 245].
1610.—"He was found ... to have sixtie maunes in Gold, and euery maune is five and fiftie pound weight."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 218.
1611.—"Each maund being three and thirtie pound English weight."—Middleton, ibid. i. 270.
[1645.—"As for the weights, the ordinary mand is 69 livres, and the livre is of 16 onces; but the mand, which is used to weigh indigo, is only 53 livres. At Surat you speak of a seer, which is 1¾ livres, and the livre is 16 onces."—Tavernier, ed. Ball, i. 38.]
c. 1665.—"Le man pese quarante livres par toutes les Indes, mais ces livres ou serres sont differentes selon les Pais."—Thevenot, v. 54.
1673.—"A Lumbrico (Sconce) of pure Gold, weighing about one Maund and a quarter, which is Forty-two pounds."—Fryer, 78.
"The Surat Maund ... is 40 Sear, of 20 Pice the Sear, which is 37l. The Pucka Maund at Agra is double as much, where is also the Ecbarry Maund which is 40 Sear, of 30 Pice to the Sear...." Ibid. 205.
1683.—"Agreed with Chittur Mullsaw and Muttradas, Merchants of this place (Hugly), for 1,500 Bales of ye best Tissinda Sugar, each bale to weigh 2 Maunds, 6½ Seers, Factory weight."—Hedges, Diary, April 5; [Hak. Soc. i. 75].
1711.—"Sugar, Coffee, Tutanague, all sorts of Drugs, &c., are sold by the Maund Tabrees; which in the Factory and Custom page 565ahouse is nearest 6¾l. Avoirdupoiz.... Eatables, and all sorts of Fruit ... &c. are sold by the Maund Copara of 7¾l.... The Maund Shaw is two Maunds Tabrees, used at Ispahan."—Lockyer, 230.
c. 1760.—Grose says, "the maund they weigh their indicos with is only 53 lb." He states the maund of Upper India as 69 lb.; at Bombay, 28 lb.; at Goa, 14 lb.; at Surat, 37½ lb.; at Coromandel, 25 lb.; in Bengal, 75 lb.
MAYLA, s. Hind. melā, 'a fair,' almost always connected with some religious celebration, as were so many of the medieval fairs in Europe. The word is Skt. mela, melaka, 'meeting, concourse, assembly.'
MAZAGONG, MAZAGON, n.p. A suburb of Bombay, containing a large Portuguese population. [The name is said to be originally Maheśa-grāma, 'the village of the Great Lord,' Śiva.]
"Mazaguão, por 15,000 fedeas, Monbaym (Bombay), por 15,000." S. Botelho, Tombo, 149.
1644.—"Going up the stream from this town (Mombaym, i.e. Bombay) some 2 leagues, you come to the aldea of Mazagam."—Bocarro, MS. f. 227.
[MEARBAR, s. Pers. mīrbaḥr, 'master of the bay,' a harbour-master. Mīrbaḥrī, which appears in Botelho (Tombo, p. 56) as mirabary, means 'ferry dues.'
MECKLEY, n.p. One of the names of the State of Munneepore.
MEEANA, MYANNA, s. H.—P. mīyāna, 'middle-sized.' The name of a kind of palankin; that kind out of which the palankin used by Europeans has been developed, and which has been generally adopted in India for the last century. [Buchanan Hamilton writes: "The lowest kind of palanquins, which are small litters suspended under a straight bamboo, by which they are carried, and shaded by a frame covered with cloth, do not admit the passenger to lie at length, and are here called miyana, or Mahapa. In some places, these terms are considered as synonymous, in others the Miyana is open at the sides, while the Mahapa, intended for women, is surrounded with curtains." (Eastern India, ii. 426).] In Williamson's Vade Mecum (i. 319) the word is written Mohannah.
" "Patna common chairs, couches and teapoys, two Mahana palanquins."—Ibid. 62.
1793.—"To be sold ... an Elegant New Bengal Meana, with Hair Bedding and furniture."—Bombay Courier, Nov. 2.
MEERASS, s., MEERASSY, adj., MEERASSIDAR, s. 'Inheritance,' 'hereditary,' 'a holder of hereditary property.' Hind. from Arab. mīrās̤, mīrās̤ī, mīrās̤dār; and these from waris̤, 'to inherit.'
1812.—"The term meerassee ... was introduced by the Mahommedans."—Ibid. 136.
1877.—"All miras rights were reclaimable within a forty years' absence."—Meadows Taylor, Story of My Life, ii. 211.
page 566aMEHAUL, s. Hind. from Arab. maḥāll, being properly the pl. of Arab. maḥall. The word is used with a considerable variety of application, the explanation of which would involve a greater amount of technical detail than is consistent with the purpose of this work. On this Wilson may be consulted. But the most usual Anglo-Indian application of maḥāll (used as a singular and generally written, incorrectly, maḥāl) is to 'an estate,' in the Revenue sense, i.e. 'a parcel or parcels of land separately assessed for revenue.' The sing. maḥall (also written in the vernaculars maḥal, and maḥāl) is often used for a palace or important edifice, e.g. (see SHISHMUHULL, TAJ-MAHAL).
MEHTAR, s. A sweeper or scavenger. This name is usual in the Bengal Presidency, especially for the domestic servant of this class. The word is Pers. comp. mihtar (Lat. major), 'a great personage,' 'a prince,' and has been applied to the class in question in irony, or rather in consolation, as the domestic tailor is called caleefa. But the name has so completely adhered in this application, that all sense of either irony or consolation has perished; mehtar is a sweeper and nought else. His wife is the Matranee. It is not unusual to hear two mehtars hailing each other as Mahārāj! In Persia the menial application of the word seems to be different (see below). The same class of servant is usually called in W. India bhangī (see BUNGY), a name which in Upper India is applied to the caste generally and specially to those not in the service of Europeans. [Examples of the word used in the honorific sense will be found below.]
1810.—"The mater, or sweeper, is considered the lowest menial in every family."—Williamson, V. M. i. 276-7.
[In the honorific sense:
MELINDE, MELINDA, n.p. The name (Malinda or Malindī) of an Arab town and State on the east coast of Africa, in S. lat. 3° 9′; the only one at which the expedition of Vasco da Gama had amicable relations with the people, and that at which they obtained the pilot who guided the squadron to the coast of India.
c. 1320.—See also Abulfeda, by Reinaud, ii. 207.
1498.—"And that same day at sundown we cast anchor right opposite a place which is called Milinde, which is 30 leagues from Mombaça.... On Easter Day those Moors whom we held prisoners, told us that in the said town of Milinde were stopping four ships of Christians who were Indians, and that if we desired to take them these would give us, instead of themselves, Christian Pilots."—Roteiro of Vasco da Gama, 42-3.
1554.—"As the King of Melinde pays no tribute, nor is there any reason why he should, considering the many tokens of friendship we have received from him, both on the first discovery of these countries, and to this day, and which in my opinion we repay very badly, by the ill treatment which he has from the Captains who go on service to this Coast."—Simão Botelho, Tombo, 17.
c. 1570.—"Di Chiaul si negotia anco per la costa de' Melindi in Ethiopia."—Cesare de Federici in Ramusio, iii. 396v.
1572.—
"Quando chegava a frota áquella parte Onde o reino Melinde já se via, De toldos adornada, e leda de arte: Que bem mostra estimar a sancta dia Treme a bandeira, voa o estandarte, A cor purpurea ao longe apparecia, Soam os atambores, e pandeiros: E assi entravam ledos e guerreiros." Camões, ii. 73.
By Burton:
"At such a time the Squadron neared the part where first Melinde's goodly shore unseen, in awnings drest and prankt with gallant art, to show that none the Holy Day misween: Flutter the flags, the streaming Estandart gleams from afar with gorgeous purple sheen, tom-toms and timbrels mingle martial jar: thus past they forwards with the pomp of war."
page 567a1610.—P. Texeira tells us that among the "Moors" at Ormuz, Alboquerque was known only by the name of Malandy, and that with some difficulty he obtained the explanation that he was so called because he came thither from the direction of Melinde, which they call Maland.—Relacion de los Reyes de Harmuz, 45.
[1823.—Owen calls the place Maleenda and gives an account of it.—Narrative, i. 399 seqq.]
MELIQUE VERIDO, n.p. The Portuguese form of the style of the princes of the dynasty established at Bīdar in the end of the 15th century, on the decay of the Bāhmani kingdom. The name represents 'Malik Barīd.' It was apparently only the third of the dynasty, 'Ali, who first took the title of ('Ali) Barīd Shāh.
1563.—"And these regents ... concerted among themselves ... that they should seize the King of Daquem in Bedar, which is the chief city and capital of the Decan; so they took him and committed him to one of their number, by name Verido; and then he and the rest, either in person or by their representatives, make him a salaam (çalema) at certain days of the year.... The Verido who died in the year 1510 was a Hungarian by birth, and originally a Christian, as I have heard on sure authority."—Garcia, f. 35 and 35v.
MEM-SAHIB, s. This singular example of a hybrid term is the usual respectful designation of a European married lady in the Bengal Presidency; the first portion representing ma'am. Madam Sahib is used at Bombay; Doresani (see DORAY) in Madras. (See also BURRA BEEBEE.)
page 567bMENDY, s. Hind. mehndī, [meṅhdī, Skt. mendhikā;] the plant Lawsonia alba, Lam., of the N. O. Lythraceae, strongly resembling the English privet in appearance, and common in gardens. It is the plant whose leaves afford the henna, used so much in Mahommedan countries for dyeing the hands, &c., and also in the process of dyeing the hair. Mehndī is, according to Royle, the Cyprus of the ancients (see Pliny, xii. 24). It is also the camphire of Canticles i. 14, where the margin of A.V. has erroneously cypress for cyprus.
MERCÁLL, MARCÁL, s. Tam. marakkāl, a grain measure in use in the Madras Presidency, and formerly varying much in different localities, though the most usual was = 12 sers of grain. [Also known as toom.] Its standard is fixed since 1846 at 800 cubic inches, and = $^1$⁄$_{400}$ of a garce (q.v.).
MERGUI, n.p. The name by which we know the most southern district of Lower Burma with its town; annexed with the rest of what used to be called the "Tenasserim Provinces" after the war of 1824-26. The name is probably of Siamese origin; the town is called by the Burmese Beit (Sir A. Phayre).
[1684-5.—"A Country Vessel belonging to Mr. Thomas Lucas arriv'd in this Road page 568afrom Merge."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. iv. 19.
MILK-BUSH, MILK-HEDGE, s. Euphorbia Tirucalli, L., often used for hedges on the Coromandel coast. It abounds in acrid milky juices.
[1773.—"Milky Hedge. This is rather a shrub, which they plant for hedges on the coast of Coromandel...."—Ives, 462.]
1780.—"Thorn hedges are sometimes placed in gardens, but in the fields the milk bush is most commonly used ... when squeezed emitting a whitish juice like milk, that is deemed a deadly poison.... A horse will have his head and eyes prodigiously swelled from standing for some time under the shade of a milk hedge."—Munro's Narr. 80.
1879.—
"So saying, Buddh Silently laid aside sandals and staff, His sacred thread, turban, and cloth, and came Forth from behind the milk-bush on the sand...." Sir E. Arnold, Light of Asia, Bk. v.
MINCOPIE, n.p. This term is attributed in books to the Andaman islanders as their distinctive name for their own race. It originated with a vocabulary given by Lieut. Colebrooke in vol. iv. of the Asiatic Researches, and was certainly founded on some misconception. Nor has the possible origin of the mistake been ascertained. [Mr. Man (Proc. Anthrop. Institute, xii. 71) suggests that it may have been a corruption of the words min kaich! 'Come here!']
MINICOY, n.p. Minikai; [Logan (Malabar, i. 2) gives the name as Menakāyat, which the Madras Gloss. derives from Mal. min, 'fish,' kayam, 'deep pool.' The natives call it Maliku (note by Mr. Gray on the passage from Pyrard quoted below).] An island page 568bintermediate between the Maldive and the Laccadive group. Politically it belongs to the latter, being the property of the Ali Raja of Cannanore, but the people and their language are Maldivian. The population in 1871 was 2800. One-sixth of the adults had perished in a cyclone in 1867. A lighthouse was in 1883 erected on the island. This is probably the island intended for Mulkee in that ill-edited book the E.T. of Tuhfat al-Mujāhidīn. [Mr. Logan identifies it with the "female island" of Marco Polo. (Malabar, i. 287.)]
MISCALL, s. Ar. mis̤ḳāl (mithḳāl, properly). An Arabian weight, originally that of the Roman aureus and the gold dīnār; about 73 grs.
MISREE, s. Sugar candy. Miṣrī, 'Egyptian,' from Miṣr, Egypt, the Mizraim of the Hebrews, showing the original source of supply. [We find the Miṣrī or 'sugar of Egypt' in the Arabian Nights (Burton, xi. 396).] (See under SUGAR.)
MISSAL, s. Hind. from Ar. mis̤l, meaning 'similitude.' The body of documents in a particular case before a court. [The word is also used in its original sense of a 'clan.']
page 569aMOBED, s. P. mūbid, a title of Parsee Priests. It is a corruption of the Pehlevi magô-pat, 'Lord Magus.'
MOCUDDUM, s. Hind. from Ar. muḳaddam, 'praepositus,' a head-man. The technical applications are many; e.g. to the headman of a village, responsible for the realisation of the revenue (see LUMBERDAR); to the local head of a caste (see CHOWDRY); to the head man of a body of peons or of a gang of labourers (see MATE), &c. &c. (See further detail in Wilson). Cobarruvias (Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana, 1611) gives Almocaden, "Capitan de Infanteria."
1538.—"O Mocadão da mazmorra q̃ era o carcereiro d'aquella prisão, tanto q̃ os vio mortos, deu logo rebate disso ao Guazil da justiça...."—Pinto, cap. vi.
" "The Jaylor, which in their language is called Mocadan, repairing in the morning to us, and finding our two companions dead, goes away in all haste therewith to acquaint the Gauzil, which is as the Judg with us."—Cogan's Transl., p. 8.
1554.—"E a hum naique, com seys piães (peons) e hum mocadão, com seys tochas, hum bóy de sombreiro, dous mainatos," &c.—Botelho, Tombo, 57.
1567.—"... furthermore that no infidel shall serve as scrivener, shroff (xarrafo) mocadam (mocadão), naique (see NAIK), peon (pião), parpatrim (see PARBUTTY), collector of dues, corregidor, interpreter, procurator or solicitor in court, nor in any other office or charge in which he can in any way hold authority over Christians."—Decree of the Sacred Council of Goa, Dec. 27. In Arch. Port. Orient. fascic. 4.
[1598.—"... a chief Boteson ... which they call Mocadon."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 267.
[c. 1610.—"They call these Lascarys and their captain Moncadon."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 117.
page 569b[1615.—"The Generall dwelt with the Makadow of Swally."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 45; comp. Danvers, Letters, i. 234.]
1644.—"Each vessel carries forty mariners and two mocadons."—Bocarro, MS.
1672.—"Il Mucadamo, cosi chiamano li Padroni di queste barche."—P. Vincenz. Maria, 3rd ed. 459.
1680.—"For the better keeping the Boatmen in order, resolved to appoint Black Tom Muckadum or Master of the Boatmen, being Christian as he is, his wages being paid at 70 fanams per mensem."—Fort St. Geo. Consn., Dec. 23, in Notes and Exts. No. iii. p. 42.
MOCCUDDAMA, s. Hind. from Ar. muḳaddama, 'a piece of business,' but especially 'a suit at law.'
MODELLIAR, MODLIAR, s. Used in the Tamil districts of Ceylon (and formerly on the Continent) for a native head-man. It is also a caste title, assumed by certain Tamil people who styled themselves Śudras (an honourable assumption in the South). Tam. mudaliyār, muthaliyār, an honorific pl. from mudali, muthali, 'a chief.'
1522.—"And in opening this foundation they found about a cubit below a grave made of brickwork, white-washed within, as if newly made, in which they found part of the bones of the King who was converted by the holy Apostle, who the natives said they heard was called Tani (Tami) mudolyar, meaning in their tongue 'Thomas Servant of God.'"—Correa, ii. 726.
1544.—"... apud Praefectum locis illis quem Mudeliarem vulgo nuncupant."—S. Fr. Xaverii Epistolae, 129.
1607.—"On the part of Dom Fernando Modeliar, a native of Ceylon, I have received a petition stating his services."—Letter of K. Philip III. in L. das Monções, 135.
1616.—"These entered the Kingdom of Candy ... and had an encounter with the enemy at Matalé, where they cut off five-and-thirty heads of their people and took certain araches and modiliares who are chiefs among them, and who had ... deserted and gone over to the enemy as is the way of the Chingalas."—Bocarro, 495.
1648.—"The 5 August followed from Candy the Modeliar, or Great Captain ... page 570ain order to inspect the ships."—Van Spilbergen's Voyage, 33.
1685.—"The Modeliares ... and other great men among them put on a shirt and doublet, which those of low caste may not wear."—Ribeiro, f. 46.
1708.—"Mon Révérend Père. Vous êtes tellement accoûtumé à vous mêler des affaires de la Compagnie, que non obstant la prière que je vous ai réitérée plusieurs fois de nous laisser en repos, je ne suis pas étonné si vous prenez parti dans l'affaire de Lazaro ci-devant courtier et Modeliar de la Compagnie."—Norbert, Mémoires, i. 274.
1726.—"Modelyaar. This is the same as Captain."—Valentijn (Ceylon), Names of Officers, &c., 9.
MOFUSSIL, s., also used adjectively, "The provinces,"—the country stations and districts, as contra-distinguished from 'the Presidency'; or, relatively, the rural localities of a district as contra-distinguished from the sudder or chief station, which is the residence of the district authorities. Thus if, in Calcutta, one talks of the Mofussil, he means anywhere in Bengal out of Calcutta; if one at Benares talks of going into the Mofussil, he means going anywhere in the Benares division or district (as the case might be) out of the city and station of Benares. And so over India. The word (Hind. from Ar.) mufaṣṣal means properly 'separate, detailed, particular,' and hence 'provincial,' as mufaṣṣal 'adālat, a 'provincial court of justice.' This indicates the way in which the word came to have the meaning attached to it.
About 1845 a clever, free-and-easy newspaper, under the name of The Mofussilite, was started at Meerut, by Mr. John Lang, author of Too Clever by Half, &c., and endured for many years.
" "A gentleman in the Mofussil, Mr. P., fell out of his chaise and broke his leg...."—Ibid., June 30.
1810.—"Either in the Presidency or in the Mofussil...."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 499.
MOGUL, n.p. This name should properly mean a person of the great nomad race of Mongols, called in Persia, &c., Mughals; but in India it has come, in connection with the nominally Mongol, though essentially rather Turk, family of Baber, to be applied to all foreign Mahommedans from the countries on the W. and N.W. of India, except the Pathāns. In fact these people themselves make a sharp distinction between the Mughal Irānī, of Pers. origin (who is a Shīah), and the M. Tūrānī of Turk origin (who is a Sunni). Beg is the characteristic affix of the Mughal's name, as Khān is of the Pathān's. Among the Mahommedans of S. India the Moguls or Mughals constitute a strongly marked caste. [They are also clearly distinguished in the Punjab and N.W.P.] In the quotation from Baber below, the name still retains its original application. The passage illustrates the tone in which Baber always speaks of his kindred of the Steppe, much as Lord Clyde used sometimes to speak of "confounded Scotchmen."
In Port. writers Mogol or Mogor is often used for "Hindostān," or the territory of the Great Mogul.
1253.—"Dicit nobis supradictus Coiac.... 'Nolite dicere quod dominus noster sit christianus. Non est christianus, sed Moal'; quia enim nomen christianitatis videtur eis nomen cujusdem gentis ... volentes nomen suum, hoc est Moal, exaltare super omne nomen, nec volunt vocari Tartari."—Itin. Willielmi de Rubruk, 259.
1298.—"... Mungul, a name sometimes applied to the Tartars."—Marco Polo, i. 276 (2nd ed.).
c. 1300.—"Ipsi verò dicunt se descendisse de Gog et Magog. Vnde ipsi dicuntur Mogoli, quasi corrupto vocabulo Magogoli."—Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, in Per. Quatuor, p. 118.
c. 1308.—"Ὁ δὲ Νογᾶς ... ὃς ἅμα πλείσταις δυνάμεσιν ἐξ ὁμογενῶν Τοχάρων, οὕς αὐτοι Μουγουλίους λέγουσι, ἔξαποσταλεις ἐκ τῶν κατὰ τὰς Κασπίας ἀρχόντων τοῦ γένους οὕς Κάνιδας στομάζουσιν."—Georg. Pachymeres, de Mich. Palaeol., lib. v.
page 571ac. 1340.—"In the first place from Tana to Gintarchan may be 25 days with an ox-waggon, and from 10 to 12 days with a horse-waggon. On the road you will find plenty of Moccols, that is to say of armed troopers."—Pegolotti, on the Land Route to Cathay, in Cathay, &c., ii. 287.
1404.—"And the territory of this empire of Samarkand is called the territory of Mogalia, and the language thereof is called Mugalia, and they don't understand this language on this side of the River (the Oxus) ... for the character which is used by those of Samarkand beyond the river is not understood or read by those on this side the river; and they call that character Mongali, and the Emperor keeps by him certain scribes who can read and write this Mogali character."—Clavijo, § ciii. (Comp. Markham, 119-120.)
c. 1500.—"The Moghul troops, which had come to my assistance, did not attempt to fight, but instead of fighting, betook themselves to dismounting and plundering my own people. Nor is this a solitary instance; such is the uniform practice of these wretches the Moghuls; if they defeat the enemy they instantly seize the booty; if they are defeated, they plunder and dismount their own allies, and betide what may, carry off the spoil."—Baber, 93.
1534.—"And whilst Badur was there in the hills engaged with his pleasures and luxury, there came to him a messenger from the King of the Mogores of the kingdom of Dely, called Bobor Mirza."—Correa, iii. 571.
1536.—"Dicti Mogores vel à populis Persarum Mogoribus, vel quod nunc Turkae à Persis Mogores appellantur."—Letter from K. John III. to Pope Paul III.
1555.—"Tartaria, otherwyse called Mongal, As Vincentius wryteth, is in that parte of the earthe, where the Easte and the northe joine together."—W. Watreman, Fardle of Faciouns.
1563.—"This Kingdom of Dely is very far inland, for the northern part of it marches with the territory of Coraçone (Khorasan).... The Mogores, whom we call Tartars, conquered it more than 30 years ago...."—Garcia, f. 34.
[c. 1590.—"In his time (Naṣiru'ddīn Maḥmūd) the Mughals entered the Panjab ..."—Āīn. ed. Jarrett, ii. 304.
[c. 1610.—"The greatest ships come from the coast of Persia, Arabia, Mogor."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 258.
[1636.—India "containeth many Provinces and Realmes, as Cambaiar, Delli, Decan, Bishagar, Malabar, Narsingar, Orixa, Bengala, Sanga, Mogores, Tipura, Gourous, Ava, Pegua, Aurea Chersonesus, Sina, Camboia, and Campaa."—T. Blundevil, Description and use of Plancius his Mappe, in Eight Treatises, ed. 1626, p. 547.]
c. 1650.—"Now shall I tell how the royal house arose in the land of the Monghol.... And the Ruler (Chingiz Khan) said, ... 'I will that this people Bèdè, resembling page 571ba precious crystal, which even to the completion of my enterprise hath shown the greatest fidelity in every peril, shall take the name of Köke (Blue) Monghol...."—Sanang Setzen, by Schmidt, pp. 57 and 71.
1741.—"Ao mesmo tempo que a paz se ajusterou entre os referidos generaes Mogor e Marata."—Bosquejo das Possessões Portug. na Oriente—Documentos Comprovativos, iii. 21 (Lisbon 1853).
1764.—"Whatever Moguls, whether Oranies or Tooranies, come to offer their services should be received on the aforesaid terms."—Paper of Articles sent to Major Munro by the Nawab, in Long, 360.
c. 1773.—"... the news-writers of Rai Droog frequently wrote to the Nawaub ... that the besieged Naik ... had attacked the batteries of the besiegers, and had killed a great number of the Moghuls."—H. of Hydur, 317.
1781.—"Wanted an European or Mogul Coachman that can drive four Horses in hand."—India Gazette, June 30.
1800.—"I pushed forward the whole of the Mahratta and Mogul cavalry in one body...."—Sir A. Wellesley to Munro, Munro's Life, i. 268.
1803.—"The Mogul horse do not appear very active; otherwise they ought certainly to keep the pindarries at a greater distance."—Wellington, ii. 281.
In these last two quotations the term is applied distinctively to Hyderabad troops.
MOGUL, THE GREAT, n.p. Sometimes 'The Mogul' simply. The name by which the Kings of Delhi of the House of Timur were popularly styled, first by the Portuguese (o grão Mogor) and after them by Europeans generally. It was analogous to the Sophy (q.v.), as applied to the Kings of Persia, or to the 'Great Turk' applied to the Sultan of Turkey. Indeed the latter phrase was probably the model of the present one. As noticed under the preceding article, MOGOL, MOGOR, and also Mogolistan are applied among old writers to the dominions of the Great Mogul. We have found no native idiom precisely suggesting the latter title; but Mughal is thus used in the Araish-i-Mahfil below, and Mogolistan must have been in some native use, for it is a form that Europeans would not have invented. (See quotations from Thevenot here and under MOHWA.)
1572.—
"A este o Rei Cambayco soberbissimo Fortaleza darà na rica Dio; Porque contra o Mogor poderosissimo Lhe ajude a defender o senhorio...." Camões, x. 64.
By Burton:
"To him Cambaya's King, that haughtiest Moor, shall yield in wealthy Diu the famous fort that he may gain against the Grand Mogor 'spite his stupendous power, your firm support...."
[1609.—"When you shall repair to the Greate Magull."—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 325.
[1612.—"Hecchabar (Akbar) the last deceased Emperor of Hindustan, the father of the present Great Mogul."—Danvers, Letters, i. 163.]
1615.—"Nam praeter Magnum Mogor cui hodie potissima illius pars subjecta est; qui tum quidem Mahometicae religioni deditus erat, quamuis eam modo cane et angue peius detestetur, vix scio an illius alius rex Mahometana sacra coleret."—Jarric, i. 58.
" "... prosecuting my travaile by land, I entered the confines of the great Mogor...."—De Monfart, 15.
1616.—"It (Chitor) is in the country of one Rama, a Prince newly subdued by the Mogul."—Sir T. Roe. [In Hak. Soc. (i. 102) for "the Mogul" the reading is "this King."]
" "The Seuerall Kingdomes and Prouinces subject to the Great Mogoll Sha Selin Gehangier."—Idem. in Purchas, i. 578.
" "... the base cowardice of which people hath made The Great Mogul sometimes use this proverb, that one Portuguese would beat three of his people ... and he would further add that one Englishman would beat three Portuguese. The truth is that those Portuguese, especially those born in those Indian colonies, ... are a very low poor-spirited people...."—Terry, ed. 1777, 153.
[" "... a copy of the articles granted by the Great Mogoll may partly serve for precedent."—Foster, Letters, iv. 222.]
1623.—"The people are partly Gentile and partly Mahometan, but they live mingled together, and in harmony, because the Great Mogul, to whom Guzerat is now subject ... although he is a Mahometan (yet not altogether that, as they say) makes no difference in his states between one kind of people and the other."—P. della Valle, ii. 510; [Hak. Soc. i. 30, where Mr. Grey reads "Gran Moghel"].
page 572b1644.—"The King of the inland country, on the confines of this island and fortress of Dlu, is the Mogor, the greatest Prince in all the East."—Bocarro, MS.
1653.—"Mogol est vn terme des Indes qui signifie blanc, et quand nous disons le grand Mogol, que les Indiens appellent Schah Geanne Roy du monde, c'est qu'il est effectiuement blanc ... nous l'appellons grand Blanc ou grand Mogol, comme nous appellons le Roy des Ottomans grand Turq."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, pp. 549-550.
" "This Prince, having taken them all, made fourscore and two of them abjure their faith, who served him in his wars against the Great Mogor, and were every one of them miserably slain in that expedition."—Cogan's Pinto, p. 25. The expression is not in Pinto's original, where it is Rey dos Mogores (cap. xx.).
c. 1663.—"Since it is the custom of Asia never to approach Great Persons with Empty Hands, when I had the Honour to kiss the Vest of the Great Mogol Aureng Zebe, I presented him with Eight Roupees ..."—Bernier, E.T. p. 62; [ed. Constable, 200].
1665.—
"... Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne, To Paquin of Sinaean Kings; and thence To Agra and Lahor of Great Mogul...." Paradise Lost, xi. 389-91.
c. 1665.—"L'Empire du Grand-Mogol, qu'on nomme particulierement le Mogolistan, est le plus étendu et le plus puissant des Roiaumes des Indes.... Le Grand-Mogol vient en ligne directe de Tamerlan, dont les descendants qui se sont établis aux Indes, se sont fait appeller Mogols...."—Thevenot, v. 9.
1672.—"In these beasts the Great Mogul takes his pleasure, and on a stately Elephant he rides in person to the arena where they fight."—Baldaeus (Germ. ed.), 21.
1673.—"It is the Flower of their Emperor's Titles to be called the Great Mogul, Burrore (read Burrow, see Fryer's Index) Mogul Podeshar, who ... is at present Auren Zeeb."—Fryer, 195.
1716.—"Gram Mogol. Is as much as to say 'Head and king of the Circumcised,' for Mogol in the language of that country signifies circumcised" (!)—Bluteau, s.v.
1727.—"Having made what observations I could, of the Empire of Persia, I'll travel along the Seacoast towards Industan, or the Great Mogul's Empire."—A. Hamilton, i. 115, [ed. 1744].
1780.—"There are now six or seven fellows in the tent, gravely disputing whether Hyder is, or is not, the person commonly called in Europe the Great Mogul."—Letter of T. Munro, in Life, i. 27.
1783.—"The first potentate sold by the Company for money, was the Great Mogul—the descendant of Tamerlane."—Burke, Speech on Fox's E.I. Bill, iii. 458.
page 573a1786.—"That Shah Allum, the prince commonly called the Great Mogul, or, by eminence, the King, is or lately was in possession of the ancient capital of Hindostan...."—Art. of Charge against Hastings, in Burke, vii. 189.
MOGUL BREECHES, s. Apparently an early name for what we call long-drawers or pyjamas (qq.v.).
In a picture by Vandyke of William 1st Earl of Denbigh, belonging to the Duke of Hamilton, and exhibited at Edinburgh in July 1883, the subject is represented as out shooting, in a red striped shirt and pyjamas, no doubt the "Mogul breeches" of the period.
MOHUR, GOLD, s. The official name of the chief gold coin of British India, Hind. from Pers. muhr, a (metallic) seal, and thence a gold coin. It seems possible that the word is taken from mihr, 'the sun,' as one of the secondary meanings of that word is 'a golden circlet on the top of an umbrella, or the like' (Vullers). [Platts, on the contrary, identifies it with Skt. mudrā, 'a seal.']
The term muhr, as applied to a coin, appears to have been popular only and quasi-generic, not precise. But that to which it has been most usually applied, at least in recent centuries, is a coin which has always been in use since the foundation of the Mahommedan Empire in Hindustan by the Ghūrī Kings of Ghazni and their freedmen, circa A.D. 1200, tending to a standard weight of 100 ratis (see RUTTEE) of pure gold, or about 175 grains, thus equalling in weight, and probably intended then to equal ten times in value, the silver coin which has for more than three centuries been called Rupee.
There is good ground for page 573bregarding this as the theory of the system. But the gold coins, especially, have deviated from the theory considerably; a deviation which seems to have commenced with the violent innovations of Sultan Mahommed Tughlak (1325-1351), who raised the gold coin to 200 grains, and diminished the silver coin to 140 grains, a change which may have been connected with the enormous influx of gold into Upper India, from the plunder of the immemorial accumulations of the Peninsula in the first quarter of the 14th century. After this the coin again settled down in approximation to the old weight, insomuch that, on taking the weight of 46 different mohurs from the lists given in Prinsep's Tables, the average of pure gold is 167.22 grains.
The first gold mohur struck by the Company's Government was issued in 1766, and declared to be a legal tender for 14 sicca rupees. The full weight of this coin was 179.66 grs., containing 149.72 grs. of gold. But it was impossible to render it current at the rate fixed; it was called in, and in 1769 a new mohur was issued to pass as legal tender for 16 sicca rupees. The weight of this was 190.773 grs. (according to Regn. of 1793, 190.894), and it contained 190.086 grs. of gold. Regulation xxxv. of 1793 declared these gold mohurs to be a legal tender in all public and private transactions. Regn. xiv. of 1818 declared, among other things, that "it has been thought advisable to make a slight deduction in the intrinsic value of the gold mohur to be coined at this Presidency (Fort William), in order to raise the value of fine gold to fine silver, from the present rates of 1 to 14.861 to that of 1 to 15. The gold mohur will still continue to pass current at the rate of 16 rupees." The new gold mohur was to weigh 204.710 grs., containing fine gold 187.651 grs. Once more Act xvii. of 1835 declared that the only gold coin to be coined at Indian mints should be (with page 574aproportionate subdivisions) a gold mohur or "15 rupee piece" of the weight of 180 grs. troy, containing 165 grs. of pure gold; and declared also that no gold coin should thenceforward be a legal tender of payment in any of the territories of the E.I. Company. There has been since then no substantive change.
A friend (W. Simpson, the accomplished artist) was told in India that gold mohur was a corruption of gol, ('round') mohr, indicating a distinction from the square mohurs of some of the Delhi Kings. But this we take to be purely fanciful.
1726.—"There is here only also a State mint where gold Moors, silver Ropyes, Peysen and other money are struck."—Valentijn, v. 166.
1758.—"80,000 rupees, and 4000 gold mohurs, equivalent to 60,000 rupees, were the military chest for immediate expenses."—Orme, ed. 1803, ii. 364.
[1776.—"Thank you a thousand times for your present of a parcel of morahs."—Mrs. P. Francis, to her husband, in Francis Letters, i. 286.]
1779.—"I then took hold of his hand: then he (Francis) took out gold mohurs: and offered to give them to me: I refused them; he said 'Take that (offering both his hands to me), 'twill make you great men, and I will give you 100 gold mohurs more.'"—Evidence of Rambux Jemadar, on Trial of Grand v. Francis, quoted in Echoes of Old Calcutta, 228.
1785.—"Malver, hairdresser from Europe, proposes himself to the ladies of the settlement to dress Hair daily, at two gold mohurs per month, in the latest fashion with gauze flowers, &c. He will also instruct the slaves at a moderate price."—In Seton-Karr, i. 119.
1797.—"Notwithstanding he (the Nabob) was repeatedly told that I would accept nothing, he had prepared 5 lacs of rupees and 8000 gold Mohurs for me, of which I was to have 4 lacs, my attendants one, and your Ladyship the gold."—Letter in Mem. of Lord Teignmouth, i. 410.
1809.—"I instantly presented to her a nazur (see NUZZER) of nineteen gold mohurs in a white handkerchief."—Lord Valentia, i. 100.
1811.—"Some of his fellow passengers ... offered to bet with him sixty gold mohurs."—Morton's Life of Leyden, 83.
page 574b1829.—"I heard that a private of the Company's Foot Artillery passed the very noses of the prize-agents, with 500 gold mohurs (sterling 1000l.) in his hat or cap."—John Shipp, ii. 226.
MOHURRER, MOHRER, &c., s. A writer in a native language. Ar. muḥarrir, 'an elegant, correct writer.' The word occurs in Grose (c. 1760) as 'Mooreis, writers.'
MOHURRUM, s. Ar. Muḥarram ('sacer'), properly the name of the 1st month of the Mahommedan lunar year. But in India the term is applied to the period of fasting and public mourning observed during that month in commemoration of the death of Hassan and of his brother Husain (A.D. 669 and 680) and which terminates in the ceremonies of the 'Ashūrā-a, commonly however known in India as "the Mohurrum." For a full account of these ceremonies see Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, 2nd ed. 98-148. [Perry, Miracle Play of Hasan and Husain.] And see in this book HOBSON-JOBSON.
MOHWA, MHOWA, MOWA, s. Hind. &c. mahuā, mahwā, Skt. madhūka, the large oak-like tree Bassia latifolia, Roxb. (N. O. Sapotaceae), also the flower of this tree from which a spirit is distilled and the spirit itself. It is said that the Mahwā flower is now largely exported to France for the manufacture of liqueurs. The tree, in groups, or singly, is common all over Central India in the lower lands, and, more sparsely, in the Gangetic provinces. "It abounds in Guzerat. When the flowers are falling the page 575aHill-men camp under the trees to collect them. And it is a common practice to sit perched on one of the trees in order to shoot the large deer which come to feed on the fallen mhowa. The timber is strong and durable." (M.-Gen. R. H. Keatinge).
1810.—"... the number of shops where Toddy, Mowah, Pariah Arrack, &c., are served out, absolutely incalculable."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 153.
1814.—"The Mowah ... attains the size of an English oak ... and from the beauty of its foliage, makes a conspicuous appearance in the landscape."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 452; [2nd ed. ii. 261, reading Mawah].
MOLE-ISLAM, n.p. The title applied to a certain class of rustic Mahommedans or quasi-Mahommedans in Guzerat, said to have been forcibly converted in the time of the famous Sultan Mahmūd Bigarra, Butler's "Prince of Cambay." We are ignorant of the true orthography or meaning of the term. [In the E. Panjab the descendants of Jats forcibly converted to Islam are known as Mūla, or 'unfortunate' (Ibbetson, Punjab Ethnography, p. 142). The word is derived from the nakshatra or lunar asterism of Mūl, to be born in which is considered specially unlucky.]
MOLEY, s. A kind of (so-called wet) curry used in the Madras Presidency, a large amount of coco-nut being one of the ingredients. The word is a corruption of 'Malay'; the dish being simply a bad imitation of one used by the Malays.
MOLLY, or (better) MALLEE, s. Hind. mālī, Skt. mālika, 'a garland-maker,' or a member of the caste which furnishes gardeners. We sometimes have heard a lady from the Bengal Presidency speak of the daily homage of "the Molly with his dolly," viz. of the mālī with his dālī.
"House Molly 4 Rs." In Long, 182.
MOLUCCAS, n.p. The 'Spice Islands,' strictly speaking the five Clove Islands, lying to the west of Gilolo, and by name Ternate (Tarnāti), Tidore (Tidori), Mortir, Makian, and Bachian. [See Mr. Gray's note on Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. ii. 166.] But the application of the name has been extended to all the islands under Dutch rule, between Celebes and N. Guinea. There is a Dutch governor residing at Amboyna, and the islands are divided into 4 residencies, viz. Amboyna, Banda, Ternate and Manado. The origin of the name Molucca, or Maluco as the Portuguese called it, is not recorded; but it must have been that by which the islands were known to the native traders at the time of the Portuguese discoveries. The early accounts often dwell on the fact that each island (at least three of them) had a king of its own. Possibly they got the (Ar.) name of Jazīrat-al-Mulūk, 'The Isles of the Kings.'
Valentijn probably entertained the same view of the derivation. He begins his account of the islands by saying:
And on the next page he says:
But we have been unable to find the fulfilment of this intention, though probably it exists in that continent of a work somewhere. We have also page 576aseen a paper by a writer who draws much from the quarry of Valentijn. This is an article by Dr. Van Muschenbroek in the Proceedings of the International Congress of Geog. at Venice in 1881 (ii. pp. 596, seqq.), in which he traces the name to the same origin. He appears to imply that the chiefs were known among themselves as Molokos, and that this term was substituted for the indigenous Kolano, or King. "Ce nom, ce titre restèrent, et furent même peu à peu employés, non seulement pour les chefs, mais aussi pour l'état même. A la longue les îles et les états des Molokos devinrent les îles et les états Molokos." There is a good deal that is questionable, however, in this writer's deductions and etymologies. [Mr. Skeat remarks: "The islands appear to be mentioned in the Chinese history of the Tang dynasty (618-696) as Mi-li-ku, and if this be so the name is perhaps too old to be Arab."]
1501.—The earliest mention of these islands by this name, that we know, is in a letter of Amerigo Vespucci (quoted under CANHAMEIRA), who in 1501, among the places heard of by Cabral's fleet, mentions the Maluche Islands.
1510.—"We disembarked in the island of Monoch, which is much smaller than Bandan; but the people are worse.... Here the cloves grow, and in many other neighbouring islands, but they are small and uninhabited."—Varthema, 246.
1514.—"Further on is Timor, whence comes sandalwood, both the white and the red; and further on still are the Maluc, whence come the cloves. The bark of these trees I am sending you; an excellent thing it is; and so are the flowers."—Letter of Giovanni da Empoli, in Archivio Stor. Ital., p. 81.
1515.—"From Malacca ships and junks are come with a great quantity of spice, cloves, mace, nut (meg), sandalwood, and other rich things. They have discovered the five Islands of Cloves; two Portuguese are lords of them, and rule the land with the rod. 'Tis a land of much meat, oranges, lemons, and clove-trees, which grow there of their own accord, just as trees in the woods with us.... God be praised for such favour, and such grand things!"—Another letter of do., ibid. pp. 85-86.
1516.—"Beyond these islands, 25 leagues towards the north-east, there are five islands, one before the other, which are called the page 576bislands of Maluco, in which all the cloves grow.... Their Kings are Moors, and the first of them is called Bachan, the second Maquian, the third is called Motil, the fourth Tidory, and the fifth Ternaty ... every year the people of Malaca and Java come to these islands to ship cloves...."—Barbosa, 201-202.
1518.—"And it was the monsoon for Maluco, dom Aleixo despatched dom Tristram de Meneses thither, to establish the trade in clove, carrying letters from the King of Portugal, and presents for the Kings of the isles of Ternate and Tidore where the clove grows."—Correa, ii. 552.
1521.—"Wednesday the 6th of November ... we discovered four other rather high islands at a distance of 14 leagues towards the east. The pilot who had remained with us told us these were the Maluco islands, for which we gave thanks to God, and to comfort ourselves we discharged all our artillery ... since we had passed 27 months all but two days always in search of Maluco."—Pigafetta, Voyage of Magellan, Hak. Soc. 124.
1553.—"We know by our voyages that this part is occupied by sea and by land cut up into many thousand islands, these together, sea and islands, embracing a great part of the circuit of the Earth ... and in the midst of this great multitude of islands are those called Maluco.... (These) five islands called Maluco ... stand all within sight of one another embracing a distance of 25 leagues ... we do not call them Maluco because they have no other names; and we call them five because in that number the clove grows naturally.... Moreover we call them in combination Maluco, as here among us we speak of the Canaries, the Terceiras, the Cabo-Verde islands, including under these names many islands each of which has a name of its own."—Barros, III. v. 5.
" "... li molti viaggi dalla città di Lisbona, e dal mar rosso a Calicut, et insino alle Molucche, done nascono le spezierie."—G. B. Ramusio, Pref. sopra il Libro del Magn. M. Marco Polo.
1665.—
"As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the Isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs...." Paradise Lost, ii. 636-640.
MONE, n.p. Mōn or Mūn, the name by which the people who formerly occupied Pegu, and whom we call Talaing, called themselves. See TALAING.
MONEGAR, s. The title of the headman of a village in the Tamil country; the same as pāṭīl (see PATEL) in the Deccan, &c. The word is Tamil page 577amaṇi yakkāran, 'an overseer,' maniyam, 'superintendence.'
1717.—"Towns and villages are governed by inferior Officers ... maniakarer (Mayors or Bailiffs) who hear the complaints."—Phillips, Account, &c., 83.
MONKEY-BREAD TREE, s. The Baobab, Adansonia digitata, L. "a fantastic-looking tree with immense elephantine stem and small twisted branches, laden in the rains with large white flowers; found all along the coast of Western India, but whether introduced by the Mahommedans from Africa, or by ocean-currents wafting its large light fruit, full of seed, across from shore to shore, is a nice speculation. A sailor once picked up a large seedy fruit in the Indian Ocean off Bombay, and brought it to me. It was very rotten, but I planted the seeds. It turned out to be Kigelia pinnata of E. Africa, and propagated so rapidly that in a few years I introduced it all over the Bombay Presidency. The Baobab however is generally found most abundant about the old ports frequented by the early Mahommedan traders." (Sir G. Birdwood, MS.) We may add that it occurs sparsely about Allahabad, where it was introduced apparently in the Mogul time; and in the Gangetic valley as far E. as Calcutta, but always planted. There are, or were, noble specimens in the Botanic Gardens at Calcutta, and in Mr. Arthur Grote's garden at Alipūr. [See Watt, Econ. Dict. i. 105.]
MONSOON, s. The name given to the periodical winds of the Indian seas, and of the seasons which they affect and characterize. The original word is the Ar. mausim, 'season,' which the Portuguese corrupted into monção, and our people into monsoon. Dictionaries (except Dr. Badger's) do not apparently give the Arabic word mausim the technical sense of monsoon. But there can be no doubt that it had that sense among the Arab pilots from page 577bwhom the Portuguese adopted the word. This is shown by the quotations from the Turkish Admiral Sidi 'Ali. "The rationale of the term is well put in the Beirūt Moḥīt, which says: 'Mausim is used of anything that comes round but once a year, like the festivals. In Lebanon the mausim is the season of working with the silk,'—which is the important season there, as the season of navigation is in Yemen." (W. R. S.)
The Spaniards in America would seem to have a word for season in analogous use for a recurring wind, as may be gathered from Tom Cringle. The Venetian, Leonardo Ca' Masser (below) calls the monsoons li tempi. And the quotation from Garcia De Orta shows that in his time the Portuguese sometimes used the word for season without any apparent reference to the wind. Though monção is general with the Portuguese writers of the 16th century, the historian Diogo de Couto always writes moução, and it is possible that the n came in, as in some other cases, by a habitual misreading of the written u for n. Linschoten in Dutch (1596) has monssoyn and monssoen (p. 8; [Hak. Soc. i. 33]). It thus appears probable that we get our monsoon from the Dutch. The latter in modern times seem to have commonly adopted the French form mousson. [Prof. Skeat traces our monsoon from Ital. monsone.] We see below (Ces. Feder.) that Monsoon was used as synonymous with "the half year," and so it is still in S. India.
[1512.—"... because the mauçam for both the voyages is at one and the same time."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 30.]
1553.—"... and the more, because the voyage from that region of Malaca had to be made by the prevailing wind, which they call monção, which was now near its end. If they should lose eight days they would have to wait at least three months for the return of the time to make the voyage."—Barros, Dec. II. liv. ii. cap. iv.
page 578a1554.—"The principal winds are four, according to the Arabs, ... but the pilots call them by names taken from the rising and setting of certain stars, and assign them certain limits within which they begin or attain their greatest strength, and cease. These winds, limited by space and time, are called Mausim."—The Mohit, by Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, in J. As. Soc. Beng. iii. 548.
" "Be it known that the ancient masters of navigation have fixed the time of the monsoon (in orig. doubtless mausim), that is to say, the time of voyages at sea, according to the year of Yazdajird, and that the pilots of recent times follow their steps...." (Much detail on the monsoons follows.)—Ibid.
1563.—"The season (monção) for these (i.e. mangoes) in the earlier localities we have in April, but in the other later ones in May and June; and sometimes they come as a rodolho (as we call it in our own country) in October and November."—Garcia, f. 134v.
1568.—"Come s'arriua in vna città la prima cosa si piglia vna casa a fitto, ò per mesi ò per anno, seconda che si disegnà di starui, e nel Pegù è costume di pigliarla per Moson, cioè per sei mesi."—Ces. Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 394.
1585-6.—"But the other goods which come by sea have their fixed season, which here they call Monzão."—Sassetti, in De Gubernatis, p. 204.
1599.—"Ora nell' anno 1599, essendo venuta la Mansone a proposito, si messero alla vela due navi Portoghesi, le quali eran venute dalla città di Goa in Amacao (see MACAO)."—Carletti, ii. 206.
c. 1610.—"Ces Monssons ou Muessons sont vents qui changent pour l'Esté ou pour l'Hyver de six mois en six mois."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 199; see also ii. 110; [Hak. Soc. i. 280; in i. 257 Monsons; in ii. 175, 235, Muesons].
[1615.—"I departed for Bantam having the time of the year and the opportunity of the Monethsone."—Foster, Letters, iii. 268.
[" "The Monthsone will else be spent."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 36.]
1616.—"... quos Lusitani patriâ voce Moncam indigetant."—Jarric, i. 46.
" Sir T. Roe writes Monson.
1627.—"Of Corea hee was also told that there are many bogges, for which cause they have Waggons with broad wheeles, to keepe them from sinking, and obseruing the Monson or season of the wind ... they have sayles fitted to these waggons, and so make their Voyages on land."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 602.
1634.—
"Partio, vendo que o tempo em vao gastava, E que a monção di navegar passava." Malaca, Conquistada, iv. 75.
1644.—"The winds that blow at Diu from the commencement of the change of season in September are sea-breezes, blowing from time to time from the S., S.W., or N.W., page 578bwith no certain Monsam wind, and at that time one can row across to Dio with great facility."—Bocarro, MS.
c. 1665.—"... and it would be true to say, that the sun advancing towards one Pole, causeth on that side two great regular currents, viz., that of the Sea, and that of the Air which maketh the Mounson-wind, as he causeth two opposite ones, when he returns towards the other Pole."—Bernier, E.T. 139-40; [ed. Constable, 436; see also 109].
1673.—"The northern Monsoons (if I may so say, being the name imposed by the first Observers, i.e. Motiones) lasting hither."—Fryer, 10.
" "A constellation by the Portugals called Rabodel Elephanto (see ELEPHANTA, b.) known by the breaking up of the Munsoons, which is the last Flory this Season makes."—Ibid. 48. He has also Mossoons or Monsoons, 46.
1690.—"Two Mussouns are the Age of a Man."—Bombay Proverb in Ovington's Voyage, 142.
[" "Mussoans." See under ELEPHANTA, b.]
1696.—"We thought it most advisable to remain here, till the next Mossoon."—Bowyear, in Dalrymple, i. 87.
1783.—"From the Malay word moossin, which signifies season."—Forrest, V. to Mergui, 95.
[MOOBAREK, adj. Ar. mubārak, 'blessed, happy'; as an interjection, 'Welcome!' 'Congratulations to you!'
MOOCHULKA, s. Hind. muchalkā or muchalka. A written obligation or bond. For technical uses see Wilson. The word is apparently Turki or Mongol.
c. 1280.—"When he (Kubilai Kaan) approached his 70th year, he desired to raise in his own lifetime, his son Chimkin to be his representative and declared successor.... The chiefs ... represented page 579a... that though the measure ... was not in accordance with the Yasa and customs of the world-conquering hero Chinghiz Kaan, yet they would grant a muchilka in favour of Chimkin's Kaanship."—Wassáf's History, Germ. by Hammer, 46.
c. 1360.—"He shall in all divisions and districts execute muchilkas to lay no burden on the subjects by extraordinary imposts, and irregular exaction of supplies."—Form of the Warrant of a Territorial Governor under the Mongols, in the above, App. p. 468.
MOOCHY, s. One who works in leather, either as shoemaker or saddler. It is the name of a low caste, Hind. mochī. The name and caste are also found in S. India, Telug. muchche. These, too, are workers in leather, but also are employed in painting, gilding, and upholsterer's work, &c.
MOOKTEAR, s. Properly Hind. from Ar. mukhtār, 'chosen,' but corruptly mukhtyār. An authorised agent; an attorney. Mukhtyār-nāma, 'a power of attorney.'
1878.—"These were the mookhtyars, or Criminal Court attorneys, teaching the witnesses what to say in their respective cases, and suggesting answers to all possible questions, the whole thing having been previously rehearsed at the mookhtyar's house."—Life in the Mofussil, f. 90.
MOOLLAH, s. Hind. mullā, corr. from Ar. maulā, a der. from wilā, 'propinquity.' This is the legal bond which still connects a former owner with his manumitted slave; and in virtue of this bond the patron and client are both page 579bcalled maulā. The idea of patronage is in the other senses; and the word comes to mean eventually 'a learned man, a teacher, a doctor of the Law.' In India it is used in these senses, and for a man who reads the Ḳorān in a house for 40 days after a death. When oaths were administered on the Ḳorān, the servitor who held the book was called Mullā Ḳorānī. Mullā is also in India the usual Mussulman term for 'a schoolmaster.'
[1617.—"He had shewed it to his Mulaies."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 417.]
1638.—"While the Body is let down into the grave, the kindred mutter certain Prayers between their Teeth, and that done all the company returns to the house of the deceased, where the Mollas continue their Prayers for his Soul, for the space of two or three days...."—Mandelslo, E.T. 63.
1673.—"At funerals, the Mullahs or Priests make Orations or Sermons, after a Lesson read out of the Alchoran."—Fryer, 94.
1680.—"The old Mulla having been discharged for misconduct, another by name Cozzee (see CAZEE) Mahmud entertained on a salary of 5 Pagodas per mensem, his duties consisting of the business of writing letters, &c., in Persian, besides teaching the Persian language to such of the Company's servants as shall desire to learn it."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn. March 11. Notes and Exts. No. iii. p. 12; [also see Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. ii. 2, with note].
1763.—"The Mulla in Indostan superintends the practice, and punishes the breach of religious duties."—Orme, reprint, i. 26.
1809.—"The British Government have, with their usual liberality, continued the allowance for the Moolahs to read the Koran."—Ld. Valentia, i. 423.
[1842.—See the classical account of the Moollahs of Kabul in Elphinstone's Caubul, ed. 1842, i. 281 seqq.]
MOOLVEE, s. Popular Hind. mulvī, Ar. maulavī, from same root as mullā (see MOOLLAH). A Judge, Doctor of the Law, &c. It is a usual prefix to the names of learned men and professors of law and literature. (See LAW-OFFICER.)
"A Pundit in Bengal or Molavee May daily see a carcase burn; But you can't furnish for the soul of ye A dirge sans ashes and an urn." N. B. Halhed, see Calc. Review, xxvi. 79.
page 580aMOONAUL, s. Hind. munāl or monāl (it seems to be in no dictionary); [Platts gives "Munāl (dialec.)"]. The Lopophorus Impeyanus, most splendid perhaps of all game-birds, rivalling the brilliancy of hue, and the metallic lustre of the humming-birds on the scale of the turkey. "This splendid pheasant is found throughout the whole extent of the Himalayas, from the hills bordering Afghanistan as far east as Sikkim, and probably also to Bootan" (Jerdon). "In the autumnal and winter months numbers are generally collected in the same quarter of the forest, though often so widely scattered that each bird appears to be alone" (Ibid.). Can this last circumstance point to the etymology of the name as connected with Skt. muni, 'an eremite'?
It was pointed out in a note on Marco Polo (1st ed. i. 246, 2nd ed. i. 272), that the extract which is given below from Aelian undoubtedly refers to the Munāl. We have recently found that this indication had been anticipated by G. Cuvier, in a note on Pliny (tom. vii. p. 409 of ed. Ajasson de Grandsagne, Paris, 1830). It appears from Jerdon that Monaul is popularly applied by Europeans at Darjeeling to the Sikkim horned pheasant Ceriornis satyra, otherwise sometimes called 'Argus Pheasant' (q.v.).
MOON BLINDNESS. This affection of the eyes is commonly believed to be produced by sleeping exposed to the full light of the moon. There is great difference of opinion as to the facts, some quoting experience as incontrovertible, others regarding the thing merely as a vulgar prejudice, without substantial foundation. Some remarks will be found in Collingwood's Rambles of a Naturalist, pp. 308-10. The present writer has in the East twice suffered from a peculiar affection page 580bof the eyes and face, after being in sleep exposed to a bright moon, but he would hardly have used the term moon-blindness.
MOONG, MOONGO, s. Or. 'green-gram'; Hind. mūng, [Skt. mudga]. A kind of vetch (Phaseolus Mungo, L.) in very common use over India; according to Garcia the mesce (māsh?) of Avicenna. Garcia also says that it was popularly recommended as a diet for fever in the Deccan; [and is still recommended for this purpose by native physicians (Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. i. 191)].
1557.—"The people were obliged to bring hay, and corn, and mungo, which is a certain species of seed that they feed horses with."—Albuquerque, Hak. Soc. ii. 132.
1563.—"Servant-maid.—That girl that you brought from the Deccan asks me for mungo, and says that in her country they give it them to eat, husked and boiled. Shall I give it her?
"Orta.—Give it her since she wishes it; but bread and a boiled chicken would be better. For she comes from a country where they eat bread, and not rice."—Garcia, f. 145.
MOONGA, MOOGA, s. Beng. mūgā. A kind of wild silk, the produce of Antheraea assama, collected and manufactured in Assam. ["Its Assamese name is said to be derived from the amber munga, 'coral' colour of the silk, and is frequently used to denote silk in general" (B. C. Allen, Mono. on the Silk Cloths of Assam, 1899, p. 10).] The quotations in elucidation of this word may claim some peculiar interest. That from Purchas is a modern illustration of the legends which reached the Roman Empire in classic times, of the growth of silk in the Seric jungles ("velleraque ut foliis depectunt tenuia Seres"); whilst that from Robert Lindsay may possibly throw light on the statements in the Periplus regarding an overland importation of silk from Thin into Gangetic India.
c. 1676.—"The kingdom of Asem is one of the best countries of all Asia.... There is a sort of Silk that is found under the trees, which is spun by a Creature like our Silk-worms, but rounder, and which lives all the year long under the trees. The Silks which are made of this Silk glist'n very much, but they fret presently."—Tavernier, E.T. ii. 187-8; [ed. Ball, ii. 281].
1680.—"The Floretta yarn or Muckta examined and priced.... The Agent informed 'that 'twas called Arundee, made neither with cotton nor silke, but of a kind of Herba spun by a worme that feeds upon the leaves of a stalke or tree called Arundee which bears a round prickly berry, of which oyle is made; vast quantitys of this cloth is made in the country about Goora Ghaut beyond Seripore Mercha; where the wormes are kept as silke wormes here; twill never come white, but will take any colour'" &c.—Ft. St. Geo. Agent on Tour, Consn., Nov. 19. In Notes and Exts., No. iii. p. 58. Araṇḍī or reṇḍī is the castor-oil plant, and this must be the Attacus ricini, Jones, called in H. Arrindi, Arrindiaria (?) and in Bengali Eri, Eria, Erindy, according to Forbes Watson's Nomenclature, No. 8002, p. 371. [For full details see Allen, Mono. pp. 5, seqq.].
1763.—"No duties have ever yet been paid on Lacks, Mugga-dooties, and other goods brought from Assam."—In Van Sittart, i. 249.
MOONSHEE, s. Ar. munshi, but written in Hind. munshī. The verb insha, of which the Ar. word is the participle, means 'to educate' a youth, as well as 'to compose' a written document. Hence 'a secretary, a reader, an interpreter, a writer.' It is commonly applied by Europeans specifically to a native teacher of languages, especially of Arabic, Persian, and Urdū, though the application to a native amanuensis in those tongues, and to any respectable, well-educated native gentleman is also common. The word probably became tolerably familiar in Europe through a book of instruction in Persian bearing the name (viz. "The Persian Moonshee, by F. Gladwyn," 1st ed. s.a., but published in Calcutta about 1790-1800).
1782.-"The young gentlemen exercise themselves in translating ... they reason page 581band dispute with their munchees (tutors) in Persian and Moors...."—Price's Tracts, i. 89.
1785.—"Your letter, requiring our authority for engaging in your service a Mûnshy, for the purpose of making out passports, and writing letters, has been received."—Tippoo's Letters, 67.
" "A lasting friendship was formed between the pupil and his Moonshee.... The Moonshee, who had become wealthy, afforded him yet more substantial evidence of his recollection, by earnestly requesting him, when on the point of leaving India, to accept a sum amounting to £1600, on the plea that the latter (i.e. Shore) had saved little."—Mem. of Lord Teignmouth, i. 32-33.
1814.—"They presented me with an address they had just composed in the Hindoo language, translated into Persian by the Durbar munsee."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iii. 365; [2nd ed. ii. 344].
1817.—"Its authenticity was fully proved by ... and a Persian Moonshee who translated."—Mill, Hist. v. 127.
1828.—"... the great Moonshi of State himself had applied the whole of his genius to selecting such flowers of language as would not fail to diffuse joy, when exhibited in those dark and dank regions of the north."—Hajji Baba in England, i. 39.
MOONSIFF, s. Hind. from Ar. munṣif, 'one who does justice' (inṣāf), a judge. In British India it is the title of a native civil judge of the lowest grade. This office was first established in 1793.
MOOR, MOORMAN, s. (and adj. MOORISH). A Mahommedan; and so from the habitual use of the term (Mouro), by the Portuguese in India, particularly a Mahommedan inhabitant of India.
In the Middle Ages, to Europe generally, the Mahommedans were known as the Saracens. This is the word always used by Joinville, and by Marco Polo. Ibn Batuta also mentions the fact in a curious passage (ii. 425-6). At a later day, when the fear of the page 582aOttoman had made itself felt in Europe, the word Turk was that which identified itself with the Moslem, and thus we have in the Collect for Good Friday,—"Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics." But to the Spaniards and Portuguese, whose contact was with the Musulmans of Mauritania who had passed over and conquered the Peninsula, all Mahommedans were Moors. So the Mahommedans whom the Portuguese met with on their voyages to India, on what coast soever, were alike styled Mouros; and from the Portuguese the use of this term, as synonymous with Mahommedan, passed to Hollanders and Englishmen.
The word then, as used by the Portuguese discoverers, referred to religion, and implied no nationality. It is plain indeed from many passages that the Moors of Calicut and Cochin were in the beginning of the 16th century people of mixt race, just as the Moplahs (q.v.) are now. The Arab, or Arabo-African occupants of Mozambique and Melinda, the Sumālis of Magadoxo, the Arabs and Persians of Kalhāt and Ormuz, the Boras of Guzerat, are all Mouros to the Portuguese writers, though the more intelligent among these are quite conscious of the impropriety of the term. The Moors of the Malabar coast were middlemen, who had adopted a profession of Islam for their own convenience, and in order to minister for their own profit to the constant traffic of merchants from Ormuz and the Arabian ports. Similar influences still affect the boatmen of the same coast, among whom it has become a sort of custom in certain families, that different members should profess respectively Mahommedanism, Hinduism, and Christianity.
The use of the word Moor for Mahommedan died out pretty well among educated Europeans in the Bengal Presidency in the beginning of the last century, or even earlier, but probably held its ground a good deal longer among the British soldiery, whilst the adjective Moorish will be found in our quotations nearly as late as 1840. In Ceylon, the Straits, and the Dutch Colonies, the term Moorman for a Musalman is still in common use. Indeed the word is still employed by the servants of Madras officers in speaking of Mahommedans, or of a page 582bcertain class of these. Moro is still applied at Manilla to the Musulman Malays.
" "For you must know, gentlemen, that from the moment you put into port here (Calecut) you caused disturbance of mind to the Moors of this city, who are numerous and very powerful in the country."—Correa, Hak. Soc. 166.
1499.—"We reached a very large island called Sumatra, where pepper grows in considerable quantities.... The Chief is a Moor, but speaking a different language."—Santo Stefano, in India in the XVth Cent. [7].
1505.—"Adì 28 zugno vene in Venetia insieme co Sier Alvixe de Boni un sclav moro el qual portorono i spagnoli da la insula spagniola."—MS. in Museo Civico at Venice. Here the term Moor is applied to a native of Hispaniola!
1513.—"Hanc (Malaccam) rex Maurus gubernabat."—Emanuelis Regis Epistola, f. 1.
1553.—"And for the hatred in which they hold them, and for their abhorrence of the name of Frangue, they call in reproach the Christians of our parts of the world Frangues (see FIRINGHEE), just as we improperly call them again Moors."—Barros, IV. iv. 16.
c. 1560.—"When we lay at Fuquien, we did see certain Moores, who knew so little of their secte that they could say nothing else but that Mahomet was a Moore, my father was a Moore, and I am a Moore."—Reports of the Province of China, done into English by R. Willes, in Hakl. ii. 557.
1563.—"And as to what you say of Ludovico Vartomano, I have spoken both here and in Portugal, with people who knew him here in India, and they told me that he went about here in the garb of a Moor, and that he came back among us doing penance for his sins; and that the man never went further than Calecut and Cochin, nor indeed did we at that time navigate those seas that we now navigate."—Garcia, f. 30.
1569.—"... always whereas I have spoken of Gentiles is to be understood Idolaters, and whereas I speak of Moores, I mean Mahomets secte."—Caesar Frederike, in Hakl. ii. 359.
1610.—"The King was fled for feare of the King of Makasar, who ... would force the King to turne Moore, for he is a Gentile."—Midleton, in Purchas, i. 239.
1611.—"Les Mores du pay faisoiẽt courir le bruict, que les notres avoient esté battus."—Wytfliet, H. des Indes, iii. 9.
1648.—"King Jangier (Jehāngīr) used to make use of a reproach: That one Portugees page 583awas better than three Moors, and one Hollander or Englishman better than two Portugees."—Van Twist, 59.
c. 1665.—"Il y en a de Mores et de Gentils Raspoutes (see RAJPOOT) parce que je savois qu'ils servent mieux que les Mores qui sont superbes, et ne veulent pas qu'on se plaigne d'eux, quelque sotise ou quelque tromperie qu'ils fassent."—Thevenot, v. 217.
1673.—"Their Crew were all Moors (by which Word hereafter must be meant those of the Mahometan faith) apparell'd all in white."—Fryer, p. 24.
" "They are a Shame to our Sailors, who can hardly ever work without horrid Oaths and hideous Cursing and Imprecations; and these Moormen, on the contrary, never set their Hands to any Labour, but that they sing a Psalm or Prayer, and conclude at every joint Application of it, 'Allah, Allah,' invoking the Name of God."—Ibid. pp. 55-56.
1685.—"We putt out a peece of a Red Ancient to appear like a Moor's Vessel: not judging it safe to be known to be English; Our nation having lately gott an ill name by abusing ye Inhabitants of these Islands: but no boat would come neer us ..." (in the Maldives).—Hedges, Diary, March 9; [Hak. Soc. i. 190].
1688.—"Lascars, who are Moors of India."—Dampier, ii. 57.
1689.—"The place where they went ashore was a Town of the Moors: Which name our Seamen give to all the Subjects of the great Mogul, but especially his Mahometan Subjects; calling the Idolators, Gentous or Rashboots (see RAJPOOT)."—Dampier, i. 507.
1747.—"We had the Misfortune to be reduced to almost inevitable Danger, for as our Success chiefly depended on the assistance of the Moors, We were soon brought to the utmost Extremity by being abandoned by them."—Letter from Ft. St. Geo. to the Court, May 2 (India Office MS. Records).
1752.—"His successor Mr. Godehue ... even permitted him (Dupleix) to continue the exhibition of those marks of Moorish dignity, which both Murzafa-jing and Sallabad-jing had permitted him to display."—Orme, i. 367.
1757.—In Ives, writing in this year, we constantly find the terms Moormen and Moorish, applied to the forces against which Clive and Watson were acting on the Hoogly.
1763.—"From these origins, time has formed in India a mighty nation of near ten millions of Mahomedans, whom Europeans call Moors."—Orme, ed. 1803, i. 24.
1770.—"Before the Europeans doubled the Cape of Good Hope, the Moors, who were the only maritime people of India, sailed from Surat and Bengal to Malacca."—Raynal (tr. 1777), i. 210.
1781.—"Mr. Hicky thinks it a Duty incumbent on him to inform his friends in particular, and the Public in General, that page 583ban attempt was made to Assassinate him last Thursday Morning between the Hours of One and two o'Clock, by two armed Europeans aided and assisted by a Moorman...."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, April 7.
1784.—"Lieutenants Speediman and Rutledge ... were bound, circumcised, and clothed in Moorish garments."—In Seton-Karr, i. 15.
1797.—"Under the head of castes entitled to a favourable term, I believe you comprehend Brahmans, Moormen, merchants, and almost every man who does not belong to the Sudra or cultivating caste...."—Minute of Sir T. Munro, in Arbuthnot, i. 17.
1807.—"The rest of the inhabitants, who are Moors, and the richer Gentoos, are dressed in various degrees and fashions."—Ld. Minto in India, p. 17.
1829.—"I told my Moorman, as they call the Mussulmans here, just now to ask the drum-major when the mail for the Pradwan (?) was to be made up."—Mem. of Col. Mountain, 2nd ed. p. 80.
MOORA, s. Sea Hind. mūrā, from Port. amura, Ital. mura; a tack (Roebuck).
MOORAH, s. A measure used in the sale of paddy at Bombay and in Guzerat. The true form of this word is doubtful. From Molesworth's Mahr. Dict. it would seem that muḍā and mudī are properly cases of rice-straw bound together to contain certain quantities of grain, the former larger and the latter smaller. Hence it would be a vague and varying measure. But there is a land measure of the same name. See Wilson, s.v. Múdi. [The Madras Gloss. gives mooda, Mal. mūta, from mūtu, 'to cover,' "a fastening package; especially the packages in a circular form, like a Dutch cheese, fastened with wisps of straw, in which rice is made up in Malabar and Canara." The mooda is said to be 1 cubic foot and 1,116 cubic inches, and equal to 3 Kulsies (see CULSEY).]
[1611.—"I send your worship by the bearer 10 moraes of rice."—Danvers, Letters, i. 116.]
page 584a1813.—
"Batty Measure.— :
| 25 | parahs | make | 1 moorah. |
| 4 | candies | " | 1 moorah." |
| Milburn, 2nd ed. p. 143. ||||
MOORPUNKY, s. Corr. of Mor-pankhī, 'peacock-tailed,' or 'peacock-winged'; the name given to certain state pleasure-boats on the Gangetic rivers, now only (if at all) surviving at Murshīdābād. They are a good deal like the Burmese 'war-boats;' see cut in Mission to Ava (Major Phayre's), p. 4. [A similar boat was the Feelchehra (Hind. fīl-chehra, 'elephant-faced'). In a letter of 1784 Warren Hastings writes: "I intend to finish my voyage to-morrow in the feelchehra" (Busteed, Echoes, 3rd ed. 291).]
"A few moorpungkeys and beauleahs (see BOLIAH) for the service of Mahomed Reza Khan, and on the service at the city some are absolutely necessary ... 25,000 : 0 : 0."—Dacca Accounts, in Long, 524.
1780.—"Another boat ... very curiously constructed, the Moor-punky: these are very long and narrow, sometimes extending to upwards of 100 feet in length, and not more than 8 feet in breadth; they are always paddled, sometimes by 40 men, and are steered by a large paddle from the stern, which rises in the shape of a peacock, a snake, or some other animal."—Hodges, 40.
MOORS, THE, s. The Hindustani language was in the 18th century commonly thus styled. The idiom is a curious old English one for the denomination of a language, of which 'broad Scots' is perhaps a type, and which we find exemplified in 'Malabars' (see MALABAR) for Tamil, whilst we have also met with Bengals for Bengālī, with Indostans for Urdū, and with Turks for Turkish. The term Moors is probably now entirely obsolete, but down to 1830, at least, some old officers of the Royal army and some old Madras civilians would occasionally use the term as synonymous with what the former would also call 'the black language.' [Moors for Urdū was certainly in use among the old European pensioners at Chunār as late as 1892.]
page 584bThe following is a transcript of the title-page of Hadley's Grammar, the earliest English Grammar of Hindustani:
The Common Practice in Bengal.
"——Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non his utere mecum."
By Capt. George Hadley. London: Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand. MDCCLXXII."
Captain Hadley's orthography is on a detestable system. He writes chookerau, chookeree, for chhokrā, chhokrī ('boy, girl'); dolchinney for dāl-chīnī ('cinnamon'), &c. His etymological ideas also are loose. Thus he gives shrimps = chînghra mutchee, 'fish with legs and claws,' as if the word was from chang (Pers.), 'a hook or claw.' Bāgḍor, 'a halter,' or as he writes, baug-doore, he derives from dūr, 'distance,' instead of ḍor, 'a rope.' He has no knowledge of the instrumental case with terminal ne, and he does not seem to be aware that ham and tum (hum and toom, as he writes) are in reality plurals ('we' and 'you'). The grammar is altogether of a very primitive and tentative character, and far behind that of the R. C. Missionaries, which is referred to s.v. Hindostanee. We have not seen that of Schulz (1745) mentioned under the same.
1767.—"In order to transact Business of any kind in this Countrey, you must at least have a smattering of the Language for few of the Inhabitants (except in great Towns) speak English. The original Language, of this Countrey (or at least the earliest we know of) is the Bengala or Gentoo.... But the politest Language is the Moors or Mussulmans and Persian.... The only Language that I know anything of is the page 585aBengala, and that I do not speak perfectly, for you may remember that I had a very poor knack at learning Languages."—MS. Letter of James Rennell, March 10.
1779.—"C. What language did Mr. Francis speak?
W. (Meerum Kitmutgar). The same as I do, in broken Moors."—Trial of Grand v. Philip Francis, quoted in Echoes of Old Calcutta, 226.
1783.—"Moors, by not being written, bars all close application."—Letter in Life of Colebrooke, 13.
" "The language called 'Moors' has a written character differing both from the Sanskrit and Bengalee character, it is called Nagree, which means 'writing.'"—Letter in Mem. of Ld. Teignmouth, i. 104.
1784.—
"Wild perroquets first silence broke, Eager of dangers near to prate; But they in English never spoke, And she began her Moors of late." Plassey Plain, a Ballad by Sir W. Jones, in Works, ii. 504.
1788.—"Wants Employment. A young man who has been some years in Bengal, used to common accounts, understands Bengallies, Moors, Portuguese...."—In Seton-Karr, i. 286.
1789.—"... sometimes slept half an hour, sometimes not, and then wrote or talked Persian or Moors till sunset, when I went to parade."—Letter of Sir T. Munro, i. 76.
1802.—"All business is transacted in a barbarous mixture of Moors, Mahratta, and Gentoo."—Sir T. Munro, in Life, i. 333.
1803.—"Conceive what society there will be when people speak what they don't think, in Moors."—M. Elphinstone, in Life, i. 108.
1804.—"She had a Moorish woman interpreter, and as I heard her give orders to her interpreter in the Moorish language ... I must consider the conversation of the first authority."—Wellington, iii. 290.
MOORUM, s. A word used in Western India for gravel, &c., especially as used in road-metal. The word appears to be Mahratti. Molesworth gives "murūm, a fissile kind of stone, probably decayed Trap." [Murukallu is the Tel. name for Laterite. (Also see CABOOK.)]
page 585bMOOTSUDDY, s. A native accountant. Hind. mutaṣaddī from Ar. mutaṣaddi.
[1762.—"Muttasuddies." See under GOMASTA.]
1785.—"This representation has caused us the utmost surprise. Whenever the Mutsuddies belonging to your department cease to yield you proper obedience, you must give them a severe flogging."—Tippoo's Letters, p. 2.
" "Old age has certainly made havock on your understanding, otherwise you would have known that the Mutusuddies here are not the proper persons to determine the market prices there."—Ibid. p. 118.
MOPLAH, s. Malayāl. māppila. The usual application of this word is to the indigenous Mahommedans of Malabar; but it is also applied to the indigenous (so-called) Syrian Christians of Cochin and Travancore. In Morton's Life of Leyden the word in the latter application is curiously misprinted as madilla. The derivation of the word is very obscure. Wilson gives mā-pilla, 'mother's son,' "as sprung from the intercourse of foreign colonists, who were persons unknown, with Malabar women." Nelson, as quoted below interprets the word as 'bridegroom' (it should however rather be 'son-in-law'). Dr. Badger suggests that it is from the Arabic verb falaḥa, and means 'a cultivator' (compare the fellah of Egypt), whilst Mr. C. P. Brown expresses his conviction that it was a Tamil mispronunciation of the Arabic mu'abbar, 'from over the water.' No one of these greatly commends itself. [Mr. Logan (Malabar, ii. ccviii.) and the Madras Glossary derive it from Mal. ma, Skt. māha, 'great,' and Mal. piḷḷa, 'a child.' Dr. Gundert's view is that Māpiḷḷa was an honorary title given to colonists from page 586athe W., perhaps at first only to their representatives.]
1767.—"Ali Raja, the Chief of Cananore, who was a Muhammadan, and of the tribe called Mapilla, rejoiced at the success and conquests of a Muhammadan Chief."—H. of Hydur, p. 184.
1782.—"... les Maplets reçurent les coutumes et les superstitions des Gentils, sous l'empire des quels ils vivoient. C'est pour se conformer aux usages des Malabars, que les enfans des Maplets n'héritent point de leurs pères, mais des frères de leurs mères."—Sonnerat, i. 193.
1787.—
"Of Moplas fierce your hand has tam'd, And monsters that your sword has maim'd." Life and Letters of J. Ritson, 1833, i. 114.
1800.—"We are not in the most thriving condition in this country. Polegars, nairs, and moplas in arms on all sides of us."—Wellington, i. 43.
1813.—"At one period the Moplahs created great commotion in Travancore, and towards the end of the 17th century massacred the chief of Anjengo, and all the English gentlemen belonging to the settlement, when on a public visit to the Queen of Attinga."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 402; [2nd ed. i. 259].
MORA, s. Hind. moṛhā. A stool (tabouret); a footstool. In common colloquial use.
MORCHAL, s. A fan, or a fly-whisk, made of peacock's feathers. Hind. morch'hal.
1690.—(The heat) "makes us Employ our Peons in Fanning of us with Murchals page 586bmade of Peacock's Feathers, four or five Foot long, in the time of our Entertainments, and when we take our Repose."—Ovington, 335.
MORT-DE-CHIEN, s. A name for cholera, in use, more or less, up to the end of the 18th century, and the former prevalence of which has tended probably to the extraordinary and baseless notion that epidemic cholera never existed in India till the governorship of the Marquis of Hastings. The word in this form is really a corruption of the Portuguese mordexim, shaped by a fanciful French etymology. The Portuguese word again represents the Konkani and Mahratti moḍachī, moḍshī, or moḍwashī, 'cholera,' from a Mahr. verb moḍnen, 'to break up, to sink' (as under infirmities, in fact 'to collapse'). The Guzaratī appears to be moṛchi or moṛachi.
1543.—Correa's description is so striking that we give it almost at length: "This winter they had in Goa a mortal distemper which the natives call morxy, and attacking persons of every quality, from the smallest infant at the breast to the old man of fourscore, and also domestic animals and fowls, so that it affected every living thing, male and female. And this malady attacked people without any cause that could be assigned, falling upon sick and sound alike, on the fat and the lean; and nothing in the world was a safeguard against it. And this malady attacked the stomach, caused as some experts affirmed by chill; though later it was maintained that no cause whatever could be discovered. The malady was so powerful and so evil that it immediately produced the symptoms of strong poison; e.g., vomiting, constant desire for water, with drying of the stomach; and cramps that contracted the hams and the soles of the feet, with such pains that the patient seemed dead, with the eyes broken and the nails of the fingers and toes black and crumpled. And for this malady our physicians never found any cure; and the patient was carried off in one day, or at the most in a day and night; insomuch that not ten in a hundred recovered, and those who did recover were such as were healed in haste with medicines of little importance known to the natives. So great page 587awas the mortality this season that the bells were tolling all day ... insomuch that the governor forbade the tolling of the church bells, not to frighten the people ... and when a man died in the hospital of this malady of morexy the Governor ordered all the experts to come together and open the body. But they found nothing wrong except that the paunch was shrunk up like a hen's gizzard, and wrinkled like a piece of scorched leather...."—Correa, iv. 288-289.
1563.—"Page.—Don Jeronymo sends to beg that you will go and visit his brother immediately, for though this is not the time of day for visits, delay would be dangerous, and he will be very thankful that you come at once.
"Orta.—What is the matter with the patient, and how long has he been ill?
"Page.—He has got morxi; and he has been ill two hours.
"Orta.—I will follow you.
"Ruano.—Is this the disease that kills so quickly, and that few recover from? Tell me how it is called by our people, and by the natives, and the symptoms of it, and the treatment you use in it.
"Orta.—Our name for the disease is Collerica passio; and the Indians call it morxi; whence again by corruption we call it mordexi.... It is sharper here than in our own part of the world, for usually it kills in four and twenty hours. And I have seen some cases where the patient did not live more than ten hours. The most that it lasts is four days; but as there is no rule without an exception, I once saw a man with great constancy of virtue who lived twenty days continually throwing up ("curginosa"?) ... bile, and died at last. Let us go and see this sick man; and as for the symptoms you will yourself see what a thing it is."—Garcia, ff. 74v, 75.
1578.—"There is another thing which is useless called by them canarin, which the Canarin Brahman physicians usually employ for the collerica passio sickness, which they call morxi; which sickness is so sharp that it kills in fourteen hours or less."—Acosta, Tractado, 27.
1598.—"There reigneth a sicknesse called Mordexijn which stealeth uppon men, and handleth them in such sorte, that it weakeneth a man, and maketh him cast out all that he hath in his bodie, and many times his life withall."—Linschoten, 67; [Hak. Soc. i. 235; Morxi in ii. 22].
1599.—"The disease which in India is called Mordicin. This is a species of Colic, which comes on in those countries with such force and vehemence that it kills in a few hours; and there is no remedy discovered. It causes evacuations by stool or vomit, and makes one burst with pain. But there is a herb proper for the cure, which bears the same name of mordescin."—Carletti, 227.
1602.—"In those islets (off Aracan) they found bad and brackish water, and certain beans like ours both green and dry, of which page 587bthey ate some, and in the same moment this gave them a kind of dysentery, which in India they corruptly call mordexim, which ought to be morxis, and which the Arabs call sachaiza (Ar. hayẓat), which is what Rasis calls sahida, a disease which kills in 24 hours. Its action is immediately to produce a sunken and slender pulse, with cold sweat, great inward fire, and excessive thirst, the eyes sunken, great vomitings, and in fact it leaves the natural power so collapsed (derribada) that the patient seems like a dead man."—Couto, Dec. IV. liv. iv. cap. 10.
c. 1610.—"Il regne entre eux vne autre maladie qui vient a l'improviste, ils la nomment Mordesin, et vient auec grande douleur des testes, et vomissement, et crient fort, et le plus souvent en meurent."—Pyrard de Laval, ii. 19; [Hak. Soc. ii. 13].
1631.—"Pulvis ejus (Calumbac) ad scrup. unius pondus sumptus cholerae prodest, quam Mordexi incolae vocant."—Jac. Bontii, lib. iv. p. 43.
1638.—"... celles qui y regnent le plus, sont celles qu'ils appellent Mordexin, qui tue subitement."—Mandelslo, 265.
1648.—See also the (questionable) Voyages Fameux du Sieur Victor le Blanc, 76.
c. 1665.—"Les Portugais appellent Mordechin les quatre sortes de Coliques qu'on souffre dans les Indes ou elles sont frequentes ... ceux qui ont la quatrième soufrent les trois maux ensemble, à savoir le vomissement, le flux de ventre, les extremes douleurs, et je crois que cette derniere est le Colera-Morbus."—Thevenot, v. 324.
1673.—"They apply Cauteries most unmercifully in a Mordisheen, called so by the Portugals, being a Vomiting with Looseness."—Fryer, 114.
[1674.—"The disease called Mordechi generally commences with a violent fever, accompanied by tremblings, horrors and vomitings; these symptoms are generally followed by delirium and death." He prescribes a hot iron applied to the soles of the feet. He attributes the disease to indigestion, and remarks bitterly that at least the prisoners of the Inquisition were safe from this disease.—Dellon, Relation de l'Inquisition de Goa, ii. ch. 71.]
1690.—"The Mordechine is another Disease ... which is a violent Vomiting and Looseness."—Ovington, 350.
c. 1690.—Rumphius, speaking of the Jack-fruit (q.v.): "Non nisi vacuo stomacho edendus est, alias enim ... plerumque oritur Passio Cholerica, Portugallis Mordexi dicta."—Herb. Amb., i. 106.
Bluteau (s.v.) says Mordexim is properly a failure of digestion which is very perilous in those parts, unless the native remedy be used. This is to page 588aapply a thin rod, like a spit, and heated, under the heel, till the patient screams with pain, and then to slap the same part with the sole of a shoe, &c.
The following is an example of literal translation, as far as we know, unique:
1727.—"... the Mordexin (which seizes one suddenly with such oppression and palpitation that he thinks he is going to die on the spot)."—Valentijn, v. (Malabar) 5.
c. 1760.—"There is likewise known, on the Malabar coast chiefly, a most violent disorder they call the Mordechin; which seizes the patient with such fury of purging, vomiting, and tormina of the intestines, that it will often carry him off in 30 hours."—Grose, i. 250.
1768.—"This (cholera morbus) in the East Indies, where it is very frequent and fatal, is called Mort-de-chien."—Lind, Essay on Diseases incidental to Hot Climates, 248.
1778.—In the Vocabulary of the Portuguese Grammatica Indostana, we find Mordechim, as a Portuguese word, rendered in Hind. by the word badazmi, i.e. bad-haẓmī, 'dyspepsia' (p. 99). The most common modern Hind. term for cholera is Arab. haiẓah. The latter word is given by Garcia de Orta in the form hachaiza, and in the quotation from Couto as sachaiza (?). Jahāngīr speaks of one of his nobles as dying in the Deccan, of haiẓah, in A.D. 1615 (see note to Elliot, vi. 346). It is, however, perhaps not to be assumed that haiẓah always means cholera. Thus Macpherson mentions that a violent epidemic, which raged in the Camp of Aurangzīb at Bījapur in 1689, is called so. But in the history of Khāfi Khān (Elliot, vii. 337) the general phrases ta'ūn and wabā are used in reference to this disease, whilst the description is that of bubonic plague.
1781.—"Early in the morning of the 21st June (1781) we had two men seized with the mort-de-chien."—Curtis, Diseases of India, 3rd ed., Edinb., 1807.
1782.—"Les indigestions appellées dans l'Inde Mort-de-chien, sont fréquentes. Les Castes qui mangent de la viande, nourriture trop pesante pour un climat si chaud, en sont souvent attaquées...."—Sonnerat, i. 205. This author writes just after having described two epidemics of cholera under the name of Flux aigu. He did not apprehend that this was in fact the real Mort-de-chien.
page 588b1783.—"A disease generally called 'Mort-de-chien' at this time (during the defence of Onore) raged with great violence among the native inhabitants."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 122.
1796.—"Far more dreadful are the consequences of the above-mentioned intestinal colic, called by the Indians shani, mordexim, and also Nircomben. It is occasioned, as I have said, by the winds blowing from the mountains ... the consequence is that malignant and bilious slimy matter adheres to the bowels, and occasions violent pains, vomiting, fevers, and stupefaction; so that persons attacked with the disease die very often in a few hours. It sometimes happens that 30 or 40 persons die in this manner, in one place, in the course of the day.... In the year 1782 this disease raged with so much fury that a great many persons died of it."—Fra Paolino, E.T. 409-410 (orig. see p. 353). As to the names used by Fra Paolino, for his Shani or Ciani, we find nothing nearer than Tamil and Mal. sanni, 'convulsion, paralysis.' (Winslow in his Tamil Dict. specifies 13 kinds of sanni. Komben is explained as 'a kind of cholera or smallpox' (!); and nir-komben ('water-k.') as a kind of cholera or bilious diarrhœa.) Paolino adds: "La droga amara costa assai, e non si poteva amministrare a tanti miserabili che perivano. Adunque in mancanza di questa droga amara noi distillasimo in Tàgara, o acqua vite di coco, molto sterco di cavalli (!), e l'amministrammo agl'infermi. Tutti quelli che prendevano questa guarivano."
The next quotation is the latest instance of the familiar use of the word that we have met with:
The second of the following quotations evidently refers to the outbreak page 589aof cholera mentioned, after Macpherson, in the next paragraph.
These quotations show that cholera, whether as an epidemic or as sporadic disease, is no new thing in India. Almost in the beginning of the Portuguese expeditions to the East we find apparent examples of the visitations of this terrible scourge, though no precise name is given in the narratives. Thus we read in the Life of Giovanni da Emboli, an adventurous young Florentine who served with the Portuguese, that, arriving in China in 1517, the ships' crews were attacked by a pessima malatia di frusso (virulent flux) of such kind that there died thereof about 70 men, and among these Giovanni himself, and two other Florentines (Vita, in Archiv. Stor. Ital. 33). Correa says that, in 1503, 20,000 men died of a like disease in the army of the Zamorin. We have given above Correa's description of the terrible Goa pest of 1543, which was most evidently cholera. Madras accounts, according to Macpherson, first mention the disease at Arcot in 1756, and there are frequent notices of it in that neighbourhood between 1763 and 1787. The Hon. R. Lindsay speaks of it as raging at Sylhet in 1781, after carrying off a number of the inhabitants of Calcutta (Macpherson, see the quotation of 1781 above). It also raged that year at Ganjam, and out of a division of 5000 Bengal troops under Col. Pearse, who were on the march through that district, 1143 were in a few days sent into hospital, whilst "death raged in the camp with a horror not to be described." The earliest account from the pen of an English physician is by Dr. Paisley, and is dated Madras, Feby. 1774. In 1783 it broke out at Hardwār Fair, and is said, in less than 8 days, to have carried off 20,000 pilgrims. The paucity of cases of cholera among European troops in the returns up to 1817, is ascribed by Dr. page 589bMacnamara to the way in which facts were disguised by the current nomenclature of disease. It need not perhaps be denied that the outbreak of 1817 marked a great recrudescence of the disease. But it is a fact that some of the more terrible features of the epidemic, which are then spoken of as quite new, had been prominently described at Goa nearly three centuries before.
See on this subject an article by Dr. J. Macpherson in Quarterly Review, for Jany. 1867, and a Treatise on Asiatic Cholera, by C. Macnamara, 1876. To these, and especially to the former, we owe several facts and references; though we had recorded quotations relating to mordexin and its identity with cholera some years before even the earlier of these publications.
MORDEXIM, MORDIXIM, s. Also the name of a sea-fish. Bluteau says 'a fish found at the Isle of Quixembe on the Coast of Mozambique, very like bogas (?) or river-pikes.'
MOSELLAY, n.p. A site at Shīrāz often mentioned by Hāfiz as a favourite spot, and near which is his tomb.
"Boy! let yon liquid ruby flow, And bid thy pensive heart be glad, Whate'er the frowning zealots say; Tell them that Eden cannot show A stream so clear as Rocnabad; A bower so sweet as Mossellay." Hafiz, rendered by Sir W. Jones.
1811.—"The stream of Rúknabád murmured near us; and within three or four hundred yards was the Mossellá and the Tomb of Hafiz."—W. Ouseley's Travels, i. 318.
MOSQUE, s. There is no room for doubt as to the original of this word being the Ar. masjid, 'a place of worship,' literally the place of sujūd, i.e. 'prostration.' And the probable course is this. Masjid becomes (1) in Span. mezquita, Port. mesquita; (2) page 590aItal. meschita, moschea; French (old) mosquete, mosquée; (3) Eng. mosque. Some of the quotations might suggest a different course of modification, but they would probably mislead.
Apropos of masjid rather than of mosque we have noted a ludicrous misapplication of the word in the advertisement to a newspaper story. "Musjeed the Hindoo: Adventures with the Star of India in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857." The Weekly Detroit Free Press, London, July 1, 1882.
1384.—"Sonvi le mosquette, cioe chiese de' Saraceni ... dentro tutte bianche ed intonicate ed ingessate."—Frescobaldi, 29.
1543.—"And with the stipulation that the 5000 larin tangas which in old times were granted, and are deposited for the expenses of the mizquitas of Baçaim, are to be paid from the said duties as they always have been paid, and in regard to the said mizquitas and the prayers that are made in them there shall be no innovation whatever."—Treaty at Baçaim of the Portuguese with King Bador of Çanbaya (Bahādur Shāh of Guzerat) in S. Botelho, Tombo, 137.
1553.—"... but destined yet to unfurl that divine and royal banner of the Soldiery of Christ ... in the Eastern regions of Asia, amidst the infernal mesquitas of Arabia and Persia, and all the pagodes of the heathenism of India, on this side and beyond the Ganges."—Barros, I. i. 1.
[c. 1610.—"The principal temple, which they call Oucourou misquitte" (Hukuru miskitu, 'Friday mosque').—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 72.]
1616.—"They are very jealous to let their women or Moschees be seen."—Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, i. 537; [Hak. Soc. ii. 21].
[1623.—"We went to see upon the same Lake a meschita, or temple of the Mahometans."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 69.]
1634.—
"Que a de abominação mesquita immũda Casa, a Deos dedicada hoje se veja." Malaca Conquistada, l. xii. 43.
1638.—Mandelslo unreasonably applies the term to all sorts of pagan temples, e.g.—
"Nor is it only in great Cities that the Benjans have their many Mosqueys...."—E.T. 2nd ed. 1669, p. 52.
"The King of Siam is a Pagan, nor do his Subjects know any other Religion. They have divers Mosquees, Monasteries, and Chappels."—Ibid. p. 104.
c. 1662.—"... he did it only for love to their Mammon; and would have sold page 590bafterwards for as much more St. Peter's ... to the Turks for a Mosquito."—Crowley, Discourse concerning the Govt. of O. Cromwell.
1680.—Consn. Ft. St. Geo. March 28: "Records the death of Cassa Verona ... and a dispute arising as to whether his body should be burned by the Gentues or buried by the Moors, the latter having stopped the procession on the ground that the deceased was a Mussleman and built a Musseet in the Towne to be buried in, the Governor with the advice of his Council sent an order that the body should be burned as a Gentue, and not buried by the Moors, it being apprehended to be of dangerous consequence to admit the Moors such pretences in the Towne."—Notes and Exts. No. iii. p. 14.
1719.—"On condition they had a Cowle granted, exempting them from paying the Pagoda or Musqueet duty."—In Wheeler, ii. 301.
1727.—"There are no fine Buildings in the City, but many large Houses, and some Caravanserays and Muscheits."—A. Hamilton, i. 161; [ed. 1774, i. 163].
c. 1760.—"The Roman Catholic Churches, the Moorish Moschs, the Gentoo Pagodas, the worship of the Parsees, are all equally unmolested and tolerated."—Grose, i. 44.
MOSQUITO, s. A gnat is so called in the tropics. The word is Spanish and Port. (dim. of mosca, 'a fly'), and probably came into familiar English use from the East Indies, though the earlier quotations show that it was first brought from S. America. A friend annotates here: "Arctic mosquitoes are worst of all; and the Norfolk ones (in the Broads) beat Calcutta!"
It is related of a young Scotch lady of a former generation who on her voyage to India had heard formidable, but vague accounts of this terror of the night, that on seeing an elephant for the first time, she asked: "Will yon be what's called a musqueetae?"
1582.—"We were oftentimes greatly annoyed with a kind of flie, which in the Indian tongue is called Tiquari, and the Spanish call them Muskitos."—Miles Phillips, in Hakl. iii. 564.
1584.—"The 29 Day we set Saile from Saint Iohns, being many of vs stung before upon Shoare with the Muskitos; but the same night we tooke a Spanish page 591aFrigat."—Sir Richard Greenevile's Voyage, in Hakl. iii. 308.
1616 and 1673.—See both Terry and Fryer under Chints.
1662.—"At night there is a kind of insect that plagues one mightily; they are called Muscieten,—it is a kind that by their noise and sting cause much irritation."—Saar, 68-69.
1673.—"The greatest Pest is the Mosquito, which not only wheals, but domineers by its continual Hums."—Fryer, 189.
1690.—(The Governor) "carries along with him a Peon or Servant to Fan him, and drive away the busie Flies, and troublesome Musketoes. This is done with the Hair of a Horse's Tail."—Ovington, 227-8.
1740.—"... all the day we were pestered with great numbers of muscatos, which are not much unlike the gnats in England, but more venomous...."—Anson's Voyage, 9th ed., 1756, p. 46.
1764.—
"Mosquitos, sandflies, seek the sheltered roof, And with full rage the stranger guest assail, Nor spare the sportive child." —Grainger, bk. i.
MOTURPHA, s. Hind. from Ar. muḥtarafa, but according to C. P. B. mu'tarifa; [rather Ar. muḥtarifa, muḥtarif, 'an artizan']. A name technically applied to a number of miscellaneous taxes in Madras and Bombay, such as were called sayer (q.v.), in Bengal.
MOULMEIN, n.p. This is said to be originally a Talaing name Mut-mwoa-lem, syllables which mean (or may be made to mean) 'one-eye-destroyed'; and to account for which a cock-and-bull legend is given (probably invented for the purpose): "Tradition says that the city was founded ... by a king with three eyes, having an extra eye in his forehead, but that by the machinations of a woman, the page 591beye in his forehead was destroyed...." (Mason's Burmah, 2nd ed. p. 18). The Burmese corrupted the name into Mau-la-yaing, whence the foreign (probably Malay) form Maulmain. The place so called is on the opposite side of the estuary of the Salwin R. from Martaban (q.v.), and has entirely superseded that once famous port. Moulmein, a mere site, was chosen as the headquarters of the Tenasserim provinces, when those became British in 1826 after the first Burmese War. It has lost political importance since the annexation of Pegu, 26 years later, but is a thriving city which numbered in 1881, 53,107 inhabitants; [in 1891, 55,785].
MOUNT DELY, n.p. (See DELLY, MOUNT.)
MOUSE-DEER, s. The beautiful little creature, Meminna indica (Gray), [Tragulus meminna, the Indian Chevrotain (Blanford, Mammalia, 555),] found in various parts of India, and weighing under 6 lbs., is so called. But the name is also applied to several pigmy species of the genus Tragulus, found in the Malay regions, [where, according to Mr. Skeat, it takes in popular tradition the place of Brer Rabbit, outwitting even the tiger, elephant, and crocodile.] All belong to the family of Musk-deer.
MUCHÁN, s. Hind. machān, Dekh. manchān, Skt. maṅcha. An elevated platform; such as the floor of huts among the Indo-Chinese races; or a stage or scaffolding erected to watch a tiger, to guard a field, or what not.
MUCHWA, s. Mahr. machwā, Hind. machuā, machwā. A kind of boat or barge in use about Bombay.
MUCKNA, s. Hind. makhnā, [which comes from Skt. matkuna, 'a bug, a flea, a beardless man, an elephant without tusks']. A male page 592aelephant without tusks or with only rudimentary tusks. These latter are familiar in Bengal, and still more so in Ceylon, where according to Sir S. Baker, "not more than one in 300 has tusks; they are merely provided with short grubbers, projecting generally about 3 inches from the upper jaw, and about 2 inches in diameter." (The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon, 11.) Sanderson (13 Years among the Wild Beasts of India, [3rd ed. 66]) says: "On the Continent of India mucknas, or elephants born without tusks, are decidedly rare ... Mucknas breed in the herds, and the peculiarity is not hereditary or transmitted." This author also states that out of 51 male elephants captured by him in Mysore and Bengal only 5 were mucknas. But the definition of a makhnā in Bengal is that which we have given, including those animals which possess only feminine or rudimentary tusks, the 'short grubbers' of Baker; and these latter can hardly be called rare among domesticated elephants. This may be partially due to a preference in purchasers. The same author derives the term from mukh, 'face'; but the reason is obscure. Shakespear and Platts give the word as also applied to 'a cock without spurs.'
MUCOA, MUKUVA, n.p. Malayal. and Tamil, mukkuvan (sing.), 'a diver,' and mukkuvar (pl.). [Logan (Malabar, ii. Gloss. s.v.) derives it from Drav. mukkuha, 'to dive'; the Madras Gloss. gives Tam. muzhugu, with the same meaning.] A name applied to the fishermen of the western coast of the Peninsula near C. Comorin. [But Mr. Pringle (Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 187) points out that formerly as now, the word was of much more general application. Orme in a passage quoted below employs it of boatmen at Karikal. The use of the word page 592bextended as far N. as Madras, and on the W. coast; it was not confined to the extreme S.] It was among these, and among the corresponding class of Paravars on the east coast, that F. Xavier's most noted labours in India occurred.
1525.—"And Dom João had secret speech with a married Christian whose wife and children were inside the fort, and a valiant man, with whom he arranged to give him 200 pardaos (and that he gave him on the spot) to set fire to houses that stood round the fort.... So this Christian, called Duarte Fernandes ... put on a lot of old rags and tags, and powdered himself with ashes after the fashion of jogues (see JOGEE) ... also defiling his hair with a mixture of oil and ashes, and disguising himself like a regular jogue, whilst he tied under his rags a parcel of gunpowder and pieces of slow-match, and so commending himself to God, in which all joined, slipped out of the fort by night, and as the day broke, he came to certain huts of macuas, which are fishermen, and began to beg alms in the usual palaver of the jogues, i.e. prayers for their long life and health, and the conquest of enemies, and easy deliveries for their womenkind, and prosperity for their children, and other grand things."—Correa, ii. 871.
1552.—Barros has mucuaria, 'a fisherman's village.'
1600.—"Those who gave the best reception to the Gospel were the Macóas; and, as they had no church in which to assemble, they did so in the fields and on the shores, and with such fervour that the Father found himself at times with 5000 or 6000 souls about him."—Lucena, Vida do P. F. Xavier, 117.
[c. 1610.—"These mariners are called Moucois."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 314.]
1615.—"Edixit ut Macuae omnes, id est vilissima plebecula et piscatu vivens, Christiana sacra susciperent."—Jarric, i. 390.
1626.—"The Muchoa or Mechoe are Fishers ... the men Theeues, the women Harlots, with whom they please...."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 553.
1677.—Resolved "to raise the rates of hire of the Mesullas (see MUSSOOLA) boatmen called Macquars."—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Jan 12, in Notes and Exts. No. i. 54.
[1684.—"The Maquas or Boatmen ye Ordinary Astralogers (sic) for weather did ... prognosticate great Rains...."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. iii. 131.]
1727.—"They may marry into lower Tribes ... and so may the Muckwas, or Fishers, who, I think, are a higher tribe than the Poulias (see POLEA)."—A. Hamilton, i. 310, [ed. 1744, i. 312].
page 593a[1738.—"Gastos com Nairos, Tibas, Maquas."—Agreement, in Logan, Malabar, ii. 36.]
1745.—"The Macoas, a kind of Malabars, who have specially this business, and, as we might say, the exclusive privilege in all that concerns sea-faring."—Norbert, i. 227-8.
1746.—"194 Macquars attending the sea-side at night ... (P.) 8 : 8 : 40."—Account of Extraordinary Expenses, at Ft. St. David (India Office MS. Records).
1760.—"Fifteen massoolas (see MUSSOOLA) accompanied the ships; they took in 170 of the troops, besides the Macoas, who are the black fellows that row them."—Orme, ed. 1803, iii. 617.
MUDDÁR, s. Hind. madār, Skt. mandāra; Calotropis procera, R. Brown, N.O. Asclepiadaceae. One of the most common and widely diffused plants in uncultivated plains throughout India. In Sind the bark fibre is used for halters, &c., and experiment has shown it to be an excellent material worth £40 a ton in England, if it could be supplied at that rate; but the cost of collection has stood in the way of its utilisation. The seeds are imbedded in a silky floss, used to stuff pillows. This also has been the subject of experiment for textile use, but as yet without practical success. The plant abounds with an acrid milky juice which the Rājputs are said to employ for infanticide. (Punjab Plants.) The plant is called Ak in Sind and throughout N. India.
MUDDLE, s. (?) This word is only known to us from the clever—perhaps too clever—little book quoted below. The word does not seem to be known, and was probably a misapprehension of budlee. [Even Mr. Brandt and Mrs. Wyatt are unable to explain this word. The former does not remember hearing it. Both doubt its connection with budlee. Mrs. Wyatt suggests with hesitation Tamil muder, "boiled rice," mudei-palli, "the cook-house."]
MUFTY, s.
a. Ar. Muftī, an expounder of the Mahommedan Law, the utterer of the fatwā (see FUTWAH). Properly the Muftī is above the Kāẓī who carries out the judgment. In the 18th century, and including Regulation IX. of 1793, which gave the Company's Courts in Bengal the reorganization which substantially endured till 1862, we have frequent mention of both Cauzies and Mufties as authorized expounders of the Mahommedan Law; but, though Kāẓīs were nominally maintained in the Provincial Courts down to their abolition (1829-31), practically the duty of those known as Kāẓīs became limited to quite different objects and the designation of the Law-officer who gave the futwā in our District Courts was Maulavī. The title Muftī has been long obsolete within the limits of British administration, and one might safely say that it is practically unknown to any surviving member of the Indian Civil Service, and never was heard in India as a living title by any Englishman now surviving. (See CAZEE, LAW-OFFICER, MOOLVEE).
b. A slang phrase in the army, for 'plain clothes.' No doubt it is taken in some way from a, but the transition is a little obscure. [It was perhaps originally applied to the attire of dressing-gown, smoking-cap, and slippers, which was like the Oriental dress of the Muftī who was familiar in Europe from his appearance in Moliere's Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Compare the French en Pekin.]
1653.—"Pendant la tempeste vne femme Industani mourut sur notre bord; vn Moufti Persan de la Secte des Schaï (see SHEEAH) assista à cette derniere extrémité, luy donnant esperance d'vne meilleure vie que celle-cy, et d'vn Paradis, où l'on auroit tout ce que l'on peut desirer ... et la fit changer de Secte...."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 281.
1674.—"Resolve to make a present to the Governors of Changulaput and Pallaveram, old friends of the Company, and now about to go to Golcondah, for the marriage of the former with the daughter of the King's Mufti or Churchman."—Fort St. Geo. Consn., March 26. In Notes and Exts., No. i. 30.
page 594a1767.—"3d. You will not let the Cauzy or Mufty receive anything from the tenants unlawfully."—Collectors' Instructions, in Long, 511.
1777.—"The Cazi and Muftis now deliver in the following report, on the right of inheritance claimed by the widow and nephew of Shabaz Beg Khan...."—Report on the Patna Cause, quoted in Stephen's Nuncomar and Impey, ii. 167.
1793.—"§ XXXVI. The Cauzies and Muftis of the provincial Courts of Appeal, shall also be cauzies and mufties of the courts of circuit in the several divisions, and shall not be removable, except on proof to the satisfaction of the Governor-General in Council that they are incapable, or have been guilty of misconduct...."—Reg. IX. of 1793.
[c. 1855.—
"Think'st thou I fear the dark vizier, Or the mufti's vengeful arm?" Bon Gaultier, The Cadi's Daughter.]
MUGG, n.p. Beng. Magh. It is impossible to deviate without deterioration from Wilson's definition of this obscure name: "A name commonly applied to the natives of Arakan, particularly those bordering on Bengal, or residing near the sea; the people of Chittagong." It is beside the question of its origin or proper application, to say, as Wilson goes on to say, on the authority of Lieut. (now Sir Arthur) Phayre, that the Arakanese disclaim the title, and restrict it to a class held in contempt, viz. the descendants of Arakanese settlers on the frontier of Bengal by Bengali mothers. The proper names of foreign nations in any language do not require the sanction of the nation to whom they are applied, and are often not recognised by the latter. German is not the German name for the Germans, nor Welsh the Welsh name for the Welsh, nor Hindu (originally) a Hindu word, nor China a Chinese word. The origin of the present word is very obscure. Sir A. Phayre kindly furnishes us with this note: "There is good reason to conclude that the name is derived from Maga, the name of the ruling race for many centuries in Magadha (modern Behar). The kings of Arakan were no doubt originally of this race. For though this is not distinctly expressed in the histories of Arakan, there are several legends of Kings from Benares reigning in that country, and one regarding a Brahman who marries a native princess, and page 594bwhose descendants reign for a long period. I say this, although Buchanan appears to reject the theory (see Montg. Martin, ii. 18 seqq.)" The passage is quoted below.
On the other hand the Mahommedan writers sometimes confound Buddhists with fire-worshippers, and it seems possible that the word may have been Pers. magh = 'magus.' [See Risley, Tribes and Castes, ii. 28 seq.] The Chittagong Muggs long furnished the best class of native cooks in Calcutta; hence the meaning of the last quotation below.
c. 1590.—(In a country adjoining Pegu) "there are mines of ruby and diamond and gold and silver and copper and petroleum and sulphur and (the lord of that country) has war with the tribe of Magh about the mines; also with the tribe of Tipara there are battles."—Āīn (orig.) i. 388; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 120].
c. 1604.—"Defeat of the Magh Rájá.—This short-sighted Rájá ... became elated with the extent of his treasures and the number of his elephants.... He then openly rebelled, and assembling an army at Sunárgánw laid seige to a fort in that vicinity ... Rájá Mán Singh ... despatched a force.... These soon brought the Magh Rájá and all his forces to action ... regardless of the number of his boats and the strength of his artillery."—Ináyatullah, in Elliot, vi. 109.
1638.—"Submission of Manek Ráí, the Mag Rájá of Chittagong."—Abdul-Hamíd Lahori, in do. vii. 66.
c. 1665.—"These many years there have always been in the Kingdom of Rakan or Moy (read Mog) some Portuguese, and with them a great number of their Christian Slaves, and other Franguis.... That was the refuge of the Run-aways from Goa, Ceilan, Cochin, Malague (see MALACCA), and all these other places which the Portugueses formerly held in the Indies."—Bernier, E.T. p. 53; [ed. Constable, 109].
1676.—"In all Bengala this King (of Arakan) is known by no other name but the King of Mogue."—Tavernier, E.T. i. 8.
1752.—"... that as the time of the Mugs draws nigh, they request us to order the pinnace to be with them by the end of next month."—In Long, p. 87.
c. 1810.—"In a paper written by Dr. Leyden, that gentleman supposes ... that Magadha is the country of the people whom we call Muggs.... The term Mugg, these people assured me, is never used by either themselves or by the Hindus, except when page 595aspeaking the jargon commonly called Hindustani by Europeans...."—F. Buchanan, in Eastern India, ii. 18.
1811.—"Mugs, a dirty and disgusting people, but strong and skilful. They are somewhat of the Malayan race."—Solvyns, iii.
MUGGUR, s. Hind. and Mahr. magar and makar, from Skt. makara 'a sea-monster' (see MACAREO). The destructive broad-snouted crocodile of the Ganges and other Indian rivers, formerly called Crocodilus biporcatus, now apparently subdivided into several sorts or varieties.
[1876.—See under NUZZER.]
1878.—"The muggur is a gross pleb, and his features stamp him as low-born. His manners are coarse."—Ph. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 82-3.
1879.—"En route I killed two crocodiles; they are usually called alligators, but that is a misnomer. It is the mugger ... these muggers kill a good many people, and have a playful way of getting under a boat, and knocking off the steersman with their tails, and then swallowing him afterwards."—Pollok, Sport, &c., i. 168.
MUGGRABEE, n.p. Ar. maghrabī, 'western.' This word, applied to western Arabs, or Moors proper, is, as might be expected, not now common in India. It is the term that appears in the Hayraddin Mograbbin of Quentin Durward. From gharb, the root of this word, the Spaniards have the province of Algarve, and both Spanish and Portuguese have garbin, a west wind. [The magician in the tale of Alaeddin is a Maghrabī, and to this day in Languedoc and Gascony Maugraby is used as a term of cursing. (Burton, Ar. Nights, x. 35, 379). Muggerbee is used for a coin (see GUBBER).]
MULL, s. A contraction of Mulligatawny, and applied as a distinctive sobriquet to members of the Service belonging to the Madras Presidency, as Bengal people are called Qui-his, and Bombay people Ducks or Benighted.
[1852.—"... residents of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras are, in Eastern parlance, designated 'Qui Hies,' 'Ducks,' and 'Mulls.'"—Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 165.]
MULLIGATAWNY, s. The name of this well-known soup is simply a corruption of the Tamil milagu-tannīr, 'pepper-water'; showing the correctness of the popular belief which ascribes the origin of this excellent article to Madras, whence—and not merely from the complexion acquired there—the sobriquet of the preceding article.
"In vain our hard fate we repine; In vain on our fortune we rail; On Mullaghee-tawny we dine, Or Congee, in Bangalore Jail." Song by a Gentleman of the Navy (one of Hyder's Prisoners), in Seton-Karr, i. 18.
MULMULL, s. Hind. malmal; Muslin.
1683.—"Ye said Ellis told your Petitioner that he would not take 500 Pieces of your Petitioner's mulmulls unless your Petitioner gave him 200 Rups. which your Petitioner being poor could not page 596ado."—Petition of Rogoodee, Weaver of Hugly, in Hedges, Diary, March 26; [Hak. Soc. i. 73].
MUNCHEEL, MANJEEL, s. This word is proper to the S.W. coast; Malayal. manjīl, mañchal, from Skt. maṅcha. It is the name of a kind of hammock-litter used on that coast as a substitute for palankin or dooly. It is substantially the same as the dandy of the Himālaya, but more elaborate. Correa describes but does not name it.
1811.—"The Inquisition is about a quarter of a mile distant from the convent, and we proceeded thither in manjeels."—Buchanan, Christian Researches, 2nd ed., 171.
1819.—"Muncheel, a kind of litter resembling a sea-cot or hammock, hung to a long pole, with a moveable cover over the whole, to keep off the sun or rain. Six men will run with one from one end of the Malabar coast to the other, while twelve are necessary for the lightest palanquin."—Welsh, ii. 142.
1844.—"Muncheels, with poles complete.... Poles, Muncheel-, Spare."—Jameson's Bombay Code, Ordnance Nomenclature.
1862.—"We ... started ... in Munsheels or hammocks, slung to bamboos, with a shade over them, and carried by six men, who kept up unearthly yells the whole time."—Markham, Peru and India, 353.
A form of this word is used at Réunion, where a kind of palankin is called "le manchy." It gives a title to one of Leconte de Lisle's Poems:
"Sous un nuage frais de claire mousseline Tous les dimanches au matin, Tu venais à la ville en manchy de rotin, Par les rampes de la colline." Le Manchy.
The word has also been introduced by the Portuguese into Africa in the forms maxilla, and machilla.
MUNGOOSE, s. This is the popular Anglo-Indian name of the Indian ichneumons, represented in the South by Mangusta Mungos (Elliot), or Herpestes griseus (Geoffroy) of naturalists, and in Bengal by Herpestes malaccensis. [Blanford (Mammalia, 119 seqq.) recognises eight species, the "Common Indian Mungoose" being described as Herpestes mungo.] The word is Telugu, mangīsu, or mungīsa. In Upper India the animal is called newal, neolā, or nyaul. Jerdon gives mangūs however as a Deccani and Mahr. word; [Platts gives it as dialectic, and very doubtfully derives it from Skt. makshu, 'moving quickly.' In Ar. it is bint-'arūs, 'daughter of the bridegroom,' in Egypt kitt or katt Farāūn, 'Pharaoh's cat' (Burton, Ar. Nights, ii. 369)].
1681.—"The knowledge of these antidotal herbs they have learned from the Mounggutia, a kind of Ferret."—Knox, 115.
Bluteau gives the following as a quotation from a History of Ceylon, tr. from Portuguese into French, published at Paris in 1701, p. 153. It is in fact the gist of an anecdote in Ribeyro.
1774.—"He (the Dharma Raja of Bhootan) has got a little lap-dog and a Mungoos, which he is very fond of."—Bogle's Diary, in Markham's Tibet, 27.
page 597a1790.—"His (Mr. Glan's) experiments have also established a very curious fact, that the ichneumon, or mungoose, which is very common in this country, and kills snakes without danger to itself, does not use antidotes ... but that the poison of snakes is, to this animal, innocent."—Letter in Colebrooke's Life, p. 40.
MUNJEET, s. Hind. majīṭh, Skt. maṅjishṭha; a dye-plant (Rubia cordifolia, L., N.O. Cinchonaceae); 'Bengal Madder.'
MUNNEEPORE, n.p. Properly Manipūr; a quasi-independent State lying between the British district of Cachar on the extreme east of Bengal, and the upper part of the late kingdom of Burma, and in fact including a part of the watershed between the tributaries of the Brahmaputra and those of the Irawadi. The people are of genuinely Indo-Chinese and Mongoloid aspect, and the State, small and secluded as it is, has had its turn in temporary conquest and domination, like almost all the States of Indo-China from the borders of Assam to the mouth of the Mekong. Like the other Indo-Chinese States, too, Manipūr has its royal chronicle, but little seems to have been gathered from it. The Rājas and people have, for a period which seems uncertain, professed Hindu religion. A disastrous invasion of Manipūr by Alompra, founder of the present Burmese dynasty, in 1755, led a few years afterwards to negotiations with the Bengal Government, and the conclusion of a treaty, in consequence of which a body of British sepoys was actually despatched in 1763, but eventually returned without reaching Manipūr. After this, intercourse practically ceased till the period of our first Burmese War (1824-25), when the country was overrun by the Burmese, who also entered Cachar; and British troops, joined with a Manipūrī force, expelled them. Since then a British officer has always been resident at Manipūr, and at one time (c. 1838-41) a great deal of labour was expended on opening a road between Cachar and Manipūr. [The murder of Mr. Quinton, Chief-Commissioner of Assam, and other British officers at Manipūr, in the close of 1890, led to the page 597binfliction of severe punishment on the leaders of the outbreak. The Mahārāja, whose abdication led to this tragedy, died in Calcutta in the following year, and the State is now under British management during the minority of his successor.]
This State has been called by a variety of names. Thus, in Rennell's Memoir and maps of India it bears the name of Meckley. In Symes's Narrative, and in maps of that period, it is Cassay; names, both of which have long disappeared from modern maps. Meckley represents the name (Makli?) by which the country was known in Assam; Mogli (apparently a form of the same) was the name in Cachar; Ka-sé or Ka-thé (according to the Ava pronunciation) is the name by which it is known to the Shans or Burmese.
1759.—"Cassay, which ... lies to the N. Westward of Ava, is a Country, so far as I can learn, hitherto unheard of in Europe...."—Letter, dd. 22 June 1759, in ibid. 116.
[1762.—"... the President sent the Board a letter which he had received from Mr. Verelst at Chittagong, containing an invitation which had been made to him and his Council by the Rajah of Meckley to assist him in obtaining redress ... from the Burmas...."—Letter, in Wheeler, Early Records, 291.]
1763.—"Meckley is a Hilly Country, and is bounded on the North, South, and West by large tracts of Cookie Mountains, which prevent any intercourse with the countries beyond them; and on the East by the Burampoota (see BURRAMPOOTER); beyond the Hills, to the North by Asam and Poong; to the West Cashar; to the South and East the Burmah Country, which lies between Meckley and China.... The Burampoota is said to divide, somewhere to the north of Poong, into two large branches, one of which passes through Asam, and down by the way of Dacca, the other through Poong into the Burma Country."—Acct. of Meckley, by Nerher Doss Gosseen, in Dalrymple's Or. Rep., ii. 477-478.
" "... there is about seven days plain country between Moneypoor and Burampoota, after crossing which, about page 598aseven days, Jungle and Hills, to the inhabited border of the Burmah country."—Ibid. 481.
1793.—"... The first ridge of mountains towards Thibet and Bootan, forms the limit of the survey to the north; to which I may now add, that the surveys extend no farther eastward, than the frontiers of Assam and Meckley.... The space between Bengal and China, is occupied by the province of Meckley and other districts, subject to the King of Burmah, or Ava...."—Rennell's Memoir, 295.
1799.—(Referring to 1757). "Elated with success Alompra returned to Monchaboo, now the seat of imperial government. After some months ... he took up arms against the Cassayers.... Having landed his troops, he was preparing to advance to Munnepoora, the capital of Cassay, when information arrived that the Peguers had revolted...."—Symes, Narrative, 41-42.
" "All the troopers in the King's service are natives of Cassay, who are much better horsemen than the Birmans."—Ibid. 318.
1819.—"Beyond the point of Negraglia (see NEGRAIS), as far as Azen (see ASSAM), and even further, there is a small chain of mountains that divides Aracan and Cassé from the Burmese...."—Sangermano, p. 33.
1827.—"The extensive area of the Burman territory is inhabited by many distinct nations or tribes, of whom I have heard not less than eighteen enumerated. The most considerable of these are the proper Burmans, the Peguans or Talains, the Shans or people of Lao, the Cassay, or more correctly Kathé...."—Crawfurd's Journal, 372.
1855.—"The weaving of these silks ... gives employment to a large body of the population in the suburbs and villages round the capital, especially to the Munnipoorians, or Kathé, as they are called by the Burmese.
MUNSUBDAR. Hind. from Pers. manṣabdār, 'the holder of office or dignity' (Ar. manṣab). The term was used to indicate quasi-feudal dependents of the Mogul Government who had territory assigned to them, on condition of their supplying a certain number of page 598bhorse, 500, 1000 or more. In many cases the title was but nominal, and often it was assumed without warrant. [Mr. Irvine discusses the question at length and represents manṣab by "the word 'rank,' as its object was to settle precedence and fix gradation of pay; it did not necessarily imply the exercise of any particular office, and meant nothing beyond the fact that the holder was in the employ of the State, and bound in return to yield certain services when called upon." (J.R.A.S., July 1896, pp. 510 seqq.)]
[1623.—"... certain Officers of the Militia, whom they call Mansubdàr."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 97.]
c. 1665.—"Mansebdars are Cavaliers of Manseb, which is particular and honourable Pay; not so great indeed as that of the Omrahs ... they being esteemed as little Omrahs, and of the rank of those, that are advanced to that dignity."—Bernier, E.T. p. 67; [ed. Constable, 215].
1673.—"Munsubdars or petty omrahs."—Fryer, 195.
MUNTRA, s. Skt. mantra, 'a text of the Vedas; a magical formula.'
1776.—"Mantur—a text of the Shaster."—Halhed, Code, p. 17.
MUNTREE, s. Skt. Mantri. A minister or high official. The word is especially affected in old Hindu States, and in the Indo-Chinese and Malay States which derive their ancient civilisation from India. It is the word which the Portuguese made into mandarin (q.v.).
[1811.—"Mantri." See under ORANKAY.
MUNZIL, s. Ar. manzil, 'descending or alighting,' hence the halting place of a stage or march, a day's stage.
MUSCÁT, n.p., properly Măskăt. A port and city of N.E. Arabia; for a long time the capital of 'Omān. (See IMAUM.)
MUSIC. There is no matter in which the sentiments of the people of India differ more from those of Englishmen than on that of music, and curiously enough the one kind of Western music which they appreciate, and seem to enjoy, is that of the bagpipe. This is testified by Captain Munro in the passage quoted below; but it was also shown during Lord Canning's visit to Lahore in 1860, in a manner which dwells in the memory of one of the present writers. The escort consisted of part of a Highland regiment. A venerable Sikh chief who heard the pipes exclaimed: 'That is indeed music! it is like that which we hear of in ancient story, which was so exquisite that the hearers became insensible (behosh).'
MUSK, s. We get this word from the Lat. muschus, Greek μόσχος, and the latter must have been got, probably through Persian, from the Skt. mushka, the literal meaning of which is rendered in the old English phrase 'a cod of musk.' The oldest known European mention of the article is that which we give from St. Jerome; the oldest medical prescription is in a work of Aetius, of Amida (c. 540). In the page 599bquotation from Cosmas the word used is μόσχος, and kastūri is a Skt. name, still, according to Royle, applied to the musk-deer in the Himālaya. The transfer of the name to (or from) the article called by the Greeks καστόριον, which is an analogous product of the beaver, is curious. The Musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus, L.) is found throughout the Himālaya at elevations rarely (in summer) below 8000 feet, and extends east to the borders of Szechuen, and north to Siberia.
c. 545.—"This little animal is the Musk (μόσχος). The natives call it in their own tongue καστοῦρι. They hunt it and shoot it, and binding tight the blood collected about the navel they cut this off, and this is the sweet smelling part of it, and what we call musk."—Cosmas Indicopleustes, Bk. xi.
["Muske commeth from Tartaria.... There is a certaine beast in Tartaria, which is wilde and big as a wolfe, which beast they take aliue, and beat him to death with small stanes y$^t$ his blood may be spread through his whole body, then they cut it in pieces, and take out all the bones, and beat the flesh with the blood in a mortar very smal, and dry it, and make purses to put it in of the skin, and these be the Cods of Muske."—Caesar Frederick, in Hakl. ii. 372.]
MUSK-RAT, s. The popular name of the Sorex caerulescens, Jerdon, [Crocidura caerulea, Blanford], an animal having much the figure of the common shrew, but nearly as large as a small brown rat. It diffuses a strong musky odour, so penetrative that it is commonly asserted to affect bottled beer by running over the bottles in a cellar. As Jerdon judiciously observes, it is much more probable that the corks have been affected before being used in bottling; [and Blanford (Mammalia, 237) writes that "the absurd story ... is less credited in India than it formerly was, owing to the discovery that liquors bottled in Europe and exported to India are not liable to be tainted."] When the female is in heat she is often seen to be followed by a string of males giving out the odour strongly. Can page 600athis be the mus peregrinus mentioned by St. Jerome (see MUSK), as P. Vincenzo supposes?
[1598.—"They are called sweet smelling Rattes, for they have a smell as if they were full of Muske."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 303.]
1653.—"Les rats d'Inde sont de deux sortes.... La deuxiesme espece que les Portugais appellent cheroso ou odoriferant est de la figure d'vn furet" (a ferret), "mais extremement petit, sa morseure est veneneuse. Lorsqu'il entre en vne chambre l'on le sent incontinent, et l'on l'entend crier krik, krik, krik."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 256. I may note on this that Jerdon says of the Sorex murinus,—the large musk-rat of China, Burma, and the Malay countries, extending into Lower Bengal and Southern India, especially the Malabar coast, where it is said to be the common species (therefore probably that known to our author),—that the bite is considered venomous by the natives (Mammals, p. 54), [a belief for which, according to Blanford (l.c. p. 236), there is no foundation].
1672.—P. Vincenzo Maria, speaking of his first acquaintance with this animal (il ratto del musco), which occurred in the Capuchin Convent at Surat, says with simplicity (or malignity?): "I was astonished to perceive an odour so fragrant in the vicinity of those most religious Fathers, with whom I was at the moment in conversation."—Viaggio, p. 385.
1681.—"This country has its vermin also. They have a sort of Rats they call Musk-rats, because they smell strong of musk. These the inhabitants do not eat of, but of all other sorts of Rats they do."—Knox, p. 31.
1789.—H. Munro in his Narrative (p. 34) absurdly enough identifies this animal with the Bandicoot, q.v.
MUSLIN, s. There seems to be no doubt that this word is derived from Mosul (Mauṣal or Mauṣil) on the Tigris, and it has been from an old date the name of a texture, but apparently not always that of the thin semi-transparent tissue to which we now apply it. Dozy (p. 323) says that the Arabs employ mauṣili in the same page 600bsense as our word, quoting the Arabian Nights (Macnaghten's ed., i. 176, and ii. 159), in both of which the word indicates the material of a fine turban. [Burton (i. 211) translates 'Mosul stuff,' and says it may mean either of 'Mosul fashion,' or muslin.] The quotation from Ives, as well as that from Marco Polo, seems to apply to a different texture from what we call muslin.
c. 1544.—"Almussoli est regio in Mesopotamia, in qua texuntur telae ex bombyce valde pulchrae, quae apud Syros et Aegyptios et apud mercatores Venetos appellantur mussoli, ex hoc regionis nomine. Et principes Aegyptii et Syri, tempore aestatis sedentes in loco honorauiliori induunt vestes ex hujusmodi mussoli."—Andreae Bellunensis, Arabicorum nominum quae in libris Avicennae sparsim legebantur Interpretatio.
1573.—"... you have all sorts of Cotton-works, Handkerchiefs, long Fillets, Girdles ... and other sorts, by the Arabians called Mossellini (after the Country Mussoli, from whence they are brought, which is situated in Mesopotamia), by us Muslin."—Rauwolff, p. 84.
c. 1580.—"For the rest the said Agiani (misprint for Bagnani, Banyans) wear clothes of white mussolo or sessa (?); having their garments very long and crossed over the breast."—Gasparo Balbi, f. 33b.
1673.—"Le drap qu'on estend sur les matelas est d'une toille aussy fine que de la mousceline."—App. to Journal d'Ant. Galland, ii. 198.
1685.—"I have been told by several, that muscelin (so much in use here for cravats) and Calligo (!), and the most of the Indian linens, are made of nettles, and I see not the least improbability but that they may be made of the fibres of them."—Dr. Hans Sloane to Mr. Ray, in Ray Correspondence, 1848, p. 163.
MUSNUD, s. H.—Ar. masnad, from root sanad, 'he leaned or rested upon it.' The large cushion, &c., used by native Princes in India, in place of a throne.
1757.—"On the 29th the Colonel went to the Soubah's Palace, and in the presence of all the Rajahs and great men of the court, page 601aled him to the Musland...."—Reflexions by Luke Scrafton, Esq., ed. 1770, p. 93.
1803.—"The Peshwah arrived yesterday, and is to be seated on the musnud."—A. Wellesley, in Munro's Life, i. 343.
1809.—"In it was a musnud, with a carpet, and a little on one side were chairs on a white cloth."—Ld. Valentia, i. 346.
1824.—"They spread fresh carpets, and prepared the royal musnud, covering it with a magnificent shawl."—Hajji Baba, ed. 1835, p. 142.
MUSSALLA, s. P.—H. (with change of sense from Ar. maṣāliḥ, pl. of maṣlaḥa) 'materials, ingredients,' lit. 'things for the good of, or things or affairs conducive to good.' Though sometimes used for the ingredients of any mixture, e.g. to form a cement, the most usual application is to spices, curry-stuffs and the like. There is a tradition of a very gallant Governor-General that he had found it very tolerable, on a sharp but brief campaign, to "rough it on chuprassies and mussaulchees" (qq.v.), meaning chupatties and mussalla.
MUSSAUL, s. Hind. from Ar. mash'al, 'a torch.' It is usually made of rags wrapt round a rod, and fed at intervals with oil from an earthen pot.
1673.—"The Duties march like Furies with their lighted mussals in their hands, they are Pots filled with Oyl in an Iron Hoop like our Beacons, and set on fire by stinking rags."—Fryer, 33.
1705.—"... flambeaux qu'ils appellent Mansalles."—Luillier, 89.
1809.—"These Mussal or link-boys."—Ld. Valentia, i. 17.
page 601b1810.—"The Mosaul, or flambeau, consists of old rags, wrapped very closely round a small stick."—Williamson, V. M. i. 219.
[1813.—"These nocturnal processions illumined by many hundred massauls or torches, illustrate the parable of the ten virgins...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 274.
MUSSAULCHEE, s. Hind. mash'alchī from mash'al (see MUSSAUL), with the Turkish termination chī, generally implying an agent. [In the Arabian Nights (Burton, i. 239) al-masha'ilī is the executioner.] The word properly means a link-boy, and was formerly familiar in that sense as the epithet of the person who ran alongside of a palankin on a night journey, bearing a mussaul. "In Central India it is the special duty of the barber (nāī) to carry the torch; hence nāī commonly = 'torch-bearer'" (M.-Gen. Keatinge). The word [or sometimes in the corrupt form mussaul] is however still more frequent as applied to a humble domestic, whose duty was formerly of a like kind, as may be seen in the quotation from Ld. Valentia, but who now looks after lamps and washes dishes, &c., in old English phrase 'a scullion.'
1662.—(In Asam) "they fix the head of the corpse rigidly with poles, and put a lamp with plenty of oil, and a mash'alchí [torch-bearer] alive into the vault, to look after the lamp."—Shihábuddín Tálish, tr. by Blochmann, in J.A.S.B. xli. Pt. i. 82.
[1665.—"They (flambeaux) merely consist of a piece of iron hafted in a stick, and surrounded at the extremity with linen rags steeped in oil, which are renewed ... by the Masalchis, or link boys, who carry the oil in long narrow-necked vessels of iron or brass."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 361.]
1673.—"Trois Massalgis du Grand Seigneur vinrent faire honneur à M. l'Ambassadeur avec leurs feux allumés."—Journal d'Ant. Galland, ii. 103.
1686.—"After strict examination he chose out 2 persons, the Chout (Chous?), an Armenian, who had charge of watching my tent that night, and my Mossalagee, a person who carries the light before me in the night."—Hedges, Diary, July 2; [Hak. Soc. i. 232].
[1775.—"... Mashargues, Torch-bearers."—Letter of W. Mackrabie, in Francis, Letters, i. 227.]
page 602a1791.—"... un masolchi, ou porte-flambeau, pour la nuit."—B. de St. Pierre, La Chaumière Indienne, 16.
1809.—"It is universally the custom to drive out between sunset and dinner. The Massalchees, when it grows dark, go out to meet their masters on their return, and run before them, at the full rate of eight miles an hour, and the numerous lights moving along the esplanade produce a singular and pleasing effect."—Ld. Valentia, i. 240.
1813.—"The occupation of massaulchee, or torch-bearer, although generally allotted to the village barber, in the purgannas under my charge, may vary in other districts."—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 417; [2nd ed. ii. 43].
1826.—"After a short conversation, they went away, and quickly returned at the head of 200 men, accompanied by Mussalchees or torch-bearers."—Pandurang Hari, 557; [ed. 1873, ii. 69].
MUSSENDOM, CAPE, n.p. The extreme eastern point of Arabia, at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. Properly speaking, it is the extremity of a small precipitous island of the name, which protrudes beyond the N.E. horn of 'Omān. The name is written Masándim in the map which Dr. Badger gives with his H. of 'Oman. But it is Rās Masandam (or possibly Masandum) in the Mohit of Sidi 'Ali Kapudān (J. As. Soc. Ben., v. 459). Sprenger writes Mosandam (Alt. Geog. Arabiens, p. 107). [Morier gives another explanation (see the quotation below).]
1553.—"... before you come to Cape Moçandan, which Ptolemy calls Asaboro (Ἀσαβῶν ἄκρον) and which he puts in 23½°, but which we put in 26°; and here terminates our first division" (of the Eastern Coasts).—Barros, I. ix. 1.
1572.—
"Olha o cabo Asabóro que chamado Agora he Moçandão dos navegantes: Por aqui entra o lago, que he fechado De Arabia, e Persias terras abundantes." Camões, x. 102.
By Burton:
"Behold of Asabón the Head, now hight Mosandam, by the men who plough the Main: Here lies the Gulf whose long and lake-like Bight, parts Araby from fertile Persia's plain."
page 602bThe fact that the poet copies the misprint or mistake of Barros in Asaboro, shows how he made use of that historian.
1673.—"On the one side St. Jaques (see JASK) his Headland, on the other that of Mussendown appeared, and afore Sunset we entered the Straights Mouth."—Fryer, 221.
1727.—"The same Chain of rocky Mountains continue as high as Zear, above Cape Musenden, which Cape and Cape Jaques begin the Gulf of Persia."—A. Hamilton, i. 71; [ed. 1744, i. 73].
1777.—"At the mouth of the Strait of Mocandon, which leads into the Persian gulph, lies the island of Gombroon" (?)—Raynal, tr. 1777, i. 86.
MUSSOOLA, MUSSOOLAH, BOAT, s. The surf boat used on the Coromandel Coast; of capacious size, and formed of planks sewn together with coir-twine; the open joints being made good with a caulking or wadding of twisted coir. The origin of the word is very obscure. Leyden thought it was derived from "masoula ... the Mahratta term for fish" (Morton's Life of Leyden, 64). As a matter of fact the Mahr. word for fish is māsolī, Konk. măsūlī. This etymology is substantially adopted by Bp. Heber (see below); [and by the compiler of the Madras Gloss., who gives Tel. māsūla, Hind. machhlī]. But it may be that the word is some Arabic sea-term not in the dictionaries. Indeed, if the term used by C. Federici (below) be not a clerical error, it suggests a possible etymology from the Ar. masad, 'the fibrous bark of the palm-tree, a rope made of it.' Another suggestion is from the Ar. mauṣūl, 'joined,' as opposed to 'dug-out,' or canoes; or possibly it may be from maḥsūl, 'tax,' if these boats were subject to a tax. Lastly it is possible that the name may be connected with Masulipatam (q.v.), where similar boats would seem to have been in use (see Fryer, 26). But these are conjectures. The quotation from Gasparo Balbi gives a good account of the handling of these boats, but applies no name to them.
c. 1580.—"... where (Negapatam) they cannot land anything but in the Maçules of the same country."—Primor e Honra, &c., f. 93.
c. 1582.—"... There is always a heavy sea there (San Thomé), from swell or storm; so the merchandise and passengers are transported from shipboard to the town by certain boats which are sewn with fine cords, and when they approach the beach, where the sea breaks with great violence, they wait till the perilous wave has past, and then, in the interval between one wave and the next, those boatmen pull with great force, and so run ashore; and being there overtaken by the waves they are carried still further up the beach. And the boats do not break, because they give to the wave, and because the beach is covered with sand, and the boats stand upright on their bottoms."—G. Balbi, f. 89.
1673.—"I went ashore in a Mussoola, a Boat wherein ten Men paddle, the two aftermost of whom are Steersmen, using their Paddles instead of a Rudder. The Boat is not strengthened with Knee-Timbers, as ours are; the bended Planks are sowed together with Rope-Yarn of the Cocoe, and calked with Dammar (see DAMMER) (a sort of Resin taken out of the Sea), so artificially that it yields to every ambitious Surf."—Fryer, 37.
[1677.—"Mesullas." See MUCOA.]
1678.—"Three Englishmen drowned by upsetting of a Mussoola boat. The fourth on board saved with the help of the Muckwas" (see MUCOA).—Ft. St. Geo. Consn., Aug. 13. Notes and Exts., No. i. p. 78.
1679.—"A Mussoolee being overturned, although it was very smooth water and no surf, and one Englishman being drowned, a Dutchman being with difficulty recovered, the Boatmen were seized and put in prison, one escaping."—Ibid. July 14. In No. ii. p. 16.
[1683.—"This Evening about seven a Clock a Mussula coming ashoar ... was oversett in the Surf and all four drowned."—Pringle, Diary, Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. ii. 54.]
1685.—"This morning two Musoolas and two Cattamarans came off to ye Shippe."—Hedges, Diary, Feb. 3; [Hak. Soc. i. 182].
1760.—"As soon as the yawls and pinnaces reached the surf they dropped their graplings, and cast off the masoolas, which immediately rowed ashore, and landed the troops."—Orme, iii. 617.
1762.—"No European boat can land, but the natives make use of a boat of a particular construction called a Mausolo," &c.—MS. Letter of James Rennell, April 1.
[1773.—"... the governor ... sent also four Mossulas, or country boats, to accommodate him...."—Ives, 182.]
page 603b1783.—"The want of Massoola boats (built expressly for crossing the surf) will be severely felt."—In Life of Colebrooke, 9.
1826.—"The masuli-boats (which first word is merely a corruption of 'muchli,' fish) have been often described, and except that they are sewed together with coco-nut twine, instead of being fastened with nails, they very much resemble the high, deep, charcoal boats ... on the Ganges."—Heber, ed. 1844, ii. 174.
MUSSUCK, s. The leathern water-bag, consisting of the entire skin of a large goat, stript of the hair and dressed, which is carried by a bhishtī (see BHEESTY). Hind. mashak, Skt. maśaka.
[1751.—"7 hands of Musuk" (probably meaning Bhistis).—In Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. II. xi.]
MUSSULMAN, adj. and s. Mahommedan. Muslim, 'resigning' or 'submitting' (sc. oneself to God), is the name given by Mahommed to the Faithful. The Persian plural of this is Muslimân, which appears to have been adopted as a singular, and the word Muslimān or Musalmān thus formed. [Others explain it as either from Ar. pl. Muslimīn, or from Muslim-mān, 'like a Muslim,' the former of which is adopted by Platts as most probable.]
c. 1540.—"... disse por tres vezes, Lah, hilah, hilah, lah Muhamed roçol halah, o Massoleymoens e homes justos da santa ley de Mafamede."—Pinto, ch. lix.
1559.—"Although each horde (of Tartars) has its proper name, e.g. particularly the horde of the Savolhensians ... and many others, which are in truth Mahometans; yet do they hold it for a grievous insult and reproach to be called and styled Turks; they page 604awish to be styled Besermani, and by this name the Turks also desire to be styled."—Herberstein, in Ramusio, ii. f. 171.
[1568.—"I have noted here before that if any Christian will become a Busorman, ... and be a Mahumetan of their religion, they give him many gifts ..."—A. Edward, in Hakl. i. 442.]
c. 1580.—"Tutti sopradetti Tartari seguitano la fede de' Turchi et alla Turchesca credono, ma si tẽgono a gran vergogna, e molto si corrociano l'esser detti Turchi, secondo che all'incontro godono d'esser Besurmani, cioè gẽte eletta, chiamati."—Descrittione della Sarmatia Evropea del magn. caval. Aless. Gvagnino, in Ramusio, ii. Pt. ii. f. 72.
1619.—"... i Musulmani, cioè i salvati: che cosa pazzamente si chiamano fra di loro i maomettani."—P. della Valle, i. 794.
" "The precepts of the Moslemans are first, circumcision ..."—Gabriel Sionita, in Purchas, ii. 1504.
1653.—"... son infanterie d'Indistannis Mansulmans, ou Indiens de la secte des Sonnis."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, 233.
1673.—"Yet here are a sort of bold, lusty, and most an end, drunken Beggars of the Musslemen Cast, that if they see a Christian in good clothes, mounted on a stately horse ... are presently upon their Punctilio's with God Almighty, and interrogate him, Why he suffers him to go a Foot, and in Rags, and this Coffery (see CAFFER) (Unbeliever) to vaunt it thus?"—Fryer, 91.
MUST, adj. Pers. mast, 'drunk.' It is applied in Persia also, and in India specially, to male animals, such as elephants and camels, in a state of periodical excitement.
MUSTEES, MESTIZ, &c., s. A half-caste. A corruption of the Port. mestiço, having the same meaning; "a mixling; applied to human beings and animals born of a father and mother of different species, like a mule" (Bluteau); French, métis and métif.
1552.—"... the sight of whom as soon as they came, caused immediately to gather about them a number of the natives, Moors in belief, and Negroes with curly hair in appearance, and some of them only swarthy, as being mistiços."—Barros, I. ii. 1.
1586.—"... che se sono nati qua di donne indiane, gli domandano mestizi."—Sassetti, in De Gubernatis, 188.
1588.—"... an Interpretour ... which was a Mestizo, that is halfe an Indian, and halfe a Portugall."—Candish, in Hakl. iv. 337.
c. 1610.—"Le Capitaine et les Marchands estoient Mestifs, les autres Indiens Christianisez."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 165; [Hak. Soc. i. 78; also see i. 240]. This author has also Métifs (ii. 10; [Hak. Soc. i. 373]), and again: "... qu'ils appellent Metices, c'est à dire Metifs, meslez" (ii. 23; [Hak. Soc. ii. 38]).
" "Ie vy vne monstre generalle de tous les Habitans portans armes, tant Portugais que Metices et Indiens, et se trouuerent environ 4000."—Moquet, 352.
[1615.—"A Mestiso came to demand passage in our junck."—Cocks's Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 216.]
1653.—(At Goa) "Les Mestissos sont de plusieurs sortes, mais fort mesprisez des Reinols et Castissos (see CASTEES), parce qu'il y a eu vn peu de sang noir dans la generation de leurs ancestres ... la tache d'auoir eu pour ancestre une Indienne leur demeure iusques à la centiesme generation: ils peuuent toutesfois estre soldats et Capitaines de forteresses ou de vaisseaux, s'ils font profession de suiure les armes, et s'ils se iettent du costé de l'Eglise ils peuuent estre Lecteurs, mais non Prouinciaux."—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, p. 226.
c. 1665.—"And, in a word, Bengale is a country abounding in all things; and 'tis for this very reason that so many Portuguese, Mesticks, and other Christians are fled thither."—Bernier, E.T. 140; [ed. Constable, 438].
[1673.—"Beyond the Outworks live a few Portugals Musteroes or Misteradoes."—Fryer, 57.]
1678.—"Noe Roman Catholick or Papist, whether English or of any other nation shall bear office in this Garrison, and shall have no more pay than 80 fanams per mensem, as private centinalls, and the pay of those of the Portuguez nation, as Europeans, Musteeses, and Topasees, is from 70 to 40 fanams per mensem."—Articles and Orders ... of Ft. St. Geo., Madraspatam. In Notes and Exts., i. 88.
1699.—"Wives of Freemen, Mustees."—Census of Company's Servants on the Coast, in Wheeler, i. 356.
1727.—"A poor Seaman had got a pretty Mustice Wife."—A. Hamilton, ii. 10; [ed. 1744, ii. 8].
page 605a1781.—"Eloped from the service of his Mistress a Slave Boy aged 20 years, or thereabouts, pretty white or colour of Musty, tall and slinder."—Hicky's Bengal Gazette, Feb. 24.
1799.—"August 13th.... Visited by appointment ... Mrs. Carey, the last survivor of those unfortunate persons who were imprisoned in the Black Hole of Calcutta.... This lady, now fifty-eight years of age, as she herself told me, is ... of a fair Mesticia colour.... She confirmed all which Mr. Holwell has said...."—Note by Thomas Boileau (an attorney in Calcutta, the father of Major-Generals John Theophilus and A. H. E. Boileau, R.E. (Bengal)), quoted in Echoes of Old Calcutta, 34.
1834.—"You don't know these Baboos.... Most of them now-a-days have their Misteesa Beebees, and their Moosulmaunees, and not a few their Gora Beebees likewise."—The Baboo, &c., 167-168.
MUSTER, s. A pattern, or a sample. From Port. mostra (Span. muestra, Ital. mostra). The word is current in China, as well as India. See Wells Williams's Guide, 237.
1563.—"And they gave me a mostra of amomum, which I brought to Goa, and showed to the apothecaries here; and I compared it with the drawings of the simples of Dioscorides."—Garcia, f. 15.
1601.—"Musters and Shewes of Gold."—Old Transl. of Galvano, Hak. Soc. p. 83.
1612.—"A Moore came aboord with a muster of Cloves."—Saris, in Purchas, i. 357.
[1612-13.—"Mustraes." See under CORGE.]
1673.—"Merchants bringing and receiving Musters."—Fryer, 84.
1702.—"... Packing Stuff, Packing Materials, Musters."—Quinquepartite Indenture, in Charters of the E.I. Co., 325.
1727.—"He advised me to send to the King ... that I designed to trade with his Subjects ... which I did, and in twelve Days received an Answer that I might, but desired me to send some person up with Musters of all my Goods."—A. Hamilton, ii. 200; [ed. 1744].
page 605bc. 1760.—"He (the tailor) never measures you; he only asks master for muster, as he terms it, that is for a pattern."—Ives, 52.
1772.—"The Governor and Council of Bombay must be written to, to send round Musters of such kinds of silk, and silk piece-goods, of the manufacture of Bengal, as will serve the market of Surat and Bombay."—Price's Travels, i. 39.
MUTLUB, s. Hind. from Ar. maṭlab. The Ar. from ṭalab, 'he asked,' properly means a question, hence intention, wish, object, &c. In Anglo-Indian use it always means 'purpose, gist,' and the like. Illiterate natives by a common form of corruption turn the word into matbal. In the Punjab this occurs in printed books; and an adjective is formed, matbalī, 'opinionated,' and the like.
MUTT, MUTH, s. Skt. maṭha; a sort of convent where a celibate priest (or one making such profession) lives with disciples making the same profession, one of whom becomes his successor. Buildings of this kind are very common all over India, and some are endowed with large estates.
MUTTONGOSHT, s. (i.e. 'Mutton-flesh.') Anglo-Indian domestic Hind. for 'Mutton.'
MUTTONGYE, s. Sea-Hind. matangai, a (nautical) martingale; a corruption of the Eng. word.
MUTTRA, n.p. A very ancient and holy Hindu city on the Jumna, 30 miles above Agra. The name is Mathura, and it appears in Ptolemy as Μόδουρα ἡ τῶν Θεῶν. The sanctity of the name has caused it to be applied in numerous new localities; see under MADURA. [Tavernier (ed. Ball, ii. 240) calls it Matura, and Bernier (ed. Constable, 66), Maturas.]
MUXADABAD, n.p. Ar.—P. Maḳṣūdābād, a name that often occurs page 606ain books of the 18th century. It pertains to the same city that has latterly been called Murshidābād, the capital of the Nawābs of Bengal since the beginning of the 18th century. The town Maḳṣūdābād is stated by Tiefenthaler to have been founded by Akbar. The Governor of Bengal, Murshid Ḳulī Khān (also called in English histories Jafier Khan), moved the seat of Government hither in 1704, and gave the place his own name. It is written Muxudavad in the early English records down to 1760 (Sir W. W. Hunter).
1684.—"Dec. 26.—In ye morning I went to give Bulchund a visit according to his invitation, who rose up and embraced me when I came near him, enquired of my health and bid me welcome to Muxoodavad...."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 59.
1703-4.—"The first act of the Nuwab, on his return to Bengal, was to change the name of the city of Makhsoosabad to Moorshudabad; and by establishing in it the mint, and by erecting a palace ... to render it the capital of the Province."—Stewart, H. of Bengal, 309.
1726.—"Moxadabath."—Valentijn, Chorom., &c., 147.
1727.—"Muxadabaud is but 12 miles from it (Cossimbazar), a Place of much greater Antiquity, and the Mogul has a Mint there; but the ancient name of Muxadabaud has been changed for Rajahmal, for above a Century."—A. Hamilton, ii. 20; [ed. 1744]. (There is great confusion in this.)
1751.—"I have heard that Ram Kissen Seat, who lives in Calcutta, has carried goods to that place without paying the Muxidavad Syre (see SAYER) Chowkey duties. I am greatly surprised, and send a Chubdar to bring him, and desire you will be speedy in delivering him over."—Letter from Nawab Allyverdi Caun to the Prest. of Council, dated Muxidavad, May 20.
1753.—"En omettant quelques lieux de moindre considération, je m'arrête d'abord à Mocsudabad. Ce nom signifie ville de la monnoie. Et en effet c'est là où se frappe celle du pays; et un grand fauxbourg de cette ville, appelé Azingonge, est la résidence du Nabab, qui gouverne le Bengale presque souverainement."—D'Anville, 63.
1756.—"The Nabob, irritated by the disappointment of his expectations of immense wealth, ordered Mr. Holwell and the two other prisoners to be sent to Muxadavad."—Orme, iii. 79.
1782.—"You demand an account of the East Indies, the Mogul's dominions and Muxadabad.... I imagine when you made the above requisition that you did it with a view rather to try my knowledge page 606bthan to increase your own, for your great skill in geography would point out to you that Muxadabad is as far from Madras, as Constantinople is from Glasgow."—T. Munro to his brother William, in Life, &c. iii. 41.
MUZBEE, s. The name of a class of Sikhs originally of low caste, vulg. mazbī, apparently maẓhabī from Ar. maẓhab, 'religious belief.' Cunningham indeed says that the name was applied to Sikh converts from Mahommedanism (History, p. 379). But this is not the usual application now. ["When the sweepers have adopted the Sikh faith they are known as Mazhabis.... When the Chuhra is circumcised and becomes a Musulman, he is known as a Musalli or a Kotána" (Maclagan, Panjab Census Rep., 1891, p. 202).] The original corps of Muzbees, now represented by the 32nd Bengal N.I. (Pioneers) was raised among the men labouring on the Baree Doab Canal.
MYDAN, MEIDAUN, s. Hind. from Pers. maidān. An open space, an esplanade, parade-ground or green, in or adjoining a town; a piazza (in the Italian sense); any open plain with grass on it; a chaugān (see CHICANE) ground; a battle-field. In Ar., usually, a hippodrome or race-course.
1618.—"When it is the hour of complines, or a little later to speak exactly, it is the time for the promenade, and every one goes on horseback to the meidan, which is always kept clean, watered by a number of men whose business this is, who water it carrying the water in skins slung over the shoulder, and usually well shaded and very cool."—P. della Valle, i. 707.
c. 1665.—"Celui (Quervansera) des Étrangers est bien plus spacieux que l'autre et est quarré, et tous deux font face au Meidan."—Thevenot, v. 214.
1670.—"Before this house is a great square meidan or promenade, planted on all sides with great trees, standing in rows."—Andriesz, 35.
1673.—"The Midan, or open Space before the Caun's Palace, is an Oblong and Stately Piatzo, with real not belied Cloisters."—Fryer, 249.
1828.—"All this was done with as much coolness and precision, as if he had been at exercise upon the maidaun."—The Kuzzilbash, i. 223.
MYNA, MINA, &c. s. Hind. mainā. A name applied to several birds of the family of starlings. The common myna is the Acridotheres tristis of Linn.; the southern Hill-Myna is the Gracula, also Eulabes religiosa of Linn.; the Northern Hill-Myna, Eulabes intermedia of Hay (see Jerdon's Birds, ii. Pt. i. 325, 337, 339). Of both the first and last it may be said that they are among the most teachable of imitative birds, articulating words with great distinctness, and without Polly's nasal tone. We have heard a wild one (probably the first), on a tree in a field, spontaneously echoing the very peculiar call of the black partridge from an adjoining jungle, with unmistakable truth. There is a curious description in Aelian (De Nat. An. xvi. 2) of an Indian talking bird which we thought at one time to be the Myna; but it seems to be nearer the Shāmā, and under that head the quotation will be found. [Mr. M‘Crindle (Invasion of India, 186) is in favour of the Myna.]
1631.—Jac. Bontius describes a kind of Myna in Java, which he calls Pica, seu potius Sturnus Indicus. "The owner, an old Mussulman woman, only lent it to the author to be drawn, after great persuasion, and on a stipulation that the beloved bird should get no swine's flesh to eat. And when he had promised accordingly, the avis pessima immediately began to chaunt: Orang Nasarani catjor macan babi! i.e. 'Dog of a Christian, eater of swine!'"—Lib. v. cap. 14, p. 67.
[1664.—"In the Duke's chamber there is a bird, given him by Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, comes from the East Indys, black the greatest part, with the finest collar of white about the neck; but talks many things and neyes like the horse, and other things, the best almost that ever I heard bird in my life."—Pepys, Diary, April 25. Prof. Newton in Mr. Wheatley's ed. (iv. 118) is inclined to identify this with the Myna, and notes that one of the earliest figures of the bird is by Eleazar Albin (Nat. Hist. of Birds, ii. pl. 38) in 1738.
[1703.—"Among singing birds that which in Bengall is called the Minaw is the only one that comes within my knowledge."—In Yule, Hedges' Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. cccxxxiv.]
1803.—"During the whole of our stay two minahs were talking almost incessantly, to the great delight of the old lady, who often laughed at what they said, and praised their talents. Her hookah filled up the interval."—Ld. Valentia, i. 227-8.
1813.—"The myneh is a very entertaining bird, hopping about the house, and articulating several words in the manner of the starling."—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 47; [2nd ed. i. 32.]
1817.—"Of all birds the chiong (miner) is the most highly prized."—Raffles, Java, i. 260.
1875.—"A talking mina in a cage, and a rat-trap, completed the adornments of the veranda."—The Dilemma, ch. xii.
1878.—"The myna has no wit.... His only way of catching a worm is to lay hold of its tail and pull it out of its hole,—generally breaking it in the middle and losing the bigger half."—Ph. Robinson, In My Indian Garden, 28.
1879.—"So the dog went to a mainá, and said: 'What shall I do to hurt this cat!'"—Miss Stokes, Indian Fairy Tales, 18.
"... beneath Striped squirrels raced, the mynas perked and picked. The nine brown sisters chattered in the thorn ..." E. Arnold, The Light of Asia, Book i.
MYROBALAN, s. A name applied to certain dried fruits and kernels of page 608aastringent flavour, but of several species, and not even all belonging to the same Natural Order, which were from an early date exported from India, and had a high reputation in the medieval pharmacopoeia. This they appear (some of them) to retain in native Indian medicine; though they seem to have disappeared from English use and have no place in Hanbury and Flückiger's great work, the Pharmacographia. They are still, to some extent, imported into England, but for use in tanning and dyeing, not in pharmacy.
It is not quite clear how the term myrobalan, in this sense, came into use. For the people of India do not seem to have any single name denoting these fruits or drugs as a group; nor do the Arabic dictionaries afford one either (but see further on). Μυροβάλανος is spoken of by some ancient authors, e.g. Aristotle, Dioscorides and Pliny, but it was applied by them to one or more fruits entirely unconnected with the subjects of this article. This name had probably been preserved in the laboratories, and was applied by some early translator of the Arabic writers on Materia Medica to these Indian products. Though we have said that (so far as we can discover) the dictionaries afford no word with the comprehensive sense of Myrobalan, it is probable that the physicians had such a word, and Garcia de Orta, who is trustworthy, says explicitly that the Arab practitioners whom he had consulted applied to the whole class the name delegi, a word which we cannot identify, unless it originated in a clerical error for alelegi, i.e. ihlīlaj. The last word may perhaps be taken as covering all myrobalans; for according to the Glossary to Rhazes at Leyden (quoted by Dozy, Suppt. i. 43) it applies to the Kābulī, the yellow, and the black (or Indian), whilst the Emblic is also called Ihlīlaj amlaj.
In the Kashmīr Customs Tariff (in Punjab Trade Report, ccxcvi.) we have entries of
"Hulela (Myrobalan). Bulela (Bellerick ditto). Amla (Emblica Phyllanthus)."
page 608bThe kinds recognised in the Medieval pharmacopoeia were five, viz.:—
(1) The Emblic myrobalan; which is the dried astringent fruit of the Ānwulā, ānwlā of Hind., the Emblica officinalis of Gaertner (Phyllanthus Emblica, L., N. O. Euphorbiaceae). The Persian name of this is āmlah, but, as the Arabic amlaj suggests, probably in older Persian amlag, and hence no doubt Emblica. Garcia says it was called by the Arab physicians embelgi (which we should write ambaljī).
(2) The Belleric Myrobalan; the fruit of Terminalia Bellerica, Roxb. (N.O. Combretaceae), consisting of a small nut enclosed in a thin exterior rind. The Arabic name given in Ibn Baithar is balīlij; in the old Latin version of Avicenna belilegi; and in Persian it is called balīl and balīla. Garcia says the Arab physicians called it beleregi (balīrij, and in old Persian probably balīrig) which accounts for Bellerica.
(3) The Chebulic Myrobalan; the fruit of Terminalia Chebula, Roxb. The derivation of this name which we have given under CHEBULI is confirmed by the Persian name, which is Halīla-i-Kābulī. It can hardly have been a product of Kabul, but may have been imported into Persia by that route, whence the name, as calicoes got their name from Calicut. Garcia says these myrobalans were called by his Arabs quebulgi. Ibn Baithar calls them halīlaj, and many of the authorities whom he quotes specify them as Kābulī.
(4) and (5). The Black Myrobalan, otherwise called 'Indian,' and the Yellow or Citrine. These, according to Royle (Essay on Antiq. of Hindoo Medicine, pp. 36-37), were both products of T. Chebula in different states; but this does not seem quite certain. Further varieties were sometimes recognised, and nine are said to be specified in a paper in an early vol. of the Philos. Transactions. One kind page 609acalled Ṣīnī or Chinese, is mentioned by one of the authorities of Ibn Baithar, quoted below, and is referred to by Garcia.
The virtues of Myrobalans are said to be extolled by Charaka, the oldest of the Sanskrit writers on Medicine. Some of the Arabian and Medieval Greek authors, referred to by Royle, also speak of a combination of different kinds of Myrobalan called Tryphera or Tryphala; a fact of great interest. For this is the triphala ('Three-fruits') of Hindu medicine, which appears in Amarakosha (c. A.D. 500), as well as in a prescription of Susruta, the disciple of Charaka, and which is still, it would seem, familiar to the native Indian practitioners. It is, according to Royle, a combination of the black, yellow and Chebulic; but Garcia, who calls it tinepala (tīn-phal in Hind. = 'Three-fruits'), seems to imply that it consisted of the three kinds known in Goa, viz. citrine (or yellow), the Indian (or black), and the belleric. [Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. iv. 32 seqq.] The emblic, he says, were not used in medicine there, only in tanning, like sumach. The Myrobalans imported in the Middle Ages seem often to have been preserved (in syrup?).
c. A.D. 60.—"φοῖνιξ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ γίνεται· τρυγᾶται δε μετοπωρούσης τῆς κατὰ τὴν ὀπώραν ἀκμῆς, παρεμφέρων τῇ Ἀραβικῇ μυροβαλάνῳ, πόμα δὲ λέγεται."—Dioscorides, de Mat. Medica, i. cxlviii.
c. A.D. 70.—"Myrobalanum Troglodytis et Thebaidi et Arabiae quae Iudaeam ab Aegypto disterminat commune est, nascens unguento, ut ipso nomine apparet, quo item indicatur et glandem esse. Arbor est heliotropio ... simili folio, fructus magnitudine abellanae nucis," &c.—Pliny, xii. 21 (46).
c. 540.—A prescription of Aëtius of Amida, which will be found transcribed under ZEDOARY, includes myrobalan among a large number of ingredients, chiefly of Oriental origin; and one doubts whether the word may not here be used in the later sense.
c. 1343.—"Preserved Mirabolans (mirabolani conditi) should be big and black, and the envelope over the nut tender to the tooth; and the bigger and blacker and page 609btenderer to the tooth (like candied walnuts), the better they are.... Some people say that in India they are candied when unripe (acerbe), just as we candy the unripe tender walnuts, and that when they are candied in this way they have no nut within, but are all through tender like our walnut-comfits. But if this is really done, anyhow none reach us except those with a nut inside, and often very hard nuts too. They should be kept in brown earthen pots glazed, in a syrop made of cassia fistula and honey or sugar; and they should remain always in the syrop, for they form a moist preserve and are not fit to use dry."—Pegolotti, p. 377.
c. 1343.—(At Alexandria) "are sold by the ten mans (mene, see MAUND), ... amomum, mirobalans of every kind, camphor, castor...."—Ibid. 57.
1487.—"... Vasi grandi di confectione, mirobolani e gengiovo."—Letter on presents sent by the Sultan to L. de' Medici, in Roscoe's Lorenzo, ed. 1825, ii. 372.
1505.—(In Calicut) "li nasce mirabolani, emblici e chebali, li quali valeno ducati do' el baar (see BAHAR.)"—Lionardo Ca' Masser, p. 27.
1552.—"La campagne de Iericho est entournée de mõtaignes de tous costez: poignant laquelle, et du costé de midy est la mer morte.... Les arbres qui portent le Licion, naissent en ceste plaine, et aussi les arbres qui portent les Myrobalans Citrins, du noyau desquels les habitants font de l'huille."—P. Belon, Observations, ed. 1554, f. 144.
1560.—"Mais pource que le Ben, que les Grecz appellent Balanus Myrepsica, m'a fait souvenir des Myrabolans des Arabes, dont y en a cinq especes: et que d'ailleurs, on en vse ordinairement en Medecine, encores que les anciens Grecz n'en ayent fait aucune mention: il m'a semblé bon d'en toucher mot: car i'eusse fait grand tort à ces Commentaires de les priuer d'vn page 610afruict si requis en Medecine. Il y a donques cinq especes de Myrabolans."—Matthioli, Com. on Dioscorides, old Fr. Tr. p. 394.
1610.—
"Kastril. How know you?
Subtle. By inspection on her forehead; And subtlety of lips, which must be tasted Often, to make a judgment.
[Kisses her again.]
'Slight, she melts Like a Myrabolane."—The Alchemist, iv. 1.
[c. 1665.—"Among other fruits, they preserve (in Bengal) large citrons ... small Mirobolans, which are excellent...."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 438.]
MYSORE, n.p. Tam. Maisūr, Can. Maisūru. The city which was the capital of the Hindu kingdom, taking its name, and which last was founded in 1610 by a local chief on the decay of the Vijayanagar (see BISNAGAR, NARSINGA) dynasty. C. P. Brown gives the etym. as Maisi-ūr, Maisi being the name of a local goddess like Pomona or Flora; ūr, 'town, village.' It is however usually said to be a corruption of Mahish-āsura, the buffalo demon slain by the goddess Durga or Kali. [Rice (Mysore, i. 1) gives Can. Maisa, from Skt. Mahisha, and ūru, 'town.']
MYSORE THORN. The Caesalpinia sepiaria, Roxb. It is armed with short, sharp, recurved prickles; and is much used as a fence in the Deccan. Hyder Ali planted it round his strongholds in Mysore, and hence it is often called "Hyder's Thorn," Haidar kā jhār.
* ↑ See an interesting paper in the Saturday Review of Sept. 29, 1883, on Le Mascaret.
* ↑ Other names for the bore in India are: Hind. hummā, and in Bengal bān.
* ↑ It is given in No. II. of Selections from the Records of S. Arcot District, p. 107.
* ↑ In a letter from poor Arthur Burnell, on which this paragraph is founded, he adds: "It is sad that the most Philistine town (in the German sense) in all the East should have such a name."
* ↑ This perhaps implies an earlier spread of northern influence than we are justified in assuming.
* ↑ "The Portuguese ... sailing from Malabar on voyages of exploration ... made their acquaintance with various places on the eastern or Coromandel Coast ... and finding the language spoken by the fishing and sea-faring classes on the eastern coast similar to that spoken on the western, they came to the conclusion that it was identical with it, and called it in consequence by the same name—viz. Malabar.... A circumstance which naturally confirmed the Portuguese in their notion of the identity of the people and language of the Coromandel Coast with those of Malabar was that when they arrived at Cael, in Tinnevelly, on the Coromandel Coast ... they found the King of Quilon (one of the most important places on the Malabar Coast) residing there."—Bp. Caldwell, u.s.
* ↑ This Port was immediately outside the Straits, as appears from the description of Dom João de Castro (1541): "Now turning to the 'Gates' of the Strait, which are the chief object of our description, we remark that here the land of Arabia juts out into the sea, forming a prominent Point, and very prolonged.... This is the point or promontory which Ptolemy calls Possidium.... In front of it, a little more than a gunshot off, is an islet called the Ilheo dos Roboeens; because Roboão in Arabic means a pilot; and the pilots living here go aboard the ships which come from outside, and conduct them," &c.—Roteiro do Mar Roxo, &c., 35. The Island retains its name, and is mentioned as Pilot Island by Capt. Haines in J. R. Geog. Soc. ix. 126. It lies about 1½ m. due east of Perim.
* ↑ See Erdkunde, v. 647. The Index to Ritter gives a reference to A. W. Schott, Mag. für die Literat. des Ausl., 1837, No. 123. This we have not been able to see.
* ↑ The excellence of the Goa Mangoes is stated to be due to the care and skill of the Jesuits (Annaes Maritimos, ii. 270). In S. India all good kinds have Portuguese or Mahommedan names. The author of Tribes on My Frontier, 1883, p. 148, mentions the luscious peirie and the delicate afoos as two fine varieties, supposed to bear the names of a certain Peres and a certain Affonso.
* ↑ See Sayce, Principles of Comparative Philology, 2nd ed. 208-211.
* ↑ "Maund, a kind of great Basket or Hamper, containing eight Bales, or two Fats. It is commonly a quantity of 8 bales of unbound Books, each Bale having 1000 lbs. weight."—Giles Jacob, New Law Dict., 7th ed., 1756, s.v.
* ↑ This passage is also referred to under NACODA. The French translation runs as follows:—"Cette princesse invita ... le tendîl ou 'général des piétons,' et le sipāhsālār ou 'général des archers.'" In answer to a query, our friend, Prof. Robertson Smith, writes: "The word is rijāl, and this may be used either as the plural of rajul, 'man,' or as the pl. of rājil, 'piéton.' But foreman, or 'praepositus' of the 'men' (muḳaddam is not well rendered 'général'), is just as possible." And, if possible, much more reasonable. Dulaurier (J. As. ser. iv. tom. ix.) renders rijāl here "sailors." See the article TINDAL; and see the quotation under the present article from Bocarro MS.
* ↑ See Cathay, &c., pp. ccxlvii.-ccl.; and Mr. E. Thomas, Pathán Kings of Delhi, passim.
* ↑ The average was taken as follows:—(1). We took the whole of the weight of gold in the list at p. 43 ("Table of the Gold Coins of India") with the omission of four pieces which are exceptionally debased; and (2), the first twenty-four pieces in the list at p. 50 ("Supplementary Table"), omitting two exceptional cases, and divided by the whole number of coins so taken. See the tables at end of Thomas's ed. of Prinsep's Essays.
* ↑ Was this ignorance, or slang? Though slave-boys are occasionally mentioned, there is no indication that slaves were at all the usual substitute for domestic servants at this time in European families.
* ↑ Moodeen Sheriff (Supplt. to the Pharmacopoeia of India) says that the Mahwā in question is Bassia longifolia and the wild Mahwā Bassia latifolia.
* ↑ "Don Ricardo began to fret and fidget most awfully—'Beginning of the seasons'—why, we may not get away for a week, and all the ships will be kept back in their loading."—Ed. 1863, p. 309.
* ↑ Equal to 863 lbs. 12 oz. 12 drs.
* ↑ Hadley, however, mentions in his preface that a small pamphlet had been received by Mr. George Bogle in 1770, which he found to be the mutilated embryo of his own grammatical scheme. This was circulating in Bengal "at his expence."
* ↑ The husband of the existing Princess of Tanjore is habitually styled by the natives "Mapillai Sāhib" ("il Signor Genero"), as the son-in-law of the late Raja.
* ↑ According to Pyrard mesquite is the word used in the Maldive Islands. It is difficult to suppose the people would adopt such a word from the Portuguese. And probably the form both in east and west is to be accounted for by a hard pronunciation of the Arabic j, as in Egypt now; the older and probably the most widely diffused. [See Mr. Gray's note in Hak. Soc. ii. 417.]
* ↑ Sir George Yule notes: "I can distinctly call to mind 6 mucknas that I had (I may have had more) out of 30 or 40 elephants that passed through my hands." This would give 15 or 20 per cent. of mucknas, but as the stud included females, the result would rather consist with Mr. Sanderson's 5 out of 51 males.
* ↑ Here the Kyendwen R. is regarded as a branch of the Brahmaputra. See further on.
* ↑ "Stupiva d'vdire tanta fragranza." The Scotchman is laughed at for "feeling" a smell, but here the Italian hears one!
* ↑ We have seen, however, somewhere an ingenious suggestion that the word really came from Maisolia (the country about Masulipatam, according to Ptolemy), which even in ancient times was famous for fine cotton textures.
* ↑ Deotī, a torch-bearer. Thus Baber: "If the emperor or chief nobility (in India) at any time have occasion for a light by night, these filthy Deuties bring in their lamps, which they carry up to their master, and stand holding it close by his side."—Baber, 333.
* ↑ One of them is generally identified with the seeds of Moringa pterygosperma—see HORSE RADISH TREE—the Ben-nuts of old writers, and affording Oil of Ben, used as a basis in perfumery.
* ↑ This article we have been unable to find. Dr. Hunter in As. Res. (xi. 182) quotes from a Persian work of Mahommed Husain Shirāzi, communicated to him by Mr. Colebrooke, the names of 6 varieties of Halīla (or Myrobalan) as afforded in different stages of maturity by the Terminalia Chebula:—1. H. Zīra, when just set (from Zīra, cummin-seed). 2. H. Jawī (from Jau, barley). 3. Zangī or Hindī (The Black M.). 4. H. Chīnī. 5. H. 'Asfar, or Yellow. 6. H. Kābulī, the mature fruit. [See Dr. Murray's article in Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. iv. 33 seqq.]
* ↑ "Confettiamo," "make comfits of"; "preserve," but the latter word is too vague.
* ↑ This is surely not what we now call Cassia Fistula, the long cylindrical pod of a leguminous tree, affording a mild laxative? But Hanbury and Flückiger (pp. 195, 475) show that some Cassia bark (of the cinnamon kind) was known in the early centuries of our era as κασία συριγγώδης and cassia fistularis; whilst the drug now called Cassia Fistula, L., is first noticed by a medical writer of Constantinople towards A.D. 1300. Pegolotti, at p. 366, gives a few lines of instruction for judging of cassia fistula: "It ought to be black, and thick, and unbroken (salda), and heavy, and the thicker it is, and the blacker the outside rind is, the riper and better it is; and it retains its virtue well for 2 years." This is not very decisive, but on the whole we should suppose Pegolotti's cassia fistula to be either a spice-bark, or solid twigs of a like plant (H. & F. 476).
* ↑ This is probably Balanitis aegyptiaca, Delile, the zak of the Arabs, which is not unlike myrobalan fruit and yields an oil much used medicinally. The negroes of the Niger make an intoxicating spirit of it.