1878.—"... the enhanced rates ... do not practically benefit the producer in a marked, or even in a corresponding degree; for the lion's share goes into the pockets of certain intermediate classes, who are the growth of the above system of business.
"Following the course of trade as it flows into Calcutta, we find that between the cultivators and the exporter these are: 1st. The Bepparree, or petty trader; 2nd. The Aurut-dar;[37] and 3rd. The Mahajun, interested in the Calcutta trade. As soon as the crops are cut, Bepparree appears upon the scene; he visits village after village, and goes from homestead to homestead, buying there, or at the village marts, from the ryots; he then takes his purchases to the Aurut-dar, who is stationed at a centre of trade, and to whom he is perhaps under advances, and from the Aurut-dar the Calcutta Mahajun obtains his supplies ... for eventual despatch to the capital. There is also a fourth class of dealers called Phoreas, who buy from the Mahajun and sell to the European exporter. Thus, between the cultivator and the shipper there are so many middlemen, whose participation in the trade involves a multiplication of profits, which goes a great way towards enhancing the price of commodities before they reach the shipper's hands."—Letter from Baboo Nobokissin Ghose. [Similar details for Northern India will be found in Hoey, Mon. Trade and Manufactures of Lucknow, 59 seqq.]
BAZAAR, s. H. &c. From P. bāzār, a permanent market or street of shops. The word has spread westward into Arabic, Turkish, and, in special senses, into European languages, and eastward into India, where it has generally been adopted into the vernaculars. The popular pronunciation is băzár. In S. India and Ceylon the word is used for a single shop or stall kept by a native. The word seems to have come to S. Europe very early. F. Balducci Pegolotti, in his Mercantile Handbook (c. 1340) gives Bazarra as a Genoese word for 'market-place' (Cathay, &c. ii. 286). The word is adopted into Malay as pāsār, [or in the poems pasara].
1474.—Ambrose Contarini writes of Kazan, that it is "walled like Como, and with bazars (bazzari) like it."—Ramusio, ii. f. 117.
1478.—Josafat Barbaro writes: "An Armenian Choza Mirech, a rich merchant in the bazar" (bazarro).—Ibid. f. 111v.
1563.—"... bazar, as much as to say the place where things are sold."—Garcia, f. 170.
1564.—A privilege by Don Sebastian of Portugal gives authority "to sell garden produce freely in the bazars (bazares), markets, and streets (of Goa) without necessity for consent or license from the farmers of the garden produce, or from any other person whatsoever."—Arch. Port. Or., fasc. 2, 157.
c. 1566.—"La Pescaria delle Perle ... si fa ogn' anno ... e su la costa all' in contro piantano vna villa di case, e bazarri di paglia."—Cesare de' Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 390.
1606.—"... the Christians of the Bazar."—Gouvea, 29.
1610.—"En la Ville de Cananor il y a vn beau marché tous les jours, qu'ils appellent Basare."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 325; [Hak. Soc. i. 448].
[1615.—"To buy pepper as cheap as we could in the busser."—Foster, Letters, iii. 114.]
[ " "He forbad all the bezar to sell us victuals or else...."—Ibid. iv. 80.]
[1623.—"They call it Bezari Kelan, that is the Great Merkat...."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 96. (P. Kalān, 'great').]
1638.—"We came into a Bussar, or very faire Market place."—W. Bruton, in Hakl. v. 50.
1666.—"Les Bazards ou Marchés sont dans une grande rue qui est au pié de la montagne."—Thevenot, v. 18.
1672.—"... Let us now pass the Pale to the Heathen Town (of Madras) only parted by a wide Parrade, which is used for a Buzzar or Mercate-place."—Fryer, 38.
[1826.—"The Kotwall went to the bazaar-master."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, p. 156.]
1837.—"Lord, there is a honey bazar, repair thither."—Turnour's transl. of Mahawanso, 24.
1873.—"This, remarked my handsome Greek friend from Vienna, is the finest wife-bazaar in this part of Europe.... Go a little way east of this, say to Roumania, and you will find wife-bazaar completely undisguised, the ladies seated in their carriages, the youths filing by, and pausing before this or that beauty, to bargain with papa about the dower, under her very nose."—Fraser's Mag. N. S. vii. p. 617 (Vienna, by M. D. Conway).
BDELLIUM, s. This aromatic gum-resin has been identified with that of the Balsamodendron Mukul, Hooker, inhabiting the dry regions of Arabia and Western India; gugal of Western India, and moḳl in Arabic, called in P. bo-i-jahūdān (Jews' scent). What the Hebrew bdolah of the R. Phison was, which was rendered bdellium since the time of Josephus, remains very doubtful. Lassen has suggested musk as possible. But the argument is only this: that Dioscorides says some called bdellium μάδελκον; that μάδελκον perhaps represents Madālaka, and though there is no such Skt. word as madālaka, there might be madāraka, because there is madāra, which means some perfume, no one knows what! (Ind. Alterth. i. 292.) Dr. Royle says the Persian authors describe the Bdellium as being the product of the Doom palm (see Hindu Medicine, p. 90). But this we imagine is due to some ambiguity in the sense of moḳl. [See the authorities quoted in Encycl. Bibl. s.v. Bdellium which still leave the question in some doubt.]
c. A.D. 90.—"In exchange are exported from Barbarice (Indus Delta) costus, bdella...."—Periplus, ch. 39.
c. 1230.—"Bdallyūn. A Greek word which as some learned men think, means 'The Lion's Repose.' This plant is the same as moḳl."—Ebn El-Baithár, i. 125.
1612.—"Bdellium, the pund ... xxs."—Rates and Valuatiouns (Scotland), p. 298.
BEADALA, n.p. Formerly a port of some note for native craft on the Rāmnād coast (Madura district) of the Gulf of Manar, Vadaulay in the Atlas of India. The proper name seems to be Vēdālai, by which it is mentioned in Bishop Caldwell's Hist. of Tinnevelly (p. 235), [and which is derived from Tam. vedu, 'hunting,' and al, 'a banyan-tree' (Mad. Adm. Man. Gloss. p. 953)]. The place was famous in the Portuguese History of India for a victory gained there by Martin Affonso de Sousa (Capitão Mór do Mar) over a strong land and sea force of the Zamorin, commanded by a famous Mahommedan Captain, whom the Portuguese called Pate Marcar, and the Tuḥfat-al Mujāhidīn calls 'Ali Ibrahīm Markār, 15th February, 1538. Barros styles it "one of the best fought battles that ever came off in India." This occurred under the viceroyalty of Nuno da Cunha, not of Stephen da Gama, as the allusions in Camões seem to indicate. Captain Burton has too hastily identified Beadala with a place on the coast of Malabar, a fact which has perhaps been the cause of this article (see Lusiads, Commentary, p. 477).
1552.—"Martin Affonso, with this light fleet, on which he had not more than 400 soldiers, went round Cape Comorin, being aware that the enemy were at Beadalá...."—Barros, Dec. IV., liv. viii. cap. 13.
1562.—"The Governor, departing from Cochym, coasted as far as Cape Comoryn, doubled that Cape, and ran for Beadalá, which is a place adjoining the Shoals of Chilao [Chilaw]...."—Correa, iv. 324.
c. 1570.—"And about this time Alee Ibrahim Murkar, and his brother-in-law Kunjee-Alee-Murkar, sailed out with 22 grabs in the direction of Kaeel, and arriving off Bentalah, they landed, leaving their grabs at anchor.... But destruction overtook them at the arrival of the Franks, who came upon them in their galliots, attacking and capturing all their grabs.... Now this capture by the Franks took place in the latter part of the month of Shaban, in the year 944 [end of January, 1538]."—Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen, tr. by Rowlandson, 141.
1572.—
"E despois junto ao Cabo Comorim
Huma façanha faz esclarecida,
A frota principal do Samorim,
Que destruir o mundo não duvida,
Vencerá co o furor do ferro e fogo;
Em si verá Beadála o martio jogo."
Camões, x. 65.
By Burton (but whose misconception of the locality has here affected his translation):
"then well nigh reached the Cape 'clept Comorin,
another wreath of Fame by him is won;
the strongest squadron of the Samorim
who doubted not to see the world undone,
he shall destroy with rage of fire and steel:
Be'adálá's self his martial yoke shall feel."
1814.—"Vaidálai, a pretty populous village on the coast, situated 13 miles east of Mutupetta, inhabited chiefly by Musulmans and Shánárs, the former carrying on a wood trade."—Account of the Prov. of Ramnad, from Mackenzie Collections in J. R. As. Soc. iii. 170.
BEAR-TREE, BAIR, &c. s. H. ber, Mahr. bora, in Central Provinces bor, [Malay bedara or bidara China,] (Skt. badara and vadara) Zizyphus jujuba, Lam. This is one of the most widely diffused trees in India, and is found wild from the Punjab to Burma, in all which region it is probably native. It is cultivated from Queensland and China to Morocco and Guinea. "Sir H. Elliot identifies it with the lotus of the ancients, but although the large juicy product of the garden Zizyphus is by no means bad, yet, as Madden quaintly remarks, one might eat any quantity of it without risk of forgetting home and friends."—(Punjab Plants, 43.)
1563.—"O. The name in Canarese is bor, and in the Decan bér, and the Malays call them vidaras, and they are better than ours; yet not so good as those of Balagate ... which are very tasty."—Garcia De O., 33.]
[1609.—"Here is also great quantity of gum-lack to be had, but is of the tree called Ber, and is in grain like unto red mastic."—Danvers, Letters, i. 30.]
BEARER, s. The word has two meanings in Anglo-Indian colloquial: a. A palanquin-carrier; b. (In the Bengal Presidency) a domestic servant who has charge of his master's clothes, household furniture, and (often) of his ready money. The word in the latter meaning has been regarded as distinct in origin, and is stated by Wilson to be a corruption of the Bengali vehārā from Skt. vyavahāri, a domestic servant. There seems, however, to be no historical evidence for such an origin, e.g. in any habitual use of the term vehārā, whilst as a matter of fact the domestic bearer (or sirdār-bearer, as he is usually styled by his fellow-servants, often even when he has no one under him) was in Calcutta, in the penultimate generation when English gentlemen still kept palankins, usually just what this literally implies, viz. the head-man of a set of palankin-bearers. And throughout the Presidency the bearer, or valet, still, as a rule, belongs to the caste of Kahārs (see KUHAR), or palki-bearers. [See BOY.]
a.—
c. 1760.—"... The poles which ... are carried by six, but most commonly four bearers."—Grose, i. 153.
1768-71.—"Every house has likewise ... one or two sets of berras, or palankeen-bearers."—Stavorinus, i. 523.
1771.—"Le bout le plus court du Palanquin est en devant, et porté par deux Beras, que l'on nomme Boys à la Côte (c'est-à-dire Garçons, Serviteurs, en Anglois). Le long bout est par derrière et porte par trois Beras."—Anquetil du Perron, Desc. Prelim. p. xxiii. note.
1778.—"They came on foot, the town having neither horses nor palankin-bearers to carry them, and Colonel Coote received them at his headquarters...."—Orme, iii. 719.
1803.—"I was ... detained by the scarcity of bearers."—Lord Valentia, i. 372.
b.—
1782.—"... imposition ... that a gentleman should pay a rascal of a Sirdar Bearer monthly wages for 8 or 10 men ... out of whom he gives 4, or may perhaps indulge his master with 5, to carry his palankeen."—India Gazette, Sept. 2.
c. 1815.—"Henry and his Bearer."—(Title of a well-known book of Mrs. Sherwood's.)
1824.—"... I called to my sirdar-bearer who was lying on the floor, outside the bedroom."—Seely, Ellora, ch. i.
1831.—"... le grand maître de ma garde-robe, sirdar beehrah."—Jacquemont, Correspondance, i. 114.
1876.—"My bearer who was to go with us (Eva's ayah had struck at the last moment and stopped behind) had literally girt up his loins, and was loading a diminutive mule with a miscellaneous assortment of brass pots and blankets."—A True Reformer, ch. iv.
BEEBEE, s. H. from P. bībī, a lady. [In its contracted form bī, it is added as a title of distinction to the names of Musulman ladies.] On the principle of degradation of titles which is so general, this word in application to European ladies has been superseded by the hybrids Mem-Ṣāhib, or Madam-Ṣāhib, though it is often applied to European maid-servants or other Englishwomen of that rank of life. [It retains its dignity as the title of the Bībī of Cananore, known as Bībī Valiya, Malayāl., 'great lady,' who rules in that neighbourhood and exercises authority over three of the islands of the Laccadives, and is by race a Moplah Mohammedan.] The word also is sometimes applied to a prostitute. It is originally, it would seem, Oriental Turki. In Pavet de Courteille's Dict. we have "Bībī, dame, épouse légitime" (p. 181). In W. India the word is said to be pronounced bobo (see Burton's Sind). It is curious that among the Sákaláva of Madagascar the wives of chiefs are termed biby; but there seems hardly a possibility of this having come from Persia or India. [But for Indian influence on the island, see Encycl. Britt. 9th ed. xv. 174.] The word in Hova means 'animal.'—(Sibree's Madagascar, p. 253.)
[c. 1610.—"Nobles in blood ... call their wives Bybis."—Pyrard de Laval, Hak. Soc. i. 217.]
1611.—"... the title Bibi ... is in Persian the same as among us, sennora, or doña."—Teixeira, Relacion ... de Hormuz. 19.
c. 1786.—"The word Lowndika, which means the son of a slave-girl, was also continually on the tongue of the Nawaub, and if he was angry with any one he called him by this name; but it was also used as an endearing fond appellation to which was attached great favour,[38] until one day, Ali Zumán Khan ... represented to him that the word was low, discreditable, and not fit for the use of men of knowledge and rank. The Nawaub smiled, and said, 'O friend, you and I are both the sons of slave women, and the two Husseins only (on whom be good wishes and Paradise!) are the sons of a Bibi."—Hist. of Hydur Naik, tr. by Miles, 486.
[1793.—"I, Beebee Bulea, the Princess of Cannanore and of the Laccadives Islands, &c., do acknowledge and give in writing that I will pay to the Government of the English East India Company the moiety of whatever is the produce of my country...."—Engagement in Logan, Malabar, iii. 181.]
BEECH-DE-MER, s. The old trade way of writing and pronouncing the name, bicho-de-mar (borrowed from the Portuguese) of the sea-slug or holothuria, so highly valued in China. [See menu of a dinner to which the Duke of Connaught was invited, in Ball, Things Chinese, 3rd ed. p. 247.] It is split, cleaned, dried, and then carried to the Straits for export to China, from the Maldives, the Gulf of Manar, and other parts of the Indian seas further east. The most complete account of the way in which this somewhat important article of commerce is prepared, will be found in the Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie, Jaarg. xvii. pt. i. See also SWALLOW and TRIPANG.
BEECHMÁN, also MEECHILMÁN, s. Sea-H. for 'midshipman.' (Roebuck).
BEEGAH, s. H. bīghā. The most common Hindu measure of land-area, and varying much in different parts of India, whilst in every part that has a bīghā there is also certain to be a pucka beegah and a kutcha beegah (vide CUTCHA and PUCKA), the latter being some fraction of the former. The beegah formerly adopted in the Revenue Survey of the N.W. Provinces, and in the Canal Department there, was one of 3025 sq. yards or ⅝ of an acre. This was apparently founded on Akbar's beegah, which contained 3600 sq. Ilāhi gaz, of about 33 inches each. [For which see Āīn, trans. Jarrett, ii. 62.] But it is now in official returns superseded by the English acre.
1763.—"I never seized a beega or beswa (1⁄20 bīghā) belonging to Calcutta, nor have I ever impressed your gomastahs." ... Nawāb Kāsim 'Ali, in Gleig's Mem. of Hastings, i. 129.
1823.—"A Begah has been computed at one-third of an acre, but its size differs in almost every province. The smallest Begah may perhaps be computed at one-third, and the largest at two-thirds of an acre."—Malcolm's Central India, ii. 15.
1877.—"The Resident was gratified at the low rate of assessment, which was on the general average eleven annas or 1s. 4½d. per beegah, that for the Nizam's country being upwards of four rupees."—Meadows Taylor, Story of my Life, ii. 5.
BEEGUM, BEGUM, &c. s. A Princess, a Mistress, a Lady of Rank; applied to Mahommedan ladies, and in the well-known case of the Beegum Sumroo to the professedly Christian (native) wife of a European. The word appears to be Or. Turki. bīgam, [which some connect with Skt. bhaga, 'lord,'] a feminine formation from Beg, 'chief, or lord,' like Khānum from Khān; hence P. begam. [Beg appears in the early travellers as Beage.]
[1614.—"Narranse saith he standeth bound before Beage for 4,800 and odd mamoodies."—Foster, Letters, ii. 282.]
[1505.—"Begum." See quotation under KHANUM.]
[1617.—"Their Company that offered to rob the Beagam's junck."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 454.]
1619.—"Behind the girl came another Begum, also an old woman, but lean and feeble, holding on to life with her teeth, as one might say."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 6.
1653.—"Begun, Reine, ou espouse du Schah."—De la Boullaye le Gouz, 127.
[1708.—"They are called for this reason 'Begom,' which means Free from Care or Solicitude" (as if P. be-gham, 'without care'!)—Catrou, H. of the Mogul Dynasty in India, E. T., 287.]
1787.—"Among the charges (against Hastings) there is but one engaged, two at most—the Begum's to Sheridan; the Rannee of Goheed (Gohud) to Sir James Erskine. So please your palate."—Ed. Burke to Sir G. Elliot. L. of Ld. Minto, i. 119.
BEEJOO, s. Or 'Indian badger,' as it is sometimes called, H. bījū [bijjū], Mellivora indica, Jerdon, [Blanford, Mammalia, 176]. It is also often called in Upper India the Grave-digger, [gorkhodo] from a belief in its bad practices, probably unjust.
BEER, s. This liquor, imported from England, [and now largely made in the country], has been a favourite in India from an early date. Porter seems to have been common in the 18th century, judging from the advertisements in the Calcutta Gazette; and the Pale Ale made, it is presumed, expressly for the India market, appears in the earliest years of that publication. That expression has long been disused in India, and beer, simply, has represented the thing. Hodgson's at the beginning of this century, was the beer in almost universal use, replaced by Bass, and Allsopp, and of late years by a variety of other brands. [Hodgson's ale is immortalised in Bon Gualtier.]
1638.—"... the Captain ... was well provided with ... excellent good Sack, English Beer, French Wines, Arak, and other refreshments."—Mandelslo, E. T., p. 10.
1690.—(At Surat in the English Factory) "... Europe Wines and English Beer, because of their former acquaintance with our Palates, are most coveted and most desirable Liquors, and tho' sold at high Rates, are yet purchased and drunk with pleasure."—Ovington, 395.
1784.—"London Porter and Pale Ale, light and excellent ... 150 Sicca Rs. per hhd...."—In Seton-Karr, i. 39.
1810.—"Porter, pale-ale and table-beer of great strength, are often drank after meals."—Williamson, V. M. i. 122.
1814.—
"What are the luxuries they boast them here?
The lolling couch, the joys of bottled beer."
From 'The Cadet, a Poem in 6 parts, &c. by a late resident in the East.' This is a most lugubrious production, the author finding nothing to his taste in India. In this respect it reads something like a caricature of "Oakfield," without the noble character and sentiment of that book. As the Rev. Hobart Caunter, the author seems to have come to a less doleful view of things Indian, and for some years he wrote the letter-press of the "Oriental Annual."
BEER, COUNTRY. At present, at least in Upper India, this expression simply indicates ale made in India (see COUNTRY) as at Masūri, Kasauli, and Ootacamund Breweries. But it formerly was (and in Madras perhaps still is) applied to ginger-beer, or to a beverage described in some of the quotations below, which must have become obsolete early in the last century. A drink of this nature called Sugar-beer was the ordinary drink at Batavia in the 17th century, and to its use some travellers ascribed the prevalent unhealthiness. This is probably what is described by Jacob Bontius in the first quotation:
1631.—There is a recipe given for a beer of this kind, "not at all less good than Dutch beer.... Take a hooped cask of 30 amphorae (?), fill with pure river water; add 2lb. black Java sugar, 4oz. tamarinds, 3 lemons cut up, cork well and put in a cool place. After 14 hours it will boil as if on a fire," &c.—Hist. Nat. et Med. Indiae Orient., p. 8. We doubt the result anticipated.
1789.—"They use a pleasant kind of drink, called Country-beer, with their victuals; which is composed of toddy ... porter, and brown-sugar; is of a brisk nature, but when cooled with saltpetre and water, becomes a very refreshing draught."—Munro, Narrative, 42.
1810.—"A temporary beverage, suited to the very hot weather, and called Country-beer, is in rather general use, though water artificially cooled is commonly drunk during the repasts."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 122.
BEER-DRINKING. Up to about 1850, and a little later, an ordinary exchange of courtesies at an Anglo-Indian dinner-table in the provinces, especially a mess-table, was to ask a guest, perhaps many yards distant, to "drink beer" with you; in imitation of the English custom of drinking wine together, which became obsolete somewhat earlier. In Western India, when such an invitation was given at a mess-table, two tumblers, holding half a bottle each, were brought to the inviter, who carefully divided the bottle between the two, and then sent one to the guest whom he invited to drink with him.
1848.—"'He aint got distangy manners, dammy,' Bragg observed to his first mate; 'he wouldn't do at Government House, Roper, where his Lordship and Lady William was as kind to me ... and asking me at dinner to take beer with him before the Commander-in-Chief himself....'"—Vanity Fair, II. ch. xxii.
1853.—"First one officer, and then another, asked him to drink beer at mess, as a kind of tacit suspension of hostilities."—Oakfield, ii. 52.
BEETLEFAKEE, n.p. "In some old Voyages coins used at Mocha are so called. The word is Bait-ul-fākiha, the 'Fruit-market,' the name of a bazar there." So C. P. Brown. The place is in fact the Coffee-mart of which Hodeida is the port, from which it is about 30 m. distant inland, and 4 marches north of Mocha. And the name is really Bait-al-Faḳīh, 'The House of the Divine,' from the tomb of the Saint Aḥmad Ibn Mūsā, which was the nucleus of the place.—(See Ritter, xii. 872; see also BEETLE-FACKIE, Milburn, i. 96.)
1690.—"Coffee ... grows in abundance at Beetle-fuckee ... and other parts."—Ovington, 465.
1710.—"They daily bring down coffee from the mountains to Betelfaquy, which is not above 3 leagues off, where there is a market for it every day of the week."—(French) Voyage to Arabia the Happy, E. T., London, 1726, p. 99.
1770.—"The tree that produces the Coffee grows in the territory of Betel-faqui, a town belonging to Yemen."—Raynal (tr. 1777), i. 352.
BEGAR, BIGARRY, s. H. begārī, from P. begār, 'forced labour' [be 'without,' gār (for kār), 'one who works']; a person pressed to carry a load, or do other work really or professedly for public service. In some provinces begār is the forced labour, and bigārī the pressed man; whilst in Karnāta, begārī is the performance of the lowest village offices without money payment, but with remuneration in grain or land (Wilson). C. P. Brown says the word is Canarese; but the P. origin is hardly doubtful.
[1519.—"It happened that one day sixty bigairis went from the Comorin side towards the fort loaded with oyster-shells."—Castanheda, Bk. V. ch. 38.]
[1525.—"The inhabitants of the villages are bound to supply begarins who are workmen."—Archiv. Port. Orient. Fasc. V. p. 126.]
[1535.—"Telling him that they fought like heroes and worked (at building the fort) like bygairys."—Correa, iii. 625.]
1554.—"And to 4 begguaryns, who serve as water carriers to the Portuguese and others in the said intrenchment, 15 leals a day to each...."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 78.
1673.—"Gocurn, whither I took a Pilgrimage, with one other of the Factors, Four Peons, and Two Biggereens, or Porters only."—Fryer, 158.
1800.—"The bygarry system is not bearable: it must be abolished entirely."—Wellington, i. 244.
1815.—Aitchison's Indian Treaties, &c., contains under this year numerous sunnuds issued, in Nepāl War, to Hill Chiefs, stipulating for attendance when required with "begarees and sepoys."—ii. 339 seqq.
1882.—"The Malauna people were some time back ordered to make a practicable road, but they flatly refused to do anything of the kind, saying they had never done any begâr labour, and did not intend to do any."—(ref. wanting.)
BEHAR, n.p. H. Bihār. That province of the Mogul Empire which lay on the Ganges immediately above Bengal, was so called, and still retains the name and character of a province, under the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and embracing the ten modern districts of Patna, Sāran, Gāya, Shāhābād, Tirhut, Champāran, the Santāl Parganas, Bhāgalpūr, Monghyr, and Purnīah. The name was taken from the old city of Bihār, and that derived its title from being the site of a famous Vihāra in Buddhist times. In the later days of Mahommedan rule the three provinces of Bengal, Behar and Orissa were under one Subadar, viz. the Nawāb, who resided latterly at Murshidābād.
[c. 1590.—"Sarkar of Behar; containing 46 Mahals...."—Āīn (tr. Jarrett), ii. 153.]
[1676.—"Translate of a letter from Shausteth Caukne (Shaista Khan) ... in answer to one from Wares Cawne, Great Chancellor of the Province of Bearra about the English."—In Birdwood, Rep. 80].
The following is the first example we have noted of the occurrence of the three famous names in combination:
1679.—"On perusal of several letters relating to the procuring of the Great Mogul's Phyrmaund for trade, custome free, in the Bay of Bengall, the Chief in Council at Hugly is ordered to procure the same, for the English to be Customs free in Bengal, Orixa and Bearra...."—Ft. St. Geo. Cons., 20th Feb. in Notes and Exts., Pt. ii. p. 7.
BEHUT, n.p. H. Behat. One of the names, and in fact the proper name, of the Punjab river which we now call Jelum (i.e. Jhīlam) from a town on its banks: the Hydaspes or Bidaspes of the ancients. Both Behat and the Greek name are corruptions, in different ways, of the Skt. name Vitastā. Sidi 'Alī (p. 200) calls it the river of Bahra. Bahra or Bhera was a district on the river, and the town and taḥsīl still remain, in Shahpur Dist. [It "is called by the natives of Kaśmīr, where it rises, the Bedasta, which is but a slightly-altered form of its Skt. name, the Vitastā, which means 'wide-spread.'"—McCrindle, Invasion of India, 93 seqq.]
BEIRAMEE, BYRAMEE, also BYRAMPAUT, s. P. bairam, bairamī. The name of a kind of cotton stuff which appears frequently during the flourishing period of the export of these from India; but the exact character of which we have been unable to ascertain. In earlier times, as appears from the first quotation, it was a very fine stuff. [From the quotation dated 1609 below, they appear to have resembled the fine linen known as "Holland" (for which see Draper's Dict. s.v.).]
c. 1343.—Ibn Batuta mentions, among presents sent by Sultan Mahommed Tughlak of Delhi to the great Kaan, "100 suits of raiment called bairamīyah, i.e. of a cotton stuff, which were of unequalled beauty, and were each worth 100 dīnārs [rupees]."—iv. 2.
[1498.—"20 pieces of white stuff, very fine, with gold embroidery which they call Beyramies."—Correa, Hak. Soc. 197.]
1510.—"Fifty ships are laden every year in this place (Bengala) with cotton and silk stuffs ... that is to say bairam."—Varthema, 212.
[1513.—"And captured two Chaul ships laden with beirames."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 166.]
1554.—"From this country come the muslins called Candaharians, and those of Daulatābād, Berūpātri, and Bairami."—Sidi 'Ali, in J.A.S.B., v. 460.
" "And for 6 beirames for 6 surplices, which are given annually ... which may be worth 7 pardaos."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 129.
[1609.—"A sort of cloth called Byramy resembling Holland cloths."—Danvers, Letters, i. 29.]
[1610.—"Bearams white will vent better than the black."—Ibid. i. 75].
1615.—"10 pec. byrams nill (see ANILE) of 51 Rs. per corg...."—Cocks's Diary, i. 4.
[1648.—"Beronis." Quotation from Van Twist, s.v. GINGHAM.]
[c. 1700.—"50 blew byrampants" (read byrampauts, H. pāt, 'a length of cloth').—In Notes and Queries, 7th Ser. ix. 29.]
1727.—"Some Surat Baftaes dyed blue, and some Berams dyed red, which are both coarse cotton cloth."—A. Hamilton, ii. 125.
1813.—"Byrams of sorts," among Surat piece-goods, in Milburn, i. 124.
BEITCUL, n.p. We do not know how this name should be properly written. The place occupies the isthmus connecting Carwar Head in Canara with the land, and lies close to the Harbour of Carwar, the inner part of which is Beitcul Cove.
1711.—"Ships may ride secure from the South West Monsoon at Batte Cove (qu. BATTECOLE?), and the River is navigable for the largest, after they have once got in."—Lockyer, 272.
1727.—"The Portugueze have an Island called Anjediva [see ANCHEDIVA] ... about two miles from Batcoal."—A. Hamilton, i. 277.
BELGAUM, n.p. A town and district of the Bombay Presidency, in the S. Mahratta country. The proper name is said to be Canarese Vennu-grāmā, 'Bamboo-Town.' [The name of a place of the same designation in the Vizagapatam district in Madras is said to be derived from Skt. bila-grāma, 'cave-village.'—Mad. Admin. Man. Gloss. s.v.] The name occurs in De Barros under the form "Cidade de Bilgan" (Dec. IV., liv. vii. cap. 5).
BENAMEE, adj. P.—H. be-nāmī, 'anonymous'; a term specially applied to documents of transfer or other contract in which the name entered as that of one of the chief parties (e.g. of a purchaser) is not that of the person really interested. Such transactions are for various reasons very common in India, especially in Bengal, and are not by any means necessarily fradulent, though they have often been so. ["There probably is no country in the world except India, where it would be necessary to write a chapter 'On the practice of putting property into a false name.'"—(Mayne, Hindu Law, 373).] In the Indian Penal Code (Act XLV. of 1860), sections 421-423, "on fraudulent deeds and dispositions of Property," appear to be especially directed against the dishonest use of this benamee system.
It is alleged by C. P. Brown on the authority of a statement in the Friend of India (without specific reference) that the proper term is banāmī, adopted from such a phrase as banāmī chiṭṭhī, 'a transferable note of hand,' such notes commencing, 'ba-nām-i-fulāna,' 'to the name or address of' (Abraham Newlands). This is conceivable, and probably true, but we have not the evidence, and it is opposed to all the authorities: and in any case the present form and interpretation of the term be-nāmī has become established.
1854.—"It is very much the habit in India to make purchases in the name of others, and from whatever causes the practice may have arisen, it has existed for a series of years: and these transactions are known as 'Benamee transactions'; they are noticed at least as early as the year 1778, in Mr. Justice Hyde's Notes."—Ld. Justice Knight Bruce, in Moore's Reports of Cases on Appeal before the P. C., vol. vi. p. 72.
"The presumption of the Hindoo law, in a joint undivided family, is that the whole property of the family is joint estate ... where a purchase of real estate is made by a Hindoo in the name of one of his sons, the presumption of the Hindoo law is in favour of its being a benamee purchase, and the burthen of proof lies on the party in whose name it was purchased, to prove that he was solely entitled."—Note by the Editor of above Vol., p. 53.
1861.—"The decree Sale law is also one chief cause of that nuisance, the benamee system.... It is a peculiar contrivance for getting the benefits and credit of property, and avoiding its charges and liabilities. It consists in one man holding land, nominally for himself, but really in secret trust for another, and by ringing the changes between the two ... relieving the land from being attached for any liability personal to the proprietor."—W. Money, Java, ii. 261.
1862.—"Two ingredients are necessary to make up the offence in this section (§ 423 of Penal Code). First a fraudulent intention, and secondly a false statement as to the consideration. The mere fact that an assignment has been taken in the name of a person not really interested, will not be sufficient. Such ... known in Bengal as benamee transactions ... have nothing necessarily fraudulent."—J. D. Mayne's Comm. on the Penal Code, Madras, 1862, p. 257.
BENARES, n.p. The famous and holy city on the Ganges. H. Banāras from Skt. Vārānasī. The popular Pundit etymology is from the names of the streams Varaṇā (mod. Barnā) and Āsī, the former a river of some size on the north and east of the city, the latter a rivulet now embraced within its area; [or from the mythical founder, Rājā Bānār]. This origin is very questionable. The name, as that of a city, has been (according to Dr. F. Hall) familiar to Sanscrit literature since B.C. 120. The Buddhist legends would carry it much further back, the name being in them very familiar.
[c. 250 A.D.—"... and the Errenysis from the Mathai, an Indian tribe, unite with the Ganges."—Aelian, Indika, iv.]
c. 637.—"The Kingdom of P'o-lo-nis-se (Vârânaçî Bénarès) is 4000 li in compass. On the west the capital adjoins the Ganges...."—Hiouen Thsang, in Pèl. Boudd. ii. 354.
c. 1020.—"If you go from Bárí on the banks of the Ganges, in an easterly direction, you come to Ajodh, at the distance of 25 parasangs; thence to the great Benares (Bānāras) about 20."—Al-Birūnī, in Elliot, i. 56.
1665.—"Banarou is a large City, and handsomely built; the most part of the Houses being either of Brick or Stone ... but the inconveniency is that the Streets are very narrow."—Tavernier, E. T., ii. 52; [ed. Ball, i. 118. He also uses the forms Benarez and Banarous, Ibid. ii. 182, 225].
BENCOOLEN, n.p. A settlement on the West Coast of Sumatra, which long pertained to England, viz. from 1685 to 1824, when it was given over to Holland in exchange for Malacca, by the Treaty of London. The name is a corruption of Malay Bangkaulu, and it appears as Mangkoulou or Wénkouléou in Pauthier's Chinese geographical quotations, of which the date is not given (Marc. Pol., p. 566, note). The English factory at Bencoolen was from 1714 called Fort Marlborough.
1501.—"Bencolu" is mentioned among the ports of the East Indies by Amerigo Vespucci in his letter quoted under BACANORE.
1690.—"We ... were forced to bear away to Bencouli, another English Factory on the same Coast.... It was two days before I went ashoar, and then I was importuned by the Governour to stay there, to be Gunner of the Fort."—Dampier, i. 512.
1727.—"Bencolon is an English colony, but the European inhabitants not very numerous."—A. Hamilton, ii. 114.
1788.—"It is nearly an equal absurdity, though upon a smaller scale, to have an establishment that costs nearly 40,000l. at Bencoolen, to facilitate the purchase of one cargo of pepper."—Cornwallis, i. 390.
BENDAMEER, n.p. Pers. Bandamīr. A popular name, at least among foreigners, of the River Kur (Araxes) near Shiraz. Properly speaking, the word is the name of a dam constructed across the river by the Amīr Fanā Khusruh, otherwise called Aded-ud-daulah, a prince of the Buweih family (A.D. 965), which was thence known in later days as the Band-i-Amīr, "The Prince's Dam." The work is mentioned in the Geog. Dict. of Yāḳūt (c. 1220) under the name of Sikru Fannā-Khusrah Khurrah and Kirdu Fannā Khusrah (see Barb. Meynard, Dict. de la Perse, 313, 480). Fryer repeats a rigmarole that he heard about the miraculous formation of the dam or bridge by Band Haimero (!) a prophet, "wherefore both the Bridge and the Plain, as well as the River, by Boterus is corruptly called Bindamire" (Fryer, 258).
c. 1475.—"And from thense, a daies iorney, ye come to a great bridge vpon the Byndamyr, which is a notable great ryver. This bridge they said Salomon caused to be made."—Barbaro (Old E. T.), Hak. Soc. 80.
1621.—"... having to pass the Kur by a longer way across another bridge called Bend' Emir, which is as much as to say the Tie (ligatura), or in other words the Bridge, of the Emir, which is two leagues distant from Chehil minar ... and which is so called after a certain Emir Hamza the Dilemite who built it.... Fra Filippo Ferrari, in his Geographical Epitome, attributes the name of Bendemir to the river, but he is wrong, for Bendemir is the name of the bridge and not of the river."—P. della Valle, ii. 264.
1686.—"Il est bon d'observer, vue le commun Peuple appelle le Bend-Emir en cet endroit ab pulneu, c'est à dire le Fleuve du Pont Neuf; qu'on ne l'appelle par son nom de Bend-Emir que proche de la Digue, qui lui a fait donner ce nom."—Chardin (ed. 1711), ix. 45.
1809.—"We proceeded three miles further, and crossing the River Bend-emir, entered the real plain of Merdasht."—Morier (First Journey), 124. See also (1811) 2nd Journey, pp. 73-74, where there is a view of the Band-Amir.
1813.—"The river Bund Emeer, by some ancient Geographers called the Cyrus,[39] takes its present name from a dyke (in Persian a bund) erected by the celebrated Ameer Azad-a-Doulah Delemi."—Macdonald Kinneir, Geog. Mem. of the Persian Empire, 59.
1817.—
"There's a bower of roses by Bendameer's stream,
And the nightingale sings round it all the day long."—Lalla Rookh.
1850.—"The water (of Lake Neyriz) ... is almost entirely derived from the Kur (known to us as the Bund Amir River)...."—Abbott, in J.R.G.S., xxv. 73.
1878.—We do not know whether the Band-i-Amīr is identical with the quasi-synonymous Pul-i-Khān by which Col. Macgregor crossed the Kur on his way from Shiraz to Yezd. See his Khorassan, i. 45.
BENDÁRA, s. A term used in the Malay countries as a title of one of the higher ministers of state—Malay bandahāra, Jav. bendårå, 'Lord.' The word enters into the numerous series of purely honorary Javanese titles, and the etiquette in regard to it is very complicated. (See Tijdschr. v. Nederl. Indie, year viii. No. 12, 253 seqq.). It would seem that the title is properly bānḍārā, 'a treasurer,' and taken from the Skt. bhāṇḍārin, 'a steward or treasurer.' Haex in his Malay-Latin Dict. gives Banḍàri, 'Oeconomus, quaestor, expenditor.' [Mr. Skeat writes that Clifford derives it from Benda-hara-an, 'a treasury,' which he again derives from Malay benda, 'a thing,' without explaining hara, while Wilkinson with more probability classes it as Skt.]