c. 1747.—"While Nundi Raj, the Dulwai (see DALAWAY), was encamped at Sutti Mangul, his troops, for want of pay, placed him in Dhurna.... Hurree Singh, forgetting the ties of salt or gratitude to his master, in order to obtain his arrears of pay, forbade the sleeping and eating of the Dulwai, by placing him in Dhurna ... and that in so great a degree as even to stop the water used in his kitchen. The Dulwai, losing heart from this rigour, with his clothes and the vessels of silver and gold used in travelling, and a small sum of money, paid him off and discharged him."—H. of Hydur Naik, 41 seq.
c. 1794.—"The practice called dharna, which may be translated caption, or arrest."—Sir J. Shore, in As. Res. iv. 144.
1808.—"A remarkable circumstance took place yesterday. Some Sirdars put the Maharaja (Sindia) in dhurna. He was angry, and threatened to put them to death. Bhugwunt Ras Byse, their head, said, 'Sit still; put us to death.' Sindia was enraged, and ordered him to be paid and driven from camp. He refused to go.... The bazaars were shut the whole day; troops were posted to guard them and defend the tents.... At last the mutineers marched off, and all was settled."—Elphinstone's Diary, in Life, i. 179 seq.
1809.—"Seendhiya (i.e. Sindia), who has been lately plagued by repeated D'hurnas, seems now resolved to partake also in the active part of the amusement: he had permitted this same Patunkur, as a signal mark of favour, to borrow 50,000 rupees from the Khasgee, or private treasury.... The time elapsed without the agreement having been fulfilled; and Seendhiya immediately dispatched the treasurer to sit D'hurna on his behalf at Patunkur's tents."—Broughton, Letters from a Mahratta Camp, 169 seq.; [ed. 1892, 127].
[1812.—Morier (Journey through Persia, 32) describes similar proceedings by a Dervish at Bushire.]
1819.—"It is this which is called tukaza[108] by the Mahrattas.... If a man have demand from (? upon) his inferior or equal, he places him under restraint, prevents his leaving his house or eating, and even compels him to sit in the sun until he comes to some accommodation. If the debtor were a superior, the creditor had first recourse to supplications and appeals to the honour and sense of shame of the other party; he laid himself on his threshold, threw himself in his road, clamoured before his door, or he employed others to do this for him; he would even sit down and fast before the debtor's door, during which time the other was compelled to fast also; or he would appeal to the gods, and invoke their curses upon the person by whom he was injured."—Elphinstone, in Life, ii. 87.
1837.[109]—"Whoever voluntarily causes or attempts to cause any person to do anything which that person is not legally bound to do ... by inducing ... that person to believe that he ... will become ... by some act of the offender, an object of the divine displeasure if he does not do the thing ... shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to one year, or with fine, or with both.
Illustrations.
"(a) A. sits dhurna at Z.'s door with the intention of causing it to be believed that by so sitting he renders Z. an object of divine displeasure. A. has committed the offence defined in this section.
"(b) A. threatens Z. that unless Z. performs a certain act A. will kill one of A.'s own children, under such circumstances that the killing would be believed to render Z. an object of the divine displeasure. A. has committed the offence described in this section."—Indian Penal Code, 508, in Chap. XXII., Criminal Intimidation, Insult, and Annoyance.
1875.—"If you have a legal claim against a man of a certain rank and you are desirous of compelling him to discharge it, the Senchus Mor tells you 'to fast upon him.'... The institution is unquestionably identical with one widely diffused throughout the East, which is called by the Hindoos 'sitting dharna.' It consists in sitting at the debtor's door and starving yourself till he pays. From the English point of view the practice has always been considered barbarous and immoral, and the Indian Penal Code expressly forbids it. It suggests, however, the question—what would follow if the debtor simply allowed the creditor to starve? Undoubtedly the Hindoo supposes that some supernatural penalty would follow; indeed, he generally gives definiteness to it by retaining a Brahmin to starve himself vicariously, and no Hindoo doubts what would come of causing a Brahmin's death."—Maine, Hist. of Early Institutions, 40. See also 297-304.
1885.—"One of the most curious practices in India is that still followed in the native states by a Brahman creditor to compel payment of his debt, and called in Hindi dharná, and in Sanskrit ācharita, 'customary proceeding,' or Prāyopaveçana, 'sitting down to die by hunger.' This procedure has long since been identified with the practice of 'fasting upon' (troscud for) a debtor to God or man, which is so frequently mentioned in the Irish so-called Brehon Laws.... In a MS. in the Bodleian ... there is a Middle-Irish legend which tells how St. Patrick 'fasted upon' Loegaire, the unbelieving over-king of Ireland. Loegaire's pious queen declares that she will not eat anything while Patrick is fasting. Her son Enna seeks for food. 'It is not fitting for thee,' says his mother, 'to eat food while Patrick is fasting upon you.'... It would seem from this story that in Ireland the wife and children of the debtor, and, a fortiori, the debtor himself, had to fast so long as the creditor fasted."—Letter from Mr. Whitley Stokes, in Academy, Sept. 12th.
A striking story is told in Forbes's Rās Māla (ii. 393 seq.; [ed. 1878, p. 657]) of a farther proceeding following upon an unsuccessful dharnā, put in practice by a company of Chārans, or bards, in Kathiawāṛ, to enforce payment of a debt by a chief of Jailā to one of their number. After fasting three days in vain, they proceeded from dharnā to the further rite of trāgā (q.v.). Some hacked their own arms; others decapitated three old women of their party, and hung their heads up as a garland at the gate. Certain of the women cut off their own breasts. The bards also pierced the throats of four of the older men with spikes, and took two young girls and dashed their brains out against the town-gate. Finally the Chāran creditor soaked his quilted clothes in oil, and set fire to himself. As he burned to death he cried out, 'I am now dying, but I will become a headless ghost (Kavīs) in the Palace, and will take the chief's life, and cut off his posterity!'
DIAMOND HARBOUR, n.p. An anchorage in the Hoogly below Calcutta, 30 m. by road, and 41 by river. It was the usual anchorage of the old Indiamen in the mercantile days of the E. I. Company. In the oldest charts we find the "Diamond Sand," on the western side of what is now called Diamond Harbour, and on some later charts, Diamond Point.
1683.—"We anchored this night on ye head of ye Diamond Sand.
"Jan. 26. This morning early we weighed anchor ... but got no further than the Point of Kegaria Island" (see KEDGEREE).—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 64. (See also ROGUE'S RIVER.)
DIDWAN, s. P. dīdbān, dīdwān, 'a look-out,' 'watchman,' 'guard,' 'messenger.'
[1679.—See under AUMILDAR, TRIPLICANE.
[1680.—See under JUNCAMEER.
[1683-4.—"... three yards of Ordinary Broadcloth and five Pagodas to the Dithwan that brought the Phirmaund...."—Pringle, Diary of Ft. St. Geo., 1st ser. iii. 4.]
DIGGORY, DIGRĪ, DEGREE, s. Anglo-Hindustani of law-court jargon for 'decree.'
[1866.—"This is grand, thought bold Bhuwanee Singh, diggree to pāh, lekin roopyea to morpāss bah, 'He has got his decree, but I have the money.'"—Confessions of an Orderly, 138.]
DIKK, s. Worry, trouble, botheration; what the Italians call seccatura. This is the Anglo-Indian use. But the word is more properly adjective, Ar.-P.-H. diḳ, diḳḳ, 'vexed, worried,' and so diḳḳ honā, 'to be worried.' [The noun diḳḳ-dārī, 'worry,' in vulgar usage, has become an adjective.]
1873.—
"And Beaufort learned in the law,
And Atkinson the Sage,
And if his locks are white as snow,
'Tis more from dikk than age!"
Wilfrid Heeley, A Lay of Modern Darjeeling.
[1889.—"Were the Company's pumps to be beaten by the vagaries of that dikhdari, Tarachunda nuddee?"—R. Kipling, In Black and White, 52.]
DINAPORE, n.p. A well-known cantonment on the right bank of the Ganges, being the station of the great city of Patna. The name is properly Dānāpur. Ives (1755) writes Dunapoor (p. 167). The cantonment was established under the government of Warren Hastings about 1772, but we have failed to ascertain the exact date. [Cruso, writing in 1785, speaks of the cantonments having cost the Company 25 lakhs of rupees. (Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 445). There were troops there in 1773 (Gleig, Life of Warren Hastings, i. 297).]
DĪNĀR, s. This word is not now in any Indian use. But it is remarkable as a word introduced into Skt. at a comparatively early date. "The names of the Arabic pieces of money ... are all taken from the coins of the Lower Roman Empire. Thus, the copper piece was called fals from follis; the silver dirham from drachma, and the gold dīnār, from denarius, which, though properly a silver coin, was used generally to denote coins of other metals, as the denarius aeris, and the denarius auri, or aureus" (James Prinsep, in Essays, &c., ed. by Thomas, i. 19). But it was long before the rise of Islām that the knowledge and name of the denarius as applied to a gold coin had reached India. The inscription on the east gate of the great tope at Sanchi is probably the oldest instance preserved, though the date of that is a matter greatly disputed. But in the Amarakosha (c. A.D. 500) we have 'dīnāre 'pi cha nishkah,' i.e. 'a nishkah (or gold coin) is the same as dīnāra.' And in the Kalpasūtra of Bhadrabāhu (of about the same age) § 36, we have 'dīnāra mālaya,' 'a necklace of dīnārs,' mentioned (see Max Müller below). The dīnār in modern Persia is a very small imaginary coin, of which 10,000 make a tomaun (q.v.). In the Middle Ages we find Arabic writers applying the term dīnār both to the staple gold coin (corresponding to the gold mohr of more modern times) and to the staple silver coin (corresponding to what has been called since the 16th century the rupee). [Also see Yule, Cathay, ii. 439 seqq. See DEANER.]
A.D. (?) "The son of Amuka ... having made salutation to the eternal gods and goddesses, has given a piece of ground purchased at the legal rate; also five temples, and twenty-five (thousand?) dínárs ... as an act of grace and benevolence of the great emperor Chandragupta."—Inscription on Gateway at Sanchi (Prinsep's Essays, i. 246).
A.D. (?) "Quelque temps après, à Pataliputra, un autre homme devoué aux Brahmanes renversa une statue de Bouddha aux pieds d'un mendiant, qui la mit en pièces. Le roi (Açoka) ... fit proclamer cet ordre: Celui qui m'apportera la tête d'un mendiant brahmanique, recevra de moi un Dînâra."—Tr. of Divya avadâna, in Burnouf, Int. à l'Hist. du Bouddhisme Indien, p. 422.
c. 1333.—"The lak is a sum of 100,000 dīnārs (i.e. of silver); this sum is equivalent to 10,000 dīnārs of gold, Indian money; and the Indian (gold) dīnār is worth 2½ dīnārs in money of the West (Maghrab)."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 106.
1859.—"Cosmas Indicopleustes remarked that the Roman denarius was received all over the world;[110] and how the denarius came to mean in India a gold ornament we may learn from a passage in the 'Life of Mahâvîra.' There it is said that a lady had around her neck a string of grains and golden dinars, and Stevenson adds that the custom of stringing coins together, and adorning with them children especially, is still very common in India."—Max Müller, Hist. of Sanskrit Literature, 247.
DINGY, DINGHY, s. Beng. diṇgī; [H. dingī, dengī, another form of dongī, Skt. droṇa, 'a trough.'] A small boat or skiff; sometimes also 'a canoe,' i.e. dug out of a single trunk. This word is not merely Anglo-Indian; it has become legitimately incorporated in the vocabulary of the British navy, as the name of the smallest ship's boat; [in this sense, according to the N.E.D., first in Midshipman Easy (1836)]. Dingā occurs as the name of some kind of war-boat used by the Portuguese in the defence of Hugli in 1631 ("Sixty-four large díngas"; Elliot, vii. 34). The word dingī is also used for vessels of size in the quotation from Tippoo. Sir J. Campbell, in the Bombay Gazetteer, says that dhangī is a large vessel belonging to the Mekrān coast; the word is said to mean 'a log' in Bilūchī. In Guzerat the larger vessel seems to be called dangā; and besides this there is dhangī, like a canoe, but built, not dug out.
[1610.—"I have brought with me the pinnace and her ginge for better performance."—Danvers, Letters, i. 61.]
1705.—"... pour aller à terre on est obligé de se servir d'un petit Bateau dont les bords sont très hauts, qu'on appelle Dingues...."—Luiller, 39.
1785.—"Propose to the merchants of Muscat ... to bring hither, on the Dingies, such horses as they may have for sale; which, being sold to us, the owner can carry back the produce in rice."—Letters of Tippoo, 6.
1810.—"On these larger pieces of water there are usually canoes, or dingies."—Williamson, V. M. ii. 59.
[1813.—"The Indian pomegranates ... are by no means equal to those brought from Arabia by the Muscat dingeys."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 468.]
1878.—"I observed among a crowd of dinghies, one contained a number of native commercial agents."—Life in the Mofussil, i. 18.
DIRZEE, s. P. darzī, H. darzī and vulgarly darjī; [darz, 'a rent, seam.'] A tailor.
[1623.—"The street, which they call Terzi Caravanserai, that is the Tayler's Inn."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 95.]
c. 1804.—"In his place we took other servants, Dirges and Dobes, and a Sais for Mr. Sherwood, who now got a pony."—Mrs. Sherwood, Autobiog. 283.
1810.—"The dirdjees, or taylors, in Bombay, are Hindoos of respectable caste."—Maria Graham, 30.
DISPATCHADORE, s. This curious word was apparently a name given by the Portuguese to certain officials in Cochin-China. We know it only in the document quoted:
1696.—"The 23 I was sent to the Under-Dispatchadore, who I found with my Scrutore before him. I having the key, he desired me to open it."—Bowyear's Journal at Cochin China, in Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 77; also "was made Under-Customer or Despatchadore" (ibid. 81); and again: "The Chief Dispatchadore of the Strangers" (84).
DISSAVE, DISSAVA, &c., s. Singh. disāva (Skt. deśa, 'a country,' &c.), 'Governor of a Province,' under the Candyan Government. Disave, as used by the English in the gen. case, adopted from the native expression disave mahatmya, 'Lord of the Province.' It is now applied by the natives to the Collector or "Government Agent." (See DESSAYE.)
1681.—"Next under the Adigars are the Dissauva's who are Governours over provinces and counties of the land."—Knox, p. 50.
1685.—"... un Dissava qui est comme un General Chingulais, ou Gouverneur des armées d'une province."—Ribeyro (Fr. tr.), 102.
1803.—"... the Dissauvas ... are governors of the corles or districts, and are besides the principal military commanders."—Percival's Ceylon, 258.
1860.—"... the dissave of Oovah, who had been sent to tranquillize the disturbed districts, placed himself at the head of the insurgents" (in 1817).—Tennent's Ceylon, ii. 91.
DITCH, DITCHER. Disparaging sobriquets for Calcutta and its European citizens, for the rationale of which see MAHRATTA DITCH.
DIU, n.p. A port at the south end of Peninsular Guzerat. The town stands on an island, whence its name, from Skt. dvīpa. The Portuguese were allowed to build a fort here by treaty with Bahādur Shāh of Guzerat, in 1535. It was once very famous for the sieges which the Portuguese successfully withstood (1538 and 1545) against the successors of Bahādur Shāh [see the account in Linschoten, Hak. Soc. i. 37 seq.]. It still belongs to Portugal, but is in great decay. [Tavernier (ed. Ball, ii. 35) dwells on the advantages of its position.]
c. 700.—Chinese annals of the T'ang dynasty mention Tiyu as a port touched at by vessels bound for the Persian Gulf, about 10 days before reaching the Indus. See Deguignes, in Mém. de l'Acad. Inscript. xxxii. 367.
1516.—"... there is a promontory, and joining close to it is a small island which contains a very large and fine town, which the Malabars call Diuxa and the Moors of the country call it Diu. It has a very good harbour," &c.—Barbosa, 59.
1572.—
"Succeder-lhe-ha alli Castro, que o estandarte
Portuguez terá sempre levantado,
Conforme successor ao succedido;
Que hum ergue Dio, outro o defende erguido."
Camões, x. 67.
By Burton:
"Castro succeeds, who Lusias estandard
shall bear for ever in the front to wave;
Successor the Succeeded's work who endeth;
that buildeth Diu, this builded Diu defendeth."
1648.—"At the extremity of this Kingdom, and on a projecting point towards the south lies the city Diu, where the Portuguese have 3 strong castles; this city is called by both Portuguese and Indians Dive (the last letter, e, being pronounced somewhat softly), a name which signifies 'Island.'"—Van Twist, 13.
1727.—"Diu is the next Port.... It is one of the best built Cities, and best fortified by Nature and Art, that I ever saw in India, and its stately Buildings of free Stone and Marble, are sufficient Witnesses of its ancient Grandeur and Opulency; but at present not above one-fourth of the City is inhabited."—A. Hamilton, i. 137; [ed. 1744, i. 136].
DIUL-SIND, n.p. A name by which Sind is often called in early European narratives, taken up by the authors, no doubt, like so many other prevalent names, from the Arab traders who had preceded them. Dewal or Daibul was a once celebrated city and seaport of Sind, mentioned by all the old Arabian geographers, and believed to have stood at or near the site of modern Karāchī. It had the name from a famous temple (devālya), probably a Buddhist shrine, which existed there, and which was destroyed by the Mahommedans in 711. The name of Dewal long survived the city itself, and the specific addition of Sind or Sindī being added, probably to distinguish it from some other place of resembling name, the name of Dewal-Sind or Sindi came to be attached to the delta of the Indus.
c. 700.—The earliest mention of Dewal that we are aware of is in a notice of Chinese Voyages to the Persian Gulf under the T'ang dynasty (7th and 8th centuries) quoted by Deguignes. In this the ships, after leaving Tiyu (Diu) sailed 10 days further to another Tiyu near the great river Milan or Sinteu. This was, no doubt, Dewal near the great Mihrān or Sindhu, i.e. Indus.—Mém. de l'Acad. des Insc. xxxii. 367.
c. 880.—"There was at Debal a lofty temple (budd) surmounted by a long pole, and on the pole was fixed a red flag, which when the breeze blew was unfurled over the city.... Muhammad informed Hajjáj of what he had done, and solicited advice.... One day a reply was received to this effect:—'Fix the manjaník ... call the manjaník-master, and tell him to aim at the flagstaff of which you have given a description.' So he brought down the flagstaff, and it was broken; at which the infidels were sore afflicted."—Bilāḍuri, in Elliot, i. 120.
c. 900.—"From Nármasírá to Debal is 8 days' journey, and from Debal to the junction of the river Mihrán with the sea, is 2 parasangs."—Ibn Khordádbah, in Elliot, i. 15.
976.—"The City of Debal is to the west of the Mihrán, towards the sea. It is a large mart, and the port not only of this, but of the neighbouring regions...."—Ibn Haukal, in Elliot, i. 37.
c. 1150.—"The place is inhabited only because it is a station for the vessels of Sind and other countries ... ships laden with the productions of 'Umán, and the vessels of China and India come to Debal."—Idrisi, in Elliot, i. p. 77.
1228.—"All that country down to the seashore was subdued. Malik Sinán-ud-dín Habsh, chief of Dewal and Sind, came and did homage to the Sultan."—Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāsiri, in Elliot, ii. 326.
[1513.—"And thence we had sight of Diulcindy."—Albuquerque, Cartas, p. 239.]
1516.—"Leaving the Kingdom of Ormuz ... the coast goes to the South-east for 172 leagues as far as Diulcinde, entering the Kingdom of Ulcinde, which is between Persia and India."—Barbosa, 49.
1553.—"From this Cape Jasque to the famous river Indus are 200 leagues, in which space are these places Guadel, Calara, Calamente, and Diul, the last situated on the most westerly mouth of the Indus."—De Barros, Dec. I. liv. ix. cap. i.
c. 1554.—"If you guess that you may be drifting to Jaked ... you must try to go to Karaushī, or to enter Khur (the estuary of) Diúl Sind."—The Mohit, in J. As. Soc. Ben. v. 463.
" "He offered me the town of Lahori, i.e. Diuli Sind, but as I did not accept it I begged him for leave to depart."—Sidi 'Ali Kapudān, in Journ. As. 1st Ser. tom. ix. 131.
[1557.—Couto says that the Italians who travelled overland before the Portuguese discovered the sea route 'found on the other side on the west those people called Diulis, so called from their chief city named Diul, where they settled, and whence they passed to Cinde.']
1572.—
"Olha a terra de Ulcinde fertilissima
E de Jaquete a intima enseada."
Camões, x. cvi.
1614.—"At Diulsinde the Expedition in her former Voyage had deliuered Sir Robert Sherley the Persian Embassadour."—Capt. W. Peyton, in Purchas, i. 530.
[1616.—"The riuer Indus doth not powre himself into the sea by the bay of Cambaya, but far westward, at Sindu."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. i. 122.]
1638.—"Les Perses et les Arabes donnent au Royaume de Sindo le nom de Diul."—Mandelslo, 114.
c. 1650.—Diul is marked in Blaeu's great Atlas on the W. of the most westerly mouth of the Indus.
c. 1666.—"... la ville la plus Méridionale est Diul. On la nomme encore Diul-Sind, et autrefois on l'a appellée Dobil.... Il y a des Orientaux qui donnent le nom de Diul au Païs de Sinde."—Thevenot, v. 158.
1727.—"All that shore from Jasques to Sindy, inhabited by uncivilized People, who admit of no Commerce with Strangers, tho' Guaddel and Diul, two Sea-ports, did about a Century ago afford a good Trade."—A. Hamilton, i. 115; [ed. 1744].
1753.—"Celui (le bras du Sind) de la droite, après avoir passé à Fairuz, distant ce Mansora de trois journées selon Edrisi, se rend à Debil ou Divl, au quel nom on ajoûte quelque fois celui de Sindi.... La ville est située sur une langue de terre en forme de peninsule, d'où je pense que lui vient son nom actuel de Diul ou Divl, formé du mot Indien Div, qui signifie une île. D'Herbelot ... la confond avec Diu, dont la situation est à l'entrée du Golfe de Cambaye."—D'Anville, p. 40.
DOAB, s. and n.p. P.—H. doāb, 'two waters,' i.e. 'Mesopotamia,' the tract between two confluent rivers. In Upper India, when used absolutely, the term always indicates the tract between the Ganges and Jumna. Each of the like tracts in the Punjab has its distinctive name, several of them compounded of the names of the limiting rivers, e.g. Rīchnā Doāb, between Rāvī and Chenāb, Jech Doāb, between Jelam and Chenāb, &c. These names are said to have been invented by the Emperor Akbar. [Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 311 seq.] The only Doāb known familiarly by that name in the south of India is the Raichūr Doāb in the Nizam's country, lying between the Kistna and Tungabhadra.
DOAI! DWYE! Interj. Properly H. dohāī, or dūhāī, Gujarātī dawāhī, an exclamation (hitherto of obscure etymology) shouted aloud by a petitioner for redress at a Court of Justice, or as any one passes who is supposed to have it in his power to aid in rendering the justice sought. It has a kind of analogy, as Thevenot pointed out over 200 years ago, to the old Norman Haro! Haro! viens à mon aide, mon Prince![111] but does not now carry the privilege of the Norman cry; though one may conjecture, both from Indian analogies and from the statement of Ibn Batuta quoted below, that it once did. Every Englishman in Upper India has often been saluted by the calls of, 'Dohāi Khudāwand kī! Dohāi Mahārāj! Dohāi Kompanī Bahādur!' 'Justice, my Lord! Justice, O King! Justice, O Company!'—perhaps in consequence of some oppression by his followers, perhaps in reference to some grievance with which he has no power to interfere. "Until 1860 no one dared to ignore the appeal of dohāī to a native Prince within his territory. I have heard a serious charge made against a person for calling the dohāī needlessly" (M.-Gen. Keatinge).
Wilson derives the exclamation from do, 'two' or repeatedly, and hāi 'alas,' illustrating this by the phrase 'dohāī tīhāī karnā,' 'to make exclamation (or invocation of justice) twice and thrice.' [Platts says, do-hāy, Skt. hrī-hāhā,' a crying twice "alas!"] This phrase, however, we take to be merely an example of the 'striving after meaning,' usual in cases where the real origin of the phrase is forgotten. We cannot doubt that the word is really a form of the Skt. droha, 'injury, wrong.' And this is confirmed by the form in Ibn Batuta, and the Mahr. durāhi; "an exclamation or expression used in prohibiting in the name of the Raja ... implying an imprecation of his vengeance in case of disobedience" (Molesworth's Dict.); also Tel. and Canar. durāi, 'protest, prohibition, caveat, or veto in arrest of proceedings' (Wilson and C. P. B., MS.)
c. 1340.—"It is a custom in India that when money is due from any person who is favoured by the Sultan, and the creditor wants his debt settled, he lies in wait at the Palace gate for the debtor, and when the latter is about to enter he assails him with the exclamation Darōhai us-Sultan! 'O Enemy of the Sultan.—I swear by the head of the King thou shalt not enter till thou hast paid me what thou owest.' The debtor cannot then stir from the spot, until he has satisfied the creditor, or has obtained his consent to the respite."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 412. The signification assigned to the words by the Moorish traveller probably only shows that the real meaning was unknown to his Musulman friends at Delhi, whilst its form strongly corroborates our etymology, and shows that it still kept close to the Sanskrit.
1609.—"He is severe enough, but all helpeth not; for his poore Riats or clownes complaine of Iniustice done them, and cry for justice at the King's hands."—Hawkins, in Purchas, i. 223.
c. 1666.—"Quand on y veut arrêter une personne, on crie seulement Doa padecha; cette clameur a autant de force que celle de haro en Normandie; et si on defend à quelqu'un de sortir, du lieu où il est, en disant Doa padecha, il ne peut partir sans se rendre criminel, et il est obligé de se presentir à la Justice."—Thevenot, v. 61.
1834.—"The servant woman began to make a great outcry, and wanted to leave the ship, and cried Dohaee to the Company, for she was murdered and kidnapped."—The Baboo, ii. 242.
DOAR, n.p. A name applied to the strip of moist land, partially cultivated with rice, which extends at the foot of the Himālaya mountains to Bhotan. It corresponds to the Terai further west; but embraces the conception of the passes or accesses to the hill country from this last verge of the plain, and is apparently the Skt. dvāra, a gate or entrance. [The E. Dwars of Goalpara District, and the W. Dwars of Jalpaiguri were annexed in 1864 to stop the raids of the Bhutias.]
DOBUND, s. This word is not in the Hind. Dicts. (nor is it in Wilson), but it appears to be sufficiently elucidated by the quotation:
1787.—"That the power of Mr. Fraser to make dobunds, or new and additional embankments in aid of the old ones ... was a power very much to be suspected, and very improper to be entrusted to a contractor who had already covenanted to keep the old pools in perfect repair," &c.—Articles against W. Hastings, in Burke, vii. 98.
DOLLY, s. Hind. ḍālī. A complimentary offering of fruit, flowers, vegetables, sweetmeats and the like, presented usually on one or more trays; also the daily basket of garden produce laid before the owner by the Mālī or gardener ("The Molly with his dolly"). The proper meaning of ḍālī is a 'branch' or 'twig' (Skt. dār); then a 'basket,' a 'tray,' or a 'pair of trays slung to a yoke,' as used in making the offerings. Twenty years ago the custom of presenting ḍālīs was innocent and merely complimentary; but, if the letter quoted under 1882 is correct, it must have grown into a gross abuse, especially in the Punjab. [The custom has now been in most Provinces regulated by Government orders.]
[1832.—"A Dhaullie is a flat basket, on which is arranged in neat order whatever fruit, vegetables, or herbs are at the time in season."—Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations, i. 333.]
1880.—"Brass dishes filled with pistachio nuts are displayed here and there; they are the oblations of the would-be visitors. The English call these offerings dollies; the natives dáli. They represent in the profuse East the visiting cards of the meagre West."—Ali Baba, 84.
1882.—"I learn that in Madras dallies are restricted to a single gilded orange or lime, or a tiny sugar pagoda, and Madras officers who have seen the bushels of fruit, nuts, almonds, sugar-candy ... &c., received by single officials in a single day in the N.W. Provinces, and in addition the number of bottles of brandy, champagne, liquors, &c., received along with all the preceding in the Punjab, have been ... astounded that such a practice should be countenanced by Government."—Letter in Pioneer Mail, March 15.
DOME, DHOME; in S. India commonly Dombaree, Dombar, s. Hind. Ḍōm or Ḍōmrā. The name of a very low caste, representing some old aboriginal race, spread all over India. In many places they perform such offices as carrying dead bodies, removing carrion, &c. They are often musicians; in Oudh sweepers; in Champāran professional thieves (see Elliot's Races of the N.W.P., [Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, s.v.]). It is possible, as has been suggested by some one, that the Gypsy Romany is this word.
c. 1328.—"There be also certain others which be called Dumbri who eat carrion and carcases; who have absolutely no object of worship; and who have to do the drudgeries of other people, and carry loads."—Friar Jordanus, Hak. Soc. p. 21.
1817.—"There is yet another tribe of vagrants, who are also a separate sect. They are the class of mountebanks, buffoons, posture-masters, tumblers, dancers, and the like.... The most dissolute body is that of the Dumbars or Dumbaru."—Abbé Dubois, 468.
DONDERA HEAD, n.p. The southernmost point of Ceylon; called after a magnificent Buddhist shrine there, much frequented as a place of pilgrimage, which was destroyed by the Portuguese in 1587. The name is a corruption of Dewa-nagara, in Elu (or old Singalese) Dewu-nuwara; in modern Singalese Dewuṅdara (Ind. Antiq. i. 329). The place is identified by Tennent with Ptolemy's "Dagana, sacred to the moon." Is this name in any way the origin of the opprobrium 'dunderhead'? [The N.E.D. gives no countenance to this, but leaves the derivation doubtful; possibly akin to dunner]. The name is so written in Dunn's Directory, 5th ed. 1780, p. 59; also in a chart of the Bay of Bengal, without title or date in Dalrymple's Collection.
1344.—"We travelled in two days to the city of Dīnawar, which is large, near the sea, and inhabited by traders. In a vast temple there, one sees an idol which bears the same name as the city.... The city and its revenues are the property of the idol."—Ibn Batuta, iv. 184.
[1553.—"Tanabaré." See under GALLE, POINT DE.]
DONEY, DHONY, s. In S. India, a small native vessel, properly formed (at least the lower part of it) from a single tree. Tamil tōṉi. Dr. Gundert suggests as the origin Skt. droṇa, 'a wooden vessel.' But it is perhaps connected with the Tamil tonduga, 'to scoop out'; and the word would then be exactly analogous to the Anglo-American 'dug-out.' In the J.R.A.S. vol. i. is a paper by Mr. Edye, formerly H.M.'s Master Shipwright in Ceylon, on the native vessels of South India, and among others he describes the Doni (p. 13), with a drawing to scale. He calls it "a huge vessel of ark-like form, about 70 feet long, 20 feet broad, and 12 feet deep; with a flat bottom or keel part, which at the broadest place is 7 feet; ... the whole equipment of these rude vessels, as well as their construction, is the most coarse and unseaworthy that I have ever seen." From this it would appear that the doney is no longer a 'dug-out,' as the suggested etymology, and Pyrard de Laval's express statement, indicate it to have been originally.
1552.—Castanheda already uses the word as Portuguese: "foy logo cõtra ho tône."—iii. 22.
1553.—"Vasco da Gama having started ... on the following day they were becalmed rather more than a league and a half from Calicut, when there came towards them more than 60 tonés, which are small vessels, crowded with people."—Barros, I. iv., xi.
1561.—The word constantly occurs in this form (toné) in Correa, e.g. vol. i. pt. 1, 403, 502, &c.
[1598.—"... certaine scutes or Skiffes called Tones."—Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 56.]
1606.—There is a good description of the vessel in Gouvea, f. 29.
c. 1610.—"Le basteau s'appelloit Donny, c'est à dire oiseau, pource qu'il estoit proviste de voiles."—Pyrard de Laval, i. 65; [Hak. Soc. i. 86].
" "La plupart de leurs vaisseaux sont d'une seule piece, qu'ils appellent Tonny, et les Portugais Almediés (Almadia)."—Ibid. i. 278; [Hak. Soc. i. 389].
1644.—"They have in this city of Cochin certain boats which they call Tones, in which they navigate the shallow rivers, which have 5 or 6 palms of depth, 15 or 20 cubits in length, and with a broad parana of 5 or 6 palms, so that they build above an upper story called Bayleu, like a little house, thatched with Ola (Ollah), and closed at the sides. This contains many passengers, who go to amuse themselves on the rivers, and there are spent in this way many thousands of cruzados."—Bocarro, MS.
1666.—"... with 110 paraos, and 100 catures (see PROW, CATUR) and 80 tonees of broad beam, full of people ... the enemy displayed himself on the water to our caravels."—Faria y Sousa, Asia Portug. i. 66.
1672.—"... four fishermen from the town came over to us in a Tony."—Baldaeus, Ceylon (Dutch ed.), 89.
[1821.—In Travels on Foot through the Island of Ceylon, by J. Haafner, translated from the Dutch (Phillip's New Voyages and Travels, v. 6, 79), the words "thonij," "thony's" of the original are translated Funny, Funnies; this is possibly a misprint for Tunnies, which appears on p. 66 as the rendering of "thonij's." See Notes and Queries, 9th ser. iv. 183.]
1860.—"Amongst the vessels at anchor (at Galle) lie the dows of the Arabs, the Patamars of Malabar, the dhoneys of Coromandel."—Tennent's Ceylon, ii. 103.
DOOB, s. H. dūb, from Skt. dūrvā. A very nutritious creeping grass (Cynodon dactylon, Pers.), spread very generally in India. In the hot weather of Upper India, when its growth is scanty, it is eagerly sought for horses by the 'grass-cutters.' The natives, according to Roxburgh, quoted by Drury, cut the young leaves and make a cooling drink from the roots. The popular etymology, from dhūp, 'sunshine,' has no foundation. Its merits, its lowly gesture, its spreading quality, give it a frequent place in native poetry.
1810.—"The doob is not to be found everywhere; but in the low countries about Dacca ... this grass abounds; attaining to a prodigious luxuriance."—Williamson, V. M. i. 259.
DOOCAUN, s. Ar. dukkān, Pers. and H. dukān, 'a shop'; dukāndār, 'a shopkeeper.'
1554.—"And when you buy in the dukāns (nos ducões), they don't give picotaa (see PICOTA), and so the Dukándárs (os Ducamdares) gain...."—A. Nunes, 22.
1810.—"L'estrade elevée sur laquelle le marchand est assis, et d'où il montre sa marchandise aux acheteurs, est proprement ce qu'on appelle dukān; mot qui signifie, suivant son étymologie, une estrade ou plateforme, sur laquelle on se peut tenir assis, et que nous traduisons improprement par boutique."—Note by Silvestre de Sacy, in Relation de l'Egypte, 304.
[1832.—"The Dukhauns (shops) small, with the whole front open towards the street."—Mrs. Meer Hassan Ali, Observations, ii. 36.]
1835.—"The shop (dookkán) is a square recess, or cell, generally about 6 or 7 feet high.... Its floor is even with the top of a muśtabah, or raised seat of stone or brick, built against the front."—Lane's Mod. Egyptians, ed. 1836, ii. 9.
DOOMBUR, s. The name commonly given in India to the fat-tailed sheep, breeds of which are spread over West Asia and East Africa. The word is properly Pers. dunba, dumba; dumb, 'tail,' or especially this fat tail. The old story of little carts being attached to the quarters of these sheep to bear their tails is found in many books, but it is difficult to trace any modern evidence of the fact. We quote some passages bearing on it: