1298.—"There are numerous cities and villages in this province of Abash, and many merchants."—Marco Polo, 2nd ed. ii. 425.
[c. 1346.—"Habshis." See under COLOMBO.]
1553.—"At this time, among certain Moors, who came to sell provisions to the ships, had come three Abeshis (Abexijs) of the country of the Prester John ..."—Barros, I. iv. 4.
[1612.—"Sent away the Thomas towards the Habash coast."—Danvers, Letters, i. 166; "The Habesh shore."—Ibid. i. 131.
[c. 1661.—"... on my way to Gonder, the capital of Habech, or Kingdom of Ethiopia."—Bernier, ed. Constable, 2.]
1673.—"Cowis Cawn, an Hobsy or Arabian Coffery (Caffer)."—Fryer, 147.
1681.—"Habessini ... nunc passim nominantur; vocabulo ab Arabibus indito, quibus Habesh colluviem vel mixturam gentium denotat."—Ludolphi, Hist. Aethiop. lib. i. c. i.
1750-60.—"The Moors are also fond of having Abyssinian slaves known in India by the name of Hobshy Coffrees."—Grose, i. 148.
1789.—"In India Negroes, Habissinians, Nobis (i.e. Nubians) &c. &c. are promiscuously called Habashies or Habissians, although the two latter are no negroes; and the Nobies and Habashes differ greatly from one another."—Note to Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 36.
[1813.—"... the master of a family adopts a slave, frequently a Haffshee Abyssinian, of the darkest hue, for his heir."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. ii. 473.]
1884.—"One of my Tibetan ponies had short curly brown hair, and was called both by my servants, and by Dr. Campbell, 'a Hubshee.'
"I understood that the name was specific for that description of pony amongst the traders."—Note by Sir Joseph Hooker.
HUCK. Properly Ar. haḳḳ. A just right; a lawful claim; a perquisite claimable by established usage.
[1866.—"The difference between the bazar price, and the amount price of the article sold, is the huq of the Dullal (Deloll)."—Confessions of an Orderly, 50.]
HUCKEEM, s. Ar.—H. ḥakīm; a physician. (See note under HAKIM.)
1622.—"I, who was thinking little or nothing about myself, was forthwith put by them into the hands of an excellent physician, a native of Shiraz, who then happened to be at Lar, and whose name was Hekim Abu'l fetab. The word hekim signifies 'wise'; it is a title which it is the custom to give to all those learned in medical matters."—P. della Valle, ii. 318.
1673.—"My Attendance is engaged, and a Million of Promises, could I restore him to his Health, laid down from his Wives, Children, and Relations, who all (with the Citizens, as I could hear going along) pray to God that the Hackin Fringi, the Frank Doctor, might kill him ..."—Fryer, 312.
1837.—"I had the native works on Materia Medica collated by competent Hakeems and Moonshees."—Royle, Hindoo Medicine, 25.
HULLIA, s. Canarese Holeya; the same as Polea (pulayan) (q.v.), equivalent to Pariah (q.v.). ["Holeyas field-labourers and agrestic serfs of S. Canara; Pulayan being the Malayālam and Paraiyan the Tamil form of the same word. Brahmans derive it from hole, 'pollution'; others from hola, 'land' or 'soil,' as being thought to be autochthones" (Sturrock, Man. of S. Canara, i. 173). The last derivation is accepted in the Madras Gloss. For an illustration of these people, see Richter, Man. of Coorg, 112.]
1817.—"... a Hulliá or Pariar King."—Wilks, Hist. Sketches, i. 151.
1874.—"At Melkotta, the chief seat of the followers of Râmanya [Rāmānuja] Achârya, and at the Brâhman temple at Bailur, the Hŏlĕyars or Pareyars have the right of entering the temple on three days in the year, specially set apart for them."—M. J. Walhouse, in Ind. Antiq. iii. 191.
HULWA, s. Ar. ḥalwā and ḥalāwa is generic for sweetmeat, and the word is in use from Constantinople to Calcutta. In H. the word represents a particular class, of which the ingredients are milk, sugar, almond paste, and ghee flavoured with cardamom. "The best at Bombay is imported from Muskat" (Birdwood).
1672.—"Ce qui estoit plus le plaisant, c'estoit un homme qui précédoit le corps des confituriers, lequel avoit une chemise qui luy descendoit aux talons, toute couverte d'alva, c'est à dire, de confiture."—Journ. d'Ant. Galland, i. 118.
1673.—"... the Widow once a Moon (to) go to the Grave with her Acquaintance to repeat the doleful Dirge, after which she bestows Holway, a kind of Sacramental Wafer; and entreats their Prayers for the Soul of the Departed."—Fryer, 94.
1836.—"A curious cry of the seller of a kind of sweetmeat ('haláweh'), composed of treacle fried with some other ingredients, is 'For a nail! O sweetmeat!...' children and servants often steal implements of iron, &c., from the house ... and give them to him in exchange...."—Lane, Mod. Egypt., ed. 1871, ii. 15.
HUMMAUL, s. Ar. ḥammāl, a porter. The use of the word in India is confined to the west, and there now commonly indicates a palankin-bearer. The word still survives in parts of Sicily in the form camallu = It. 'facchino,' a relic of the Saracenic occupation. In Andalusia alhamel now means a man who lets out a baggage horse; and the word is also used in Morocco in the same way (Dozy).
c. 1350.—"Those rustics whom they call camalls (camallos), whose business it is to carry burdens, and also to carry men and women on their shoulders in litters, such as are mentioned in Canticles: 'Ferculum fecit sibi Solomon de lignis Libani,' whereby is meant a portable litter such as I used to be carried in at Zayton, and in India."—John de' Marignolli, in Cathay, &c., 366.
1554.—"To the Xabandar (see SHABUNDER) (at Ormuz) for the vessels employed in discharging stores, and for the amals who serve in the custom-house."—S. Botelho, Tombo, 103.
1691.—"His honour was carried by the Amaals, i.e. the Palankyn bearers 12 in number, sitting in his Palankyn."—Valentijn, v. 266.
1711.—"Hamalage, or Cooley-hire, at 1 coz (see GOSBECK) for every maund Tabrees."—Tariff in Lockyer, 243.
1750-60.—"The Hamauls or porters, who make a livelihood of carrying goods to and from the warehouses."—Grose, i. 120.
1809.—"The palankeen-bearers are here called hamauls (a word signifying carrier) ... these people come chiefly from the Mahratta country, and are of the coombie or agricultural caste."—Maria Graham, 2.
1813.—For Hamauls at Bussora, see Milburn, i. 126.
1840.—"The hamals groaned under the weight of their precious load, the Apostle of the Ganges" (Dr. Duff to wit).—Smith's Life of Dr. John Wilson, 1878, p. 282.
1877.—"The stately iron gate enclosing the front garden of the Russian Embassy was beset by a motley crowd.... Hamals, or street porters, bent double under the burden of heavy trunks and boxes, would come now and then up one or other of the two semicircular avenues."—Letter from Constantinople, in Times, May 7.
HUMMING-BIRD, s. This name is popularly applied in some parts of India to the sun-birds (sub-fam. Nectarininae).
HUMP, s. 'Calcutta humps' are the salted humps of Indian oxen exported from that city. (See under BUFFALO.)
HURCARRA, HIRCARA, &c., s. Hind. harkārā, 'a messenger, a courier; an emissary, a spy' (Wilson). The etymology, according to the same authority, is har, 'every,' kār, 'business.' The word became very familiar in the Gilchristian spelling Hurkaru, from the existence of a Calcutta newspaper bearing that title (Bengal Hurkaru, generally enunciated by non-Indians as Hurkĕroó), for the first 60 years of last century, or thereabouts.
1747.—"Given to the Ircaras for bringing news of the Engagement. (Pag.) 4 3 0."—Fort St David, Expenses of the Paymaster, under January. MS. Records in India Office.
1748.—"The city of Dacca is in the utmost confusion on account of ... advices of a large force of Mahrattas coming by way of the Sunderbunds, and that they were advanced as far as Sundra Col, when first descried by their Hurcurrahs."—In Long, 4.
1757.—"I beg you to send me a good alcara who understands the Portuguese language."—Letter in Ives, 159.
" "Hircars or Spies."—Ibid. 161; [and comp. 67].
1761.—"The head Harcar returned, and told me this as well as several other secrets very useful to me, which I got from him by dint of money and some rum."—Letter of Capt. Martin White, in Long, 260.
[1772.—"Hercarras." (See under DALOYET.)]
1780.—"One day upon the march a Hircarrah came up and delivered him a letter from Colonel Baillie."—Letter of T. Munro, in Life, i. 26.
1803.—"The hircarras reported the enemy to be at Bokerdun."—Letter of A. Wellesley, ibid. 348.
c. 1810.—"We were met at the entrance of Tippoo's dominions by four hircarrahs, or soldiers, whom the Sultan sent as a guard to conduct us safely."—Miss Edgeworth, Lame Jervas. Miss Edgeworth has oddly misused the word here.
1813.—"The contrivances of the native halcarrahs and spies to conceal a letter are extremely clever, and the measures they frequently adopt to elude the vigilance of an enemy are equally extraordinary."—Forbes, Or. Mem. iv. 129; [compare 2nd ed. i. 64; ii. 201].
HURTAUL, s. Hind. from Skt. haritalaka, hartāl, haritāl, yellow arsenic, orpiment.
c. 1347.—Ibn Batuta seems oddly to confound it with camphor. "The best (camphor) called in the country itself al-ḥardāla, is that which attains the highest degree of cold."—iv. 241.
c. 1759.—"... hartal and Cotch, Earth-Oil and Wood-Oil...."—List of Burmese Products, in Dalrymple's Or. Reper. i. 109.
HUZĀRA, n.p. This name has two quite distinct uses.
(a.) Pers. Hazāra. It is used as a generic name for a number of tribes occupying some of the wildest parts of Afghanistan, chiefly N.W. and S.W. of Kabul. These tribes are in no respect Afghan, but are in fact most or all of them Mongol in features, and some of them also in language. The term at one time appears to have been used more generally for a variety of the wilder clans in the higher hill countries of Afghanistan and the Oxus basin, much as in Scotland of a century and a half ago they spoke of "the clans." It appears to be merely from the Pers. hazār, 1000. The regiments, so to speak, of the Mongol hosts of Chinghiz and his immediate successors were called hazāras, and if we accept the belief that the Hazāras of Afghanistan were predatory bands of those hosts who settled in that region (in favour of which there is a good deal to be said), this name is intelligible. If so, its application to the non-Mongol people of Wakhān, &c., must have been a later transfer. [See the discussion by Bellew, who points out that "amongst themselves this people never use the term Hazārah as their national appellation, and yet they have no name for their people as a nation. They are only known amongst themselves by the names of their principal tribes and the clans subordinate to them respectively." (Races of Afghanistan, 114.)]
c. 1480.—"The Hazāra, Takdari, and all the other tribes having seen this, quietly submitted to his authority."—Tarkhán-Náma, in Elliot, i. 303. For Takdari we should probably read Nakudari; and see Marco Polo, Bk. I. ch. 18, note on Nigudaris.
c. 1505.—Kabul "on the west has the mountain districts, in which are situated Karnûd and Ghûr. This mountainous tract is at present occupied and inhabited by the Hazâra and Nukderi tribes."—Baber, p. 136.
1508.—"Mirza Ababeker, the ruler and tyrant of Káshghar, had seized all the Upper Hazáras of Badakhshán."—Erskine's Baber and Humáyun, i. 287. "Hazáraját báládest. The upper districts in Badakhshán were called Hazáras." Erskine's note. He is using the Tarīkh Rashīdī. But is not the word Hazáras here, 'the clans,' used elliptically for the highland districts occupied by them?
[c. 1590.—"The Hazárahs are the descendants of the Chaghatai army, sent by Manku Ḳáán to the assistance of Huláku Khán.... They possess horses, sheep and goats. They are divided into factions, each covetous of what they can obtain, deceptive in their common intercourse and their conventions of amity savour of the wolf."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 402.]
(b.) A mountain district in the extreme N.W. of the Punjab, of which Abbottābād, called after its founder, General James Abbott, is the British head-quarter. The name of this region apparently has nothing to do with Hazāras in the tribal sense, but is probably a survival of the ancient name of a territory in this quarter, called in Sanskrit Abhisāra, and figuring in Ptolemy, Arrian and Curtius as the kingdom of King Abisarēs. [See M‘Crindle, Invasion of India, 69.]
HUZOOR, s. Ar. ḥuẓūr, 'the presence'; used by natives as a respectful way of talking of or to exalted personages, to or of their master, or occasionally of any European gentleman in presence of another European. [The allied words ḥaẓrat and ḥuẓūrī are used in kindred senses as in the examples.]
[1787.—"You will send to the Huzzoor an account particular of the assessment payable by each ryot."—Parwana of Tippoo, in Logan, Malabar, iii. 125.
[1813.—"The Mahratta cavalry are divided into several classes: the Husserat, or household troops called the kassey-pagah, are reckoned very superior to the ordinary horse...."—Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 344.
[1824.—"The employment of that singular description of officers called Huzooriah, or servants of the presence, by the Mahratta princes of Central India, has been borrowed from the usages of the Poona court. Huzooriahs are personal attendants of the chief, generally of his own tribe, and are usually of respectable parentage; a great proportion are hereditary followers of the family of the prince they serve.... They are the usual envoys to subjects on occasions of importance.... Their appearance supersedes all other authority, and disobedience to the orders they convey is termed an act of rebellion."—Malcolm, Central India, 2nd ed. i. 536 seq.
[1826.—"These men of authority being aware that I was a Hoogorie, or one attached to the suite of a great man, received me with due respect."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 40.]
HYSON. (See under TEA.)
IDALCAN, HIDALCAN, and sometimes IDALXA, n.p. The title by which the Portuguese distinguished the kings of the Mahommedan dynasty of Bījapūr which rose at the end of the 15th century on the dissolution of the Bahmani kingdom of the Deccan. These names represented 'Adil Khān, the title of the founder before he became king, more generally called by the Portuguese the Sabaio (q.v.), and 'Adil Shāh, the distinctive style of all the kings of the dynasty. The Portuguese commonly called their kingdom Balaghaut (q.v.).
1510.—"The Hidalcan entered the city (Goa) with great festivity and rejoicings, and went to the castle to see what the ships were doing, and there, inside and out, he found the dead Moors, whom Timoja had slain; and round about them the brothers and parents and wives, raising great wailings and lamentations, thus the festivity of the Hidalcan was celebrated by weepings and wailings ... so that he sent João Machado to the Governor to speak about terms of peace.... The Governor replied that Goa belonged to his lord the K. of Portugal, and that he would hold no peace with him (Hidalcan) unless he delivered up the city with all its territories.... With which reply back went João Machado, and the Hidalcan on hearing it was left amazed, saying that our people were sons of the devil...."—Correa, ii. 98.
1516.—"Hydalcan." See under SABAIO.
1546.—"Trelado de contrato que ho Gouernador Dom Johão de Crastro ffeez com o Idalxaa, que d'antes se chamava Idalcão."—Tombo, in Subsidios, 39.
1563.—"And as those Governors grew weary of obeying the King of Daquem (Deccan), they conspired among themselves that each should appropriate his own lands ... and the great-grandfather of this Adelham who now reigns was one of those captains who revolted; he was a Turk by nation and died in the year 1535; a very powerful man he was always, but it was from him that we twice took by force of arms this city of Goa...."—Garcia, f. 35v. [And comp. Linschoten, Hak. Soc. ii. 199.] N.B.—It was the second of the dynasty who died in 1535; the original 'Adil Khān (or Sabaio) died in 1510, just before the attack of Goa by the Portuguese.
1594-5.—"There are three distinct States in the Dakhin. The Nizám-ul-Mulkiya, 'Adil Khániya, and Kutbu-l-Mulkiya. The settled rule among them was, that if a foreign army entered their country, they united their forces and fought, notwithstanding the dissensions and quarrels they had among themselves. It was also the rule, that when their forces were united, Nizám-ul-Mulk commanded the centre, 'Adil Khán the right, and Kutbu-l-Mulk the left. This rule was now observed, and an immense force had been collected."—Akbar-Nāma, in Elliot, vi. 131.
IMAUM, s. Ar. Imām, 'an exemplar, a leader' (from a root signifying 'to aim at, to follow after'), a title technically applied to the Caliph (Khalīfa) or 'Vicegerent,' or Successor, who is the head of Islām. The title "is also given—in its religious import only—to the heads of the four orthodox sects ... and in a more restricted sense still, to the ordinary functionary of a mosque who leads in the daily prayers of the congregation" (Dr. Badger, Omân, App. A.). The title has been perhaps most familiar to Anglo-Indians as that of the Princes of 'Omān, or "Imaums of Muscat," as they were commonly termed. This title they derived from being the heads of a sect (Ibādhiya) holding peculiar doctrine as to the Imamate, and rejecting the Caliphate of Ali or his successors. It has not been assumed by the Princes themselves since Sa'īd bin Ahmad who died in the early part of last century, but was always applied by the English to Saiyid Sa'īd, who reigned for 52 years, dying in 1856. Since then, and since the separation of the dominions of the dynasty in Omān and in Africa, the title Imām has no longer been used.
It is a singular thing that in an article on Zanzibar in the J. R. Geog. Soc. vol. xxiii. by the late Col. Sykes, the Sultan is always called the Imaun, [of which other examples will be found below].
1673.—"At night we saw Muschat, whose vast and horrid Mountains no Shade but Heaven does hide.... The Prince of this country is called Imaum, who is guardian at Mahomet's Tomb, and on whom is devolved the right of Caliphship according to the Ottoman belief."—Fryer, 220.
[1753.—"These people are Mahommedans of a particular sect ... they are subject to an Iman, who has absolute authority over them."—Hanway, iii. 67.
[1901.—Of the Bombay Kojas, "there were only 12 Imans, the last of the number ... having disappeared without issue."—Times, April 12.]
IMAUMBARRA, s. This is a hybrid word Imām-bāṛā, in which the last part is the Hindī bāṛā, 'an enclosure,' &c. It is applied to a building maintained by Shī'a communities in India for the express purpose of celebrating the mohurrum ceremonies (see HOBSON-JOBSON). The sepulchre of the Founder and his family is often combined with this object. The Imāmbāṛā of the Nawāb Asaf-ud-daula at Lucknow is, or was till the siege of 1858, probably the most magnificent modern Oriental structure in India. It united with the objects already mentioned a mosque, a college, and apartments for the members of the religious establishment. The great hall is "conceived on so grand a scale," says Fergusson, "as to entitle it to rank with the buildings of an earlier age." The central part of it forms a vaulted apartment of 162 feet long by 53½ wide.
[1837.—"In the afternoon we went to see the Emaunberra."—Miss Eden, Up the Country, i. 87.]
IMPALE, v. It is startling to find an injunction to impale criminals given by an English governor (Vansittart, apparently) little more than a century ago. [See CALUETE.]
1764.—"I request that you will give orders to the Naib of Dacca to send some of the Factory Sepoys along with some of his own people, to apprehend the said murderers and to impale them, which will be very serviceable to traders."—The Governor of Fort William to the Nawab; in Long, 389.
1768-71.—"The punishments inflicted at Batavia are excessively severe, especially such as fall upon the Indians. Impalement is the chief and most terrible."—Stavorinus, i. 288. This writer proceeds to give a description of the horrible process, which he witnessed.
INAUM, ENAUM, s. Ar. in'ām, 'a gift' (from a superior), 'a favour,' but especially in India a gift of rent-free land: also land so held. In'āmdār, the holder of such lands. A full detail of the different kinds of in'ām, especially among the Mahrattas, will be found in Wilson, s.v. The word is also used in Western India for bucksheesh (q.v.). This use is said to have given rise to a little mistake on the part of an English political traveller some 30 or 40 years ago, when there had been some agitation regarding the in'am lands and the alleged harshness of the Government in dealing with such claims. The traveller reported that the public feeling in the west of India was so strong on this subject that his very palankin-bearers at the end of their stage invariably joined their hands in supplication, shouting, "In'am! In'am! Sahib!"
INDIA, INDIES, n.p. A book might be written on this name. We can only notice a few points in connection with it.
It is not easy, if it be possible, to find a truly native (i.e. Hindu) name for the whole country which we call India; but the conception certainly existed from an early date. Bhāratavarsha is used apparently in the Purānas with something like this conception. Jambudwīpa, a term belonging to the mythical cosmography, is used in the Buddhist books, and sometimes, by the natives of the south, even now. The accuracy of the definitions of India in some of the Greek and Roman authors shows the existence of the same conception of the country that we have now; a conception also obvious in the modes of speech of Hwen T'sang and the other Chinese pilgrims. The Aśoka inscriptions, c. B.C. 250, had enumerated Indian kingdoms covering a considerable part of the conception, and in the great inscription at Tanjore, of the 11th century A.D., which incidentally mentions the conquest (real or imaginary) of a great part of India, by the king of Tanjore, Vīra-Chola, the same system is followed. In a copperplate of the 11th century, by the Chalukya dynasty of Kalyāna, we find the expression "from the Himālaya to the Bridge" (Ind. Antiq. i. 81), i.e. the Bridge of Rāma, or 'Adam's Bridge,' as our maps have it. And Mahommedan definitions as old, and with the name, will be found below. Under the Hindu kings of Vijayanagara also (from the 14th century) inscriptions indicate all India by like expressions.
The origin of the name is without doubt (Skt.) Sindhu, 'the sea,' and thence the Great River on the West, and the country on its banks, which we still call Sindh.[144] By a change common in many parts of the world, and in various parts of India itself, this name exchanged the initial sibilant for an aspirate, and became (eventually) in Persia Hindū, and so passed on to the Greeks and Latins, viz. Ἰνδοὶ for the people, Ἰνδός for the river, Ἰνδική and India for the country on its banks. Given this name for the western tract, and the conception of the country as a whole to which we have alluded, the name in the mouths of foreigners naturally but gradually spread to the whole.
Some have imagined that the name of the land of Nod ('wandering'), to which Cain is said to have migrated, and which has the same consonants, is but a form of this; which is worth noting, as this idea may have had to do with the curious statement in some medieval writers (e.g. John Marignolli) that certain eastern races were "the descendants of Cain." In the form Hidhu [Hindus, see Encycl. Bibl. ii. 2169] India appears in the great cuneiform inscription on the tomb of Darius Hystaspes near Persepolis, coupled with Gadāra (i.e. Gandhāra, or the Peshawar country), and no doubt still in some degree restricted in its application. In the Hebrew of Esther i. 1, and viii. 9, the form is Hōd(d)ū, or perhaps rather Hiddū (see also Peritsol below). The first Greek writers to speak of India and the Indians were Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus, and Ctesias (B.C. c. 500, c. 440, c. 400). The last, though repeating more fables than Herodotus, shows a truer conception of what India was.
Before going further, we ought to point out that India itself is a Latin form, and does not appear in a Greek writer, we believe, before Lucian and Polyænus, both writers of the middle of the 2nd century. The Greek form is ἡ Ἰνδική, or else 'The Land of the Indians.'
The name of 'India' spread not only from its original application, as denoting the country on the banks of the Indus, to the whole peninsula between (and including) the valleys of Indus and Ganges; but also in a vaguer way to all the regions beyond. The compromise between the vaguer and the more precise use of the term is seen in Ptolemy, where the boundaries of the true India are defined, on the whole, with surprising exactness, as 'India within the Ganges,' whilst the darker regions beyond appear as 'India beyond the Ganges.' And this double conception of India, as 'India Proper' (as we may call it), and India in the vaguer sense, has descended to our own time.
So vague became the conception in the 'dark ages' that the name is sometimes found to be used as synonymous with Asia, 'Europe, Africa, and India,' forming the three parts of the world. Earlier than this, however, we find a tendency to discriminate different Indias, in a form distinct from Ptolemy's Intra et extra Gangem; and the terms India Major, India Minor can be traced back to the 4th century. As was natural where there was so little knowledge, the application of these terms was various and oscillating, but they continued to hold their ground for 1000 years, and in the later centuries of that period we generally find a third India also, and a tendency (of which the roots go back, as far at least as Virgil's time) to place one of the three in Africa.
It is this conception of a twofold or threefold India that has given us and the other nations of Europe the vernacular expressions in plural form which hold their ground to this day: the Indies, les Indes, (It.) le Indie, &c.
And we may add further, that China is called by Friar Odoric Upper India (India Superior), whilst Marignolli calls it India Magna and Maxima, and calls Malabar India Parva, and India Inferior.
There was yet another, and an Oriental, application of the term India to the country at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates, which the people of Basra still call Hind; and which Sir H. Rawlinson connects with the fact that the Talmudic writers confounded Obillah in that region with the Havila of Genesis. (See Cathay, &c., 55, note.)
In the work of the Chinese traveller Hwen T'sang again we find that by him and his co-religionists a plurality of Indias was recognised, i.e. five, viz. North, Central, East, South, and West.
Here we may remark how two names grew out of the original Sindhu. The aspirated and Persianised form Hind, as applied to the great country beyond the Indus, passed to the Arabs. But when they invaded the valley of the Indus and found it called Sindhu, they adopted that name in the form Sind, and thenceforward 'Hind and Sind' were habitually distinguished, though generally coupled, and conceived as two parts of a great whole.
Of the application of India to an Ethiopian region, an application of which indications extend over 1500 years, we have not space to speak here. On this and on the medieval plurality of Indias reference may be made to two notes on Marco Polo, 2nd ed. vol. ii. pp. 419 and 425.
The vague extension of the term India to which we have referred, survives in another form besides that in the use of 'Indies.' India, to each European nation which has possessions in the East, may be said, without much inaccuracy, to mean in colloquial use that part of the East in which their own possessions lie. Thus to the Portuguese, India was, and probably still is, the West Coast only. In their writers of the 16th and 17th century a distinction is made between India, the territory of the Portuguese and their immediate neighbours on the West Coast, and Mogor, the dominions of the Great Mogul. To the Dutchman India means Java and its dependencies. To the Spaniard, if we mistake not, India is Manilla. To the Gaul are not les Indes Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and Réunion?
As regards the West Indies, this expression originates in the misconception of the great Admiral himself, who in his memorable enterprise was seeking, and thought he had found, a new route to the 'Indias' by sailing west instead of east. His discoveries were to Spain the Indies, until it gradually became manifest that they were not identical with the ancient lands of the east, and then they became the West-Indies.
Indian is a name which has been carried still further abroad; from being applied, as a matter of course, to the natives of the islands, supposed of India, discovered by Columbus, it naturally passed to the natives of the adjoining continent, till it came to be the familiar name of all the tribes between (and sometimes even including) the Esquimaux of the North and the Patagonians of the South.
This abuse no doubt has led to our hesitation in applying the term to a native of India itself. We use the adjective Indian, but no modern Englishman who has had to do with India ever speaks of a man of that country as 'an Indian.' Forrest, in his Voyage to Mergui, uses the inelegant word Indostaners; but in India itself a Hindustani means, as has been indicated under that word, a native of the upper Gangetic valley and adjoining districts. Among the Greeks 'an Indian' (Ἰνδὸς) acquired a notable specific application, viz. to an elephant driver or mahout (q.v.).
B.C. c. 486.—"Says Darius the King: By the grace of Ormazd these (are) the countries which I have acquired besides Persia. I have established my power over them. They have brought tribute to me. That which has been said to them by me they have done. They have obeyed my law. Medea ... Arachotia (Harauvatish), Sattagydia (Thatagush), Gandaria (Gadára), India (Hidush)...."—On the Tomb of Darius at Nakhsh-i-Rustam, see Rawlinson's Herod. iv. 250.
B.C. c. 440.—"Eastward of India lies a tract which is entirely sand. Indeed, of all the inhabitants of Asia, concerning whom anything is known, the Indians dwell nearest to the east, and the rising of the Sun."—Herodotus, iii. c. 98 (Rawlinson).
B.C. c. 300.—"India then (ἡ τοίνυν Ἰνδικὴ) being four-sided in plan, the side which looks to the Orient and that to the South, the Great Sea compasseth; that towards the Arctic is divided by the mountain chain of Hēmōdus from Scythia, inhabited by that tribe of Scythians who are called Sakai; and on the fourth side, turned towards the West, the Indus marks the boundary, the biggest or nearly so of all rivers after the Nile."—Megasthenes, in Diodorus, ii. 35. (From Müller's Fragm. Hist. Graec., ii. 402.)
A.D. c. 140.—"Τὰ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ινδοῦ πρὸς ἔω, τοῦτό μοι ἔστω ἡ τῶν Ἰνδῶν γῆ, καὶ Ἰνδοὶ οὖτοι ἔστωσαν."—Arrian, Indica, ch. ii.
c. 590.—"As for the land of the Hind it is bounded on the East by the Persian Sea (i.e. the Indian Ocean), on the W. and S. by the countries of Islām, and on the N. by the Chinese Empire.... The length of the land of the Hind from the government of Mokrān, the country of Manṣūra and Bodha and the rest of Sind, till thou comest to Ḳannūj and thence passest on to Tobbat (see TIBET), is about 4 months, and its breadth from the Indian Ocean to the country of Ḳannūj about three months."—Istakhri, pp. 6 and 11.
c. 650.—"The name of T'ien-chu (India) has gone through various and confused forms.... Anciently they said Shin-tu; whilst some authors called it Hien-teou. Now conforming to the true pronunciation one should say In-tu."—Hwen T'sang, in Pèl. Bouddh., ii. 57.
c. 944.—"For the nonce let us confine ourselves to summary notices concerning the kings of Sind and Hind. The language of Sind is different from that of Hind...."—Maṣ'ūdī, i. 381.
c. 1020.—"India (Al-Hind) is one of those plains bounded on the south by the Sea of the Indians. Lofty mountains bound it on all the other quarters. Through this plain the waters descending from the mountains are discharged. Moreover, if thou wilt examine this country with thine eyes, if thou wilt regard the rounded and worn stones that are found in the soil, however deep thou mayest dig,—stones which near the mountains, where the rivers roll down violently, are large; but small at a distance from the mountains, where the current slackens; and which become mere sand where the currents are at rest, where the waters sink into the soil, and where the sea is at hand—then thou wilt be tempted to believe that this country was at a former period only a sea which the debris washed down by the torrents hath filled up...."—Al-Birūnī, in Reinaud's Extracts, Journ. As. ser. 4. 1844.
" "Hind is surrounded on the East by Chín and Máchín, on the West by Sind and Kábul, and on the South by the Sea."—Ibid. in Elliot, i. 45.
1205.—"The whole country of Hind, from Pershaur to the shores of the Ocean, and in the other direction, from Siwistán to the hills of Chín...."—Hasan Nizāmī, in Elliot, ii. 236. That is, from Peshawar in the north, to the Indian Ocean in the south; from Sehwan (on the west bank of the Indus) to the mountains on the east dividing from China.
c. 1500.—"Hodu quae est India extra et intra Gangem."—Itinera Mundi (in Hebrew), by Abr. Peritsol, in Hyde, Syntagma Dissertt., Oxon, 1767, i. 75.
1553.—"And had Vasco da Gama belonged to a nation so glorious as the Romans he would perchance have added to the style of his family, noble as that is, the surname 'Of India,' since we know that those symbols of honour that a man wins are more glorious than those that he inherits, and that Scipio gloried more in the achievement which gave him the surname of 'Africanus,' than in the name of Cornelius, which was that of his family."—Barros, I. iv. 12.
1572.—Defined, without being named, by Camoens:
"Alem do Indo faz, e aquem do Gange
Hu terreno muy grãde, e assaz famoso,
Que pela parte Austral o mar abrange,
E para o Norte o Emodio cavernoso."
Lusiadas, vii. 17.
Englished by Burton:
"Outside of Indus, inside Ganges, lies
a wide-spread country, famed enough of yore;
northward the peaks of caved Emódus rise,
and southward Ocean doth confine the shore."
1577.—"India is properly called that great Province of Asia, in the whiche great Alexander kepte his warres, and was so named of the ryuer Indus."—Eden, Hist. of Trauayle, f. 3v.
The distinct Indias.
c. 650.—"The circumference of the Five Indies is about 90,000 li; on three sides it is bounded by a great sea; on the north it is backed by snowy mountains. It is wide at the north and narrow at the south; its figure is that of a half-moon."—Hwen T'sang, in Pèl. Bouddh., ii. 58.
1298.—"India the Greater is that which extends from Maabar to Kesmacoran (i.e. from Coromandel to Mekran), and it contains 13 great kingdoms.... India the Lesser extends from the Province of Champa to Mutfili (i.e. from Cochin-China to the Kistna Delta), and contains 8 great Kingdoms.... Abash (Abyssinia) is a very great province, and you must know that it constitutes the Middle India."—Marco Polo, Bk. iii. ch. 34, 35.
c. 1328.—"What shall I say? The greatness of this India is beyond description. But let this much suffice concerning India the Greater and the Less. Of India Tertia I will say this, that I have not indeed seen its many marvels, not having been there...."—Friar Jordanus, p. 41.
India Minor, in Clavijo, looks as if it were applied to Afghanistan:
1404.—"And this same Thursday that the said Ambassadors arrived at this great River (the Oxus) they crossed to the other side. And the same day ... came in the evening to a great city which is called Tenmit (Termedh), and this used to belong to India Minor, but now belongs to the empire of Samarkand, having been conquered by Tamurbec."—Clavijo, § ciii. (Markham, 119).
Indies.
c. 1601.—"He does smile his face into more lines than are in the new map with the augmentation of the Indiaes."—Twelfth Night, Act iii. sc. 2.
1653.—"I was thirteen times captive and seventeen times sold in the Indies."—Trans. of Pinto, by H. Cogan, p. 1.
1826.—"... Like a French lady of my acquaintance, who had so general a notion of the East, that upon taking leave of her, she enjoined me to get acquainted with a friend of hers, living as she said quelque part dans les Indes, and whom, to my astonishment, I found residing at the Cape of Good Hope."—Hajji Baba, Introd. Epistle, ed. 1835, p. ix.