Hobson-Jobson

The word pardao is a Portuguese (or perhaps an indigenous) corruption of Skt. pratāpa, 'splendour, majesty,' &c., and was no doubt taken, as Dr. D'Acunha says, from the legend on some of the coins to which the name was applied, e.g. that of the Raja of Ikkeri in Canara: Sri Pratāpa krishṇa-rāya.

A little doubt arises at first in determining to what coin the name pardao was originally attached. For in the two earliest occurrences of the word that we can quote—on the one hand Abdurrazzāk, the Envoy of Shāh Rukh, makes the partāb (or pardāo) half of the Varāha ('boar,' so called from the Boar of Vishnu figured on some issues), hūn, or what we call pagoda;—whilst on the other hand, Ludovico Varthema's account seems to identify the pardao with the pagoda itself. And there can be no doubt that it was to the pagoda that the Portuguese, from the beginning of the 16th century, applied the name of pardao d'ouro. The money-tables which can be directly formed from the statements of Abdurrazzāk and Varthema respectively are as follows:^[209]

Abdurrazzak (A.D. 1443).
3 Jitals (copper)	= 1 Tar (silver).
6 Tars	= 1 Fanam (gold).
10 Fanams	= 1 Partāb.
2 Partābs	= 1 Varāha.

And the Varāha weighed about 1 Mithḳāl (see MISCALL), equivalent to 2 dīnārs Kopekī.

Varthema (A.D. 1504-5).
16 Cas (see CASH)	= 1 Tare (silver).
16 Tare	= 1 Fanam (gold).
20 Fanams	= 1 Pardao.

And the Pardao was a gold ducat, smaller than the seraphim (see XERAFINE) of Cairo (gold dīnār), but thicker.

The question arises whether the varāha of Abdurrazzāk was the double pagoda, of which there are some examples in the S. Indian coinage, and his partāb therefore the same as Varthema's, i.e. the pagoda itself; or whether his varāha was the pagoda, and his partāb a half-pagoda. The weight which he assigns to the varāha, "about one mithḳāl," a weight which may be taken at 73 grs., does not well suit either one or the other. I find the mean weight of 27 different issues of the (single) hūn or pagoda, given in Prinsep's Tables, to be 43 grs., the maximum being 45 grs. And the fact that both the Envoy's varāha and the Italian traveller's pardao contain 20 fanams is a strong argument for their identity.^[210]

In further illustration that the pardao was recognised as a half hūn or pagoda, we quote in a foot-note "the old arithmetical tables in which accounts are still kept" in the south, which Sir Walter Elliot contributed to Mr. E. Thomas's excellent Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Delhi, illustrated, &c.^[211]

Moreover, Dr. D'Acunha states that in the "New Conquests," or provinces annexed to Goa only about 100 years ago, "the accounts were kept until lately in sanvoy and nixane pagodas, each of them being divided into 2 pratáps...." &c. (p. 46, note).

As regards the value of the pardao d'ouro, when adopted into the Goa currency by Alboquerque, Dr. D'Acunha tells us that it "was equivalent to 370 reis, or 1s. 6½d.^[212] English." Yet he accepts the identity of this pardao d'ouro with the hūn current in Western India, of which the Madras pagoda was till 1818 a living and unchanged representative, a coin which was, at the time of its abolition, the recognised equivalent of 3½ rupees, or 7 shillings. And doubtless this, or a few pence more, was the intrinsic value of the pardao. Dr. D'Acunha in fact has made his calculation from the present value of the (imaginary) rei. Seeing that a milrei is now reckoned equal to a dollar, or 50d., we have a single rei = 1⁄20d., and 370 reis = 1s. 6½d. It seems not to have occurred to the author that the rei might have degenerated in value as well as every other denomination of money with which he has to do, every other in fact of which we can at this moment remember anything, except the pagoda, the Venetian sequin, and the dollar.^[213] Yet the fact of this degeneration everywhere stares him in the face. Correa tells us that the cruzado which Alboquerque struck in 1510 was the just equivalent of 420 reis. It was indubitably the same as the cruzado of the mother country, and indeed A. Nunez (1554) gives the same 420 reis as the equivalent of the cruzado d'ouro de Portugal, and that amount also for the Venetian sequin, and for the sultani or Egyptian gold dīnār. Nunez adds that a gold coin of Cambaya, which he calls Madrafaxao (q.v.), was worth 1260 to 1440 reis, according to variations in weight and exchange. We have seen that this must have been the gold-mohr of Muzaffar-Shāh II. of Guzerat (1511-1526), the weight of which we learn from E. Thomas's book.

Dr. D'Acunha himself informs us (p. 56) that at the beginning of the 17th century the Venetian was worth 690 to 720 reis (mean 705 reis), whilst the pagoda was worth 570 to 600 reis (mean 585 reis).

These statements, as we know the intrinsic value of the sequin, and the approximate value of the pagoda, enable us to calculate the value of the rei of about 1600 at ... 0.16d. Values of the milrei given in Milburn's Oriental Commerce, and in Kelly's Cambist, enable us to estimate it for the early years of the last century. We have then the progressive deterioration as follows:

Yet Dr. D'Acunha has valued the coins of 1510, estimated in reis, at the rate of 1880. And Mr. Birch has done the same.^[215]

The Portuguese themselves do not seem ever to have struck gold pardaos or pagodas. The gold coin of Alboquerque's coinage (1510) was, we have seen, a cruzado (or manuel), and the next coinage in gold was by Garcia de Sá in 1548-9, who issued coins called San Thomé, worth 1000 reis, say about £1, 2s. 4d.; with halves and quarters of the same. Neither, according to D'Acunha, was there silver money of any importance coined at Goa from 1510 to 1550, and the coins then issued were silver San Thomés, called also patacões (see PATACA). Nunez in his Tables (1554) does not mention these by either name, but mentions repeatedly pardaos, which represented 5 silver tangas, or 300 reis, and these D'Acunha speaks of as silver coins. Nunez, as far as I can make out, does not speak of them as coins, but rather implies that in account so many tangas of silver were reckoned as a pardao. Later in the century, however, we learn from Balbi (1580), Barrett^[216] (1584), and Linschoten (1583-89), the principal currency of Goa consisted of a silver coin called xerafin (see XERAFINE) and pardao-xerafin, which was worth 5 tangas, each of 60 reis. (So these had been from the beginning, and so they continued, as is usual in such cases. The scale of sub-multiples remains the same, whilst the value of the divisible coin diminishes. Eventually the lower denominations become infinitesimal, like the maravedis and the reis, and either vanish from memory, or survive only as denominations of account). The data, such as they are, allow us to calculate the pardao or xerafin at this time as worth 4s. 2d. to 4s. 6d.

A century later, Fryer's statement of equivalents (1676) enables us to use the stability of the Venetian sequin as a gauge; we then find the tanga gone down to 6d. and the pardao or xerafin to 2s. 6d. Thirty years later Lockyer (1711) tells us that one rupee was reckoned equal to 1½ perdo. Calculating the Surat Rupee, which may have been probably his standard, still by help of the Venetian (p. 262) at about 2s. 3d., the pardao would at this time be worth 1s. 6d. It must have depreciated still further by 1728, when the Goa mint began to strike rupees, with the effigy of Dom João V., and the half-rupee appropriated the denomination of pardao. And the half-rupee, till our own time, has continued to be so styled. I have found no later valuation of the Goa Rupee than that in Prinsep's Tables (Thomas's ed. p. 55), the indications of which, taking the Company's Rupee at 2s., would make it 21d. The pardao therefore would represent a value of 10½d., and there we leave it.

[On this Mr. Whiteway writes: "Should it be intended to add a note to this, I would suggest that the remarks on coinage commencing at page 67 of my Rise of the Portuguese Power in India be examined, as although I have gone to Sir H. Yule for much, some papers are now accessible which he does not appear to have seen. There were two pardaos, the pardao d'ouro and the pardao de tanga, the former of 360 reals, the latter of 300. This is clear from the Foral of Goa of Dec. 18, 1758 (India Office MSS. Conselho Ultramarino), which passage is again quoted in a note to Fasc. 5 of the Archiv. Port. Orient. p. 326. Apparently patecoons were originally coined in value equal to the pardao d'ouro, though I say (p. 71) their value is not recorded. The patecoon was a silver coin, and when it was tampered with, it still remained of the nominal value of the pardao d'ouro, and this was the cause of the outcry and of the injury the people of Goa suffered. There were monies in Goa which I have not shown on p. 69. There was the tanga branca used in revenue accounts (see Nunez, p. 31), nearly but not quite double the ordinary tanga. This money of account was of 4 barganims (see BARGANY) each of 24 bazarucos (see BUDGROOK), that is rather over 111 reals. The whole question of coinage is difficult, because the coins were continually being tampered with. Every ruler, and they were numerous in those days, stamped a piece of metal at his pleasure, and the trader had to calculate its value, unless as a subject of the ruler he was under compulsion."]

1444.—"In this country (Vijayanagar) they have three kinds of money, made of gold mixed with alloys: one called varahah weighs about one mithkal, equivalent to two dinars kopeki; the second, which is called pertab, is the half of the first; the third, called fanom, is equivalent in value to the tenth part of the last-mentioned coin. Of these different coins the fanom is the most useful...."—Abdurrazzāk, in India in the XVth Cent. p. 26.

c. 1504-5; pubd. 1510.—"I departed from the city of Dabuli aforesaid, and went to another island, which ... is called Goga (Goa) and which pays annually to the King of Decan 19,000 gold ducats, called by them pardai. These pardai are smaller than the seraphim of Cairo, but thicker, and have two devils stamped on one side, and certain letters on the other."—Varthema, pp. 115-116.

" "... his money consists of a pardao, as I have said. He also coins a silver money called tare (see TARA), and others of gold, twenty of which go to a pardao, and are called fanom. And of these small ones of silver, there go sixteen to a fanom...."—Ibid. p. 130.

1510.—"Meanwhile the Governor (Alboquerque) talked with certain of our people who were goldsmiths, and understood the alligation of gold and silver, and also with goldsmiths and money-changers of the country who were well acquainted with that business. There were in the country pardaos of gold, worth in gold 360 reys, and also a money of good silver which they call barganym (see BARGANY) of the value of 2 vintems, and a money of copper which they call bazaruqos (see BUDGROOK), of the value of 2 reis. Now all these the Governor sent to have weighed and assayed. And he caused to be made cruzados of their proper weight of 420 reis, on which he figured on one side the cross of Christ, and on the other a sphere, which was the device of the King Dom Manuel; and he ordered that this cruzado should pass in the place (Goa) for 480 reis, to prevent their being exported ... and he ordered silver money to be struck which was of the value of a bargany; on this money he caused to be figured on one side a Greek Α, and on the other side a sphere, and gave the coin the name of Espera; it was worth 2 vintems; also there were half esperas worth one vintem and he made bazarucos of copper of the weight belonging to that coin, with the A and the sphere; and each bazaruco he divided into 4 coins which they called cepayquas (see SAPECA), and gave the bazarucos the name of leaes. And in changing the cruzado into these smaller coins it was reckoned at 480 reis."—Correa, ii. 76-77.

1516.—"There are current here (in Baticala—see BATCUL) the pardaos, which are a gold coin of the kingdom, and it is worth here 360 reis, and there is another coin of silver, called dama, which is worth 20 reis...."—Barbosa, Lisbon ed. p. 293.

1516.—"There is used in this city (Bisnagar) and throughout the rest of the Kingdom much pepper, which is carried hither from Malabar on oxen and asses; and it is all bought and sold for pardaos, which are made in some places of this Kingdom, and especially in a city called Hora (?), whence they are called horãos."—Barbosa, Lisbon ed. p. 297.

1552.—"Hic Sinam mercatorem indies exspecto, quo cum, propter atroces poenas propositas iis qui advenam sine fide publica introduxerint, Pirdais ducentis transegi, ut me in Cantonem trajiciat."—Scti. Franc. Xaverii Epistt., Pragae, 1667, IV. xiv.

1553.—

"R. Let us mount our horses and take a ride in the country, and as we ride you shall tell me what is the meaning of Nizamoxa (see NIZAMALUCO), as you have frequently mentioned such a person.

"O. I can tell you that at once; it is the name of a King in the Bagalat (read Balagat, Balaghaut), whose father I often attended, and the son also not so often. I received from him from time to time more than 12,000 pardaos; and he offered me an income of 40,000 pardaos if I would pay him a visit of several months every year, but this I did not accept."—Garcia, f. 33v.

1584.—"For the money of Goa there is a kind of money made of lead and tin mingled, being thicke and round, and stamped on the one side with the spheare or globe of the world, and on the other side two arrows and five rounds;^[217] and this kind of money is called Basaruchi, and 15 of them make a vinton of naughty money, and 5 vintons make a tanga, and 4 vintenas make a tanga of base money ... and 5 tangas make a seraphine of gold^[218] (read 'of silver'), which in marchandize is worth 5 tangas good money: but if one would change them into basaruchies, he may have 5 tangas, and 16 basaruchies, which matter they call cerafaggio, and when the bargain of the pardaw is gold, each pardaw is meant to be 6 tangas good money,^[219] but in murchandize, the vse is not to demaund pardawes of gold in Goa, except it be for jewels and horses, for all the rest they take of seraphins of silver, per aduiso.... The ducat of gold is worth 9 tangas and a halfe good money, and yet not stable in price, for that when the ships depart from Goa to Cochin, they pay them at 9 tangas and 3 fourth partes, and 10 tangas, and that is the most that they are worth...."—W. Barret, in Hakl. ii. 410. I retain this for the old English, but I am sorry to say that I find it is a mere translation of the notes of Gasparo Balbi, who was at Goa in 1580. We learn from Balbi that there were at Goa tangas not only of good money worth 75 basarucchi, and of bad money worth 60 basarucchi, but also of another kind of bad money used in buying wood, worth only 50 basarucchi!

1598.—"The principall and commonest money is called Pardaus Xeraphiins, and is silver, but very brasse (read 'base'), and is coyned in Goa. They have Saint Sebastian on the one side, and three or four arrows in a bundle on the other side, which is as much as three Testones, or three hundred Reijs Portingall money, and riseth or falleth little lesse or more, according to the exchange. There is also a kind of money which is called Tangas, not that there is any such coined, but are so named onely in telling, five Tangas is one Pardaw or Xeraphin, badde money, for you must understande that in telling they have two kinds of money, good and badde.... Wherefore when they buy and sell, they bargain for good or badde money," &c.—Linschoten, ch. 35; [Hak. Soc. i. 241, and for another version see XERAPHINE].

" "They have a kind of money called Pagodes which is of Gold, of two or three sortes, and are above 8 tangas in value. They are Indian and Heathenish money, with the feature of a Devill upon them, and therefore they are called Pagodes. There is another kind of gold money, which is called Venetianders; some of Venice, and some of Turkish coine, and are commonly (worth) 2 Pardawe Xeraphins. There is yet another kind of golde called S. Thomas, because Saint Thomas is figured thereon and is worth about 7 and 8 Tangas: There are likewise Rialles of 8 which are brought from Portingall, and are Pardawes de Reales.... They are worth at their first coming out 436 Reyes of Portingall; and after are raysed by exchaunge, as they are sought for when men travell for China.... They use in Goa in their buying and selling a certaine maner of reckoning or telling. There are Pardawes Xeraphins, and these are silver. They name likewise Pardawes of Gold, and those are not in kinde or in coyne, but onely so named in telling and reckoning: for when they buy and sell Pearles, stones, golde, silver and horses, they name but so many Pardawes, and then you must understand that one Pardaw is sixe Tangas: but in other ware, when you make not your bargaine before hand, but plainely name Pardawes, they are Pardawes Xeraphins of 5 Tangas the peece. They use also to say a Pardaw of Lariins (see LARIN), and are five Lariins for every Pardaw...."—Ibid.; [Hak. Soc. i. 187].

This extract is long, but it is the completest picture we know of the Goa currency. We gather from the passage (including a part that we have omitted) that in the latter part of the 16th century there were really no national coins there used intermediate between the basaruccho, worth at this time 0.133d., and the pardao xerafin worth 50d.^[220] The vintens and tangas that were nominally interposed were mere names for certain quantities of basaruccos, or rather of reis represented by basaruccos. And our interpretation of the statement about pardaos of gold in a note above is here expressly confirmed.

[1599.—"Perdaw." See under TAEL.]

c. 1620.—"The gold coin, struck by the rāīs of Bijanagar and Tiling, is called hūn and partāb."—Firishta, quoted by Quatremère, in Notices et Exts. xiv. 509.

1643.—"... estant convenu de prix auec luy à sept perdos et demy par mois tant pour mon viure que pour le logis...."—Mocquet, 284.

PARELL, n.p. The name of a northern suburb of Bombay where stands the residence of the Governor. The statement in the Imperial Gazetteer that Mr. W. Hornby (1776) was the first Governor who took up his residence at Parell requires examination, as it appears to have been so occupied in Grose's time. The 2nd edition of Grose, which we use, is dated 1772, but he appears to have left India about 1760. It seems probable that in the following passage Niebuhr speaks of 1763-4, the date of his stay at Bombay, but as the book was not published till 1774, this is not absolutely certain. Evidently Parell was occupied by the Governor long before 1776.

"Les Jesuites avoient autrefois un beau couvent aupres du Village de Parell au milieu de l'Isle, mais il y a déjà plusieurs années, qu'elle est devenue la maison de campagne du Gouverneur, et l'Eglise est actuellement une magnifique salle à manger et de danse, qu'on n'en trouve point de pareille en toutes les Indes."—Niebuhr, Voyage, ii. 12.

[Mr. Douglas (Bombay and W. India, ii. 7, note) writes: "High up and outside the dining-room, and which was the chapel when Parel belonged to the Jesuits, is a plaque on which is printed:—'Built by Honourable Hornby, 1771.'"]

1554.—Parell is mentioned as one of 4 aldeas, "Parell, Varella, Varell, and Siva, attached to the Kasbah (Caçabe—see CUSBAH) of Maim."—Botelho, Tombo, 157, in Subsidios.

c. 1750-60.—"A place called Parell, where the Governor has a very agreeable country-house, which was originally a Romish chapel belonging to the Jesuits, but confiscated about the year 1719, for some foul practices against the English interest."—Grose, i. 46; [1st ed. 1757, p. 72].

Thus, in the celebration of the Festival of the Village Goddess, prevalent all over Southern India, and of which a remarkable account is given in that paper, there occurs a sort of Saturnalia in which the Pariahs are the officiating priests, and there are several other customs which are most easily intelligible on the supposition that the Pariahs are the representatives of the earliest inhabitants and original masters of the soil. In a recent communication from this venerable man he writes: 'My brother (Col. C. Elliot, C.B.) found them at Raipur, to be an important and respectable class of cultivators. The Pariahs have a sacerdotal order amongst themselves.' [The view taken in the Madras Gloss. is that "they are distinctly Dravidian without fusion, as the Hinduized castes are Dravidian with fusion."]

The mistaken use of pariah, as synonymous with out-caste, has spread in English parlance over all India. Thus the lamented Prof. Blochmann, in his School Geography of India: "Outcasts are called pariahs." The name first became generally known in Europe through Sonnerat's Travels (pub. in 1782, and soon after translated into English). In this work the Parias figure as the lowest of castes. The common use of the term is however probably due, in both France and England, to the appearance in the Abbé Raynal's famous Hist. Philosophique des Établissements dans les Indes, formerly read very widely in both countries, and yet more perhaps to its use in Bernardin de St. Pierre's preposterous though once popular tale, La Chaumière Indienne, whence too the misplaced halo of sentiment which reached its acme in the drama of Casimir Delavigne, and which still in some degree adheres to the name. It should be added that Mr. C. P. Brown says expressly: "The word Paria is unknown" (in our sense?) "to all natives, unless as learned from us."

1516.—"There is another low sort of Gentiles, who live in desert places, called Pareas. These likewise have no dealings with anybody, and are reckoned worse than the devil, and avoided by everybody; a man becomes contaminated by only looking at them, and is excommunicated.... They live on the imane (iname, i.e. yams), which are like the root of iucca or batate found in the West Indies, and on other roots and wild fruits."—Barbosa, in Ramusio, i. f. 310. The word in the Spanish version transl. by Lord Stanley of Alderley is Pareni, in the Portuguese of the Lisbon Academy, Parcens. So we are not quite sure that Pareas is the proper reading, though this is probable.

1626.—"... The Pareas are of worse esteeme."—(W. Methold, in) Purchas, Pilgrimage 553.

" "... the worst whereof are the abhorred Piriawes ... they are in publike Justice the hateful executioners, and are the basest, most stinking, ill-favored people that I have seene."—Ibid. 998-9.

1648.—"... the servants of the factory even will not touch it (beef) when they put it on the table, nevertheless there is a caste called Pareyaes (they are the most contemned of all, so that if another Gentoo touches them, he is compelled to be dipt in the water) who eat it freely."—Van de Broecke, 82.

1672.—"The Parreas are the basest and vilest race (accustomed to remove dung and all uncleanness, and to eat mice and rats), in a word a contemned and stinking vile people."—Baldaeus (Germ. ed.), 410.

1711.—"The Company allow two or three Peons to attend the Gate, and a Parrear Fellow to keep all clean."—Lockyer, 20.

" "And there ... is such a resort of basket-makers, Scavengers, people that look after the buffaloes, and other Parriars, to drink Toddy, that all the Punch-houses in Madras have not half the noise in them."—Wheeler, ii. 125.

1716.—"A young lad of the Left-hand Caste having done hurt to a Pariah woman of the Right-Hand Caste (big with child), the whole caste got together, and came in a tumultuous manner to demand justice."—Ibid. 230.

1717.—"... Barrier, or a sort of poor people that eat all sort of Flesh and other things, which others deem unclean."—Phillips, Account, &c., 127.

1726.—"As for the separate generations and sorts of people who embrace this religion, there are, according to what some folks say, only 4; but in our opinion they are 5 in number, viz.:

α. The Bramins.

β. The Settreas.

γ. The Weynyas or Veynsyas.

δ. The Sudras.

ε. The Perrias, whom the High-Dutch and Danes call Barriars."—Valentijn, Chorom. 73.

1745.—"Les Parreas ... sont regardés comme gens de la plus vile condition, exclus de tous les honneurs et prérogatives. Jusques-là qu'on ne sçauroit les souffrir, ni dans les Pagodes des Gentils, ni dans les Eglises des Jesuites."—Norbert, i. 71.

1750.—"K. Es ist der Mist von einer Kuh, denselben nehmen die Parreyer-Weiber, machen runde Kuchen daraus, und wenn sie in der Sonne genug getrocken sind, so verkauffen sie dieselbigen (see OOPLAH). Fr. O Wunder! Ist das das Feuerwerk, das ihr hier halt?"—Madras, &c., Halle, p. 14.

1770.—"The fate of these unhappy wretches who are known on the coast of Coromandel by the name of Parias, is the same even in those countries where a foreign dominion has contributed to produce some little change in the ideas of the people."—Raynal, Hist. &c., see ed. 1783, i. 63.

" "The idol is placed in the centre of the building, so that the Parias who are not admitted into the temple may have a sight of it through the gates."—Raynal (tr. 1777), i. p. 57.

1780.—"If you should ask a common cooly, or porter, what cast he is of, he will answer, 'the same as master, pariar-cast.'"—Munro's Narrative, 28-9.

1787.—"... I cannot persuade myself that it is judicious to admit Parias into battalions with men of respectable casts...."—Col. Fullarton's View of English Interests in India, 222.

1791.—"Le masalchi y courut pour allumer un flambeau; mais il revient un peu après, pris d'haleine, criant: 'N'approchez pas d'ici; il y a un Paria!' Aussitôt la troupe effrayée cria: 'Un Paria! Un Paria!' Le docteur, croyant que c'était quelque animal féroce, mit la main sur ses pistolets. 'Qu'est ce que qu'un Paria?' demanda-t-il à son porte-flambeau."—B. de St. Pierre, La Chaumière Indienne, 48.

1800.—"The Parriar, and other impure tribes, comprising what are called the Punchum Bundum, would be beaten, were they to attempt joining in a Procession of any of the gods of the Brahmins, or entering any of their temples."—Buchanan's Mysore, i. 20.

c. 1805-6.—"The Dubashes, then all powerful at Madras, threatened loss of cast and absolute destruction to any Brahmin who should dare to unveil the mysteries of their language to a Pariar Frengi. This reproach of Pariar is what we have tamely and strangely submitted to for a long time, when we might with a great facility have assumed the respectable character of Chatriya."—Letter of Leyden, in Morton's Memoir, ed. 1819, p. lxvi.

1809.—"Another great obstacle to the reception of Christianity by the Hindoos, is the admission of the Parias in our Churches...."—Ld. Valentia, i. 246.

1821.—

"Il est sur ce rivage une race flêtrie,

Une race étrangère au sein de sa patrie.

Sans abri protecteur, sans temple hospitalier,

Abominable, impie, horrible au peuple entier.

Les Parias; le jour à regret les éclaire,

La terre sur son sein les porte avec colère.

* * * * *

Eh bien! mais je frémis; tu vas me fuir peut-être;

Je suis un Paria...."

Casimir Delavigne, Le Paria, Acte 1. Sc. 1.

1843.—"The Christian Pariah, whom both sects curse, Does all the good he can and loves his brother."—Forster's Life of Dickens, ii. 31.

1873.—"The Tamilas hire a Pariya (i.e. drummer) to perform the decapitation at their Badra Kâli sacrifices."—Kittel, in Ind. Ant. ii. 170.

1878.—"L'hypothèse la plus vraisemblable, en tout cas la plus heureuse, est celle qui suppose que le nom propre et spécial de cette race [i.e. of the original race inhabiting the Deccan before contact with northern invaders] était le mot 'paria'; ce mot dont l'orthographe correcte est pareiya, derivé de par'ei, 'bruit, tambour,' et à très-bien pu avoir le sens de 'parleur, doué de la parole'"(?)—Hovelacque et Vinson, Études de Linguistique, &c., Paris, 67.

1872.—

"Fifine, ordained from first to last,

In body and in soul

For one life-long debauch,

The Pariah of the north,

The European nautch."

Browning, Fifine at the Fair.

Very good rhyme, but no reason. See under NAUTCH.

The word seems also to have been adopted in Java, e.g.:

1860.—"We Europeans ... often ... stand far behind compared with the poor pariahs."—Max Havelaar, ch. vii.

PARIAH-ARRACK, s. In the 17th and 18th centuries this was a name commonly given to the poisonous native spirit commonly sold to European soldiers and sailors. [See FOOL'S RACK.]

From the Venetian sequin (content of pure gold 52.27 grs. value 111d.^[214]) the value of the rei at 111⁄420d. will be	0.264d.
From the Muzaffar Shāhi mohr (weight 185 grs. value, if pure gold, 392.52d.) value of rei at 1440	0.272d.
Mean value of rei in 1513 i.e. more than five times its present value.	0.268d.

Value of rei in the beginning of the 16th century	0.268d.
Value of rei in the beginning of the 17th century	0.16d.
Value of rei in the beginning of the 19th century	0.06 to 0.066d.
Value of rei at present	0.06d.