Indian Antiquary Vol 22

SR No.: 032514
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 442
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 400

364
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1893.
well that the types of Saivism and Buddhism are very frequently the same, as that the things typified are, always more or less, and generally radically, différent."
Pegu Jars.
Anderson, English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century, page 95, gives a reference to the Pegu jar, which is a valuable contribution on the subject, to prove the spread of the article at that time. He quotes "a memorandum of 1864 preserved in the Publie Record Office, London, and entitled, "The Trade of India as 'tis now managed by the English Company of Merchants trading in some parts of it is very invallid in comparison of what is now drove by our neighbour nation the Dutch.'” It states that "many sorts of clothing are sent into Pegu, a Port in yt Bay (Bangala) which returnes rubies and readie money, the coine or currant money of the place, allsoe Martanans Jarres."
Yule gives the quotation from Pyrard de Laval, already referred to, from the French edition of 1679 (i. 179), thus:--"Des iarres les plus belles, les mieux vernis et les mieux faconnées que j'aye veu ailleurs. Il y en a qui tiennent autant qu'vne pippe et plus. Elles se font au Royaume de Martabane, d'ou on les apporte, et d'ou elles prennent leur nom par toute l'Inde." Commenting on this passage in his edition of Pyrard (i. 259), Gray remarks, 6 "Mr. Bell (Report on the Maldives, 1880) saw some large earthenware jars at Málé, some about two feet high, called rumba, and others large and barrel shaped, called mátabán. The name seems to survive also on the Madras coast; e..., we find in Mr. P. Brown's Zillah Dictionary, 1852, Martaban, name of a place in Pegu: a black.jar 'in which rice is imported from (sic) thence.!."
In Brown's Dictionary of the Mixed Dialects and Foreign Words used in Telugu, 1854, I find, page 88: "Martaban, a black Pega jar; so called because imported from Martaban,"
Perhaps the neatest unconscious reference of all to the Pegu jar is in Hunter's Account of Pegu, 1785, which tells us (page 65) that "a foreigner may marry one of the natives, on which occasion he pays a stipulated som to her parents; but, if he leaves the country, he is not permitted to carry his wife along with him. So strict is the law in this particular, and so impossible it is to obtain a dispensation from it, that some men, who have had a great affection for their wives, have been obliged, on their departure, to carry them away secretly in jars, which were supposed to be filled with water."
I may as well summarize here, in tabular form, the history and wanderings of the Pega Jar from the evidence alluded to above and ante, page 340f., including the statements made in Yule, Hobson-Jobson, 8. v. Martaban,
Date.
Place.
Name.
Author.
.
c. 748 c. 832
1350 c. 1450
1516 1598 1609 1610 1615
Burma ... Burma ... India .. France Pegu ... ...
Do. .. ." Philippines and Japan Maldives Portugal ... ...
Martaben ... Martabani Martaban Martauana. Tibor ...
Martabane ... Martabanis.
Parker. Parker. Ibn Batata. "1,001 Jours." Barbosa. Linschoten. De Morga.
Pyrard de Laval. ... Du Jarric.
... ...
16 Pyrard was wrecked in the Maldive Islands on the 2nd July 1602, and was a captive there till February 1607, and it was during his captivity that be remarked on the Martaban jars, which he saw in the shipe from Mogor ( the coast of Sindh and Gujarat), Arabia, and Perais.