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JULY, 1879.]
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
ON TALAPRAHARI.
(By Professor H. JACOBI, Münster, Westphalia). Treating of the forged Chalukya inscription, published in the Ind. Ant. vol. VIII. p. 94 sqq., Mr. Lewis Rice happily identifies its author Vira Nopamba, surnamed Ari-Râya-Mastaka Talaprahari, with the Sthira Gambhira Nolamba, who was named Vira Talapra hâri for the valour he displayed in defending his chief queen Sri Devi, as is mentioned in the Chalukya and Koysala inscription at Heggere.
Now in the Viracharitra, an epic poem of Ananta, treating of the wars between Sâlivahana and Vikrama, and between their sons Saktikumâra and Bemba1-Talapra hâri is one of the most famous of Salivahana's fifty champions. He was the son of the Sun and the Moon, and killed the 300,000 sons of Svarbhânu (Rahu) to revenge his parents, but was, in return, swallowed by Sinhika, Rahu's mother, from whose belly he was extracted, by Salivahana. Thenceforth he serves Salivahana and Saktikumâra.
It is interesting to learn from the abovementioned inscriptions that the name of this Indian Hercules was turned into an honorary title for valiant warriors, and that, consequently, the epic cycle of Vikrama, Salivahana and their sons, etc. was generally known in the 11th and 12th centuries of our era. Another proof of the correctness of the latter assertion is the fact that two knights of Vikrama, Chandraketu and Vyâghrabala, who play a part in the epic poem of Ananta, are also mentioned by Bâna and Somadeva respectively (Ind. Stud. XIV. 121, 130). The popularity which the epic cycle in question seems to have enjoyed in old times, would make it worth while to search for earlier mention of it than Ananta's modern work.
Münster, 7th June 1879.
SPECIMEN OF A DISCURSIVE GLOSSARY OF ANGLO-INDIAN TERMS. BY H. Y. AND A. C. B. (Continued from p. 176.)
COBILY-MASH, 8. This is the dried bonito (q. v.) which has for ages been a staple export of the Maldive Islands. It is now especially esteemed in Acheen, and other Malay countries.
Circa 1345:-"Its flesh is red, and without fat; but it smells like mutton. When caught each fish is cut in four, slightly boiled, and then placed in baskets of palm-leaf and hung in the smoke. When perfectly dry it is eaten. From this country it is exported to India, China, and Yemen. It is
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called Kolb-al-más."-Ibn Batuta, vol. IV. p. 112; see also p. 311.
1615" Ce poisson qui se prend ainsi, 'appelle generalement en leur langue cobolly mass c'est à dire du poisson noir.... Ils le font cuire en l'eau de la mer, et puis le font secher au feu sur des clayes, en sorte qu'estant sec il se garde fort long temps."-Pyrard de la Val, vol. I. p. 138..
1727: The Bonetta is caught with Hook and Line, or with Nets. . . . . They cut the fish from the Back-bone on each Side, and lay them in a Shade to dry, sprinkling them sometimes with Sea Water. When they are dry enough...... they wrap them up in Leaves of Cocoa-nut Trees, and put them a foot or two under the Surface of the Sand, and with the Heat of the Sun they become baked as hard as Stock-fish, and Ships come from Atcheen, and purchase them with Golddust. I have seen Comela mash (for that is their name after they are dried) sell at Atcheen for 8L. Sterl. per 1000."-A. Hamilton, vol. I. p. 347.
1813"The fish called Commelmutch, so much esteemed in Malabar, is caught at Minicoy."Milburne, vol. I. p. 321 (see also p. 336).
1841: The sultan of the Maldiva Islands sends an agent or minister every year to the government of Ceylon with presents consisting of.... a considerable quantity of dried fish, consisting of bonitos, albicores, and a fish called by the inhabitants of the Maldivas the black fish, or comboli mas."-Jour. R. As. Soc. vol. VI. p. 75.
The same article contains a Maldivian vocabulary in which we have: "Bonito, or goomulmutch.... Kannelimas" (p. 49). Thus we find three different presentments of the word in one paper. As the foundation of the Maldivian language is old Singhalese, the meaning of the word must be sought there. Mutch' or 'mas' is, however, clearly the common corrupt form of the Sanskrit 'matsya' fish.
COMPETITION-WALLA, 8. A hybrid name (EnglishHindustani) applied in modern Anglo-Indian colloquial to members of the Indian Civil Service who have entered it by the competitive system introduced in 1855. The phrase was probably an invention of some member of the same service belonging to the elder, or Haileybury section thereof, whose nominations were due to interest, and who being bound together by the intimacies and esprit de corps of a common college, looked with more or less disfavour upon the children of modern innovation. The name was readily taken to in India, but its familiarity in England is
* A detailed abstract of this poem I have given in the Indische Studien, XIV. 97 sqq.
