Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 149

June, 1923 ]
SOME DISCURSIVE COMMENTS ON BARBOSA
133
Barbosa then passes up the East Coast to Paleacatte (Pulicat) and thence to Orissa, or as he calls it Otisa, a neat reference to the vernacular name, which is Odisa or Orisā, showing the two native pronunciations of the palatal (cerebral) sonant as d or r. Pulicat then belonged to Vijayanagar (Bisnaga), and that realm and Orissa were divided by the Udaya. giri hills, which name I suggest is at the root of Barbosa's " mountains called Odirguamalado," i.e., Udayagiri-malai, which may be translated "the Udaya mountain range," giri and malai both meaning "hill ” in different vernaculars. In the course of his very valuable note on Pulicat, Dames refers to Fitch's Servidore, whatever may be the modern name " of that place (p. 131). It was on "the old trade route leading from the East Coast to Western India.” I am tempted to suggest that Servidore represents Srivattûr, for Tiruvattiyûr, i.e., Trivetore in the Chingleput District. There is another Trivetore, viz., Tiruvattur in the North Arcot District. Mr. W. Foster, Early Travels in India, p. 16 n., is, however, of opinion that "Servidore" is "a confused form of Bidar, the capital, situated about 70 miles N. W. of Goloonda." There is much to be said for this view. But surely Dames writes in error when he observes that Malayalam is an Aryan language.
In the account of Orissa the most interesting point to note is that Barbosa says that it was bounded on the North by "a river called Ganges, but they call it Guorigua," meaning thereby that the boundary river was a ganga or sacred river, viz., the Baitarani. For Guori. gua Dames has one of his happy suggestions, viz., that it is a mistranscription of the MS. and should be read Guangua, i.e., Ganga.
Barbosa then goes on to "Bengala ” which induces Dames to plunge into the old controversy as to the identity of the "City of Bengala "at great length and with much acumen. After adverting to the known identifications available to him and his correspondents, he finally arrives at the conclusion that by that name the Portuguese and other early writers meant Gaur, taken together with its ports Satgaon and Sunârgaon, and not Dacca. Even now, however, this matter is not at rest, as Mr. Heawood has shown in the Geographical Journal for October 1921, where he inclines to the view held by Yule that the City of Bengala” was Chittagong. I cannot go into the question fully here, but as it has long attracted the attention of Bengali antiquaries themselves, I have been in communication with them, and hope some day to produce their views and arguments for the benefit of Indian enquirers generally. So far as I understand them, their views tend to identify the "City of Bengala” with one of the old ports in Eastern Bengal, notably Sunargaon.
While I am on this point I may as well mention that Barbosa refers also to another long discussed geographical point, Lake Chimay or Chiamay, generally held to be mythical. Pinto is one of the chief sources of information, and my experience of him is that the more one knows of the country he happens to be talking about, the more one realises that he is not the liar he has so long been represented to be. No doubt many fanciful tales have been told about a great interior lake, which was called by the early travellers and map-makers, Chimay, or something like it. There is a good deal of confusion as to what the term Chimay, Chiamay represented, as it is applied to a State, a town, a river and a lake. It may well have represented them all, and if so, the State of Chiengmai on the Burmo-Siamese border, the Zimme of the Burmese, at once suggests itself, but whether Zimme is actually represented by the term is too complicated a question for me to enter into here. My main object in alluding to it now is to suggest that for the purpose of useful research, it would be as well to assume that Chimay is the name of some place really in existence, and no myth.
Chimay has been given a possible location for Barbosa's Gueos, a tribe that is still a puzzle to enquirers, despite Dames' identification with the Was, on the authority of Sir George
.