Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 58
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ AUGUST, 1929
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places about Port Blair the grazing appears to be abundant, but is not really so, owing to the action of two destructive woods : the needle bearing grass (Avena fatua), which is pretty but not edible by any kind of food animal, and being of a stronger growth than ordinary grizing grass supplants it wherever it is not rigorously kept down; and the sensitive plant (Mimosa pudica), an imported nuisance, which rapidly covers all open and low lying plnoce anil is cdible only by goats.
(IV) HISTORY. Having thus rapidly described the physical conditions under which the Andamanese live I now pass to a very brief consideration of the place of the Islands in general history.
The existence of the islands now known as the Andamans has, owing to the ancient course of tride, been reported from quite early times, though which of Ptolemy's island namos ought properly to be attached to them may still be regarded as a moot point. Gerini, in his ingenious paper, Notes on the Early Geography of Indo-China, (J.R.A.S. 1897, p. 051ff) gives Bazakata for the Grent Andaman, Khaline for the Little Andaman, Maniola for Car Nicobar, and Agathou Daimonos for Great Nicobar. In the mediaval Latin editions of Ptolemy & remark somewhat as follows often appears opposite Bazakata : cuius incolæ vocantur Aginnitæ qui nudi semper degere feruntur, in hac conchæ sunt multæ." While it is on Manioli that the people are called anthropophagi. Even if one is inclined to accept this plausible theory, it is nevertheless, as will be seen from what follows, probable that Yule is right in his conjecture that Ptolemy's Agathou daimonos -nexos preserves a misunderstanding, as perhaps does also the contemporary Aginnate (with its later corruptions, Allegate, Alegada, on maps) for its inhabitants, of some sailors' term near to the modern Andaman. The old crror that Ptolemy's maps were drawn by Agathodæmon, the grammarian of the Bth Century, A.D., is repeated in Portinan's History of our Relations with the Andamanese, 1899, p. 50 and olscwhere.
Little Andaman, as a name, has a curious and obscure history on the old maps. In some of thom wo find Isle d'Andemaon (and Anclaman) and also Julo de Maon (and Man), as if * Andaman" was the Great Andaman and “Mun" tho Little Andaman. Thon in maps we have Chitro Adaman 1595, 1642: Chiquo Andomaon 1710 : Cite Andemnaon 1710, 1720, and Crita I. 1720 obviously corrupted out of Chitre, Chique and Cite. I have seen also Cite d'Andaman responsible for a town or city in the Andamans. And it is just possible that Chique Andemaon is responsiblo for the modern Cinque Islands betweon Great and Little Andaman, which aro not five but obviously two islands. Chetty Andaman survived till 1858. Little Andaman, in its modern form, does not appear till the maps of Blair in 1790 odd.
The Chinese and Japanese know the Islands respoctively as Yeng-to-mang and Andaban in the first millenium A.D. (vide Takakasu's Edition of I-tsing pp. xxx and xxviii ff) which clearly represent the Andaman of the Arab Relations of 851 A...). Then comes Marco Polo with his Arabic dual form Angamanain in 1202. After which we have Nicolo Conti (c. 1430) with Andamania, and after him almost every eastern traveller and map-maker with somo form of "Andaman." All these terms seem obviously to be based on the Malay name for the islands, as the Malays of the Peninsula have, for many centuries, used the islands for their piratical practices and for a trade in Andamanese slaves to their own country and Siam (this up to about 1860), and have known them by the term Handumân, which most likely preserves tho very ancient Hanuman (monkey, scil., savage aboriginal antagonist of the Aryar.) so well-known to the Indian Epics and carried down to the Malays in story and translations.
In the great Tanjore inscription of 1050 A.D. the Andamans are mentioned under a translated name along with the Nicobars, as Iimaittivu, " Islands of Impurity” and as the abode of cannibals. In the Chinese History of the Tang Dynasty (618-906 A.D.) they are called the land of the Rakshasas, and the Andamanese are to-day regarded as Rakshasas (or ogres, i.e., traditional savage antagonists of the Aryans) by the Natives of India on being first seen, and wore so called at once when they appeared in the streets on a visit to Calcutta
