Indian Antiquary Vol 60

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 238

210
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(NOVEMBER, 1931
NOTES ON HOBSON-JOBSON. By Pror. 8. H. HODIVALA, M.A.
(Continued from p. 178.) Kodgorry, Kitebory-Yule's earliest illustration is from the Travels of the Tangierene Ibn Batůta (c. 1340), but the word is also used by an Indian author, Shams-i Siraj, in the contemporary History of Sultan Firuz Tughlaq. In the course of his account of the privations endured by the army during his retreat through the Rann of Cutch (Kachch], the writer says:
"By the great God," said Sultan Firûz, " of things which can be used as food, we possess nothing today except one ser of khichri [s ] which has been brought for [the young Prince] Fath Khan from the house of Bashira (i.e., Imadu'l-mulk."1-Tarikh-1-F'frúzshahi, Bibl. Ind., text, 216, 1. 11.
The word is used rarely now in the secondary sense of a mixture of pearls,' and only one example is given in Hobson-Jobson. But I can quote another from Manucci:
[c. 1700.) "The great ladies are well received upon their arrival; they also obtain costly sarapás (robes) and jewels. At the time when they say good-bye their hands are filled with kichari, which is, in its literal meaning, & mixed dish made up of several kinds of vegetables. As to this it must be remarked that the licharí of these queens and princes is not of that sort, but, on the contrary, a mixture of gold and silver coin, with all kinds of precious stones and pearls, large and small."-Storia do Mogor, trans. Irvine, II, 346.
Kidderpore. The origins of the names of towns are not easy to determine with certainty. Sir Henry rejects the statement in Hunter's 'Imperial Gazetteer' about this village having been named after General Kyd. It is possible that it was originally called Girdhar. pore, after some Hindu named Girdhar, just as the neighbouring Gobernapore' [Recte 'Govindpore 'l preserves the memory of some one named Govind. But perhaps the true form is Gidarpore 'from gidar, a jackal—the animals which enter the precincte of the villages near Calcutta, after dark, "startling the newcomer with their hideous yells." (HobsonJobson, 8.0. Jackal, p. 443).
Killadar.--In illustration of this word, Yule has quoted from Ibn Batuta a passage in which the Kilit dar' (Pers. yok ), Keeper of the keys,' is mentioned. But 'Killad&r,' slaali'commandant of a fort,' is an altogether different word, and the one has nothing to do with the other. The first is from Pers. kalid, 'key'; the second from Arab. qal'a, 'fort.'
Kitmutgar.-The following is perhaps a much earlier use of the word than any cited by Yule.
[c. 1632.] "Att Brampore (Burhanpur] hee (acil. Prince Khusra, the eldest son of Jahangir] had a roome allowed him, a waterman, & porter and a maidservant or HiometKecare to attend him and dress his meate."-The Travels of Peter Mundy, od. Sir R. Temple, p. 105.
Sir Richard identifies the word with hashmatgír which, he says, means 'female servant.'
Hashmat does mean pomp,' 'retinue,' and hashmatgör is not an imposaible compound, but I cannot find it in Richardson's Dictionary, and I submit that Hiomet-Kecare is a cor. rupt form of khidmatgar. "Kismutgår,' says Sir Henry Yule, 'is a vulgarism now perhape
• Yule properly rejected the view that the place was called after Kyd : and, it may be noted, this suggestion has been omitted from the later (1908) edition of the I.G. The place is not only marked on maps drawn before the days of the Kyda, but it is referred to in the Company's records of earlier date. Thomas Bowrey, on his map drawn in 1687, apells the name Kedarpoer,' from which it might be conjectured that it was called after a man named Kedar : but these early spellings cannot be relied upon. As the name is generally pronounced Khidarpur' in thp vernacular, however, I suspect that the original namo wao Khizr. pur (vulgo Khidarpur); and it is just powible that we have in the name a reference to the famous Saint of the Waters, Al Khizr, whose cult w so widespread in deltaic Bengal, at site on the lower reaches of the old channel of the Ganges, just there was Khizrpur on the bank of the ancient course of the Brahma. putra, to the west of SunArgåiy-C. E. A. W. O., JOINT-EDITOR.