Indian Antiquary Vol 60

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

Page 242

214
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
Recipes for making 'Nuncaties' are given in many Indian cookery books, but there is no special mention in any of them of Mr. Weir's six ingredients; and leaven produced from toddy' does not, so far as I know, enter into the composition of these cakes at all.
Organ. Mr. Crooke's illustration is dated 1790. I give below a description of a mitrailleuse from Abul Fazl :
[c. 1595.] "His Majesty [Akbar] has made several inventions [in guns], which have astonished the whole world. . . . . By another invention he joins seventeen guns in such a manner as to be able to fire them simultaneously with one match."-Ain-i-Akbari, trans. Blochmann, I, 112-3.
=
Badaoni also speaks of an Organ' [s, arghan] and thus describes that wonder of creation':
[NOVEMBER, 1931
[c. 1595.] "At this time [988 A.H. 1580 A.c.] an organ which was one of the wonders of creation and which Haji Habibulla had brought from Europe, was exhibited to man. kind. It was like a great box, the size of a man. A European sits inside it and plays the strings thereof and two others outside keep pulling their fingers on five peacock-wings [probably the bellows], and all sorts of sounds come forth."-Muntakhabu' t-tawarikh, trans. Lowe, II, 299. It will be seen that Badaoni's Arghûn' is not a mitrailleuse, but a real organ in the modern English sense of that word.
Pangara, Pangaia.-[1608.] "Further they tould us that in their pengoas or proas they had some quantitye of Indian commodities, wherewith they traded from place to place which they bought at Mombassa in barter of rice and other provision which they did usuallie carrie from Pemba thether and to other places on the coaste."-Journal of John Jourdain, ed. [Sir] W. Foster, p. 40.
Parsees. Sir Thomas Roe's Chaplain, Terry (1616), is the earliest English writer quoted by Yule. Here is an earlier reference :
[1609.] "These two townes of Gandivee and Nassaria, especially Nassaria, [Navsari, about eighteen miles south of Sûrat] doe make greate store of baftås, being townes which stand in a very firtill and good countrie. In this towne there are manie of a strange kinde of religion called Parsyes."-The Journal of John Jourdain, ed. Foster, p. 128.
Patola. This word is used by Barani, who wrote about 1358 A.D.
[1295 A.c.] "And Sultan 'Alâu' d-din brought from Deogir such a large quantity of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, rarities, and vessels, and silk and patola [] that much of it survives to this day in the Delhi treasury, although more than two generations have elapsed since."-Barani, Tarikh-i-Firazshahi, text, 223, 1. 7.
Paunchway. This Bengal boat, the correct name of which is pansuhi, is actually mentioned by the historian Barani in the fourteenth century.
[c. 1358.] "In their extreme inexperience and folly, they [the rebels under 'Ainu'lmulk] crossed the Ganges at Bangarmau in batalahs [in the original] and sundh [] and long boats [j]."-Tarikh-i-Firazshâhî, Bibl. Ind. text, 490, 1. 6. is a mistranscription or copyist's error for
Here it is permissible to suggest that
.pansdhi, i.e., pansdhi پنا ہی پسنا ہی
Pergunnah.-This word appears to have been in general use as early at least as 1400 A.D., as it is found in the Tarikh-i-Firazshdhi of Shams-i-Siraj 'Afif:
"Such was the prosperity that, throughout the Doab.
.. not one village remained waste, even in name, nor one span of land uncultivated. In the Doâb, there were fifty-two parganas flourishing."-Elliot and Dowson, History of India, III, 345.
[1608-11.] The way followeth by Gamgra [Jampda]; Charsoot [Châtsu] (chiefe seat of Rajaw Manisengo his prigonies)."-William Finch, in Early Travels in India, ed, Foster, P. 170, Here 'prigonies '=parganas.
(To be continued.)