Chapter CANARIN to CANDAHAR of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CANARIN to CANDAHAR

CANARIN, n.p. This name is applied in some of the quotations under Canara to the people of the district now so called by us. But the Portuguese applied it to the (Konkani) people of Goa and their language. Thus a Konkani grammar, originally prepared about 1600 by the Jesuit, Thomas Estevão (Stephens, an Englishman), printed at Goa, 1640, bears the title Arte da Lingoa Canarin. (See A. B(urnell) in Ind. Antiq. ii. 98).

[1823.—“Canareen, an appellation given to the Creole Portuguese of Goa and their other Indian settlements.”—Owen, Narrative, i. 191.]

CANAUT, CONAUT, CONNAUGHT, s. H. from Ar. kanat, the side wall of a tent, or canvas enclosure. [See SURRAPURDA.] [1616.—“High cannattes of a coarse stuff made like arras.”—Sir T. Roe, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. 325.]

„ “The King’s Tents are red, reared on poles very high, and placed in the midst of the Camp, covering a large Compasse, encircled with Canats (made of red calico stiffened with Canes at every breadth) standing upright about nine foot high, guarded round every night with Souldiers.” —Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1481.

c. 1660.—“And (what is hard enough to believe in Indostan, where the Grandees especially are so jealous…) I was so near to the wife of this Prince (Dara), that the cords of the Kanates…which enclosed them (for they had not so much as a poor tent), were fastened to the wheels of my chariot.”—Bernier, E. T. 29 ; [ed. Constable, 89].

1792.—“They passed close to Tippoo’s tents : the canaut (misprinted canaul) was standing, but the green tent had been removed.”—T. Munro, in Life, iii. 73.

1793.—“The canaut of canvas…was painted of a beautiful sea-green colour.”—Dirom, 230.

[c. 1798.—“On passing a skreen of Indian connaughts, we proceeded to the front of the Tusbeah Khanah.”—Asiatic Res., iv. 444.]

1817.—“A species of silk of which they make tents and kanauts.”—Mill, ii. 201.

1825.—Heber writes connaut.—Orig. ed. ii. 257.

[1838.—“The khenauts (the space between the outer covering and the lining of our tents).”—Miss Eden, Up the Country ii. 63.]

CANDAHAR, n.p. Kandahar. The application of this name is now exclusively to (a) the well-known city of Western Afghanistan, which is the object of so much political interest. But by the Ar. geographers of the 9th to 11th centuries the name is applied to (b) the country about Peshawar, as the equivalent of the ancient Indian Gandhara, and the Gandaritis of Strabo. Some think the name was transferred to (a) in consequence of a migration of the people of G andhara carrying with them the begging-pot of Buddha, believed by Sir H. Rawlinson to be identical with a large sacred vessel of stone preserved in a mosque of Candahar. Others think that Candahar may represent Alexandropolis in Arachosia. We find a third application of the name (c) in Ibn Batuta, as well as in earlier and later writers, to a former port on the east shore of the Gulf of Cambay, Ghandhar in the Broach District.

a.—1552.—“Those who go from Persia, from the kingdom of Horaçam (Khorasan), from Bohára, and all the Western Regions, travel to the city which the natives corruptly call Candar, instead of Scandar, the name by which the Persians call Alexander.…”—Barros, IV. vi. 1.

1664.—“All these great preparations give us cause to apprehend that, instead of going to Kachemire, we be not led to besiege that important city of Kandahar, which is the Frontier to Persia, Indostan, and Usbeck, and the Capital of an excellent Country.”—Bernier, E. T., p. 113 ; [ed. Constable, 352].

1671.—

“From Arachosia, from Candaor east,
And Margiana to the Hyrcanian cliffs
Of Caucasus.…”

Paradise Regained, iii. 316 seqq.

b.—c. 1030.—“…thence to the river Chandráha (Chináb) 12 (parasangs) ; thence to Jailam on the West of the Báyat (or Hydaspes) 18 ; thence to Waihind, capital of Kandahár…20 ; thence to Parsháwar 14.…”—Al-Biruni, in Elliot, i. 63 (corrected).

c.—c. 1343.—“ From Kinbaya (Cambay) we went to the town of Kawi (Kanvi, opp. Cambay), on an estuary where the tide rises and falls…thence to Kandahar, a considerable city belonging to the Infidels, and situated on an estuary from the sea.” —Ibn Batuta, iv. 57-8.

1516.—“Further on…there is another place, in the mouth of a small river, which is called Guendari.…And it is a very good town, a seaport.”—Barbosa, 64.

1814.—“Candhar, eighteen miles from the wells, is pleasantly situated on the banks of a river; and a place of considerable trade; being a great thoroughfare from the sea coast to the Gaut mountains.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. i. 206; [2nd ed. i. 116].