Chapter CARCANA to CARNATIC of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

CARNATIC, n.p. Karnataka and Karnataka, Skt. adjective forms from Karnata or Karnata, [Tam. kar, ‘black,’ nadu, ‘country’]. This word in native use, according to Bp. Caldwell, denoted the Telegu and Canarese people and their language, but in process of time became specially the appellation of the people speaking Canarese and their language (Drav. Gram. 2nd ed. Introd. p. 34). The Mahommedans on their arrival in S. India found a region which embraces Mysore and part of Telingana (in fact the kingdom of Vijayanagara), called the Karnataka country, and this was identical in application (and probably in etymology) with the Canara country (q.v.) of the older Portuguese writers. The Karnataka became extended, especially in connection with the rule of the Nabobs of Arcot, who partially occupied the Vijayanagara territory, and were known as Nawabs of the Karnataka, to the country below the Ghauts, on the eastern side of the Peninsula, just as the other form Canara had become extended to the country below the Western Ghauts ; and eventually among the English the term Carnatic came to be understood in a sense more or less restricted to the eastern low country, though never quite so absolutely as Canara has become restricted to the western low country. The term Carnatic is now obsolete.

c. A.D. 550.—In the Brihat-Saichita of Varahamihira, in the enumeration of peoples and regions of the south, we have in Kern’s translation (J. R. As. Soc. N.S. v. 83) Karnatic ; the original form, which is not given by Kern, is Karnata.

c. A.D. 1100.—In the later Sanskrit literature this name often occurs, e.g. in the Kathasarusagara, or ‘Ocean of Rivers of Stories,’ a collection of tales (in verse) of the beginning of the 12th century, by Somadeva, of Kashmir ; but it is not possible to attach any very precise meaning to the word as there used. [See refs. in Tawney, tr. ii. 651.]

A.D. 1400.—The word also occurs in the inscriptions of the Vijayanagara dynasty, e.g. in one of A.D. 1400.—(Elem. of S. Indian Palaeography, 2nd ed. pl. xxx.)

1608.—“In the land of Karnata and Vidyanagara was the King Mahendra.”— Taranatha’s H. of Buddhism, by Schiefner, p. 267.

c. 1610.—“The Zamindars of Singaldip (Ceylon) and Karnátak came up with their forces and expelled Sheo Rai, the ruler of the Dakhin.”—Firishta, in Elliot, vi. 549.

1614.—See quotation from Couto under CANARA.

[1623.—“His Tributaries, one of whom was the Queen of Curnat.”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 314.]

c. 1652.—“Gandicot is one of the strongest Cities in the Kingdom of Carnatica.”— Tavernier, E. T. ii. 98 ; [ed. Ball, i. 284].

c. 1660.—“The Ráis of the Karnátik, Mahratta (country), and Telingana, were subject to the Rái of Bidar.”—’Amal-i-Sálih, in Elliot vii. 126

1673.—“I received this information from the natives, that the Canatick country reaches from Gongola to the Zamerhin’s Country of the Malabars along the Sea, and inland up to the Pepper Mountains of Sunda…Bedmure, four Days Journey hence, is the Capital City.”—Fryer, 162, in Letter IV., A Relation of the Canatick Country.—Here he identities the “Canatick” with Canara below the Ghauts.

So also the coast of Canara seems meant in the following :—

c. 1760.—“Though the navigation from the Carnatic coast to Bombay is of a very short run, of not above six or seven degrees. …”—Grose, i. 232.

„ “The Carnatic or province of Arcot…its limits now are greatly inferior to those which bounded the ancient Carnatic ; for the Nabobs of Arcot have never extended their authority beyond the river Gondegama to the north ; the great chain of mountains to the west ; and the branches of the Kingdom of Trichinopoli, Tanjore, and Maissore to the south ; the sea bounds it on the east.”—Ibid. II. vii.

1762.—“Siwaee Madhoo Rao…with this immense force…made an incursion into the Karnatic Balaghaut.”—Hussein Ali Khan, History of Hydur Naik, 148.

1792.—“I hope that our acquisitions by this peace will give so much additional strength and compactness to the frontier of our possessions, both in the Carnatic, and on the coast of Malabar, as to render it difficult for any power above the Ghauts to invade us.”—Lord Cornwallis’s Despatch from Seringapatam, in Seton-Karr, ii. 96.

1826.—“Camp near Chillumbrum (Carnatic), March 21st.” This date of a letter of Bp. Heber’s is probably one of the latest instances of the use of the term in a natural way.