Chapter POOJAH to CIVILIAN of C by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

POOJAH to CIVILIAN

——POOJAH. Beng. charak-puja (see POOJA). The Swinging Festival of the Hindus, held on the sun’s entrance into Aries. The performer is suspended from a long yard, traversing round on a mast, by hooks passed through the muscle over the bladebones, and then whirled round so as to fly out centrifugally. The chief seat of this barbarous display is, or latterly was, in Bengal, but it was formerly prevalent in many parts of India. [It is the Shirry (Ca. and Tel. sidi, Tam. shedil, Tel. sidi, ‘a hook’) of S. India.] There is an old description in Purchas’s Pilgrimage, p. 1000; also (in Malabar) in A. Hamilton, i. 270; [at Ikkeri, P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 259]; and (at Calcutta) in Heber’s Journal, quoted below.

c. 1430.—“Alii ad ornandos currus perforato latere, fune per corpus immisso se ad currum suspendunt, pendentesque et ipsi exanimati idolum comitantur; id optimum sacrificium putant et acceptissimum deo.”—Conti, in Poggius, De Var. Fortunae, iv.

[1754.—See a long account of the Bengal rite in Ives, 27 seqq.].

1824.—“The Hindoo Festival of ‘Churruck Poojah’ commenced to-day, of which, as my wife has given an account in her journal, I shall only add a few particulars.”—Heber, ed. 1844, i. 57.

CHURRUS, s.

a. H. charas. A simple apparatus worked by oxen for drawing water from a well, and discharging it into irrigation channels by means of pulley ropes, and a large bag of hide (H. charsa, Skt. charma). [See the description in Forbes, Or. Mem. 2nd ed. i. 153. Hence the area irrigated from a well.]

[1829.—“To each Churrus, chursa, or skin of land, there is attached twenty-five beeghas of irrigated land.”—Tod, Annals (Calcutta repr.), ii. 688.]


b. H. charas, [said to be so called because the drug is collected by men who walk with leather aprons through the field]. The resinous exudation of the hemp- plant (Cannabis Indica), which is the basis of intoxicating preparations (see BANG, GUNJA). [1842.—“The Moolah sometimes smoked the intoxicating drug called Chirs.”—Elphinstone, Caubul, i. 344.]

CHUTKARRY, CHATTAGAR, in S. India, a half-caste; Tam. shatti-kar, ‘one who wears a waistcoat’ (C. P. B).

CHUTNY, s. H. chatni. A kind of strong relish, made of a number of condiments and fruits, &c., used in India, and more especially by Mahommedans, and the merits of which are now well known in England. For native chutny recipes, see Herklots, Qanoon-e-Islam, 2nd ed. xlvii. seqq.

1813.—“The Chatna is sometimes made with cocoa-nut, lime-juice, garlic, and chillies, and with the pickles is placed in deep leaves round the large cover, to the number of 30 or 40.”—Forbes, Or. Mem. ii. 50 seq.; [2nd ed. i. 348].

1820.—“Chitnee, Chatnee, some of the hot spices made into a paste, by being bruised with water, the ‘kitchen’ of an Indian peasant.”—Acc. of Township of Loony, in Tr. Lit. Soc. Bombay, ii. 194.

CHUTT, s. H. chhat. The proper meaning of the vernacular word is ‘a roof or platform.’ But in modern Anglo-Indian its usual application is to the coarse cotton sheeting, stretched on a frame and whitewashed, which forms the usual ceiling of rooms in thatched or tiled houses; properly chadar-chhat, ‘sheet-ceiling.’

CHUTTANUTTY, n.p. This was one of the three villages purchased for the East India Company in 1686, when the agents found their position in Hugli intolerable, to form the settlement which became the city of Calcutta. The other two villages were Calcutta and Govindpur. Dr. Hunter spells it Sutanatí, but the old Anglo-Indian orthography indicates Chatanati as probable. In the letter-books of the Factory Council in the India Office the earlier letters from this establishment are lost, but down to 27th March, 1700, they are dated from “Chuttanutte”; on and after June 8th, from “Calcutta”; and from August 20th in the same year from “Fort William” in Calcutta. [See Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. ii. lix.] According to Major Ralph Smyth, Chatanati occupied “the site of the present native town,” i.e. the northern quarter of the ci ty. Calcutta stood on what is now the European commercial part; and Govindpur on the present site of Fort William.¹

1753.—“The Hoogly Phousdar demanding the payment of the ground rent for 4 months from January, namely:—

	R.	A.	P.
Sootaloota, Calcutta	325	0	0
Govindpoor, Picar	70	0	0
Govindpoor, Calcutta	33	0	0