Chapter GOA to GODAVERY of G by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

this, in a little water mixed with sugar, to their patients.”—Stavorinus, E.T. i. 454.

1867.—“The Goa-Stone was in the 16th (?) and 17th centuries as much in repute as the Bezoar, and for similar virtues…It is of the shape and size of a duck’s egg, has a greyish metallic lustre, and though hard, is friable. The mode of employing it was to take a minute dose of the powder scraped from it in one’s drink every morning…So precious was it esteemed that the great usually carried it about with them in a casket of gold filigree.”—Nat. Hist. of Gems, by C. W. King, M.A., p. 256.

GOBANG, s. The game introduced some years ago from Japan. The name is a corr. of Chinese K‘i- p‘an, ‘checker-board.’

[1898.—“Go, properly gomoku narabe, often with little appropriateness termed ‘checkers’ by European writers, is the most popular of the indoor pastimes of the Japanese,—a very different affair from the simple game known to Europeans as Goban or Gobang, properly the name of the board on which go is played.”—Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 3rd ed., 190 seq., where a full account of the game will be found.]

GODAVERY, n.p. Skt. Godavari, ‘giving kine.’ Whether this name of northern etymology was a corruption of some indigenous name we know not. [The Dravidian name of the river is Goday (Tel. gode, ‘limit’), of which the present name is possibly a corruption.] It is remarkable how the Godavery is ignored by writers and map-makers till a comparatively late period, with the notable exception of D. João de Castro, in a work, however, not published till 1843. Barros, in his trace of the coasts of the Indies (Dec. I. ix. cap. 1), mentions Gudavarij as a place adjoining a cape of the same name (which appears in some much later charts as C. Gordewar), but takes no notice of the great river, so far as we are aware, in any part of his history. Linschoten also speaks of the Punto de Guadovaryn, but not of the river. Nor does his map show the latter, though showing the Kistna distinctly. The small general map of India in “Cambridge’s Acc. of the War in India,” 1761, confounds the sources of the Godavery with those of the Mahanadi (of Orissa) and carries the latter on to combine with the western rivers of the Ganges Delta. This was evidently the prevailing view until Rennell published the first edition of his Memoir (1783), in which he writes: “The Godavery river, or Gonga Godowry, commonly called Ganga in European maps, and sometimes Gang in Indian histories, has generally been represented as the same river with that of Cattack.

“As we have no authority that I can find for supposing it, the opinion must have been taken up, on a supposition that there was no opening between the mouths of the Kistna and Mahanadee (or Cattack river) of magnitude sufficient for such a river as the Ganga” (pp. 74-75) [also ibid. 2nd ed. 244]. As to this error see also a quotation from D’Anville under KEDGEREE. It is probable from what that geographer says in his Eclaircissemens, p. 135, that he had no real idea of the Godavery. That name occurs in his book only as “la pointe de Gaudewari.” This point, he says, is about E.N.E. of the “river of Narsapur,” at a distance of about 12 leagues; “it is a low land, intersected by several river-arms, forming the mouths of that which the maps, esteemed to be most correct, call Wenseron; and the river of Narsapur is itself one of those arms, according to a MS. map in my possession.” Narsaparam is the name of a taluk on the westernmost delta branch, or Vasishta Godavari [see Morris, Man. of Godavery Dist., 193]. Wenseron appears on a map in Baldaeus (1672), as the name of one of the two mouths of the Eastern or Gautami Godavari, entering the sea near Coringa. It is perhaps the same name as Injaram on that branch, where there was an English Factory for many years.

In the neat map of “Regionum Choromandel, Golconda, et Orixa,” which is in Baldaeus (1672), there is no indication of it whatever except as a short inlet from the sea called Gondewary.

1538.—“The noblest rivers of this province (Daquem or Deccan) are six in number, to wit: Crusna (Krishna), in many places known as Hinapor, because it passes by a city of this name (Hindapur?); Bivra (read Bima?); these two rivers join on the borders of the Deccan and the land of Canara (q.v.), and after traversing great distances enter the sea in the Oria territory; Malaprare (Malprabha?); Guodavam (read Guodavari) otherwise called Gangua; Purnadi; Tapi. Of these the Malaprare enters the sea in the Oria territory, and so does the Guodavam; but Purnadi and Tapi enter the Gulf of Cambay at different points.”—João de Castro, Primeiro Roteiro da Costa da India, pp. 6, 7.

c. 1590.—“Here (in Berar) are rivers in abundance; especially the Ganga of Gotam, which they also call Godovari. The Ga nga of Hindustan