Chapter MADAPOLLAM to MADRAS of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

certain that Francis Day or some other of the factors at the new Settlement must have previously made use of it in reference to the place, or ‘rather,’ as the Surat letter says, ‘plot of ground’ offered to him. It is no doubt just possible that in the course of the negotiations Day heard or caught up the name from the Portuguese, who were at the time in friendly relations with the English; but the probabilities are certainly in the opposite direction. The nayak from whom the plot was obtained must almost certainly have supplied the name, or what Francis Day conceived to be the name. Again, as regards Hamilton’s mention of a ‘college,’ Sir H. Yule’s remark certainly goes too far. Hamilton writes, ‘There is a very Good Hospital in the Town, and the Company’s Horse-stables are neat, but the old College where a good many Gentlemen Factors are obliged to lodge, is ill-kept in repair.’ This remark taken together with that made by Lockyer … affords proof, indeed, that there was a building known to the English as the ‘College.’ But it does not follow that this, or any, building was distinctively known to Musulmans as the ‘madrasa.’ The ‘old College’ of Hamilton may have been the successor of a Musulman ‘madrasa’ of some size and consequence, and if this was so the argument for the derivation would be strengthened. It is however equally possible that some old buildings within the plot of territory acquired by Day, which had never been a ‘madrasa,’ was turned to use as a College or place where the young writers should live and receive instruction; and in this case the argument, so far as it rests on a mention of ‘a College’ by Hamilton and Lockyer, is entirely destroyed. Next as regards the probability that the first part of ‘Madraspatanam’ is ‘of Mahommedan origin.’ Sir H. Yule does not mention that date of the maps in which Madraspatanam is shown ‘as the Mahommedan settlement corresponding to the present Triplicane and Royapettah’; but in Fryer’s map, which represents the fort as he saw it in 1672, the name ‘Madirass’—to which is added ‘the Indian Town with flat houses’—is entered as the designation of the collection of houses on the north side of the English town, and the next makes it evident that in the year in question the name of Madras was applied chiefly to the crowded collection of houses styled in turn the ‘Heathen,’ the ‘Malabar,’ and the ‘Black’ town. This consideration does not necessarily disprove the supposed Musulman origin of ‘Madras,’ but it undoubtedly weakens the chain of Sir H. Yule’s argument.” Mr. Pringle ends by saying: “On the whole it is not unfair to say that the chief argument in favour of the derivation adopted by Sir H. Yule is of a negative kind. There are fatal objections to whatever other derivations have been suggested, but if the mongrel character of the compound ‘Madrasapatanam’ is disregarded, there is no fatal objection to the derivation from ‘madrasa.’ … If however that derivation is to stand, it must not rest upon such accidental coincidences as the use of the word ‘College’ by writers whose knowledge of Madras was derived from visits made from 30 to 50 years after the foundation of the colony.”] 1653.—“Estant desbarquez le R. P. Zenon reçut lettres de Madraspatan de la detention du Rev. P. Ephraim de Neuers par l’Inquisition de Portugal, pour avoir presché a Madraspatan que les Catholiques qui ofüetoient et trampoient dans des puys les images de Sainct Antoine de Pade, et de la Vierge Marie, estoient impies, et que les Indous à tout le moins honorent ce qu’ils estiment Sainct. …”—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, 244.

c. 1665.—“Le Roi de Golconde a de grands Revenus. … Les Douanes des marchandises qui passent sur ses Terres, et celles des Ports de Masulipatan et de Madrespatan, lui rapportent beaucoup.”—Thevenot, v. 306.

1672.—“… following upon Madraspatan, otherwise called Chinnepatan, where the English have a Fort called St. George,

chiefly garrisoned by Toepasses and Mistices; from this place they annually send forth their ships, as also from Suratte.”—Baldaeus, Germ. ed. 152.

1673.—“Let us now pass the Pale to the Heathen Town, only parted by a wide Parrade, which is used for a Buzzar, or Mercate-place. Maderas then divides itself into divers long streets, and they are checquered by as many transverse. It enjoys some Choultries for Places of Justice; one Exchange; one Pagod. …”—Fryer, 38–39.

1726.—“The Town or Place, anciently called Chinapatnam, now called Madraspatnam, and Fort St. George.”—Letters Patent, in Charters of E.I. Company, 369–9.

1727.—“Fort St. George or Maderass, or as the Natives call it, China Patam, is a Colony and City belonging to the English East India Company, situated in one of the most incommodious Places I ever saw. … There is a very good Hospital in the Town, and the Company’s Horse-Stables are neat, but the Old College, where a great many Gentlemen Factors are obliged to lodge, is kept in ill Repair.”—A. Hamilton, i. 364, [ed. 1744, ii. 182]. (Also see CHINAPATAM.]