Chapter MOGUL of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MOGUL

MOGUL, THE GREAT, n.p. Sometimes ‘The Mogul’ simply. The name by which the Kings of Delhi of the House of Timur were popularly styled, first by the Portuguese (o grão Mogor) and after them by Europeans generally. It was analogous to the Sophy (q.v.), as applied to the Kings of Persia, or to the ‘Great Turk’ applied to the Sultan of Turkey. Indeed the latter phrase was probably the model of the present one. As noticed under the preceding article, MOGOL, MOGOR, and also Mogolistan are applied among old writers to the dominions of the Great Mogul. We have found no native idiom precisely suggesting the latter title; but Mughal is thus used in the Araish-i-Mahfil below, and Mogolistan must have been in some native use, for it is a form that Europeans would not have invented. (See quotations from Thevenot here and under MOHWA.)

c. 1563.—“Ma già dodici anni il gran Magol Re Moro d’Agra et del Deli…si è impatronito di tutto il Regno de Cambaia.”—V. di Messer Cesare Federici, in Ramusio, iii.

1572.—

“A este o Rei Cambayco soberbissimo
Fortaleza darà na rica Dio;
Porque contra o Mogor poderosissimo
Lhe ajude a defender o senhorio.…”

Camões, x. 64.

By Burton:

“To him Cambaya’s King, that haughtiest Moor,
shall yield in wealthy Diu the famous fort
that he may gain against the Grand Mogor
’spite his stupendous power, your firm support.…”

[1609.—“When you shall repair to the Greate Magull.”—Birdwood, First Letter Book, 325.

[1612.—“Hecchabar (Akbar) the last deceased Emperor of Hindustan, the father of the present Great Mogul.”—Danvers, Letters, i. 163.]

1615.—“Nam praeter Magnum Mogor cui hodie potissima illius pars subjecta est; qui tum quidem Mahometicae religioni deditus erat, quamuis eam modo cane et angue peius detestetur, vix scio an illius alius rex Mahometana sacra coleret.”—Jarric, i. 58.

„ “…prosecuting my travaile by land, I entered the confines of the great Mogor.…”—De Monfart, 15.

1616.—“It (Chitor) is in the country of one Rama, a Prince newly subdued by the Mogul.”—Sir T. Roe. [In Hak. Soc. (i. 102) for “the Mogul” the reading is “this King.”]

„ “The Seuerall Kingdomes and Prouinces subject to the Great Mogoll Sha Selin Gehangier.”—Idem. in Purchas, i. 578.

„ “…the base cowardice of which people hath made The Great Mogul sometimes use this proverb, that one Portuguese would beat three of his people…and he would further add that one Englishman would beat three Portuguese. The truth is that those Portuguese, especially those born in those Indian colonies,…are a very low poor-spirited people.…”—Terry, ed. 1777, 153.

[„ “…a copy of the articles granted by the Great Mogoll may partly serve for precedent.”—Foster, Letters, iv. 222.]

1623.—“The people are partly Gentile and partly Mahometan, but they live mingled together, and in harmony, because the Great Mogul, to whom Guzerat is now subject…although he is a Mahometan (yet not altogether that, as they say) makes no difference in his states between one kind of people and the other.”—P. della Valle, ii. 510; [Hak. Soc. i. 30, where Mr. Grey reads “Gran Moghel”].

1644.—“The King of the inland country, on the confines of this island and fortress of Dlu, is the Mogor, the greatest Prince in all the East.”—Bocarro, MS.

1653.—“Mogol est vn terme des Indes qui signifie blanc, et quand nous disons le grand Mogol, que les Indiens appellent Schah Geanne Roy du monde, c’est qu’il est effectiuement blanc…nous l’appellons grand Blanc on grand Mogol, comme nous appellons le Roy des Ottomans grand Turq.”—De la Boullaye-le-Gouz, ed. 1657, pp. 549–550.

„ “This Prince, having taken them all, made fourscore and two of them abjure their faith, who served him in his wars against the Great Mogor, and were every one of them miserably slain in that expedition.”—Cogan’s Pinto, p. 25. The expression is not in Pinto’s original, where it is Rey dos Mogores (cap. xx.).

c. 1663.—“Since it is the custom of Asia never to approach Great Persons with Empty Hands, when I had the Honour to kiss the Vest of the Great Mogol Aureng Zebe, I presented him with Eight Roupees …”—Bernier, E.T. p. 62; [ed. Constable, 200].

1665.—

“…Samarchand by Oxus, Temir’s throne,
To Paquin of Sinaean Kings; and thence
To Agra and Lahor of Great Mogul.…’