Chapter ORISSA to OROMBARROS of O by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

ORISSA to OROMBARROS

ORISSA, n.p. [Skt. Odrashtra, ‘the land of the Odras’ (see OORIYA). The word is said to be the Prakrit form of uttara, ‘north,’ as applied to the N. part of Kalinga.] The name of the ancient kingdom and modern province which lies between Bengal and the Coromandel Coast.

1516.—“Kingdom of Orisa. Further on towards the interior there is another kingdom which is conterminous with that of Narsynga, and on another side with Bengala, and on another with the great Kingdom of Dely.…”—Barbosa, in Lisbon ed. 306.

c. 1568.—“Orisa fu già vn Regno molto bello e securo…sina che regnò il suo Rè legitimo, qual era Gentile.”—Ces. Federici, Ramusio, iii. 392.

[c. 1616.—“Vdeza, the Chiefe Citty called Iekanat (Juggurnaut).”—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 538.]

ORMESINE, s A kind of silk texture, which we are unable to define. The name suggests derivation from Ormus. [The Draper’s Dict. defines “Armozeen, a stout silk, almost invariably black. It is used for hatbands and scarfs at funerals by those not family mourners. Sometimes sold for making clergymen’s gowns.” The N.E.D. s.v. Armozeen, leaves the etymology doubtful. The Stanf. Dict. gives Ormuzine, “a fabric exported from Ormuz.”]

c. 1566.—“…a little Island called Tana, a place very populous with Portugals, Moores and Gentiles: these have nothing but Rice; they are makers of Armesie and weavers of girdles of wooll and bumbast.”—Caes, Fredericke, in Hakl. ii. 344.

1726.—“Velvet, Damasks, Armosyn, Sattyn.”—Valentijn, v. 183.

ORMUS, ORMUZ, n.p. Properly Hurmuz or Hurmuz, a famous maritime city and minor kingdom near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The original place of the city was on the northern shore of the Gulf, some 30 miles east of the site of Bandar Abbas or Gombroon (q.v.); but about A.D. 1300, app arently to escape from Tartar raids, it was transferred to the small island of Gerun or Jerun, which may be identified with the Organa of Nearchus, about 12 m. westward, and five miles f rom the shor e, and this was the seat of the kingdom when first visited and attacked by the Portuguese under Alboquerque in 1506. It was taken by them about 1515, and occupied permanently (though the nomi nal reign of the native kings was maintained), until wrested from them by Shah ’Abbas, with the assistance of an English squadron from Surat, in 1622. The place was destroyed by the Persians, and the island has since remained desolate, and all but uninhabited, though the Portuguese citadel and water-tanks remain. The islands of Hormuz, Kishm, &c., as well as Bandar ’Abbas and other ports on the coast of Kerman, had been held by the Sultans of Oman as fiefs of Persia, for upwards of a century, when in 1854 the latter State asserted its dominion, and occupied those places in force (see Badger’s Imams of Oman, &c., p. xciv.).

B.C. c. 325.—“They weighed next day at dawn, and after a course of 100 stadia anchored at the mouth of the river Anamis, in a country called Harmozeia.”—Arrian, Voyage of Nearchus, ch. xxxiii., tr. by M‘Crindle, p. 202.

c. A.D. 150.—(on the coast of Carmania)

“ [Greek Text] Armouza poliV.
[Greek Text] Armozou akron.” Ptol. VI. viii. 5

c. 540.—At this time one Gabriel is mentioned as (Nestorian) Bishop of Hormuz (see Assemani, iii. 147–8).

c. 655.—“Nobis…visum est nihilominus velut ad sepulchra mortuorum, quales vos esse video, geminos hosce Dei Sacerdotes ad vos allegare; Theodorum videlicet Episcopum Hormuzdadschir et Georgium Episcopum Susatrae.”—Syriac Letter of the Patriarch Jesujabus, ibid. 133.

1298.—“When you have ridden these two days you come to the Ocean Sea, and on the shore you find a City with a harbour, which is called Hormos.”—Marco Polo, Bk. i. ch. xix.

c. 1330.—“…I came to the Ocean Sea. And the first city on it that I reached is called Ormes, a city strongly fenced and abounding in costly wares. The city is on an island some five miles distant from the main; and on it there grows no tree, and there is no fresh water.”—Friar Odoric, in Cathay, &c., 56.

c. 1331.—“I departe d from ’Oman for the country of Hormuz. Th e city of Hormuz stands on the shore of the sea. The name is also called Moghistan. The new city of Hormuz rises in face of the first in the middle of the sea, separated from it only by a channel 3 parasangs in width. We arrived at New Hormuz, which forms an island of which the capital is called Jaraun.…It is a mart for Hind and Sind.”—Ibn Batuta, ii. 230.

1442.—“Ormus (qu. Hurmuz ?), which is now called Djerun, is a port situated in the middle of the sea, and which has not its equal on the face of the globe.”—Abdurrazzak, in India in XV. Cent. p. 5.

c. 1470.—“Hormuz is 4 miles across