Chapter PARELL to PARIAH of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

qu’un Paria?’ demanda-t-il à son porte-flambeau.”—B. de St. Pierre, La Chaumière Indienne, 48.

1800.—“The Parriar, and other impure tribes, comprising what are called the Punchum Bundum, would be beaten, were they to attempt joining in a Procession of any of the gods of the Brahmins, or entering any of their temples.”—Buchanan’s Mysore, i. 20.

c. 1805–6.—“The Dubashes, then all powerful at Madras, threatened loss of cast and absolute destruction to any Brahmin who should dare to unveil the mysteries of their language to a Pariar Frengi. This reproach of Pariar is what we have tamely and strangely submitted to for a long time, when we might with a great facility have assumed the respectable character of Chatriya.”—Letter of Leyden, in Morton’s Memoir, edition 1819, page lxvi.

1809.—“Another great obstacle to the reception of Christianity by the Hindoos, is the admission of the Parias in our Churches. …”—Ld. Valentia, i. 246.

1821.—

“Il est sur ce rivage une race flêtrie,
Une race étrangère au sein de sa patrie.
Sans abri protecteur, sans temple hospitalier,
Abominable, impie, horrible au peuple entier.
Les Parias; le jour à regret les éclaire,
La terre sur son sein les porte avec colère.

* * * * *

Eh bien! mais je frémis; tu vas me fuir peut-être;
Je suis un Paria. …”

Casimir Delavigne, Le Paria, Acte 1. Sc. 1.

1843.—“The Christian Pariah, whom both sects curse, Does all the good he can and loves his brother.”—Forster’s Life of Dickens, ii. 31.

1873.—“The Tamilas hire a Pariya (i.e. drummer) to perform the decapitation at their Badra Kâli sacrifices.”—Kittel, in Ind. Ant. ii. 170.

1878.—“L’hypothèse la plus vraisemblable, en tout cas la plus heureuse, est celle qui suppose que le nom propre et spécial de cette race [i.e. of the original race inhabiting the Deccan before contact with northern invaders] était le mot ‘paria’; ce mot dont l’orthographe correcte est pareiya, derivé de par’ei, ‘bruit, tambour,’ et à très-bien, pu avoir le sens de ‘parleur, doué de la parole’ ” (?)—Hovelacque et Vinson, Études de Linguistique , &c., Paris, 67.

1872.—

“Fifine, ordained from first to last,
In body and in soul
For one life-long debauch,
The Pariah of the north,
The European nautch.”

Browning, Fifine at the Fair.

Very good rhyme, but no reason. See under NAUTCH.

The word seems also to have been adopted in Java, e.g.:

1860.—“We Europeans … often … stand far behind compared with the poor pariahs.”—Max Havelaar, ch. vii.