Chapter PEEÁDA. to PEER of P by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

PEEÁDA. to PEER

PEEÁDA. See under PEON.

PEENUS, s. Hind. pinas; a corruption of Eng. pinnace. A name applied to a class of budgerow rigged like a brig or brigantine, on the rivers of Bengal, for European use. Roebuck gives as the marine Hind. for pinnace, p’hineez. [The word has been adopted by natives in N. India as the name for a sort of palankin, such as that used by a bride.]

[1615.—“Soe he sent out a Penisse to look out for them.”—Cocks’s Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 22.]

1784.—“For sale…a very handsome Pinnace Budgerow.”—In Seton-Karr, i. 45.

[1860.—“The Pinnace, the largest and handsomest, is perhaps more frequently a private than a hired boat—the property of the planter or merchant.”—C. Grant; Rural Life in Bengal, 4 (with an illustration).]

PEEPUL, s. Hind. pipal, Skt. pippala, Ficus religiosa, L.; one of the great fig-trees of India, which often occupies a prominent place in a village, or near a temple. The Pipal has a strong resemblance, in wood and foliage, to some common species of poplar, especially the aspen, and its leaves with their long footstalks quaver like those of that tree. This trembling is popularly attributed to spirits agitating each leaf. And hence probably the name of ‘Devil’s tree’ given to it, according to Rheede (Hort. Mal. i. 48), by Christians in Malabar. It is possible therefore that the name is identical with that of the poplar. Nothing would be more natural than that the Aryan immigrants, on first seeing this Indian tree, should give it the name of the poplar which they had known in more northern latitudes (popul-us, pappel, &c.). Indeed, in Kumaon, a true sp. of poplar (Populus ciliata) is called by the people garpipal (qu. ghar, or ‘house’-peepul? [or rather perhaps as another name for it is pahari, from gir, giri, ‘a mountain’]). Dr. Stewart also says of this Populus: “This tree grows to a large size, occasionally reaching 10 feet in girth, and from its leaves resembling those of the pipal…is frequently called by that name by plainsmen” (Punjab Plants, p. 204). A young peepul was shown to one of the present writers in a garden at Palermo as populo delle Indie. And the recognised name of the peepul in French books appears to be peuplier d’Inde. Col. Tod notices the resemblance (Rajasthan, i. 80), and it appears that Vahl called it Ficus populifolia. (See also Geograph. Magazine, ii. 50). In Balfour’s Indian Cyclopaedia it is called by the same name in translation, ‘the poplar-leaved Fig-tree.’ We adduce these facts the more copiously perhaps because the suggestion of the identity of the names pippala and populus was somewhat scornfully rejected by a very learned scholar. The tree is peculiarly destructive to buildings, as birds drop the seeds in the joints of the masonry, which becomes thus penetrated by the spreading roots of the tree. This is alluded to in a quotation below. “I remember noticing among many Hindus, and especially among Hinduized Sikhs, that they often say Pipal ko jata hun (‘I am going to the Peepul Tree’), to express ‘I am going to say my prayers.’ ” (Lt.-Col. John Trotter.) (See BO-TREE.)

c. 1550.—“His soul quivered like a pipal leaf.”—Ramayana of Tulsi Dás, by Growse (1878), ii. 25.

[c. 1590.—“In this place an arrow struck Sri Kishn and buried itself in a pipal tree on the banks of the Sarsuti.”—Ain, ed. Jarrett, ii. 246.]

1806.—“Au sortir du village un pipal élève sa tête majestueuse.…Sa nombreuse posterité l’entoure au loin sur la plaine, telle qu’une armée de géans qui entrelacent fraternellement leurs bras informes.”—Haafner, i. 149. This writer seems to mean a banyan. The peepul does not drop roots in that fashion.

1817.—“In the second ordeal, an excavation in the ground…is filled with a fire of pippal wood, into which the party must walk barefoot, proving his guilt if he is burned; his innocence, if he escapes unhurt.”—Mill (quoting from Halhed), ed. 1830, i. 280.

1826.—“A little while after this he arose, and went to a Peepul-tree, a short way off, where he appeared busy about something, I could not well make out what.”—Pandurang Hari, 26; [ed. 1873, i. 36, reading Peepal].

1836.—“It is not proper to allow the English, after they have made made war, and peace has been settled, to remain in the city. They are accustomed to act like the Peepul tree. Let not Younger Brother therefore allow the English to remain in his country.”—Letter from Court of China to Court of Ava. See Yule, Mission to Ava, p.