Chapter SUNN to SUPÁRA of S by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

SUNN to SUPÁRA

SUNN, s. Beng. and Hind. san, from Skt. sana; the fibre of the Crotalaria juncea, L. (N.O. Leguminosae); often called Bengal, or Country, hemp. It is of course in no way kindred to true hemp, except in its economic use. In the following passage from the Ain the reference is to the Hibiscus canabinus (see Watt, Econ. Dict. ii. 597).

[c. 1590.—“Hemp grows in clusters like a nosegay.… One species bears a flower like the cotton-shrub, and this is called in Hindostan, sun-paut. It makes a very soft rope.”—Ayeen, by Gladwin, ii. 89; in Blochmann (i. 87) Patsan.]

1838.—“Sunn … a plant the bark of which is used as hemp, and is usually sown around cotton fields.”—Playfair, Taleef-i-Shereef, 96.

[SUNNEE, SOONNEE, s. Ar. sunni, which is really a Pers. form and stands for that which is expressed by the Ar. Ahlu’s-Sunnah, ‘the people of the Path,’ a ‘Traditionist.’ The term applied t o the large Mahommedan sect who acknowledge the first four Khalifahs to have been the rightful descendants of the Prophet, and are thus opposed to the Sheeahs. The latter are much less numerous than the former, the proportion being, according to Mr. Wilfrid Blunt’s estimate, 15 millions Shiahs to 145 millions of Sunnis.

[c. 1590.—“The Mahommedans (of Kashmir) are partly Sunnies, and others of the sects of Aly and Noorbukhshy; and they are frequently engaged in wars with each other.”—Ayeen, by Gladwin, ii. 125; ed. Jarrett, ii. 352.

[1623.—“The other two … are Sonni, as the Turks and Moghol.”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 152.

[1812.—“A fellow told me with the gravest face, that a lion of their own country would never hurt a Sheyah … but would always devour a Sunni.”—Morier, Journey through Persia, 62.]

SUNNUD, s. Hind. from Ar. sanad. A diploma, patent, or deed of grant by the government of office, privilege, or right. The corresponding Skt.—H. is sasana.

[c. 1590.—“A paper authenticated by proper signatures is called a sunnud.… ”—Ayeen, by Gladwin, i. 214; ed. Blochmann, i. 259.]

1758.—“They likewise brought sunnuds, or the commission for the nabobship.”—Orme, Hist., ed. 1803, ii. 284.

1759.—“That your Petitioners, being the Bramins, &c.… were permitted by Sunnud from the President and Council to collect daily alms from each shop or doocan (Doocaun) of this place, at 5 cowries per diem.”—In Long, 184.

1776.—“If the path to and from a House … be in the Territories of another Person, that Person, who always hath passed to and fro, shall continue to do so, the other Person aforesaid, though he hath a Right of Property in the Ground, and hath an attested Sunnud thereof, shall not have Authority to cause him any Let or Molestation.”—Halhed, Code, 100–101.

1799.—“I enclose you sunnuds for pension for the Killadar of Chittledroog.”—Wellington, i. 45.

1800.—“I wished to have traced the nature of landed property in Soondah … by a chain of Sunnuds up to the 8th century.”—Sir T. Munro, in Life, i. 249.

1809.—“This sunnud is the foundation of all the rights and privileges annexed to a Jageer (Jagheer).”—Harrington’s Analysis, ii. 410.

SUNYÁSEE, s. Skt. sannyasi, lit. ‘one who resigns, or abandons,’ scil. ‘wordly affairs’; a Hindu religious mendicant. The name of Sunnyásee was applied famil iarly in Ben gal, c. 1760–75, to a body of banditti claiming to belong to a religious fraternity, who, in the interv al between the decay of the imperial authority and the regular establishment of our own, had their head-quarters in the forest-tracts at the foot of the Himalaya. From these they used to issue periodically in large bodies, plundering and levying exactions far and wide, and returning to their asylum in the jungle when threatened with pursuit. In the days of Nawab Mir Kasim ’Ali (1760–64) they were bold enough to plunder the city of Dacca; and in 1766 the great geographer James Rennell, in an encounter with a large body of them in the territory of Koch (see COOCH) Bihar, was nearly cut to pieces. Rennell himself, five years later, was employed to carry out a project which he had formed for the suppression of these bands, and did so apparently with what was considered at the time to be success, though we find the depredators still spoken of by W. Hastings as active, two or three years later.

[c. 200 A.D.—“Having thus performed religious acts-in a forest during the third portion of his life, let him become a Sannyasi for the fourth portion of it, abandoning all sensual affection.”—Manu, vi. 33.

[c. 1590.—“The fourth period is Sannyása, which is an extraordinary state of austerity that nothing can