Chapter ARSENAL to ASSEGAY of A by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

but when Medêa, the Colchian, came to them from Athens, they changed their name.”— Herodot., vii. 62 (Rawlins).

1835.—“Those eastern and proper Indians, whose territory, however, Alexander never touched by a long way, call themselves in the most ancient period Arians (Arier) (Manu, ii. 22, x. 45), a name coinciding with that of the ancient Medes.”— Ritter, v. 458.

1838.— See also Ritter, viii. 17 seqq.; and Potto’s art. in Ersch & Grueber’s Encyc., ii. 18, 46.

1850.—“The Aryan tribes in conquering India, urged by the Brahmans, made war against the Turanian demon-worship, but not always with complete success.”— Dr. J. Wilson, in Life, 450.

1851.—“We must request the patience of our readers whilst we give a short outline of the component members of the great Arian family. The first is the Sanskrit. … The second branch of the Arian family is the Persian. … There are other scions of the Arian stock which struck root in the soil of Asia, before the Arians reached the shores of Europe…”— (Prof. Max Müller) Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1851, pp. 312–313.

1853.—“Sur les sept premières civilisations, qui sont celles de l’ancien monde, six appartiennent, en partie au moins, à la race ariane.”— Gobineau, De l’Inégalité des Races Humaines, i. 364.

1855.—“I believe that all who have lived in India will bear testimony .… that to natives of India, of whatever class or caste, Mussulman, Hindoo, or Parsee, ‘Aryan or Tamulian,’ unless they have had a special training, our European paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs, plain or coloured, if they are landscapes, are absolutely unintelligible.”— Yule, Mission to Ava, 59 (publ. 1858).

1858.—“The Aryan tribes—for that is the name they gave themselves, both in their old and new homes—brought with them institutions of a simplicity almost primitive.”— Whitney, Or. & Ling. Studies, ii. 5.

1861.—“Latin, again, with Greek, and the Celtic, the Teutonic, and Slavonic languages, together likewise with the ancient dialects of India and Persia, must have sprung from an earlier language, the mother of the whole Indo- European or Aryan family of speech.”— Prof. Max Müller, Lectures, 1st Ser. 32.

We also find the verb Aryanize:

1858.—“Thus all India was brought under the sway, physical or intellectual and moral, of the alien race; it was thoroughly Aryanized.”— Whitney, u. s. 7.

ASHRAFEE, s. Arab. ashrafi, ‘noble,’ applied to various gold coins (in analogy with the old English ‘noble’), especially to the dinar of Egypt, and to the Gold Mohur of India.— See XERAFINE.

c. 1550.—“There was also the sum of 500,000 Falory ashrafies equal in the currency of Persia to 50,000 royal Irak tomans.”— Mem. of Humayun, 125. A note suggests that Falory, or Flori, indicates florin.

ASSAM, n.p. The name applied for the last three centuries or more to the great valley of the Brahmaputra River, from the emergence of its chief sources from the mountains till it enters the great plain of Bengal. The name Asham and sometimes Ahom, is a form of Aham or Ahom, a dynasty of Shan race, who entered the country in the middle ages, and long ruled it. Assam politically is now a province embracing much more than the name properly included.

c. 1590.—“The dominions of the Rajah of Asham join to Kamroop; he is a very powerful prince, lives in great state, and when he dies, his principal attendants, both male and female, are voluntarily buried alive with his corpse.”— Gladwin’s Ayeen (ed. 1800) ii. 3; [Jarrett, trans. ii. 118].

1682.—“Ye Nabob was very busy dispatching and vesting divers principal officers sent with all possible diligence with recruits for their army, lately overthrown in Asham and Sillet, two large plentiful countries 8 days’ journey distant from this city (Dacca).”— Hedges, Diary, Oct. 29th; [Hak. Soc. i. 43].

1770.—“In the beginning of the present century, some Bramins of Bengal carried their superstitions to Asham, where the people were so happy as to be guided solely by the dictates of natural religion.”— Raynal (tr. 1777) i. 420.

1788.—“M. Chevalier, the late Governor of Chandernagore, by permission of the King, went up as high as the capital of Assam, about the year 1762.”— Rennell’s Mem., 3rd ed. p. 299.

ASSEGAY, s. An African throwing-spear. Dozy has shown that this is Berber zaghaya, with the Ar. article prefixed (p. 223). Those who use it often seem to take it for a S. African or Eastern word. So Godinho de Eredia seems to use it as if Malay (f. 21 v). [Mr Skeat remarks that the nearest word in