it has generally been adopted into the vernaculars. The popular pronunciation is bäzár. In S. India and Ceylon the word is used for a single shop or stall kept by a native. The word seems to have come to S. Europe very early. F. Balducci Pegolotti, in his Mercantile Handbook (c. 1340) gives Bazarra as a Genoese word for ‘market-place’ (Cathay, &c. ii. 286). The word is adopted into Malay as päsär, [or in the poems pasara].

1474.—Ambrose Contarini writes of Kazan, that it is “walled like Como, and with bazars (bazzari) like it.”—Ramusio, ii. f. 117.

1478.—Josafat Barbaro writes: “An Armenian Choza Mirech, a rich merchant in the bazar” (bazarro).—Ibid. f. 111v.

1563.—“…bazar, as much as to say the place where things are sold.”—Garcia, f. 170.

1564.—A privilege by Don Sebastian of Portugal gives authority “to sell garden produce freely in the bazars (bazares), markets, and streets (of Goa) without necessity for consent or license from the farmers of the garden produce, or from any other person whatsoever.”—Arch. Port. Or., fasc. 2, 157.

c. 1566.—“La Pescaria delle Perle…si fa ogn’ anno…e su la costa all’ in contro piantano vna villa di case, e bazarri di paglia.”—Cesare de’ Federici, in Ramusio, iii. 390.

1606.—“…the Christians of the Bazar.”—Gouvea, 29.

1610.—“En la Ville de Cananor il y a vn beau marché tous les jours, qu’ils appellent Basare.”—Pyrard de Laval, i. 325; [Hak. Soc. i. 448].

[1615.—“To buy pepper as cheap as we could in the busser.”—Foster, Letters, iii. 114.]

[“He forbad all the bezar to sell us victuals or else…”—Ibid. iv. 80.]

[1623.—“They call it Bezari Kelan, that is the Great Merkat…”—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. i. 96. (P. Kalän, ‘great’).]

1638.—“We came into a Bussar, or very faire Market place.”—W. Bruton, in Hakl. v. 50.

1666.—“Les Bazards ou Marchés sont dans une grande rue qui est au pié de la montagne.”—Thevenot, v. 18.

1672.—“…Let us now pass the Pale to the Heathen Town (of Madras) only parted by a wide Parrade, which is used for a Buzzar or Mercate-place.”—Fryer, 38.

[1826.—“The Kotwall went to the bazaar-master.”—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, p. 156.]

1837.—“Lord, there is a honey bazar, repair thither.”—Turnour’s transl. of Mahawanso, 24.

1873.—“This, remarked my handsome Greek friend from Vienna, is the finest wife-bazaar in this part of Europe.…Go a little way east of this, say to Roumania, and you will find wife-bazaar completely undisguised, the ladies seated in their carriages, the youths filing by, and pausing before this or that beauty, to bargain with papa about the dower, under her very nose.”—Fraser’s Mag. N. S. vii. p. 617 (Vienna, by M. D. Conway.)

BDELLIUM, s. This aromatic gum-resin has been identified with that of the Balsamodendron Mukul, Hooker, inhabiting the dry regions of Arabia and Western India; gugal of Western India, and mokl in Arabic, called in P. bo-i-jahüdän (Jews’ scent). What the Hebrew bdolah of the R. Phison was, which was rendered bdellium since the time of Josephus, remains very doubtful. Lassen has suggested musk as possible. But the argument is only this: that Dioscorides says some called bdellium madÎlkon ; that madÎlkon perhaps represents Madälaka, and though there is no such Skt. word as madälaka, there might be madäraka, because there is madära, which means some perfume, no one knows what! (Ind. Alterth. i. 292.) Dr. Royle says the Persian authors describe the Bdellium as being the product of the Doom palm (see Hindu Medicine, p. 90). But this we imagine is due to some ambiguity in the sense of mokl. [See the authorities quoted in Encycl. Bibl. s.v. Bdellium which still leave the question in some doubt.]

c. A.D. 90.—“In exchange are exported from Barbarice (Indus Delta) costus, bdella.…”—Periplus, ch. 39.

c. 1230.—“Bdallyün. A Greek word which as some learned men think, means ‘The Lion’s Repose.’ This plant is the same as mokl.”—Ebn El-Baithár, i. 125.

1612.—“Bdellium, the pund…xxs.”—Rates and Valuatiouns (Scotland), p. 298.

BEADALA, n.p. Formerly a port of some note for native craft on the Rämnäd coast (Madura district) of the Gulf of Manar, Vadaulay in the Atlas of India. The proper name seems to be Vëdälai, by which it is mentioned in Bishop Caldwell’s Hist. of Tinnevelly (p. 235), [and which is derived from Tam. vedu, ‘hunting,’ and al, ‘a banyan-tree’ (Mad. Adm. Man. Gloss. p. 953)]. The place was famous in the Portuguese History of India for a victory gained there by Martin Affonso de Sousa (Capitão Mó do Mar) over a strong land and sea force of the Zamorin, commanded by a famous Mahommedan Captain, whom the Portuguese called Pate Marcar, and the Tuhfat-al Mujähidïn calls ’Ali Ibrahïm Markär, 15th February, 1538. Barros styles it “one of the best fought battles that ever came off in India.” This occurred under the viceroyalty of Nuno da Cunha, not of Stephen da Gama, as the allusions in Camöes seem to indicate. Captain Burton has


  By PanEris using Melati.

Previous chapter/page Back Home Email this Search Discuss Bookmark Next chapter/page
Copyright: All texts on Bibliomania are © Bibliomania.com Ltd, and may not be reproduced in any form without our written permission.
See our FAQ for more details.