Chapter DEWAUN of D by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

DEWAUN

DEWAUN, s. The chief meanings of this word in Anglo-Indian usage are:

(1) Under the Mahommedan Governments which preceded us, “the head financial minister, whether of the state or a province…charged, in the latter, with the collection of the revenue, the remittance of it to the imperial treasury, and invested with extensive judicial powers in all civil and financial causes” (Wilson). It was in this sense that the grant of the Dewauny (q.v.) to the E. I. Company in 1765 became the foundation of the British Empire in India. (2) The prime minister of a native State. (3) The chief native officer of certain Government establishments, such as the Mint; or the native manager of a Zemindary. (4) (In Bengal) a native servant in confidential charge of the dealings of a house of business with natives, or of the affairs of a large domestic establishment. These meanings are perhaps all reducible to one conception, of which ‘Steward’ would be an appropriate expression. But the word has had many other ramifications of meaning, and has travelled far.

The Arabian diwan is, according to Lane, an diwin Arabicized word of Persian origin (though some hold it for pure Arabic), and is in original meaning nearly equivalent to Persian daftar (see DUFTER), i.e. a collection of written leaves or sheets (forming a book for registration); hence ‘a register of accounts’; a ‘register of soldiers or pensioners’; a ‘register of the rights or dues of the State, or relating to the acts of government, the finances and the administration’; also any book, and especially a collection of the poems of some particular poet. It was also applied to signify ‘an account’; then a ‘writer of accounts’; a ‘place of such writers of accounts’; also a ‘council, court, or tribunal’; and in the present day, a ‘long seat formed of a mattress laid along the wall of a room, with cushions, raised or on the floor’; or ‘two or more of such seats.’ Thus far (in this paragraph) we abstract from Lane.

The Arabian historian Biladuri (c. 860) relates as to the first introduction of the diwan that, when ’Omar was discussing with the people how to divide the enormous wealth derived from the conquests in his time, Walid bin Hisham bin Moghaira said to the caliph, ‘I have been in Syria, and saw that its kings make a diwan; do thou the like.’ So ’Omar accepted his advice, and sent for two men of the Persian tongue, and said to them: ‘Write down the people according to their rank’ (and corresponding pensions).¹

We must observe that in the Mahommedan States of the Mediterranean the word diwan became especially applied to the Custom-house, and thus passed into the Romance languages as aduana, douane, dogana, &c. Littré indeed avoids any decision as to the etymology of douane, &c. And Hyde (Note on Abr. Peritsol, in Syntagma Dissertt. i. 101) derives dogana from docân (i.e. P. dukan, ‘officina, a shop’). But such passages as that below from Ibn Jubair, and the fact that, in the medieval Florentine treaties with the Mahommedan powers of Barbary and Egypt, the word diwan in the Arabic texts constantly represents the dogana of the Italian, seem sufficient to settle the question (see Amari, Diplomi Arabi del Real Archivio, &c.; e.g. p. 104, and (Latin) p. 305, and in many other places).² The Spanish Dict. of Cobarruvias (1611) quotes Urrea as saying that “from the Arabic noun Diuanum, which signifies the house where the duties are collected, we form diuana, and thence adiuana, and lastly aduana.”

At a later date the word was reimported into Europe in the sense of a hall furnished with Turkish couches and cushions, as well as of a couch of this kind. Hence we get cigar-divans, et hoc genus omne. The application to certain collections of poems is noticed above. It seems to be especially applied to assemblages of short poems of homogeneous character. Thus the Odes of Horace, the Sonnets of Petrarch, the In Memoriam of Tennyson, answer to the character of Diwan so used. Hence also Goethe took the title of his West-Östliche Diwan.

c. A. D. 636.—“…in the Caliphate of Omar the spoil of Syria and Persia began in ever-increasing volume to pour into the treasury of Medina, where it was distributed almost as soon as received. What was easy in small beginnings by equal sharing or discretionary preference, became now a heavy task…. At length, in the 2nd or 3rd year of his Caliphate, Omar determined that the distribution should be regulated on a fixed and systematic scale…. To carry out this vast design, a Register had to be drawn and kept up of every man, woman, and child, entitled to a stipend from the State…. The Register itself, as well as the office for its maintenance and for pensionary account, was called the Dewân or Department of the Exchequer.”—Muir’s Annals, &c., pp. 225–9.


As Minister, &c. [1610.—“We propose to send you the copy hereof by the old scrivano of the Aduano.”—Danvers, Letters, i. 51.

[1616.—“Sheak Isuph Dyvon of Amadavaz.”—Foster, Letters, iv. 311.]

1690.—“Fearing miscarriage of y^e Originall ffarcuttee [farigh- khatti, Ar. ‘a deed of release,’ variously corrupted in Indian technical use] we have herewith Sent you a Coppy Attested by Hugly Cazee, hoping y^e Duan may be Sattisfied therewith.”—MS. Letter in India