Chapter JAVA-RADISH to JEMADAR of J by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

JELUM, n.p. The most westerly of the “Five Rivers” that give their name to the Punjab (q.v.), (among which the Indus itself is not usually included). Properly Jailam or Jilam, now apparently written Jhilam, and taking this name from a town on the right bank. The Jhilam is the [Greek Text] TdasphV of Alexander’s historians, a name corrupted from the Skt. Vitasta, which is more nearly represented by Ptolemy’s [Greek Text] BidasphV. A still further (Prakritic) corruption of the same is Behat (see BEHUT).

1037.—“Here he (Mahmud) fell ill, and remained sick for fourteen days, and got no better. So in a fit of repentance he forswore wine, and ordered his servants to throw all his supply … into the Jailam …”—Baihaki, in Elliot, ii. 139.

c. 1204.—“… in the height of the conflict, Shams-ud-dîn, in all his panoply, rode right into the water of the river Jilam … and his warlike feats while in that water reached such a pitch that he was despatching those infidels from the height of the waters to the lowest depths of Hell …”—Tabakat, by Raverty, 604–5.

1856.—

“Hydaspes! often have thy waves run tuned
To battle music, since the soldier King,
The Macedonian, dipped his golden casque
And swam thy swollen flood, until the time
When Night the peace-maker, with pious hand,
Unclasping her dark mantle, smoothed it soft
O’er the pale faces of the brave who slept
Cold in their clay, on Chillian’s bloody field.”

The Banyan Tree.

JEMADAR, JEMAUTDAR, &c. Hind. from Ar.—P. jama’dar, jama’ meaning ‘an aggregate,’ the word indicates generally, a leader of a body of individuals. [Some of the forms are as if from Ar.—P. jama’at, ‘an assemblage.’] Technically, in the Indian army, it is the title of the second rank of native officer in a company of sepoys, the Subadar (see SOUBADAR) being the first. In this sense the word dates from the reorganisation of the army in 1768. It is also applied to certain officers of police (under the darogha), of the customs, and of other civil departments. And in larger domestic establishments there is often a jemadar, who is over the servants generally, or over the stables, camp service and orderlies. It is also an honorific title often used by the other household servants in addressing the bihishti (see BHEESTY).

1752.—“The English battalion no sooner quitted Tritchinopoly than the regent set about accomplishing his scheme of surprising the City, and … endeavoured to gain 500 of the Nabob’s best peons with firelocks. The jemautdars, or captains of these troops, received his bribes and promised to join.”—Orme, ed. 1803, i. 257.

1817.—“… Calliaud had commenced an intrigue with some of the jematdars, or captains of the enemy’s troops, when he received intelligence that the French had arrived at Trichinopoly.”—Mill, iii. 175.

1824.—“ ‘Abdullah’ was a Mussulman convert of Mr. Corrie’s, who had travelled in Persia with Sir Gore Ouseley, and accompanied him to England, from whence he was returning … when the Bishop took him into his service as a ‘jemautdar,’ or head officer of the peons.”—Editor’s note to Heber, ed. 1844, i. 65.

[1826.—“The principal officers are called Jummahdars, some of whom command five thousand horse.”—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 56.]

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