Chapter MADURA FOOT to MAHRATTA of M by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

MAHÁJUN, s. Hind. from Skt. maha-jan, ‘great person.’ A banker and merchant. In Southern and Western India the vernacular word has various other applications which are given in Wilson.

[1813.—“Mahajen, Mahajanum, a great person, a merchant.”—Gloss. to 5th Rep. s.v.]

c. 1861.—

“Down there lives a Mahajun—my father gave him a bill,
I have paid the knave thrice over, and here I’m paying him still.
He shows me a long stamp paper, and must have my land—must he?
If I were twenty years younger, he should get six feet by three.”

Sir A. C. Lyall, The Old Pindaree.

1885.—“The Mahajun hospitably entertains his victim, and speeds his homeward departure, giving no word or sign of his business till the time for appeal has gone by, and the decree is made absolute. Then the storm bursts on the head of the luckless hill-man, who finds himself loaded with an overwhelming debt, which he has never incurred, and can never hope to discharge; and so he practically becomes the Mahajun’s slave for the rest of his natural life.”—Lt.-Col. T. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel, 339.

MAHANNAH, s. (See MEEANA.)

MAHE, n.p. Properly Mayeli. [According to the Madras Gloss. the Mal. name is Mayyazhi, mai, ‘black,’ azhi, ‘river mouth’; but the title is from the French Mahé, being one of the names of Labourdonnais.] A small settlement on the Malabar coast, 4 m. S.E. of Tellicherry, where the French established a factory for the sake of the pepper trade in 1722, and which they still retain. It is not now of any importance.

MAHI, n.p. The name of a considerable river flowing into the upper part of the Gulf of Cambay. [“The height of its banks, and the fierceness of its floods; the deep gullies through which the traveller has to pass on his way to the river, and perhaps, above all, the bad name of the tribes on its banks, explain the proverb: ‘When the Mahi is crossed, there is comfort’ ” (Imp. Gazetteer, s.v.).]

c. A.D. 80–90.—“Next comes another gulf…extending also to the north, at the mouth of which is an island called Baiones (Perim), and at the innermost extremity a great river called Mais.”—Periplus, ch. 42.

MAHOUT, s. The driver and tender of an elephant. Hind. mahawat, from Skt. maha-matra, ‘great in measure,’ a high officer, &c., so applied. The Skt. term occurs in this sense in the Mahabharata (e.g. iv. 1761, &c.). The Mahout is mentioned in the 1st Book of Maccabees as ‘the Indian.’ It is remarkable that we find what is apparently maha-matra, in the sense of a high officer in Hesychius: [Greek Text] “Mamatrai, oi strathgoi par IndoiV.”—Hesych. s.v.

c. 1590.—“Mast elephants (see MUST). There are five and a half servants to each, viz., first a Mahawat, who sits on the neck of the animal and directs its movements.…He gets 200 dáms per month.…Secondly a Bhoi, who sits behind, upon the rump of the elephant, and assists in battle, and in quickening the speed of the animal; but he often performs the duties of the Mahawat.…Thirdly the Met’hs (see MATE).…A Met’h fetches fodder, and assists in caparisoning the elephant. …”—Ain, ed. Blochmann, i. 125.

1648.—“…and Mahouts for the elephants.…”—Van Twist, 56.

1826.—“I will now pass over the term of my infancy, which was employed in learning to read and write—my preceptor being a mahouhut, or elephant-driver—and will take up my adventures.”—Pandurang Hari, 21; [ed. 1873, i. 28].

1848.—“Then he described a tiger hunt, and the manner in which the Mahout of his elephant had been pulled off his seat by one of the infuriate animals.”—Thackeray. Vanity Fair, ch. iv.

MAHRATTA, n.p. Hind. Marhata, Marhatta, Marhata (Marhati, Marahti, Marhaiti), and Maratha The name of a famous Hindu race, from the old Skt. name of their country, Maha-rashtra, ‘Magna Regio.’ [On the other hand H. A. Acworth (Ballads of the Marathas, Intro. vi.) derives the word from a tribal name Rathi or Ratha, ‘chariot fighters,’ from rath, ‘a chariot,’ thus Maha-Ratha means ‘Great Warrior.’ This was transferred to the country and finally Sanskritised into Maha-rashtra. Again some authorities (Wilson, Indian Caste, ii. 48; Baden-Powell, J. R. As. Soc., 1897, p. 249, note) prefer to derive the