H — HINDEE to HINDOSTAN (Part 2 of 2)

Mem. 3rd ed. 150.

1817.—“… those

Who dwell beyond the everlasting snows Of Hindoo Koosh, in stormy freedom bred.”—Mokanna.

HINDOSTAN, n.p. Pers. Hindustan. (a) ‘The country of the Hindus,’ India. In modern native parlance this word indicates distinctively (b) India north of the Nerbudda, and exclusive of Bengal and Behar. The latter provinces are regarded as purb (see POORUB), and all south of the Nerbudda as Dakhan (see DECCAN). But the word is used in older Mahommedan authors just as it is used in English school- books and atlases, viz. as (a) the equival ent of India Proper. Thus Baber says of Hindustan: “On the East, the South, and the West it is bounded by the Ocean” (310).

a.—

1553.—“… and so the Persian nation adjacent to it give it as at present its proper name that of Indostan.”—Barros, I. iv. 7.

1563.—“… and common usage in Persia, and Coracone, and Arabia, and Turkey, calls this country Industam … for istam is as much as to say ‘region,’ and indu ‘India.’ ” —Garcia, f. 137b.

1663.—“And thus it came to pass that the Persians called it Indostan.”—Faria y Sousa, i. 33.

1665.—“La derniere parti est la plus connüe: c’est celle que l’on appelle Indostan, et dont les bornes naturelles au Couchant et au Levant, sont le Gange et l’Indus.”— Thevenot, v. 9.

1672.—“It has been from old time divided into two parts, i.e. the eastern, which is India beyond the Ganges, and the Western India within the Ganges, now called Indostan.” —Baldaeus, 1.

1770.—“By Indostan is properly meant a country lying between two celebrated rivers, the Indus and the Ganges. … A ridge of mountains runs across this long tract from north to south, and dividing it into two equal parts, extends as far as Cape Comorin.” —Raynal (tr.), i. 34.

1783.—“In Macassar Indostan is called Neegree Telinga.”—Forrest, V. to Mergui, 82.

b.—

1803.—“I feared that the dawk direct through Hindostan would have been stopped.”—Wellington, ed. 1837, ii. 209.

1824.—“One of my servants called out to them,—‘Aha! dandee folk, take care! You are now in Hindostan! The people of this country know well how to fight, and are not afraid.”—Heber, i. 124. See also pp. 268, 269.

In the following stanza of the good bishop’s the application is apparently the same; but the accentuation is excruciating—‘Hindóstan,’ as if rhyming to ‘Boston.’

1824.—

“Then on ! then on ! where duty leads,
My course be onward still,
O’er broad Hindostan’s sultry meads,
Or bleak Almora’s hill.”

—Ibid. 113.

1884.—“It may be as well to state that Mr. H. G. Keene’s forthcoming History of Hindustan … will be limited in its scope to the strict meaning of the word ‘Hindustan’=India north of the Deccan.”— Academy, April 26, p. 294.