On Nov 11, 6:07 pm, காமேஷ் <
kames...@gmail.com> wrote:
> யாருக்காவது தெரியுமா ?
>
> ~காமேஷ்~
Kamesh,
I'll write on Singam & Singapura connexion later.
N. Ganesan
Pl. see Hobson-Jobson entry:
Henry Yule, Hobson-Jobson, A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words
& phrases, 1886.
pg. 839-840:
SINGAPORE, SINCAPORE , n.p. This name was adopted by Sir Stamford
Raffles in favour of the city which he founded, February 23, 1819, on
the island which had always retained the name since the Middle Ages.
This it derived from Siṉhapura, Skt. 'Lioncity,' the name of a town
founded by Malay or Javanese settlers from Sumatra, probably in the
14th century, and to which Barros ascribes great commercial
importance. The Indian origin of the name, as of many other names and
phrases which survive from the old Indian civilisation of the
Archipelago, had been forgotten, and the origin which Barros was
taught to ascribe to it is on a par with his etymology of Singalese
quoted in the preceding article. The words on which his etymology is
founded are no doubt Malay: singah, 'to tarry, halt, or lodge,' and
pora-pora, 'to pretend'; and these were probably supposed to refer to
the temporary occupation of Sinhapura, before the chiefs who founded
it passed on to Malacca. [It may be noted that Dennys (Desc. Dict.
s.v.) derives the word from singha, 'a place of call,' and pura, 'a
city.' In Dalboquerque's Comm. Hak. Soc. iii. 73, we are told:
"Singapura, whence the city takes its name, is a channel through which
all the shipping of those parts passes, and signifies in his Malay
language, 'treacherous delay'" See quotation from Barros below.]
The settlement of Hinduized people on the site, if not the name, is
probably as old as the 4th century, A.D., for inscriptions have been
found there in a very old character. One of these, on a rock at the
mouth of the little river on which the town stands, was destroyed some
40 or 50 years ago for the accommodation of some wretched bungalow.
The modern Singapore and its pros- perity form a monument to the
patriotism, sagacity, and fervid spirit of the founder. According to
an article in the Geogr. Magazine (i. 107) derived from Mr. Archibald
Ritchie, who was present with the expedition which founded the colony,
Raffles, after consultation with Lord Hastings, was about to establish
a settlement for the protection and encouragement of our Eastern
trade, in the Nicobar Islands, when his attention was drawn to the
superior advantages of Singapore by Captains Ross and Crawford of the
Bombay Marine, who had been engaged in the survey of those seas. Its
great adaptation for a mercantile settlement had been discerned by the
shrewd, if somewhat vulgar, Scot, Alexander Hamilton, 120 years
earlier. It seems hardly possible, we must however observe, to
reconcile the details in the article cited, with the letters and facts
contained in the Life of Raffles; though probably the latter had, at
some time or other, received information from the officers named by
Mr. Ritchie.
1512. -- "And as the enterprise was one to make good booty, everybody
was delighted to go on it, so that they were more than 1200 men, the
soundest and best armed of the garrison, and so they were ready
incontinently, and started for the Strait of Cincapura, where they
were to wait for the junks." -- Correa, ii. 284-5.
1551. -- "Sed hactenus Deus nobis adsit omnibus. Amen. Anno post
Christum natum, MDLI. Ex Freto Syncapurano."-<-> Scti. Franc. Xaverii
Epistt. Pragae, 1667, Lib. III. viii.
1553. -- "Anciently the most celebrated settlement in this region of
Malaca was one called Cingapura, a name which in their tongue means
'pretended halt' (falsa dimora); and this stood upon a point of that
country which is the most southerly of all Asia, and lies, according
to our graduation, in half a degree of North Latitude . . . before the
foundation of Malaca, at this same Cingapura . . . flocked together
all the navigators of the Seas of India from West and East. . . ." --
Barros, II. vi. 1. [The same derivation is given in the Comm. of
Dalboquerque, Hak. Soc. iii. 73.]
1572. --
"Mas na ponta da terra Cingapura
Verás, onde o caminho as naos se estreita;
Daqui, tornando a costa á Cynosura,
Se incurva, e para a Aurora se endireita."
Camões, x. 125.
By Burton:
"But on her Lands-end throned see Cin- gapúr,
where the wide sea-road shrinks to narrow way:
Thence curves the coast to face the Cynosure,
and lastly trends Aurora-wards its lay."
1598. -- ". . . by water the coast stretcheth to the Cape of
Singapura, and from thence
it runneth upwards [inwards] againe. . . . -- " Linschoten, 30; [Hak.
Soc. i. 101].
1599. -- "In this voyage nothing occurred worth relating, except that,
after passing the Strait of Sincapura, situated in one degree and a
half, between the main land and a variety of islands . . . with so
narrow a channel that from the ship you could jump ashore, or touch
the branches of the trees on either side, our vessel struck on a
shoal." -- Viaggi di Carletti, ii. 208-9.
1606. -- "The 5th May came there 2 Prows from the King of Johore, with
the Shahbander (Shabunder) of Singapoera, called Siri Raja
Nagara. . . ." -- Valentijn, v. 331.
1616. -- "Found a Dutch man-of-war, one of a fleet appointed for the
siege of Malaca, with the aid of the King of Acheen, at the entrance
of the Straits of Singapore."-<-> Sainsbury, i. 458.
1727. -- "In anno 1703 I called at Johore on my Way to China, and he
treated me very kindly, and made me a Present of the Island of
Sincapure, but I told him it could be of no use to a private Person,
tho' a proper Place for a Company to settle a Colony in, lying in the
Center of Trade, and being accommodated with good Rivers and safe
Harbours, so conveniently situated that all Winds served Shipping,
both to go out and come in." -- A. Hamilton, ii. 98; [ed. 1744, ii.
97].
1818. -- "We are now on our way to the eastward, in the hope of doing
something, but I much fear the Dutch have hardly left us an inch of
ground. . . . My attention is principally turned to Johore, and you
must not be surprised if my next letter to you is dated from the site
of the ancient city of Singapura." -- Raffles, Letter to Marsden,
dated Sandheads, Dec. 12.
SINGARA , s. Hind. singhārā, Skt. sriṇgāttaka, sriṇga, 'a horn.' The
caltrop or water-chestnut; Trapabispinosa, Roxb. (N.O. Haloragaceae).
[c. 1590. -- The Āīn (ed. Jarrett, ii. 65) mentions it as one of the
crops on which revenue was levied in cash.
[1798. -- In Kashmīr "many of them . . . were obliged to live on the
Kernel of the singerah, or water-nut. . . ." -- Forster, Travels, ii.
29.
[1809. -- Buchanan-Hamilton writes sing- ghara. -- Eastern India, i.
241.]
1835. -- "Here, as in most other parts of India, the tank is spoiled
by the waterchestnut, singhara (Trapa bispinosa), which is everywhere
as regularly planted and cultivated in fields under a large surface of
water, as wheat or barley is in the dry plains. . . . The nut grows
under the water after the flowers decay, and is of a triangular shape,
and covered with a tough brown integument adhering strongly to the
kernel, which is wholly esculent, and of a fine cartilaginous texture.
The people are very fond of these nuts, and they are carried often
upon bullocks' backs two or three hundred miles to market." --
Sleeman,Rambles, &c. (1844), i. 101; [ed. Smith, i. 94.]
1839. -- "The nuts of the Trapa bispinosa, called Singhara, are sold
in all the Bazaars of India; and a species called by the same name,
forms a considerable portion of the food of the inhabitants of
Cashmere, as we learn from Mr. Forster [loc. cit.] that it yields the
Government 12,000l. of revenue; and Mr. Moorcroft mentions nearly the
same sum as Runjeet Sing's share, from 96,000 to 128,000 ass-loads of
this nut, yielded by the Lake of Oaller." -- Royle, Him. Plants, i.
211.