Henry Yule

“ SUTTEE, s. The rite of widow-burning; i.e. the burning of the living widow along with the corpse of her husband, as practised by people of certain castes among the Hindus, and eminently by the Rājpūts. The word is properly Skt. satī, 'a good woman,' 'a true wife,' and thence specially applied, in modern vernaculars of Sanskrit parentage, to the wife who was considered to accomplish the supreme act of fidelity by sacrificing herself on the funeral pile of her husband. The application of this substantive to the suicidal act, instead of the person, is European. The proper Skt. ”

“ The Dutch call them Sundanese (Soendanezen) . The Sunda country is considered to extend from the extreme western point of the island to Cheribon, i.e. embracing about one-third of the whole island of Java. Hinduism appears to have prevailed in the Sunda country, and held its ground longer than in "Java," a name which the proper Javanese restrict to their own part of the island. From this country the sea between Sumatra and Java got from Europeans the name of the Straits of Sunda. Geographers have also called the great chain of islands from Sumatra to Timor "the Sunda Islands." ”

“ In the Land Revenue system of India, an estate or district is said to be settled, when instead of taking a quota of the year's produce the Government has agreed with the cultivators, individually or in community, for a fixed sum to be paid at several periods of the year, and not liable to enhancement during the term of years for which the agreement or settlement is made. ”

“ SYCEE, s. In China applied to pure silver bullion in ingots, or shoes (q.v.) . The origin of the name is said to be si (pron. at Canton sai and sei) = sz', i.e. 'fine silk'; and we are told by Mr. Giles that it is so called because, if pure, it may be drawn out into fine threads. [Linschoten (1598) speaks of: "Peeces of cut silver, in which sort they pay and receive all their money" (Hak. Soc. i. 132) .]
1711.—"Formerly they used to sell for Sisee, or Silver full fine; but of late the Method is alter'd."—Lockyer, 135.
SYRAS, CYRUS. See under CYRUS. ”

“ A considerable island immediately north of Bombay. The island of Bombay is indeed naturally a kind of pendant to the island of Salsette, and during the Portuguese occupation it was so in every sense. That occupation is still marked by the remains of numerous villas and churches, and by the survival of a large R. Catholic population. The island also contains the famous and extensive caves of Kāṇhērī (see KENNERY) . The old city of Tana (q.v.) also stands upon Salsette. Salsette was claimed as part of the Bombay dotation of Queen Catherine, but refused by the Portuguese. ”

“ The earlier Mahommedans hardly regarded Sind as part of India, but distinguished sharply between Sind and Hind, and denoted the whole region that we call India by the copula 'Hind and Sind.' We know that originally these were in fact but diverging forms of one word; the aspirant and sibilant tending in several parts of India (including the extreme east—compare ASSAM, Ahom—and the extreme west) , as in some other regions, to exchange places. ”

“ This country is situated on the great road of western trade. When a ship leaves Malacca for the west, and goes with a fair eastern wind for five days and nights, it first comes to a village on the sea-coast called Ta-lu-man; and anchoring here and going south-east for about 10 li (3 miles) one arrives at the said place.
"This country has no walled city. There is a large brook running out into the sea, with two tides every day; the waves at the mouth of it are very high, and ships continually founder there...."—Chinese work, quoted by Groeneveldt, p. ”

“ 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 prosperity form a monument to the patriotism, sagacity, and fervid spirit of the founder. ”

“ The Sanskrit Suráshtra and Gurjjara survive in the modern names Surat and Guzerat, and however the territories embraced by the old terms have varied, it is hard to conceive that Surat was not in Suráshtra nor Guzerat in Gurjjara. All evidence goes to prove that the old and modern names applied to the same places. ”

“ These houses still preserve the memory of the Hindu Savay, as they are called the Savayo's house, where for many years the Governors of India lived. As our João de Barros could not get true information of these things, he confounded the name of the Hindu Savay with that of Çufo (? Yūsuf) Adil Shāh, saying in the 5th Book of his 2nd Decade that when we went to India a Moor called Soay was lord of Goa, that we ordinarily called him Sabayo, and that he was a vassal of the King of the Deccan, a Persian, and native of the city of Sawa. ”

“ SAUL-WOOD, s. Hind. sāl, from Skt. śāla; the timber of the tree Shorea robusta, Gaertner, N.O. Dipterocarpeae, which is the most valuable building timber of Northern India. Its chief habitat is the forest immediately under the Himālaya, at intervals throughout that region from the Brahmaputra to the Biās; it abounds also in various more southerly tracts between the Ganges and the Godavery. [The botanical name is taken from Sir John Shore. For the peculiar habitat of the Sāl as compared with the Teak, see Forsyth, Highlands of C.I. 25 seqq.] ”

“ Malay legends give trivial stories to account for the etymology of the name, and others have been suggested; but in all probability it was the Skt. Samudra, the 'sea.' [See Miscellaneous Papers relating to Indo-China, 2nd ser. ii. 50; Leyden, Malay Annals, 65.] At the very time of the alleged foundation of the town a kingdom was flourishing at Dwāra Samudra in S. India (see DOOR SUMMUND) .
The first authentic occurrence of the name is probably in the Chinese annals, which mention, among the Indian kingdoms which were prevailed on to send tribute to Kublai Khan, that of Sumutala. ”

“ It is possible indeed, and not improbable, that palm-sugar (see JAGGERY) is a much older product than that of the cane. [This is disputed by Watt (Econ. Dict. vi. pt. i. p. 31) , who is inclined to fix the home of the cane in E. India.] The original habitat of the cane is not known; there is only a slight and doubtful statement of Loureiro, who, in speaking of Cochin-China, uses the words "habitat et colitur," which may imply its existence in a wild state, as well as under cultivation, in that country. ”

“ Sofālī gold is well-known among the Zenj merchants."—Yāḳūt, Mu'jam al-Buldān, s.v.
In his article on the gold country, Yāḳūt describes the kind of dumb trade in which the natives decline to come face to face with the merchants at greater length. It is a practice that has been ascribed to a great variety of uncivilized races; e.g. in various parts of Africa; in the extreme north of Europe and of Asia; in the Clove Islands; to the Veddas of Ceylon, to the Poliars of Malabar, and (by Pliny, surely under some mistake) to the Seres or Chinese. ”

“ If a widow burns herself, the members of the family get the glory thereof, and the fame of fidelity in fulfilling their duties. She who does not give herself up to the flames puts on coarse raiment and abides with her kindred, wretched and despised for having failed in duty. But she is not compelled to burn herself." (There follows an interesting account of instances witnessed by the traveller.) —Ibn Batuta, ii. 138.
c. 1430.—"In Mediâ vero Indiâ, mortui comburuntur, cumque his, ut plurimum vivae uxores ... una pluresve, prout fuit matrimonii conventio. ”

“ SEVEN SISTERS, or BROTHERS. The popular name (Hind. sāt-bhāī) of a certain kind of bird, about the size of a thrush, common throughout most parts of India, Malacocercus terricolor, Hodgson, 'Bengal babbler' of Jerdon. The latter author gives the native name as Seven Brothers, which is the form also given in the quotation below from Tribes on My Frontier. The bird is so named from being constantly seen in little companies of about that number. Its characteristics are well given in the quotations. See also Jerdon's Birds (Godwin-Austen's ed., ii. 59) . ”

“ I have only to say that I believe they are perfectly powerless to produce any such effect ... when we reflect on the quantity of poison, and the force and depth with and to which it is injected ... and the extreme rapidity with which it is hurried along in the vascular system to the nerve centres, I think it is obvious that the application of one of these stones can be of little use in a real bite of a deadly snake, and that a belief in their efficacy is a dangerous delusion."—Fayrer, Thanatophidia of India, pp. ”

“ The origin of the name would seem to be a term Sien, or Siam, identical with Shan (q.v.) . "The kingdom of Siam is known to the Chinese by the name Sien-lo.... The supplement to Matwanlin's Encyclopædia describes Sien-lo as on the seaboard, to the extreme south of Chen-ching (or Cochin China) . 'It originally consisted of two kingdoms, Sien and Lo-hoh. The Sien people are the remains of a tribe which in the year (A.D. 1341) began to come down upon the Lo-hoh and united with the latter into one nation.'" See Marco Polo, 2nd ed., Bk. ”

“ This phraseology continued down to the Middle Ages, at least in its application to uncrystallised products of the sugar-cane, and analogous substances. In the quotation from Pegolotti we apprehend that his three kinds of honey indicate honey, treacle, and a syrup or treacle made from the sweet pods of the carob-tree.
Sugar does not seem to have been in early Chinese use. The old Chinese books often mention shi-mi or 'stone-honey' as a product of India and Persia. In the reign of Taitsung (627-650) a man was sent to Gangetic India to learn the art of sugar-making ”

“ When the Portuguese first reached those regions Pedir was the leading State upon the coast, and certainly no State known as Samudra or Sumatra then continued to exist. Whether the city continued to exist, even in decay, is obscure. The Āīn, quoted below, refers to the "port of Sumatra," but this may have been based on old information. Valentijn seems to recognise the existence of a place called Samudra or Samotdara, though it is not entered in his map. ”

“ T'ai-Noe or 'Little T'ai,' whilst they applied the term T'ai-Yai, or 'Great T'ai,' to their northern kindred or some part of these; [10] sometimes also calling the latter T'ai-güt, or the 'Ta'i left behind.' The T'ai or Shan are certainly the most numerous and widely spread race in Indo-China, and innumerable petty Shan States exist on the borders of Burma, Siam, and China, more or less dependent on, or tributary to, their powerful neighbours. They are found from the extreme north of the Irawadi Valley, in the vicinity of Assam, to the borders of Camboja ”

“ SICLEEGUR, s. Hind. ṣaiḳalgar, from Ar. ṣaiḳal, 'polish.' A furbisher of arms, a sword-armourer, a sword- or knife-grinder. [This, in Madras, is turned into Chickledar, Tel. chikili-darudu.]
[1826.—"My father was a shiekul-ghur, or sword-grinder."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 216.]
SIKH, SEIKH, n.p. Panjābi-Hind. Sikh, 'a disciple,' from Skt. Śishya; the distinctive name of the disciples of Nānak Shāh who in the 16th century established that sect, which eventually rose to warlike predominance in the Punjab, and from which sprang Ranjīt Singh, the founder of the brief Kingdom of Lahore. ”

“ The ancient Indian Saurāshṭra was the name of the Peninsula of Guzerat or Kattywar, or at least of the maritime part of it. This latter name and country is represented by the differently spelt and pronounced Sōrath (see SŪRATH) . Sir Henry Elliot and his editor have repeatedly stated the opinion that the names are identical. Thus: "The names 'Surat' and 'Sūrath' are identical, both being derived from the Sankrit Suráshtra; but as they belong to different places a distinction in spelling has been maintained. 'Surat' is the city ”

“ But the tree appears to be indigenous in Malabar, the Deccan, and the Malay Peninsula; whilst the Malayāl. shappaṅṅam, and the Tamil shappu, both signifying 'red (wood) ,' are apparently derivatives from shawa, 'to be red,' and suggest another origin as most probable. [The Mad. Gloss. gives Mal. chappannam, from chappu, 'leaf,' Skt. anga, 'body'; Tam. shappangaṃ.] The Malay word is also sapang, which Crawfurd supposes to have originated the trade-name. If, however, the etymology just suggested be correct, the word must have passed from Continental India to the Archipelago. ”

“ From Low Latin santalum, in Greek σάνταλον, and in later Greek σάνδανον; coming from the Arab. ṣandal, and that from Skt. chandana. The name properly belongs to the fragrant wood of the Santalum album, L. Three woods bearing the name santalum, white, yellow, and red, were in officinal use in the Middle Ages. But the name Red Sandalwood, or Red Sanders, has been long applied, both in English and in the Indian vernaculars, to the wood of Pterocarpus santalina, L., a tree of S. India, the wood of which is inodorous, but which is valued for various purposes in India (pillars, turning, &c.) ”