Hobson-Jobson

One of the fascinating online South Asia resources is Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive, first published in 1886.

You can find entries for words that have entered English from India, such as bandanna, bungalow, cash, catamaran, cot, cummerbund, dam (as in 'I don't give a dam'), dungarees, ginger, jodhpurs, juggernaut, jungle, khaki, loot, pajamas, shampoo, thug, and verandah. Each entry provides examples of early uses of the words.

Many of the words in Hobson-Jobson no longer exist in English – the title, for example, was a British soldiers’ corruption of the cry of Shiite Muslims on Moharram: Ya Husain! Ya Husain! (The connotation was of 'A native festal excitement.') Browsing through Hobson-Jobson is endlessly entertaining as a document of British life in India at the peak of the Empire.

One of my favourite ‘Anglo-Indian’ words is juggernaut:

A corruption of the Skt. Jagannaatha, 'Lord of the Universe,' a name of Krishna worshipped as Vishnu at the famous shrine of Puri in Orissa… The idol was, and is, annually dragged forth in procession on a monstrous car, and as masses of excited pilgrims crowded round to drag or accompany it, accidents occurred. Occasionally also persons, sometimes sufferers from painful disease, cast themselves before the advancing wheels…

c. 1321. -- "Annually on the recurrence of the day when that idol was made, the folk of the country come and take it down, and put it on a fine chariot; and then the King and Queen, and the whole body of the people, join together and draw it forth from the church with loud singing of songs, and all kinds of music . . . and many pilgrims who have come to this feast cast themselves under the chariot, so that its wheels may go over them, saying that they desire to die for their god. And the car passes over them, and crushes them, and cuts them in sunder, and so they perish on the spot." -- Friar Odoric, in Cathay, &c. i. 83. (lots more)


This is a photograph, not of the original Juggernaut in Puri, but of a "Madras Juggernaut Car," taken in 1895. I found it at Harappa.com. It must be the temple car of Shree Kapaleeshwarar Temple in Mylapore, which is pulled through the streets every year during the temple's main festival. People do not die under its wheels today, but its enormous solid wooden wheels, the huge car rising high in the air, and the devotion of the volunteers who pull the huge ropes, are genuinely awe-inspiring.

After I posted the Madras picture I found this one, from Never the Twain? Indo-British Relations:

"Devotees in India Sacrificing Themselves to the Idol Juggernaut"; wood engraving; 19th century.