Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c10.300

c10.300

De Gubernatis has indeed suggested that the word amouchi was derived from the Skt. amokshya, ‘that cannot be loosed’; and this would be very consistent with several of the passages which we shall quote, in which the idea of being ‘bound by a vow’ underlies the conduct of the persons to whom the term was applicable both in Malabar and in the Archipelago. But amokshya is a word unknown to Malayālam, in such a sense at least.