Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive c6.15

c6.15

The words with which we have to do, taking the most extensive view of the field, are in fact organic remains deposited under the various currents of external influence that have washed the shores of India during twenty centuries and more. Rejecting that derivation of *elephant*[^ *] which would connect it with the Ophir trade of Solomon, we find no existing Western term traceable to that episode of communication; but the Greek and Roman commerce of the later centuries has left its fossils on both sides, testifying to the intercourse that once subsisted. *Agallochum*, *carbasus*, *camphor*, *sandal*, *musk*, *nard*, *pepper* (*πέπερι*, from Skt. *pippali*, ‘long pepper’), *ginger* (*ζιγγίβερις*, see under *Ginger*), *lac*, *costus*, *opal*, *malabathrum* or *folium indicum*, *beryl*, *sugar* (*σάκχαρ*, from Skt. *sarkara*, Prak. *sakkara*), *rice* (*ὄρυζα*, but see s.v.), were products or names, introduced from India to the Greek and Roman world, to which may be added a few terms of a different character, such as *Βραχμᾶνες*, *Σαρμάνες* (*śramaṇas*, or Buddhist ascetics), *ξύλα σαγαλίνα* καὶ *σασαμίνα* (logs of teak and shīsham), the *σάγγαρα* (rafts) of the Periplus (see *Jangar* in GLOSS.); whilst *dīnāra*, *dramma*, perhaps *kastīra* (‘tin,’ *κασσίτερος*), *kastūrī* (‘musk,’ *καστόριον*, properly a different, though analogous animal product), and a very few more, have remained in Indian literature as testimony to the same intercourse.[^ †]