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The Shahbandar in the Eastern Seas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

The personages described by the term Shahbandar, with such variations in orthography as Savendar, Sabinder, Xabendar, and the like, appear so frequently in the literature of the Eastern seas that it is desirable to arrive at a definite idea of the position which they occupied, and the functions which they discharged. The task is not, however, easy, for the ordinary Persian and Portuguese dictionaries are not very enlightening on this particular topic, while the discussion of the term in Hobson-Jobson is by no means exhaustive.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1920

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References

page 518 note 1 The references given are to the following editions : Barros & Couto, Lisbon, 1778 ff. ; Castanheda, Lisbon, 1833; Correa, Lisbon, 1858 ff. ; Purchas, the original edition, the figures being taken from the margin of MacLehose's reprint; Commentarios of Alboquerque, Lisbon, 1774. The two series of India Office Records edited by Mr. W. Foster are quoted as Letters Received and English Factories.

page 523 note 1 Glossario Luzo-Asiatico, xxv.

page 523 note 2 Shah appears in Portuguese as Xa, not Ça or Ce, but the suggestion is that the Portuguese at Calicut did not get the title exactly : not all Indians can pronounce Shibboleth correctly. In the Commentarios (iv, 70) we are told that Alboquerque obtained the surrender of a ship on the ground that it belonged to “ Meceris ” of Cairo, and I think that Meceris in this passage must mean Egyptians.

page 525 note 1 The passage is one of those, so familiar in Correa, where several alternative phrases occur in succession, the author having apparently hesitated which phrase to keep.

page 527 note 1 For Aden, see Journal of John Jourdain, p. 59; for Bagdad, Purchas, I, iv, 524 ; for Petepoli, Purchas, I, iii, 315 ; for Patani and Bangkok, Purchas, I, iii, 321 ; and for Jacatra, Purchas, I, iii, 197.

page 528 note 1 It seems safest to write this word without accents. Barros has Bendára, Correa gives Bendará and Bendara, Castanheda has Bendara, Couto has Bandarra, and there are other variants.