c. 1550.—"So saying he began to make ready a present, and sent for bulbs, roots, and fruit, birds and beasts, with the finest of fish ... which were brought by kahārs in basketfuls."—Rāmāyana of Tulsi Dās, by Growse, 1878, ii. 101.
1673.—"He (the President of Bombay) goes sometimes in his Coach, drawn by large Milk-white Oxen, sometimes on Horseback, other times in Palankeens, carried by Cohors, Musselmen Porters."—Fryer, 68.
1810.—"The Cahar, or palanquin-bearer, is a servant of peculiar utility in a country where, for four months, the intense heat precludes Europeans from taking much exercise."—Williamson, V. M. i. 209.
1873.—"Bhuí Kahár. A widely spread caste of rather inferior rank, whose occupation is to carry palkis, dolis, water-skins, &c.; to act as Porters ... they eat flesh and drink spirits: they are an ignorant but industrious class. Buchanan describes them as of Telinga descent...."—Dr. H. V. Carter's Notices of Castes in Bombay Pry., quoted in Ind. Antiq. ii. 154.
KULÁ, KLÁ, n.p. Burmese name of a native of Continental India; and hence misapplied also to the English and other Westerns who have come from India to Burma; in fact used generally for a Western foreigner.
The origin of this term has been much debated. Some have supposed it to be connected with the name of the Indian race, the Kols; another suggestion has connected it with Kalinga (see [KLING]); and a third with the Skt. kula, 'caste or tribe'; whilst the Burmese popular etymology renders it from kū, 'to cross over,' and la, 'to come,' therefore 'the people that come across (the sea).' But the true history of the word has for the first time been traced by Professor Forchhammer, to Gola, the name applied in old Pegu inscriptions to the Indian Buddhist immigrants, a name which he identifies with the Skt. Gauḍa, the ancient name of Northern Bengal, whence the famous city of Gauṛ (see [GOUR], c).
14th cent.—"The Heroes Sona and Uttara were sent to Rāmañña, which forms a part of Suvannabhūmi, to propagate the holy faith.... This town is called to this day Golamattikanagara, because of the many houses it contained made of earth in the fashion of houses of the Gola people."—Inscr. at Kalyāni near Pegu, in Forchhammer, ii. 5.
1795.—"They were still anxious to know why a person consulting his own amusement, and master of his own time, should walk so fast; but on being informed that I was a 'Colar,' or stranger, and that it was the custom of my country, they were reconciled to this...."—Symes, Embassy, p. 290.
1855.—"His private dwelling was a small place on one side of the court, from which the women peeped out at the Kalás;..."—Yule, Mission to the Court of Ava (Phayre's), p. 5.
" "By a curious self-delusion, the Burmans would seem to claim that in theory at least they are white people. And what is still more curious, the Bengalees appear indirectly to admit the claim; for our servants in speaking of themselves and their countrymen, as distinguished from the Burmans, constantly made use of the term kálá admi—'black man,' as the representative of the Burmese kălá, a foreigner."—Ibid. p. 37.