1627.—"Lac is a strange drugge, made by certain winged Pismires of the gumme of Trees."—Purchas, Pilgrimage, 569.
1644.—"There are in the territories of the Mogor, besides those things mentioned, other articles of trade, such as Lacre, both the insect lacre and the cake" (de formiga e de pasta).—Bocarro, MS.
1663.—"In one of these Halls you shall find Embroiderers ... in another you shall see Goldsmiths ... in a fourth Workmen in Lacca."—Bernier E.T. 83; [ed. Constable, 259].
1727.—"Their lackt or japon'd Ware is without any Doubt the best in the World."—A. Hamilton, ii. 305; [ed. 1744].
LACCADIVE ISLANDS, n.p. Probably Skt. Lakśadvīpa, '100,000 Islands'; a name however which would apply much better to the Maldives, for the former are not really very numerous. There is not, we suspect, any ancient or certain native source for the name as specifically applied to the northern group of islands. Barbosa, the oldest authority we know as mentioning the group (1516), calls them Malandiva, and the Maldives Palandiva. Several of the individual islands are mentioned in the Tuhfat-al-Majāhidīn (E.T. by Rowlandson, pp. 150-52), the group itself being called "the islands of Malabar."
LACK, s. One hundred thousand, and especially in the Anglo-Indian colloquial 100,000 Rupees, in the days of better exchange the equivalent of £10,000. Hind. lākh, lak, &c., from Skt. laksha, used (see below) in the same sense, but which appears to have originally meant "a mark." It is necessary to explain that the term does not occur in the earlier Skt. works. Thus in the Talavakāra Brāhmaṇā, a complete series of the higher numerical terms is given. After śata (10), sahasra (1000), comes ayuta (10,000), prayuta (now a million), niyuta (now also a million), arbuda (100 millions), nyarbuda (not now used), nikharṇa (do.), and padma (now 10,000 millions). Laksha is therefore a modern substitute for prayuta, and the series has been expanded. This was probably done by the Indian astronomers between the 5th and 10th centuries A.D.
The word has been adopted in the Malay and Javanese, and other languages of the Archipelago. But it is remarkable that in all of this class of languages which have adopted the word it is used in the sense of 10,000 instead of 100,000 with the sole exception of the Lampungs of Sumatra, who use it correctly. (Crawfurd). (See [CRORE].)
We should observe that though a lack, used absolutely for a sum of money, in modern times always implies rupees, this has not always been the case. Thus in the time of Akbar and his immediate successors the revenue was settled and reckoned in laks of [dams] (q.v.). Thus:
c. 1594.—"In the 40th year of his majesty's reign (Akbar's), his dominions consisted of 105 Sircars, subdivided into 2737 Kusbahs (see [CUSBAH]), the revenue of which he settled for ten years, at the annual rent of 3 Arribs, 62 Crore, 97 Lacks, 55,246 Dams...."—Ayeen, ed. Gladwin, ii. 1; [ed. Jarrett, ii. 115].
At Ormuz again we find another lack in vogue, of which the unit was apparently the dīnār, not the old gold coin, but a degenerate dīnār of small value. Thus: