1818.—"You were present at the India Board when Lord B—— told me that I should have 10,000 pagodas per annum, and all my expenses paid.... I never thought of taking a muchalka from Lord B——, because I certainly never suspected that my expenses would ... have been restricted to 500 pagodas, a sum which hardly pays my servants and equipage."—Munro to Malcolm, in Munro's Life, &c., iii. 257.
MOOCHY, s. One who works in leather, either as shoemaker or saddler. It is the name of a low caste, Hind. mochī. The name and caste are also found in S. India, Telug. muchche. These, too, are workers in leather, but also are employed in painting, gilding, and upholsterer's work, &c.
[1815.—"Cow-stealing ... is also practised by ... the Mootshee or Shoemaker cast."—Tytler, Considerations, i. 103.]
MOOKTEAR, s. Properly Hind. from Ar. mukhtār, 'chosen,' but corruptly mukhtyār. An authorised agent; an attorney. Mukhtyār-nāma, 'a power of attorney.'
1866.—"I wish he had been under the scaffolding when the roof of that new Cutcherry he is building fell in, and killed two mookhtars."—The Dawk Bungalow (by G. O. Trevelyan), in Fraser's Mag. lxxiii. p. 218.
1878.—"These were the mookhtyars, or Criminal Court attorneys, teaching the witnesses what to say in their respective cases, and suggesting answers to all possible questions, the whole thing having been previously rehearsed at the mookhtyar's house."—Life in the Mofussil, f. 90.
1885.—"The wily Bengali muktears, or attorneys, were the bane of the Hill Tracts, and I never relaxed in my efforts to banish them from the country."—Lt.-Col. T. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel, p. 336.
MOOLLAH, s. Hind. mullā, corr. from Ar. maulā, a der. from wilā, 'propinquity.' This is the legal bond which still connects a former owner with his manumitted slave; and in virtue of this bond the patron and client are both called maulā. The idea of patronage is in the other senses; and the word comes to mean eventually 'a learned man, a teacher, a doctor of the Law.' In India it is used in these senses, and for a man who reads the Ḳorān in a house for 40 days after a death. When oaths were administered on the Ḳorān, the servitor who held the book was called Mullā Ḳorānī. Mullā is also in India the usual Mussulman term for 'a schoolmaster.'
1616.—"Their Moolaas employ much of their time like Scriueners to doe businesse for others."—Terry, in Purchas, ii. 1476.
[1617.—"He had shewed it to his Mulaies."—Sir T. Roe, Hak. Soc. ii. 417.]