1507.—"And the Viceroy ordered the Ouvidor General to hold an inquiry on this matter, on which the truth came out clearly that the Holy Apostle (Sanctiago) showed himself to the Moors when they were fighting with our people, and of this he sent word to the King, telling him that such martyrs were the men who were serving in these parts that our Lord took thought of them and sent them a Helper from Heaven."—Ibid. i. 717.
1698.—(At Syriam) "Ovidores (Persons appointed to take notice of all passages in the Runday (office of administration) and advise them to Ava.... Three Ovidores that always attend the Runday, and are sent to the King, upon errands, as occasion obliges."—Fleetwood's Diary, in Dalrymple, Or. Rep. i. 355, 360.
[OWL, s. Hind. aul, 'any great calamity, as a plague, cholera,' &c.
[1787.—"At the foot of the hills the country is called Teriani (see [TERAI]) ... and people in their passage catch a disorder, called in the language of that country aul, which is a putrid fever, and of which the generality of persons who are attacked with it die in a few days...."—Asiat. Res. ii. 307.
1816.—"... rain brings alone with it the local malady called the Owl, so much dreaded in the woods and valleys of Nepaul."—Asiatic Journal, ii. 405.
1858.—"I have known European officers, who were never conscious of having drunk either of the waters above described, take the fever (owl) in the month of May in the Tarae."—Sleeman, Journey in Oudh, ii. 103.]
P
PADDY, s. Rice in the husk; but the word is also, at least in composition, applied to growing rice. The word appears to have in some measure, a double origin.
There is a word batty (see [BATTA]) used by some writers on the west coast of India, which has probably helped to propagate our uses of paddy. This seems to be the Canarese batta or bhatta, 'rice in the husk,' which is also found in Mahr. as bhāt with the same sense, a word again which in Hind. is applied to 'cooked rice.' The last meaning is that of Skt. bhaktā, which is perhaps the original of all these forms.
But in Malay pādī [according to Mr. Skeat, usually pronounced pădi] Javan. pārī, is 'rice in the straw.' And the direct parentage of the word in India is thus apparently due to the Archipelago; arising probably out of the old importance of the export trade of rice from Java (see Raffles, Java, i. 239-240, and Crawfurd's Hist. iii. 345, and Descript. Dict., 368). Crawfurd, (Journ. Ind. Arch., iv. 187) seems to think that the Malayo-Javanese word may have come from India with the Portuguese. But this is impossible, for as he himself has shown (Desc. Dict., u.s.), the word pārī, more or less modified, exists in all the chief tongues of the Archipelago, and even in Madagascar, the connection of which last with the Malay regions certainly was long prior to the arrival of the Portuguese.