1682.—"... we being obliged at the end of two months to pay Custom for the said goods, if in that time we did not procure a Pherwanna for the Duan of Decca to excuse us from it."—Hedges, Diary, Oct. 10; [Hak. Soc. i. 34].
1693.—"... Egmore and Pursewaukum were lately granted us by the Nabob's purwannas."—Wheeler, i. 281.
1759.—"Perwanna, under the Coochuck (or the small seal) of the Nabob Vizier Ulma Maleck, Nizam ul Muluck Bahadour, to Mr. John Spenser."—In Cambridge's Acct. of the War, 230. (See also quotation under [HOSBOLHOOKUM].)
1774.—"As the peace has been so lately concluded, it would be a satisfaction to the Rajah to receive your parwanna to this purpose before the departure of the caravan."—Bogle's Diary, in Markham's Tibet, p. 50. But Mr. Markham changes the spelling of his originals.
PUTCHOCK, s. This is the trade-name for a fragrant root, a product of the Himālaya in the vicinity of Kashmīr, and forming an article of export from both Bombay and Calcutta to the Malay countries and to China, where it is used as a chief ingredient of the Chinese pastille-rods commonly called [jostick]. This root was recognised by the famous Garcia de Orta as the Costus of the ancients. The latter took their word from the Skt. kusṭha, by a modification of which name—kuṭ—it is still known and used as a medicine in Upper India. De Orta speaks of the plant as growing about Mandu and Chitore, whence it was brought for sale to Ahmadābād; but his informants misled him. The true source was traced in situ by two other illustrious men, Royle and Falconer, to a plant belonging to the N. O. Compositae, Saussurea Xappe, Clarke, for which Dr. Falconer, not recognising the genus, had proposed the name of Aucklandia Costus verus, in honour of the then Governor-General. The Costus is a gregarious plant, occupying open, sloping sides of the mountains, at an elevation of 8000 to 9000 feet. See article by Falconer in Trans. Linn. Soc. xix. 23-31.
The trade-name is, according to Wilson, the Telugu pāch'chāku, 'green leaf,' but one does not see how this applies. (Is there, perhaps, some confusion with Patch? see [PATCHOULI]). De Orta speaks as if the word, which he writes pucho, were Malay. Though neither Crawfurd nor Favre gives the word, in this sense, it is in Marsden's earlier Malay Dict.: "Pūchok, a plant, the aromatic leaves of which are an article of trade; said by some to be Costus indicus, and by others the Melissa, or Laurus." [On this Mr. Skeat writes: "Puchok is the Malay word for a young sprout, or the growing shoot of a plant. Puchok in the special sense here used is also a Malay word, but it may be separate from the other. Klinkert gives puchok as a sprout or shoot and also as a radish-like root (indigenous in China (sic), used in medicine for fumigation, &c.). Apparently it is always the root and not the leaves of the plant that are used, in which case Marsden may have confused the two senses of the word.">[ In the year 1837-38 about 250 tons of this article, valued at £10,000, were exported from Calcutta alone. The annual import into China at a later date, according to Wells Williams, was 2,000 peculs or 120 tons (Middle Kingdom, ed. 1857, ii. 308). In 1865-66, the last year for which the details of such minor exports are found in print, the quantity exported from Calcutta was only 492½ cwt., or 24⅝ tons. In 1875 the value of the imports at Hankow and Chefoo was £6,421. [Watt, Econ. Dict. vi. pt. ii. p. 482, Bombay Gazetteer, xi. 470.]
1516.—See Barbosa under [CATECHU].
1520.—"We have prohibited (the export of) pepper to China ... and now we prohibit the export of pucho and incense from these parts of India to China."—Capitulo de hum Regimento del Rey a Diogo Ayres, Feitor da China, in Arch. Port. Orient., Fasc. v. 49.
1525.—"Pucho of Cambaya worth 35 tangas a maund."—Lembranças, 50.
[1527.—Mr. Whiteway notes that in a letter of Diogo Calvo to the King, dated Jan. 17, pucho is mentioned as one of the imports to China.—India Office MS. Corpo Chronologico, vol. i.]