A sītalpaṭṭī spread where none shall sleep."
The answer is an Egg; the Starry Sky; a Snake (Rãj-bansī, 'royal scion,' is a placatory name for a snake); and the Sea.
SEMBALL, s. Malay-Javan. sāmbil, sāmbal. A spiced condiment, the curry of the Archipelago. [Dennys (Descr. Dict. p. 337) describes many varieties.]
1817.—"The most common seasoning employed to give a relish to their insipid food is the lombock (i.e. red-pepper); triturated with salt it is called sambel."—Raffles, H. of Java, i. 98.
SEPOY, SEAPOY, s. In Anglo-Indian use a native soldier, disciplined and dressed in the European style. The word is Pers. sipāhī, from sipāh, 'soldiery, an army'; which J. Oppert traces to old Pers. spāda, 'a soldier' (Le peuple et la Langue des Mèdes, 1879, p. 24). But Sbah is a horseman in Armenian; and sound etymologists connect sipāh with asp, 'a horse'; [others with Skt. padāti, 'a foot-soldier']. The original word sipāhī occurs frequently in the poems of Amīr Khusrū (c. A.D. 1300), bearing always probably the sense of a 'horse-soldier,' for all the important part of an army then consisted of horsemen. See spāhī below.
The word sepoy occurs in Southern India before we had troops in Bengal; and it was probably adopted from Portuguese. We have found no English example in print older than 1750, but probably an older one exists. The India Office record of 1747 from Fort St. David's is the oldest notice we have found in extant MS. [But see below.]
c. 1300.—"Pride had inflated his brain with wind, which extinguished the light of his intellect, and a few sipāhīs from Hindustan, without any religion, had supported the credit of his authority."—Amīr Khusrū, in Elliot, iii. 536.
[1665.—"Souldier—Suppya and Haddee."—Persian Gloss. in Sir T. Herbert, ed. 1677, p. 99.]
1682.—"As soon as these letters were sent away, I went immediately to Ray Nundelall's to have ye Seapy, or Nabob's horseman, consigned to me, with order to see ye Perwanna put in execution; but having thought better of it, ye Ray desired me to have patience till tomorrow morning. He would then present me to the Nabob, whose commands to ye Seapy and Bulchunds Vekeel would be more powerfull and advantageous to me than his own."—Hedges, Diary, Hak. Soc. i. 55, seq. Here we see the word still retaining the sense of 'horseman' in India.
[1717.—"A Company of Sepoys with the colours."—Yule, in ditto, II. ccclix. On this Sir H. Yule notes: "This is an occurrence of the word sepoy, in its modern signification, 30 years earlier than any I had been able to find when publishing the A.-I. Gloss. I have one a year earlier, and expect now to find it earlier still."