CHOWDRY, s. H. chaudharī, lit. 'a holder of four'; the explanation of which is obscure: [rather Skt. chakra-dharin, 'the bearer of the discus as an ensign of authority']. The usual application of the term is to the headman of a craft in a town, and more particularly to the person who is selected by Government as the agent through whom supplies, workmen, &c., are supplied for public purposes. [Thus the Chaudharī of carters provides carriage, the Chaudharī of Kahārs bearers, and so on.] Formerly, in places, to the headman of a village; to certain holders of lands; and in Cuttack it was, under native rule, applied to a district Revenue officer. In a paper of 'Explanations of Terms' furnished to the Council at Fort William by Warren Hastings, then Resident at Moradbagh (1759), chowdrees are defined as "Landholders in the next rank to Zemindars." (In Long, p. 176.) [Comp. [VENDU-MASTER].] It is also an honorific title given by servants to one of their number, usually, we believe, to the mālī [see [MOLLY]], or gardener—as khalīfa to the cook and tailor, jama'dār to the bhishtī, mehtar to the sweeper, sirdār to the bearer.
c. 1300.—"... The people were brought to such a state of obedience that one revenue officer would string twenty ... chaudharis together by the neck, and enforce payment by blows."—Ziā-ud-dīn Barnī, in Elliot, iii. 183.
c. 1343.—"The territories dependent on the capital (Delhi) are divided into hundreds, each of which has a Jautharī, who is the Sheikh or chief man of the Hindus."—Ibn Batuta, iii. 388.
[1772.—"Chowdrahs, land-holders, in the next rank to Zemeendars."—Verelst, View of Bengal, Gloss. s.v.]
1788.—"Chowdry.—A Landholder or Farmer. Properly he is above the Zemindar in rank; but, according to the present custom of Bengal, he is deemed the next to the Zemindar. Most commonly used as the principal purveyor of the markets in towns or camps."—Indian Vocabulary (Stockdale's).
CHOWK, s. H. chauk. An open place or wide street in the middle of a city where the market is held, [as, for example, the Chāndnī Chauk of Delhi]. It seems to be adopted in Persian, and there is an Arabic form Sūḳ, which, it is just possible, may have been borrowed and Arabized from the present word. The radical idea of chauk seems to be "four ways" [Skt. chatushka], the crossing of streets at the centre of business. Compare Carfax, and the Quattro Cantoni of Palermo. In the latter city there is a market place called Piazza Ballarò, which in the 16th century a chronicler calls Seggeballarath, or as Amari interprets, Sūḳ-Balharā.
[1833.—"The Chandy Choke, in Delhi ... is perhaps the broadest street in any city in the East."—Skinner, Excursions in India, i. 49.]
CHOWNEE, s. The usual native name, at least in the Bengal Presidency, for an Anglo-Indian [cantonment] (q.v.). It is H. chhāonī, 'a thatched roof,' chhāonā, chhānā, v. 'to thatch.'
[1829.—"The Regent was at the chaoni, his standing camp at Gagrown, when this event occurred."—Tod, Annals (Calcutta reprint), ii. 611.]
CHOWRINGHEE, n.p. The name of a road and quarter of Calcutta, in which most of the best European houses stand; Chaurangī.