(a.) s. A quoit for playing the English game; but more properly the sharp quoit or discus which constituted an ancient Hindu missile weapon, and is, or was till recently, carried by the Sikh fanatics called Akālī (see [AKALEE]), generally encircling their peaked turbans. The thing is described by Tavernier (E. T. ii. 41: [ed. Ball, i. 82]) as carried by a company of Mahommedan Fakīrs whom he met at Sherpūr in Guzerat. See also Lt.-Col. T. Lewin, A Fly, &c., p. 47: [Egerton, Handbook, Pl. 15, No. 64].
1516.—"In the Kingdom of Dely ... they have some steel wheels which they call chacarani, two fingers broad, sharp outside like knives, and without edge inside; and the surface of these is the size of a small plate. And they carry seven or eight of these each, put on the left arm; and they take one and put it on the finger of the right hand, and make it spin round many times, and so they hurl it at their enemies."—Barbosa, 100-101.
1630.—"In her right hand shee bare a chuckerey, which is an instrument of a round forme, and sharp-edged in the superficies thereof ... and slung off, in the quickness of his motion, it is able to deliuer or conuey death to a farre remote enemy."—Lord, Disc. of the Banian Religion, 12.
(b.) v. and s. To lunge a horse. H. chakarnā or chakar karnā. Also 'the lunge.'
1829.—"It was truly tantalizing to see those fellows chuckering their horses, not more than a quarter of a mile from our post."—John Shipp, i. 153.
[(c.) In Polo, a 'period.'
[1900.—"Two bouts were played to-day.... In the opening chukker Capt. —— carried the ball in."—Overland Mail, Aug. 13.]
CHUCKERBUTTY, n.p. This vulgarized Bengal Brahman name is, as Wilson points out, a corruption of chakravarttī, the title assumed by the most exalted ancient Hindu sovereigns, an universal Emperor, whose chariot-wheels rolled over all (so it is explained by some).
c. 400.—"Then the Bikshuni Uthala began to think thus with herself, 'To-day the King, ministers, and people are all going to meet Buddha ... but I—a woman—how can I contrive to get the first sight of him?' Buddha immediately, by his divine power, changed her into a holy Chakravartti Raja."—Travels of Fah-hian, tr. by Beale, p. 63.
c. 460.—"On a certain day (Asoka), having ... ascertained that the supernaturally gifted ... Nága King, whose age extended to a Kappo, had seen the four Buddhas ... he thus addressed him: 'Beloved, exhibit to me the person of the omniscient being of infinite wisdom, the Chakkawatti of the doctrine.'"—The Mahawanso, p. 27.