JAIL-KHANA, s. A hybrid word for 'a gaol,' commonly used in the Bengal Presidency.
JAIN, s. and adj. The non-Brahmanical sect so called; believed to represent the earliest heretics of Buddhism, at present chiefly to be found in the Bombay Presidency. There are a few in Mysore, Canara, and in some parts of the Madras Presidency, but in the Middle Ages they appear to have been numerous on the coast of the Peninsula generally. They are also found in various parts of Central and Northern India and Behar. The Jains are generally merchants, and some have been men of enormous wealth (see Colebrooke's Essays, i. 378 seqq.; [Lassen, in Ind. Antiq. ii. 193 seqq., 258 seqq.]). The name is Skt. jaina, meaning a follower of jina. The latter word is a title applied to certain saints worshipped by the sect in the place of gods; it is also a name of the Buddhas. An older name for the followers of the sect appears to have been Nirgrantha, 'without bond,' properly the title of Jain ascetics only (otherwise Yatis), [and in particular of the Digambara or 'sky-clad,' naked branch]. (Burnell, S. Indian Palaeography, p. 47, note.)
[c. 1590.—"Jaina. The founder of this wonderful system was Jina, also called Arhat, or Arhant."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, iii. 188.]
JALEEBOTE, s. Jālībōt. A marine corruption of jolly-boat (Roebuck). (See [GALLEVAT].)
a. A title borne by certain chiefs in Kutch, in Kāthiāwāṛ, and on the lower Indus. The derivation is very obscure (see Elliot, i. 495). The title is probably Bilūch originally. There are several Jāms in Lower Sind and its borders, and notably the Jām of Las Bela State, a well-known dependency of Kelat, bordering the sea. [Mr. Longworth Dames writes: "I do not think the word is of Balochi origin, although it is certainly made use of in the Balochi language. It is rather Sindhi, in the broad sense of the word, using Sindhi as the natives do, referring to the tribes of the Indus valley without regard to the modern boundaries of the province of Sindh. As far as I know, it is used as a title, not by Baloches, but by indigenous tribes of Rājput or Jat origin, now, of course, all Musulmans. The Jām of Las Bela belongs to a tribe of this nature known as the Jāmhat. In the Dera Ghāzī Khān District it is used by certain local notables of this class, none of them Baloches. The principal tribe there using it is the Udhāna. It is also an honorific title among the Mochis of Dera Ghāzī Khān town.">[
[c. 1590.—"On the Gujarat side towards the south is a Zamíndár of note whom they call Jám...."—Āīn, ed. Jarrett, ii. 250.
[1843.—See under [DAWK].]
b. A nautical measure, Ar. zām, pl. azwām. It occurs in the form geme in a quotation of 1614 under [JASK]. It is repeatedly used in the Mohit of Sidi 'Ali, published in the J. As. Soc. Bengal. It would appear from J. Prinsep's remarks there that the word is used in various ways. Thus Baron J. Hammer writes to Prinsep: "Concerning the measure of azwām the first section of the IIId. chapter explains as follows: 'The zām is either the practical one ('arfī), or the rhetorical (iṣṭilāḥī—but this the acute Prinsep suggests should be aṣṭarlābī, 'pertaining to the divisions of the astrolabe'). The practical is one of the 8 parts into which day and night are divided; the rhetorical (but read the astrolabic) is the 8th part of an inch (iṣāba) in the ascension and descension of the stars; ...' an explanation which helps me not a bit to understand the true measure of a zām, in the reckoning of a ship's course." Prinsep then elucidates this: The zām in practical parlance is said to be the 8th part of day and night; it is in fact a nautical watch or Hindu pahar (see [PUHUR]). Again, it is the 8th part of the ordinary inch, like the jau or barleycorn of the Hindus (the 8th part of an angul or digit), of which jau, zām is possibly a corruption. Again, the iṣāba or inch, and the zām or ⅛ of an inch, had been transferred to the rude angle-instruments of the Arab navigators; and Prinsep deduces from statements in Sidi 'Ali's book that the iṣāba was very nearly equal to 96′ and the zām to 12′. Prinsep had also found on enquiry among Arab mariners, that the term zām was still well known to nautical people as 1⁄5 of a geographical degree, or 12 nautical miles, quite confirmatory of the former calculation; it was also stated to be still applied to terrestrial measurements (see J.A.S.B. v. 642-3).
1013.—"J'ai déjà parlé de Sérira (read Sarbaza) qui est située à l'extremité de l'île de Lâmeri, à cent-vingt zâmâ de Kala."—Ajāīb-al-Hind, ed. Van der Lith et Marcel Devic, 176.