Seeking a spouse for Jaga-Naut their God,
Stray'd to this solitary glade."
Curse of Kehama, xiii. 16.
c. 1812.—"Scarcely ... were we seated when behold, there poured into the space before us, not only all the Yogees, Fakeers, and rogues of that description ... but the King of the Beggars himself, wearing his peculiar badge."—Mrs. Sherwood, (describing a visit to Henry Martyn at Cawnpore), Autobiog., 415.
"Apnē gānw kā jogī ān gānw kā sidh." Hind. proverb: "The man who is a jogi in his own village is a deity in another."—Quoted by Elliot, ii. 207.
JOHN COMPANY, n.p. An old personification of the East India Company, by the natives often taken seriously, and so used, in former days. The term Company is still applied in Sumatra by natives to the existing (Dutch) Government (see H. O. Forbes, Naturalist's Wanderings, 1885, p. 204). [Dohāī Company Bahādur kī is still a common form of native appeal for justice, and Company Bāgh is the usual phrase for the public garden of a station. It has been suggested, but apparently without real reason, that the phrase is a corruption of Company Jahān, "which has a fine sounding smack about it, recalling Shāh Jehān and Jehāngīr, and the golden age of the Moguls" (G. A. Sala, quoted in Notes and Queries, 8 ser. ii. 37). And Sir G. Birdwood writes: "The earliest coins minted by the English in India were of copper, stamped with a figure of an irradiated lingam, the phallic 'Roi Soleil.' The mintage of this coin is unknown (? Madras), but without doubt it must have served to ingratiate us with the natives of the country, and may have given origin to their personification of the Company under the potent title of Kumpani Jehan, which, in English mouths, became 'John Company'" (Report on Old Records, 222, note).]
[1784.—"Further, I knew that as simple Hottentots and Indians could form no idea of the Dutch Company and its government and constitution, the Dutch in India had given out that this was one mighty ruling prince who was called Jan or John, with the surname Company, which also procured for them more reverence than if they could have actually made the people understand that they were, in fact, ruled by a company of merchants."—Andreas Spurrmann, Travels to the Cape of Good Hope, the South-Polar Lands, and round the World, p. 347; see 9 ser. Notes and Queries, vii. 34.]
1803.—(The Nawab) "much amused me by the account he gave of the manner in which my arrival was announced to him.... 'Lord Sahab Ka bhànja, Company ki nawasa teshrìf laià'; literally translated, 'The Lord's sister's son, and the grandson of the Company, has arrived.'"—Lord Valentia, i. 137.
1808.—"However the business is pleasant now, consisting principally of orders to countermand military operations, and preparations to save Johnny Company's cash."—Lord Minto in India, 184.
1818-19.—"In England the ruling power is possessed by two parties, one the King, who is Lord of the State, and the other the Honourable Company. The former governs his own country; and the latter, though only subjects, exceed the King in power, and are the directors of mercantile affairs."—Sadāsukh, in Elliot, viii. 411.