[INDOLOGY] Brahmin?

[Antonia Ruppel]

Dear Jarrod,

Not sure whether you've looked this up yet, but according to the OED,
this spelling first appears specifically in relation to the Boston
brahmins (and there is the only spelling) in 1823:

1823   Byron Don Juan: Canto XIII lxxxiii. 96   Thirty-three Of
highest caste--the Brahmins of the ton.

In reference to members of the brahm(a/i)n caste, spelling varies
greatly, but spelling involving -i- is found quite early on. Again,
here's what the OED lists.

1481   Myrrour of Worlde (Caxton) ii. v. 70   Other peple whiche ben
callyd..bragman whiche ben fayrer than they to fore named.
1553   R. Eden tr. S. Münster Treat. Newe India sig. Cvv,   Their
Priestes (called Bramini).
1599   R. Fitch in R. Hakluyt Princ. Navigations (new ed.) II. i. 252
 The Bramanes which are their priests.
1634   T. Herbert Relation Trav. 50   An ancient Braminy, a deuout Wretch.
1650   J. Bulwer Anthropometamorphosis iii. 66   The Bramines of Agra
mark themselves in the Forehead.
1656   T. Blount Glossographia,   Brackmans, a sect of Philosophers in India.
1676   Dryden Aureng-Zebe iii. 37   Take the preaching Brachman hence.
1690   T. Burnet Theory of Earth iii. iii. 17   The modern Indian
philosophers, the reliques of the old bragmans.
1715   Pope Temple of Fame 14   And Brachmans deep in desart Woods rever'd.
1753   J. Hanway Hist. Acct. Brit. Trade Caspian Sea (1762) II. xv. i.
406 (note) ,   He was fond of the brachmins or indian priests.
1840   C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece VII. liv,   A whole community of
Brahmins may have preserved the purity of their blood.
1842   J. C. Prichard Nat. Hist. Man 163   Aryavarta was the Holy Land
of the Brahmans.

Hope this helps!
     Antonia

On 20 February 2014 15:08, Jarrod Whitaker <whitakjl at wfu.edu> wrote:
> Dear Colleagues:
> When does the word "B/brahmin" ("priest, priestly class") with a final "-in"
> begin to be used/appear? I have always assumed that it appeared with the
> colonial encounter and thus it was a Anglocized (perhaps Franco-cized?) way
> of representing the final short schwa sound of "brahman". Does it have an
> older history in Arabic/Mughal writing? It surely is not a final Sanskrit
> "-in" stem (I have never heard of a Brahmii priest), but perhaps it has a
> regional/dialect use somewhere in India...
>
> Silly question but frustrating nonetheless when trying to unpack the complex
> use of the term brahman and its various meanings to students and the fact
> that textbooks are not uniform in how they represent the term and its
> derivatives (B/braahmaan.a [and more rarely Braahman. with final retroflex
> "n," which is curious in and of itself], B/brahman, or, of course our
> current Brahmin....[throw into the mix lower case, sometimes italicized
> brahman from Upanishads and god Brahmaa and students think you are just
> messing with them]).
>
> Cheers
> JW
>
> Jarrod Whitaker, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor, South Asian Religions
> Zachary T. Smith Faculty Fellow
> Graduate Program Director
>
> Wake Forest University
> Department of Religion
> P.O. Box 7212
> Winston-Salem, NC  27109
> whitakjl at wfu.edu
> p 336.758.4162
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Dr. Antonia Ruppel
Townsend Senior Lecturer in the
    Greek, Latin and Sanskrit Languages
Department of Classics
G21 Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
USA
antonia.ruppel at cornell.edu