bamboo rat: The lesser bamboo rat (genus Cannomys) is smaller—15 to 27 cm long, excluding the 6- to 8-cm tail. Its long, dense fur ranges from chestnut brown to a bright pale gray.

chestnut blight, plant disease caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica (formerly known as Endothia parasitica). Accidentally imported from Asia, the disease was first observed in 1904 in the New York Zoological Gardens. By 1925 it had decimated the American chestnut (Castanea dentata)

Ascomycota: chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), and apple scab (Venturia inequalis).

munia: The black-headed munia, or chestnut mannikin (Lonchura malacca, including atricapilla and ferruginosa), is a pest in rice fields from India to Java and the Philippines; as a cage bird it is often called tricolour nun. Others kept as pets include the white-headed munia (L. maja) of…

chestnut oak, any of several species of North American timber trees with chestnutlike leaves, belonging to the white oak group. Specifically, chestnut oak refers to Q. montana, also called rock chestnut oak, a tree found on rocky soils of the eastern United States and southern Canada. It is usually

Africa: Chestnut-brown soils: In the semiarid areas bordering the desert, increased rainfall makes grass vegetation more plentiful, results in rocks becoming more weathered than in the desert, and produces better developed soils with a higher humus content. It is the humus content that, according to the…

Maeve Binchy: The collections Chestnut Street (2014) and A Few of the Girls (2016) were published posthumously. She authored several plays for the stage and for television.

stagecraft: Early history: The Chestnut Street Opera House in Philadelphia installed a gas lighting system in 1816 and supplied its own gas by installing a gas generator on the premises. (Gas stations and city mains did not come into use before 1850.) The advantages of gas lighting were immediately…

Africa: Chestnut-brown soils: In the semiarid areas bordering the desert, increased rainfall makes grass vegetation more plentiful, results in rocks becoming more weathered than in the desert, and produces better developed soils with a higher humus content. It is the humus content that, according to the…

oak: Major species and uses: pontica), chestnut-leaved oak (Q. castaneaefolia), golden oak (Q. alnifolia), Holm, or holly, oak (Q. ilex), Italian oak (Q. frainetto), Lebanon oak (Q. libani), Macedonian oak (Q. trojana), and Portuguese oak

toucan: …several species, such as the chestnut-mandibled toucan, the fiery-billed aracari, and the yellow-ridged toucan, describe their beaks, which are often brightly coloured in pastel shades of green, red, white, and yellow. This coloration is probably used by the birds for species recognition, as many toucans have similar body patterns and…

Jacques-Joachim Trotti, marquis de La Chétardie was a French officer and diplomat who helped raise the princess Elizabeth to the throne of Russia. La Chétardie entered French military service at an early age and rose through the ranks, becoming lieutenant (1721), major (1730), and colonel (1734).

library: 17th and 18th centuries and the great national libraries: …lay donation: a Manchester merchant, Humphrey Chetham, left money in 1653 for the foundation of parish libraries in Bolton and Manchester and also for the establishment of a town library in Manchester (which still exists, housed in its original bookcases, in its original building). Later, in the 18th century, especially…

Chetnik, member of a Serbian nationalist guerrilla force that formed during World War II to resist the Axis invaders and Croatian collaborators but that primarily fought a civil war against the Yugoslav communist guerrillas, the Partisans. After the surrender of the Yugoslav royal army in April

Pahāṛī, people who constitute about three-fifths the population of Nepal and a majority of the population of neighbouring Himalayan India (in Himachal Pradesh and northern Uttar Pradesh). They speak languages belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family. The people are

Henry Chettle was an English dramatist, one among many of the versatile, popular writers of the Elizabethan Age. Chettle began his career as a printer and associated with such literary men as Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe. He prepared for posthumous publication Greenes Groats-Worth of Witte

Madras Native Association: …by businessman and political activist Gazulu Lakshiminarasu Chetty. The first Indian political organization of the Madras Presidency, it consisted mostly of merchants, landowners, and educated elites. It protested against the East India Company’s rule in India and countered Christian missionary activity through petitions to the British Parliament that questioned unjust

Chetumal, city, capital of Quintana Roo estado (state), southeastern Mexico. It is situated in the eastern Yucatán Peninsula, just north of the Belizean border. Chetumal lies at the mouth of the Hondo River on the Bay of Chetumal (an extension of the Caribbean Sea), at an elevation of 20 feet (6

Li Ka-shing: …eventually formed a plastics company, Cheung Kong. Business boomed throughout the 1950s, when Cheung Kong began making artificial flowers and exporting them to the United States. As the firm prospered, Li began to acquire property at a rate that by the late 1970s made him Hong Kong’s leading private developer.

Wong Kar-Wai: …(Leung) and Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung), a man and a woman whose spouses are having an affair. The film’s lush score and detailed recreations of 1960s fashions and interiors, as well as the restrained yet emotional performances of Cheung and Leung, won it the instant acclaim of many as…

cheval glass, tall dressing mirror, suspended between two pillars, usually joined by horizontal bars immediately above and below the mirror and resting on two pairs of long feet. The cheval glass was first made toward the end of the 18th century. The glass could be tilted at any angle by means of

children’s literature: The 20th century: …in the United States as The Horse Without a Head and was made into a successful Disney film. A “gang” story, using a hard, unemotional tone that recalls Simenon, it may be the best of its kind since Emil and the Detectives.

chevalier, (French: “horseman”), a French title originally equivalent to the English knight. Later the title chevalier came to be used in a variety of senses not always denoting membership in any order of chivalry; it was frequently used by men of noble birth or noble pretensions who could not

knight, now a title of honour bestowed for a variety of services, as in the British system of nobility and peerage, but originally in the European Middle Ages a formally professed cavalryman. The first medieval knights were professional cavalry warriors, some of whom were vassals holding lands as

Florent Carton Dancourt: His best-known work, Le Chevalier à la mode (1687; “The Knight à la Mode”), deals with a fortune hunter’s simultaneous courtship of three women. Other plays are Les Bourgeoises à la mode (1692) and Les Bourgeoises de qualité (1700), in which middle-class women ape the nobility, La Désolation…

Lohengrin: …version of the legend, the Chevalier au cygne, the knight of the swan (here called Helyas) married Beatrix of Bouillon, the story being arranged and elaborated to glorify the house of Bouillon. Godfrey of Bouillon, a leader of the First Crusade, was held to be the son of a mysterious…

Chrétien de Troyes: …wife of his overlord Arthur; Yvain, a brilliant extravaganza, combining the theme of a widow’s too hasty marriage to her husband’s slayer with that of the new husband’s fall from grace and final restoration to favour. Perceval, which Chrétien left unfinished, unites the religious theme of the Holy Grail with…

Guinevere: …charette, she was rescued by Lancelot (a character whom Chrétien had earlier named as one of Arthur’s knights) from the land of Gorre, to which she had been taken by Meleagant (a version of the story that was incorporated in the 13th-century prose Vulgate cycle). Chrétien presented her as one…

Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly: …background of the French Revolution: Le Chevalier des Touches (1864), dealing with the rebellion of the Chouans (bands of Norman outlaws) against the French Republic, and Un Prêtre marié (1865; “A Married Priest”), dealing with the sufferings of a priest under the new regime. Les Diaboliques (1874; Weird Women), a…

Pinetti was a magician who founded the classical school of magic, characterized by elaborate tricks and the use of mechanical devices (suitable, as a rule, for stage performance only). While touring Europe in the 1780s, he introduced the second-sight trick (the apparent transference of thought from

Albert Chevalier was an actor and music-hall entertainer known as the “costers’ laureate” because of his songs in cockney dialect on London common life (a coster is a cart peddler). An actor from 1877, he made his music-hall debut in 1891 at the London Pavillion, where he was an immediate hit,

Paul Gavarni was a French lithographer and painter whose work is enjoyable for its polished wit, cultured observation, and the panorama it presents of the life of his time. However, his work lacks the power of his great contemporary Honoré Daumier. About 1831 Gavarni began publishing his scenes of

Jules Chevalier was a priest, author, and founder of the Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis Jesu (Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus), commonly called Sacred Heart Missionaries. This is a Roman Catholic congregation of men originally dedicated to teaching and restoring the faith in the rural

Maurice Chevalier was a debonair French musical-comedy star and entertainer who was known for witty and sophisticated films that contributed greatly to the establishment of the musical as a film genre during the early 1930s. His suave manner and half-speaking style of singing, together with his

most-favoured-nation treatment: …1860 by Richard Cobden and Michel Chevalier, which established interlocking tariff concessions that extended most-favoured-nation treatment worldwide, became the model for many later agreements.

Ulysse Chevalier was a French priest, scholar, and author of major bibliographical works in medieval history. As a student under Léopold Delisle, professor of ecclesiastical history at the University of Lyon, he began work on his massive Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge (“Collection

Polaris missile: …it into the A-3TK, or Chevaline, system, which was fitted with such devices as decoy warheads and electronic jammers for penetrating Soviet ballistic-missile defenses around Moscow. In 1980 the United Kingdom announced plans to replace its Polaris force with the Trident SLBM in the 1990s.

mathematics: Developments in pure mathematics: Weil, along with Claude Chevalley, Henri Cartan, Jean Dieudonné, and others, created a group of young French mathematicians who began to publish virtually an encyclopaedia of mathematics under the name Nicolas Bourbaki, taken by Weil from an obscure general of the Franco-German War. Bourbaki became a

Western sculpture: France: …as seen in the famous Chevaux de Marly by Guillaume Coustou now marking the entrance to the Champs-Élysées in Paris but designed for Marly, as part of the most innovative outdoor display of sculpture since the 16th-century gardens of Italy. Coustou’s bust of his brother Nicolas has a characteristic freshness…

Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus was the first Roman Catholic bishop of Boston. He was made assistant, then pastor, of Notre-Dame of Mayenne in France, but because of the Revolution he fled in 1792 to England, where he founded Tottenham Chapel. Arriving in Boston (1796), he assisted at Holy Cross

chevet, eastern end of a church, especially of a Gothic church designed in the French manner. Beginning about the 12th century, Romanesque builders began to elaborate on the design of the area around the altar, adding a curved ambulatory behind it and constructing a series of apses or small chapels

cheviot, woollen fabric made originally from the wool of Cheviot sheep and now also made from other types of wool or from blends of wool and man-made fibres in plain or various twill weaves. Cheviot wool possesses good spinning qualities, since the fibre is fine, soft, and pliable. Cheviot fabric

Cheviot, breed of hardy, medium-wool, white-faced, hornless sheep developed in Scotland and Northumberland, England. Cheviots have no wool on their heads and ears or on their legs below the knees and hocks. As a consequence they present a trimmed and alert appearance. The wool of their fleeces is

Cheviot Hills, highland range that for more than 30 miles (50 km) marks the boundary between England and Scotland. In the east a great pile of ancient volcanic rocks reaches an elevation of 2,676 feet (816 metres) in the Cheviot. The hills are steep but smoothly rounded; they are dissected by deep

Marie De France: …from the 118 lines of Chevrefoil (“The Honeysuckle”), an episode in the Tristan story, to the 1,184 lines of Eliduc, a story of the devotion of a first wife whose husband brings a second wife from overseas.

Michel-Eugène Chevreul was a French chemist who elucidated the chemical composition of animal fats and whose theories of colour influenced the techniques of French painting. Chevreul belonged to a family of surgeons. After receiving a private education during the French Revolution, in 1799 Chevreul

Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, duchess de Chevreuse was a French princess, a tireless participant in the conspiracies against the ministerial government during Louis XIII’s reign (1610–43) and the regency (1643–51) for Louis XIV. The daughter of Hercule de Rohan, duc de Montbazon, Marie was married in

automobile: American compact cars: …Ford Falcon, Chrysler Valiant, and Chevrolet Corvair were smaller than most American cars but still larger than the average European models. By the mid-1960s a demand for more highly individualized luxury models of compact size had brought lines of “intermediate” cars from all manufacturers. The Ford Mustang, basically a Falcon…

materials science: Plastics and composites: …skins on General Motors’ l953 Corvette sports car marked the first appearance of composites in a production model, and composites have continued to appear in automotive components ever since. In 1984, General Motors’ Fiero was placed on the market with the entire body made from composites, and the Camaro/Firebird models…

automobile: Electric-gasoline hybrids: …General Motors introduced the Chevrolet Volt, a car that could drive up to about 35 miles on electric batteries and would then drive using a gasoline engine after the battery was exhausted. Beginning in 2003, Tesla had some success with all-electric cars, however.

Louis Chevrolet was an automobile designer and racer whose name is borne by the Chevrolet Division of General Motors, an enterprise from which he derived little profit and of which he was a minor employee in the last years of his life. He emigrated to the United States from France in 1900. Five

chevron, decorative motif consisting of two slanting lines forming an inverted V. From very early times, it has been a common motif in pottery and textiles. A bent bar in heraldry, it is also one of the most common distinguishing marks for military and naval uniforms: placed on the sleeves, it

Chevron Corporation, U.S. petroleum corporation that was founded through the 1906 merger of Pacific Oil Company and Standard Oil Company of Iowa. One of the largest oil companies in the world, it acquired Gulf Oil Corporation in 1984, Texaco Inc. in 2001, and Unocal Corporation in 2005. Chevron

Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc., legal case, decided on June 25, 1984, in which the U.S. Supreme Court established a longstanding judicial precedent known as the Chevron doctrine, also called Chevron deference. In a 7–0 ruling (three justices recused themselves),

Atlantic herring: Conservation status: …2024, the Supreme Court overturned Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council and thereby eliminated the Chevron deference rule.

Chevron Corporation, U.S. petroleum corporation that was founded through the 1906 merger of Pacific Oil Company and Standard Oil Company of Iowa. One of the largest oil companies in the world, it acquired Gulf Oil Corporation in 1984, Texaco Inc. in 2001, and Unocal Corporation in 2005. Chevron

chevrotain, (family Tragulidae), any of about 10 species of small, delicately built, hoofed mammals that constitute the family Tragulidae (order Artiodactyla). Chevrotains are found in the warmer parts of Southeast Asia and India and in parts of Africa. They are classified into the genera

English literature: Journalism: …his enthusiastic account of “Chevy Chase” and hymned the pleasures of the imagination in a series of papers deeply influential on 18th-century thought. His long, thoughtful, and probing examen of Milton’s Paradise Lost played a major role in establishing the poem as the great epic of English literature and…

Bethesda–Chevy Chase: …(Bethesda and several associated with Chevy Chase) that prior to 1949 were governed by county commissioners and thereafter came mostly under the jurisdiction of chartered, popularly elected councils. The district takes its name from the Bethesda Presbyterian Church, built in 1820 on the Georgetown-Frederick Pike (Old National Road), and Chevy…

automobile: Electric-gasoline hybrids: …General Motors introduced the Chevrolet Volt, a car that could drive up to about 35 miles on electric batteries and would then drive using a gasoline engine after the battery was exhausted. Beginning in 2003, Tesla had some success with all-electric cars, however.

Chewa: Their language, Chewa, is also called Chichewa, Nyanja, or Chinyanja and is important in Malawi.

Chewa, Bantu-speaking people living in the extreme eastern zone of Zambia, northwestern Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique. They share many cultural features with their Bemba kinsmen to the west. Their language, Chewa, is also called Chichewa, Nyanja, or Chinyanja and is important in Malawi. The

Alaskan Malamute: Alaskan Malamutes enjoy a long walk or hike daily, coupled with vigorous games. Because they often do not come when called, the…

chewing, up-and-down and side-to-side movements of the lower jaw that assist in reducing particles of solid food, making them more easily swallowed; teeth usually act as the grinding and biting surface. In cats and dogs, food is reduced only to a size that permits easy swallowing. Cows and other

Michaela Coel: Chewing Gum: …was turned into the sitcom Chewing Gum, with Coel serving as executive producer. In the television series Tracey comes from a Pentecostal family and is desperately trying to lose her virginity. The show earned Coel critical accolades and numerous awards, including a BAFTA Award for best female performance in a…

chewing gum, sweetened product made from chicle and similar resilient substances and chewed for its flavour. Peoples of the Mediterranean have since antiquity chewed the sweet resin of the mastic tree (so named after the custom) as a tooth cleanser and breath freshener. New England colonists

chewing louse, (suborder Amblycera and Ischnocera), any of about 2,900 species of small, wingless insects (order Phthiraptera), worldwide in distribution, that have chewing mouthparts, a flattened body, and shortened front legs used to transport food to the mouth. Chewing lice may be from 1 to 5 mm

chewing tobacco, tobacco used for chewing and that appears in a variety of forms, notably (1) “flat plug,” a compressed rectangular cake of bright tobacco, sweetened lightly or not at all, (2) “navy,” a flat rectangular cake of burley tobacco, highly flavoured with either licorice, rum, cinnamon,

chewink, bird species also known as the rufous-sided towhee. See

Cheyenne, North American Plains Indians who spoke an Algonquian language and inhabited the regions around the Platte and Arkansas rivers during the 19th century. Before 1700 the Cheyenne lived in what is now central Minnesota, where they farmed, hunted, gathered wild rice, and made pottery. They

Cheyenne, capital (since 1869) and largest city of Wyoming, U.S., and seat of Laramie county, in the southeastern corner of the state, on Crow Creek, 49 miles (79 km) east of Laramie city; it sprawls over high prairie that slopes westward to the Laramie Mountains. Squatters arriving in 1867 just

Arthur Kennedy: …roles in High Sierra (1941), Cheyenne (1947), The Glass Menagerie (1950), Rancho Notorious (1952), The Man from Laramie (1955), Elmer Gantry (1960), and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). He was nominated for Academy Awards for his acting in Champion (1949), Bright Victory

John Ford: Postwar career: Cheyenne Autumn (1964) recognizes the brutal treatment he believed the various American Indian nations had suffered at the hands of white men, Sergeant Rutledge (1960) involves buffalo soldiers, the African American troops who fought in the West, and Ford overtly challenged his own legacy in…

Cheyenne: Frontier Days, featuring one of America’s oldest and largest rodeos, is a six-day celebration held each July, recalling the spirit of the Wild West and the cattle kingdom days. Among the city’s attractions are the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, and the city is home to the…

Cheyenne River, river of eastern Wyoming and western South Dakota, U.S. It rises (as an intermittent stream) in northeastern Converse county, Wyoming, and runs eastward, its flow becoming permanent just before entering Fall River county, southwestern South Dakota. From there it flows northeastward

Gene Kelly: Films of the 1960s and beyond: The western comedy The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) starred Henry Fonda and James Stewart as two cowboys who unwittingly inherit management of a brothel. Kelly’s final directing credit was as codirector (with Jack Haley, Jr.) of That’s Entertainment, Part 2 (1976), the follow-up to the 1974 original’s compilation…

Sir William Watson Cheyne, 1st Baronet was a surgeon and bacteriologist who was a pioneer of antiseptic surgical methods in Britain. Cheyne studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, taking degrees in surgery and medicine there in 1875. In 1876 he became a house surgeon to Joseph Lister, the

human respiratory system: Sleep: …periods of apnea, is called Cheyne-Stokes breathing, after the physicians who first described it. The mechanism that produces the Cheyne-Stokes ventilation pattern is unclear, but it may entail unstable feedback regulation of breathing. Similar swings in ventilation sometimes occur in persons with heart failure or with central nervous system disease.

Cheyney University, the oldest of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States. It originated as a school for children established by Quakers in Philadelphia in the 1830s. Its alumni include the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, the journalist Ed Bradley (of

Cheyney University, the oldest of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States. It originated as a school for children established by Quakers in Philadelphia in the 1830s. Its alumni include the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, the journalist Ed Bradley (of

Cheyney University, the oldest of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States. It originated as a school for children established by Quakers in Philadelphia in the 1830s. Its alumni include the civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, the journalist Ed Bradley (of

restaurant: French restaurants of the 19th century: …the 19th century was the Café Foy, later called Chez Bignon, a favourite dining place of the English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray and of the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini, who lived in the same building. The Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Italiens, was the first of many restaurants…

Édouard Manet: Later life and works of Édouard Manet: …tones gleam with light, and Chez le Père Lathuille (1879), another of Manet’s major works, set in a restaurant near the Café Guerbois in Clichy. The latter depicts a coquette somewhat past her prime having lunch with her young lover in yet another of Manet’s bold attempts to portray controversial…

Alice Waters: When Chez Panisse opened in 1971, it was with a relatively untrained staff, a set fixed-price menu that changed daily, and an uncompromising dedication to a vision that seemed to many untenable: Waters wanted to create meals that used only locally grown seasonal ingredients, and she…

François Billetdoux: Chez Torpe) tallies the suicides in an inn whose owner insists on breaking down her guests’ defenses. Other plays include Il faut passer par les nuages (1964; “You Must Pass Through the Clouds”) and Comment va le monde, môssieu? Il tourne, môssieu! (1964; “How is…

Antoine de Chézy was a French hydraulic engineer and author of a basic formula, known as the Chézy formula, for calculating the velocity of a fluid stream. One of the group of brilliant engineers produced by the French École des Ponts et Chaussées (School of Bridges and Highways) in the 18th

South Asian arts: Modern theatre: …produced the first Bengali play, Chhadmabes (“The Disguise”), in 1795 on a Western-style stage with Bengali players of both sexes. Subsequently, Bengali playwrights began synthesizing Western styles with their own folk and Sanskrit heritage. With growing national consciousness, theatre became a platform for social reform and propaganda against British rule.…

Deepika Padukone: Actress and producer: …to promote her upcoming movie Chhapaak (an onomatopoeic Hindi word for “splash”). A call to boycott Padukone’s film was issued by various right-wing groups that were politically opposed to students at JNU, who had been protesting a recent fee hike at the university and had joined the larger countrywide protests…

calico: … or calico prints, decorated with chhapanti, or a printed lotus design. The earliest fragments to survive (15th century) have been found not in India but at Fusṭāṭ, in the neighbourhood of Cairo. The examples, resist-dyed (in which parts of the fabric to be left undyed are covered with a substance…

Chhatak, town, northeastern Bangladesh. It lies on the left bank of the Surma River. The town rose to prominence when a natural gas field was discovered nearby in 1959. Chhatak has a large cement factory powered by natural gas. The town also exports natural gas as well as citrus fruits, cement,

Chhatarpur, city, north-central Madhya Pradesh state, central India. It is situated in an area of scattered low hills about 12 miles (19 km) east of the Dhasan River (a tributary of the Betwa River). The city is a major road junction and is a trade centre for agricultural products and cloth

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, main railway station in Mumbai, India, and the headquarters of the city’s Central Railway System. It was built between 1878 and 1887. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus presents many visitors with their first impression of the huge metropolis, yet it is by no means

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, museum in Mumbai (Bombay), India. It was established in 1905, but its opening was delayed until 1922. The museum is housed in a domed building in the Indo-Saracenic style that was completed in 1914. Its collections include Tibetan art, Chinese

Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, main railway station in Mumbai, India, and the headquarters of the city’s Central Railway System. It was built between 1878 and 1887. The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus presents many visitors with their first impression of the huge metropolis, yet it is by no means

Chhatarpur: …was founded in 1707 by Chhatrasal, a Bundela king who successfully resisted Mughal authority, and it was the capital of the princely state of Chhatarpur of the British Central India Agency. Constituted a municipality in 1908, Chhatarpur has a museum, an officers’ colony, and colleges and a law school affiliated…

Chhattisgarh, state of east-central India. It is bounded by the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand to the north and northeast, Odisha (Orissa) to the east, Telangana (formerly part of Andhra Pradesh) to the south, and Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to the west. Its capital is Raipur. Area

Chhattisgarh Plain, plain, central India, forming the upper Mahanadi River basin. About 100 miles (160 km) wide, it is bounded by the Chota Nagpur plateau to the north, the Raigarh hills to the northeast, the Raipur Upland to the southeast, the Bastar plateau to the south, and the Maikala Range to

South Asian arts: Folk dance: The chhau, a unique form of masked dance, is preserved by the royal family of the former state of Saraikela in Jharkhand. The dancer impersonates a god, animal, bird, hunter, rainbow, night, or flower. He acts out a short theme and performs a series of vignettes…

calico: …Hemacandra, an Indian writer, mentions chhimpa, or calico prints, decorated with chhapanti, or a printed lotus design. The earliest fragments to survive (15th century) have been found not in India but at Fusṭāṭ, in the neighbourhood of Cairo. The examples, resist-dyed (in which parts of the fabric to be left…

Chhindwara, city, southern Madhya Pradesh state, central India. It lies at an elevation of about 2,200 feet (670 metres) above sea level on an upland plateau south of the Satpura Range, about 35 miles (55 km) west of Seoni. The city derives its name from chhind, Hindi for date palms. Chhindwara is