Brewer's: Banian Days

[Ban-yan ]. Days when no meat is served to a ship's crew. The term is derived from the Banians, a class of Hindu merchants, who carried on a most extensive trade with the interior of Asia, but being a caste of the Vaisya, abstained from the use of meat. (Sanskrit, banij, a merchant.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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