1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Durbar

DURBAR, a term in India for a court or levee, from the Persian darbar. A durbar may be either a council for administering affairs of state, or a purely ceremonial gathering. In the former sense the native rulers of India in the past, like the amir of Afghanistan to-day, received visitors and conducted business in durbar. A durbar is the executive council of a native state. In the latter sense the word has come to be applied to great ceremonial gatherings like Lord Lytton’s durbar for the proclamation of the queen empress in India in 1877, or the Delhi durbar of 1903.