The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 168

In this name _Si-li-ju-eul-su-la_, one must read [Chinese] _pa_, instead of [Chinese], and read _Si-li-pa-eul-su-la_ = Siri Paramisura (cri Paramacvara). (PELLIOT, _Bul. Ecole franc. Ext. Orient_, IV., July-Sept., 1904, p. 772.)

IX., p. 285. "They [the rhinoceros] do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong p.r.i.c.kles [and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue]."

"Its tongue is like the burr of a chestnut." (CHAU JU-KWA, P. 233.)

IX., p. 289.

SUMATRA.

In 1017, an emba.s.sy was sent to the Court of China by Haji Sumutrabhumi, "the king of the land of Sumutra" (Sumatra). The envoys had a letter in golden characters and tribute in the shape of pearls, ivory, Sanscrit, books folded between boards, and slaves; by an imperial edict they were permitted to see the emperor and to visit some of the imperial buildings.

When they went back an edict was issued addressed to their king, accompanied by various presents, calculated to please them. (GROENEVELT, _Notes on the Malay Archipelago_, p. 65.) G. Ferrand writes (_J. As._, Mars-Avril, 1917, p. 335) that according to the texts quoted by him in his article the island of Sumatra was known to the Chinese under the name _Sumuta = Sumutra_, during the first years of the eleventh century, nearly 300 years before Marco Polo's voyage; and under the name of _Sumutra_, by the Arab sailors, previously to the first voyage of the Portuguese in Indonesia.

IX., p. 287.

FERLEC.

Prof. Pelliot writes to me that the _Ferlec_ of Marco Polo is to be found several times in the _Yuan Shi_, year 1282 and following, under the forms _Fa-li-lang_ (Chap. 12, fol. 4 v.), _Fa-li-la_ (Chap. 13, fol. 2 v.), _Pie-li-la_ (Chap. 13, fol. 4 v.), _Fa-eul-la_ (Chap. 18, fol. 8 v.); in the first case, it is quoted near _A-lu_ (_Aru_) and _Kan-pai_ (Kampei).

--Cf. FERRAND, _Textes_, II., p. 670.

XI., pp. 304-5.

SAGO TREE.

Sago Palm = _Sagus Rumphia.n.u.s_ and _S. Laevis_ (DENNYS).--"From Malay _sagu_. The farinaceous pith taken out of the stem of several species of a particular genus of palm, especially _Metroxylon laeve_, Mart., and _M.

Rumphii_, Willd., found in every part of the Indian Archipelago, including the Philippines, wherever there is proper soil." (_Hobson-Jobson_.)

XII., p. 306. "In this island [Necuveran] they have no king nor chief, but live like beasts. And I tell you they go all naked, both men and women, and do not use the slightest covering of any kind."

We have seen (_Marco Polo_, II., p. 308) that Mr. G. Phillips writes (_J.R.A.S._, July, 1895, p. 529) that the name Tsui-lan given to the Nicobars by the Chinese is, he has but little doubt, "a corruption of Nocueran, the name given by Marco Polo to the group. The characters Tsui-lan are p.r.o.nounced Ch'ui lan in Amoy, out of which it is easy to make Cueran. The Chinese omitted the initial syllable and called them the Cueran Islands, while Marco Polo called them the Nocueran Islands." Schlegel, _T'oung Pao_, IX., p. 182-190, thinks that the Andaman Islands are alone represented by Ts'ui-lan; the Nicobar being the old country of the Lo-ch'a, and in modern time, _Mao shan_, "Hat Island." Pelliot, _Bul. Ecole Ext.

Orient_, IV., 1904, pp. 354-5, is inclined to accept Phillip's opinion. He says that Mao-shan is one island, not a group of islands; it is not proved that the country of the Lo ch'a is the Nicobar Islands; the name of _Lo-hing-man_, Naked Barbarians, is, contrary to Schlegel's opinion, given to the Nicobar as well as to the Andaman people; the name of Andaman appears in Chinese for the first time during the thirteenth century in Chao Ju-kwa under the form _Yen-t'o-man_; Chao Ju-kwa specifies that going from Lambri (_Sumatra_) to Ceylon, it is an unfavourable wind which makes ships drift towards these islands; on the other hand, texts show that the Ts'ui-lan islands were on the usual route from Sumatra to Ceylon.--Gerini, _Researches_, p. 396, considers that _Ts'ui-lan shan_ is but the phonetic transcript of _Tilan-chong_ Island, the north-easternmost of the Nicobars.--See Hirth and Rockhill's _Chau Ju-kwa_, p. 12n.--Sansk.

_narikera_, "cocoanuts," is found in Necuveram.

XIII., p. 309.

ANGAMANAIN.

"When sailing from Lan-wu-li to Si-lan, if the wind is not fair, ships may be driven to a place called Yen-t'o-man [in Cantonese, An-t'o-man]. This is a group of two islands in the middle of the sea, one of them being large, the other small; the latter is quite uninhabited. The large one measures seventy _li_ in circuit. The natives on it are of a colour resembling black lacquer; they eat men alive, so that sailors dare not anchor on this coast.

"This island does not contain so much as an inch of iron, for which reason the natives use (bits of) conch-sh.e.l.l (ch'o-k'u) with ground edges instead of knives. On this island is a sacred relic, (the so-called) 'Corpse on a bed of rolling gold....'" (CHAU JU-KWA, p. 147.)

XIII., p. 311.

DOG-HEADED BARBARIANS.

Rockhill in a note to Carpini (_Rubruck_, p. 36) mentions "the Chinese annals of the sixth century (_Liang Shu_, bk. 54; _Nan shih_, bk. 79) which tell of a kingdom of dogs (_Kou kuo_) in some remote corner of north-eastern Asia. The men had human bodies but dogs' heads, and their speech sounded like barking. The women were like the rest of their s.e.x in other parts of the world."

Dr. Laufer writes to me: "A clear distinction must be made between dog-headed people and the motive of descent from a dog-ancestor,--two entirely different conceptions. The best exposition of the subject of the cynocephali according to the traditions of the Ancients is now presented by J. MARQUART (_Benin-Sammlung des Reichsmuseums in Leiden_, pp. cc-ccxix).

It is essential to recognize that the mediaeval European, Arabic, and Chinese fables about the country of the dog-heads are all derived from one common source, which is traceable to the Greek Romance of Alexander; that is an Oriental-h.e.l.lenistic cycle. In a wider sense, the dog-heads belong to the cycle of wondrous peoples, which a.s.sumed shape among the Greek mariners under the influence of Indian and West-Asiatic ideas. The tradition of the _Nan shi_ (Ch. 79, p. 4), in which the motive of the dog-heads, the women, however, being of human shape, meets its striking parallel in Adam of Bremen (_Gesta Hamburg, ecclesiae pontific.u.m_, 4, 19), who thus reports on the _Terra Feminarum_ beyond the Baltic Sea: 'c.u.mque pervenerint ad partum, si quid masculini generis est, fiunt cynocephali, si quid femini, speciosissimae mulieres.' See further KLAPROTH, _J. As._, XII., 1833, p.

287; DULAURIER, _J. As._, 1858, p. 472; ROCKHILL, _Rubruck_, p. 36."

In an interesting paper on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory, Dr. Laufer (_T'oung Pao_, July, 1916, p. 357) refers to dog-headed men with women of human shape, from a report from the Mongols received by King Hethum of Armenia.

XIV., p. 313. "The people [of Ceylon] are Idolaters, and go quite naked except that they cover the middle.... The King of this Island possesses a ruby which is the finest and biggest in the world; I will tell you what it is like. It is about a palm in length, and as thick as a man's arm; to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth; it is quite free from flaw and as red as fire. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named at all."

Chau Ju-kwa, p. 73, has: "The King holds in his hand a jewel five inches in diameter, which cannot be burnt by fire, and which shines in (the darkness of) night like a torch. The King rubs his face with it daily, and though he were pa.s.sed ninety he would retain his youthful looks.

"The people of the country are very dark-skinned, they wrap a sarong round their bodies, go bare-headed and bare-footed."

XIV., p. 314 n.

THE ISLAND OF CEYLON.

The native kings of this period were Pandita Prakama Bahu II., who reigned from 1267 to 1301 at Dambadenia, about 40 miles north-north-east of Columbo (Marco Polo's time); Vijaya Bahu IV. (1301-1303); Bhuwaneka Bahu I. (1303-1314); Prakama Bahu III. (1314-1319); Bhuwaneka Bahu II. (1319).

SAGAMONI BORCAN.

= Sakya Muni Burkhan.

XV., p. 319. Seilan-History of Sagamoni Borcan. "And they maintain ...

that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish that are there were those of the same king's son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or Sagamoni the Saint."

See J.F. FLEET, _The Tradition about the corporeal Relics of Buddha_.

(_Jour. R. As. Soc._, 1906, and April, 1907, pp. 341-363.)

XV., p. 320.

In a paper on _Burkhan_ printed in the _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, x.x.xVI., 1917, pp. 390-395, Dr. Berthold Laufer has come to the following conclusion: "Burkhan in Mongol by no means conveys exclusively the limited notion of Buddha, but, first of all, signifies 'deity, G.o.d, G.o.ds,' and secondly 'representation or image of a G.o.d.' This general significance neither inheres in the term Buddha nor in Chinese Fo; neither do the latter signify 'image of Buddha'; only Mongol _burkhan_ has this force, because originally it conveyed the meaning of a shamanistic image.

From what has been observed on the use of the word _burkhan_ in the shamanistic or pre-Buddhistic religions of the Tungusians, Mongols and Turks, it is manifest that the word well existed there before the arrival of Buddhism, fixed in its form and meaning, and was but subsequently transferred to the name of Buddha."

XV., pp. 323 seq.

BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT.

The German traveller von Le Coq has found at Turfan fragments of this legend in Turki which he published in 1912 in his _Turkische Manichaica_, which agree with the legend given by the Persian Ibn Babawaih of Qum, who died in 991. (S. d'OLDENBOURG, _Bul. Ac. I. des Sc._, Pet., 1912, pp.

779-781; W. RADLOFF, _Altturk. Stud._, VI., zu _Barlaam und Joasaph_). M.P.

Alfaric (_La Vie chretienne du Bouddha, J. Asiatique_, Sept.-Oct., 1917, pp. 269 seq.; _Rev. de l'Hist. des Religions_, Nov.-Dec., 1918, pp. 233 seq.) has studied this legend from a Manichaean point of view.

XV., p. 327.

See _La "Vie des Saints Barlaam et Josaphat" et la legende du Bouddha_, in Vol. I., pp. x.x.xxvii-lvi, of _Contes populaires de Lorraine_ par Emmanuel COSQUIN, Paris, Vieweg, n.d. [1886].

XVI., p. 335 n.

TANJORE.

Speaking of Chu-lien (Chola Dominion, Coromandel Coast), Chau Ju-kwa, pp.

93-4, says:--

"The kingdom of Chu-lien is the Southern Yin-tu of the west. To the east (its capital) is five _li_ distant from the sea; to the west one comes to Western India (after) 1500 _li_; to the south one comes to Lo-lan (after) 2500 _li_; to the north one comes to Tun-t'ien (after) 3000 _li_."