The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 169

Hirth and Rockhill remark, p. 98: "Ma Tuan-lin and the _Sung-sh_ reproduce textually this paragraph (the former writer giving erroneously the distance between the capital and the sea as 5000 _li_). Yule, _Marco Polo_, II, p. 335, places the princ.i.p.al port of the Chola kingdom at Kaveripattanam, the 'Pattanam' par excellence of the Coromandel Coast, and at one of the mouths of the Kaveri. He says that there seems to be some evidence that the Tanjore ports were, before 1300, visited by Chinese trade. The only Lo-lan known to mediaeval Chinese is mentioned in the _T'ang-shu_, 221'8, and is identified with the capital of Bamian, in Afghanistan. I think our text is corrupt here and that the character _lo_ should be changed to _si_, and that we should read Si-lan, our Ceylon.

Both Ma and the _Sung-sh_ say that 2500 _li_ south-east of Chu-lien was 'Si-lan-ch'-kuo with which it was at war. Of course the distance mentioned is absurd, but all figures connected with Chu-lien in Chinese accounts are inexplicably exaggerated."

XVI., pp. 336-337.

CHINESE PAG.o.dA AT NEGAPATAM.

Sir Walter ELLIOT, K.C.S.I., to whom Yule refers for the information given about this paG.o.da, has since published in the _Indian Antiquary_, VII., 1878, pp. 224-227, an interesting article with the t.i.tle: _The Edifice formerly known as the Chinese or Jaina PaG.o.da at Negapatam_, from which we gather the following particulars regarding its destruction:--

"It went by various names, as the _Puduveli-gopuram_, the old paG.o.da, Chinese paG.o.da, black paG.o.da, and in the map of the Trigonometrical Survey (Sheet 79) it stands as the Jeyna (Jaina) paG.o.da. But save in name it has nothing in common with Hindu or Muhammadan architecture, either in form or ornament."

"In 1859, the Jesuit Fathers presented a pet.i.tion to the Madras Government representing the tower to be in a dangerous condition, and requesting permission to pull it down and appropriate the materials to their own use...." In 1867 "the Fathers renewed their application for leave to remove it, on the following grounds: '1st, because they considered it to be unsafe in its present condition; 2nd, because it obstructed light and sea-breeze from a chapel which they had built behind it; 3rd, because they would very much like to get the land on which it stood; and 4th, because the bricks of which it was built would be very useful to them for building purposes.'

"The Chief Engineer, who meanwhile had himself examined the edifice, and had directed the District Engineer to prepare a small estimate for its repair, reported that the first only of the above reasons had any weight, and that it would be met if Colonel O'Connell's estimate, prepared under his own orders, received the sanction of Government. He therefore recommended that this should be given, and the tower allowed to stand....

"The Chief Engineer's proposal did not meet with approval, and on the 28th August 1867, the following order was made on the Jesuits' pet.i.tion: 'The Governor in Council is pleased to sanction the removal of the old tower at Negapatam by the officers of St. Joseph's College, at their own expense, and the appropriation of the available material to such school-building purposes as they appear to have in contemplation.

"The Fathers were not slow in availing themselves of this permission. The venerable building was speedily levelled, and the site cleared."

In making excavations connected with the college a bronze image representing a Buddhist or Jaina priest in the costume and att.i.tude of the figures in wood and metal brought from Burma was found; it was presented to Lord Napier, in 1868; a reproduction of it is given in Sir Walter Elliot's paper.

In a note added by Dr. Burnell to this paper, we read: "As I several times in 1866 visited the ruin referred to, I may be permitted to say that it had become merely a shapeless ma.s.s of bricks. I have no doubt that it was originally a _vimana_ or shrine of some temple; there are some of precisely the same construction in parts of the Chingleput district."

XVI., p. 336 n.

NEGAPATAM.

We read in the _Tao yi chi lio_ (1349) that "T'u t'a (the eastern stupa) is to be found in the flat land of Pa-tan (Fattan, Negapatam?) and that it is surrounded with stones. There is stupa of earth and brick many feet high; it bears the following Chinese inscription: 'The work was finished in the eighth moon of the third year _hien chw'en_ (1267).' It is related that these characters have been engraved by some Chinese in imitation of inscriptions on stone of those countries; up to the present time, they have not been destroyed." Hien chw'en is the _nien hao_ of Tu Tsung, one of the last emperors of the Southern Sung Dynasty, not of a Mongol Sovereign. I owe this information to Prof. Pelliot, who adds that the comparison between the Chinese PaG.o.da of Negapatam and the text of the _Tao yi chi lio_ has been made independent of him by Mr. Fujita in the _Tokyo-gakuho_, November, 1913, pp. 445-46. (_Cathay_, I., p. 81 n.)

XVII., p. 340. "Here [Maabar] are no horses bred; and thus a great part of the wealth of the country is wasted in purchasing horses; I will tell you how. You must know that the merchants of Kis and Hormes, Dofar and Soer and Aden collect great numbers of destriers and other horses, and these they bring to the territories of this King and of his four brothers, who are kings likewise as I told you..."

Speaking of Yung (or Wong) man, Chau Ju-kwa tells us (p. 133): "In the mountains horse-raising is carried on a large scale. The other countries which trade here purchase horses, pearls and dates which they get in exchange for cloves, cardamom seeds and camphor."

XVII., p. 341.

SUTTEES IN INDIA.

"Suttee is a Brahmanical rite, and there is a Sanskrit ritual in existence (see _Cla.s.sified Index to the Tanjore MSS._, p. 135a.). It was introduced into Southern India with the Brahman civilization, and was prevalent there chiefly in the Brahmanical Kingdom of Vijayanagar, and among the Mahrattas. In Malabar, the most primitive part of S. India, the rite is forbidden (Anacharanirnaya, v. 26). The cases mentioned by Teixeira, and in the _Lettres edifiantes_, occurred at Tanjore and Madura.

A (Mahratta) Brahman at Tanjore told one of the present writers that he had to perform commemorative funeral rites for his grandfather and grandmother on the same day, and this indicated that his grandmother had been a _sati_." YULE, _Hobson-Jobson_. Cf. _Cathay_, II., pp. 139-140.

MAABAR.

XVII., p. 345. Speaking of this province, Marco Polo says: "They have certain abbeys in which are G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses to whom many young girls are consecrated; their fathers and mothers presenting them to that idol for which they entertain the greatest devotion. And when the [monks] of a convent desire to make a feast to their G.o.d, they send for all those consecrated damsels and make them sing and dance before the idol with great festivity. They also bring meats to feed their idol withal; that is to say, the damsels prepare dishes of meat and other good things and put the food before the idol, and leave it there a good while, and then the damsels all go to their dancing and singing and festivity for about as long as a great Baron might require to eat his dinner. By that time they say the spirit of the idols has consumed the substance of the food, so they remove the viands to be eaten by themselves with great jollity. This is performed by these damsels several times every year until they are married."

Chau Ju-kwa has the following pa.s.sage in Cambodia (p. 53): "(The people) are devout Buddhists. There are serving (in the temples) some three hundred foreign women; they dance and offer food to the Buddha. They are called _a-nan_ or slave dancing-girls."

Hirth and Rockhill, who quote Marco Polo's pa.s.sage, remark, p. 55 n.: "_A-nan_, as here written, is the usual transcription of the Sanskrit word _ananda_, 'joy, happiness.' The almeh or dancing-girls are usually called in India _deva-dasi_ ('slave of a G.o.d') or _ramjani_."

In Guzerat, Chau Ju-kwa, p. 92, mentions: "Four thousand Buddhist temple buildings, in which live over twenty thousand dancing-girls who sing twice daily while offering food to the Buddha (i.e., the idols) and while offering flowers."

XVIII., p. 356.

TRADITIONS OF ST. THOMAS.

"The traditional site of the Apostle's Tomb, now adjacent to the sea-sh.o.r.e, has recently come to be enclosed in the crypt of the new Cathedral of San Thome." (A.E. MEDLYCOTT, _India and the Apostle Thomas. An inquiry. With a critical a.n.a.lysis of the Acta Thomae_. London, David Nutt, 1905, 8vo.)

In the beginning of the sixteenth century Barbosa found the church of St.

Thomas half in ruins and grown round with jungle. A Mahomedan fakir kept it and maintained a lamp. Yet in 1504, which is several years earlier than Barbosa's voyage, the Syrian Bishop Jaballaha, who had been sent by the Patriarch to take charge of the Indian Christians, reported that the House of St. Thomas had begun to be inhabited by some Christians, who were engaged in restoring it.

Mr. W.R. Philipps has a valuable paper on _The Connection of St. Thomas the Apostle with India_ in the _Indian Antiquary_, x.x.xII., 1903, pp. 1-15, 145-160; he has come to the following conclusions: "(1) There is good early evidence that St. Thomas was the apostle of the Parthian empire; and also evidence that he was the apostle of 'India' in some limited sense, --probably of an 'India' which included the Indus Valley, but nothing to the east or south of it. (2) According to the Acts, the scene of the martyrdom of St. Thomas was in the territory of a king named, according to the Syriac version, Mazdai, to which he had proceeded after a visit to the city of a king named, according to the same version, Gudnaphar or Gundaphar. (3) There is no evidence at all that the place where St. Thomas was martyred was in Southern India; and all the indications point to another direction. (4) We have no indication whatever, earlier than that given by Marco Polo, who died 1324, that there ever was even a tradition that St. Thomas was buried in Southern India."

In a recent and learned work (_Die Thomas Legende_, 1912, 8vo.) Father J.

Dahlmann has tried to prove that the story of the travels of St. Thomas in India has an historical basis. If there is some possibility of admitting a voyage of the Apostle to N.W. India (and the flourishing state of Buddhism in this part of India is not in favour of Christian Evangelization), it is impossible to accept the theory of the martyrdom of St. Thomas in Southern India.

The late Mr. J.F. FLEET, in his paper on St. Thomas and Gondophernes (_Journ. Roy. As. Soc._, April, 1905, pp. 223-236), remarks that "Mr.

Philipps has given us an exposition of the western traditional statements up to the sixth century." He gives some of the most ancient statements; one in its earliest traceable form runs thus: "According to the Syriac work ent.i.tled The Doctrine of the Apostles, which was written in perhaps the second century A.D., St. Thomas evangelized 'India.' St. Ephraem the Syrian (born about A.D. 300, died about 378), who spent most of his life at Edessa, in Mesopotamia, states that the Apostle was martyred in 'India'

and that his relics were taken thence to Edessa. That St. Thomas evangelized the Parthians, is stated by Origen (born A.D. 185 or 186, died about 251-254). Eusebius (bishop of Caesarea Palaestinae from A.D. 315 to about 340) says the same. And the same statement is made by the Clementine Recognitions, the original of which may have been written about A.D. 210.

A fuller tradition is found in the Acts of St. Thomas, which exist in Syriac, Greek, Latin, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Arabic, and in a fragmentary form in Coptic. And this work connects with St. Thomas two eastern kings, whose names appear in the Syriac version as Gudnaphar, Gundaphar, and Mazdai; and in the Greek version as Goundaphoros, Goundiaphoros, Gountaphoros, and Misdaios, Misdeos; in the Latin version as Gundaforus, Gundoforus, and Misdeus, Mesdeus, Migdeus; and in the remaining versions in various forms, of the same kind, which need not be particularized here." Mr. Fleet refers to several papers, and among them to one by Prof.

Sylvain Levi, _Saint Thomas, Gondophares et Mazdeo (Journ., As.,_ Janv.-Fev., 1897, pp. 27-42), who takes the name Mazdai as a transformation of a Hindu name, made on Iranian soil and under Mazdean influences, and arrived at through the forms Bazodeo, Bazdeo, or Bazodeo, Bazdeo, which occur in Greek legends on coins, and to identify the person with the king Vasudeva of Mathura, a successor of Kanishka. Mr. Fleet comes to the conclusion that: "No name, save that of Guduphara--Gondophernes, in any way resembling it, is met with in any period of Indian history, save in that of the Takht-i-Bahi inscription of A.D. 46; nor, it may be added, any royal name, save that of Vasudeva of Mathura, in any way resembling that of Mazdai. So also, as far as we know or have any reason to suppose, no name like that of Guduphara--Gondophernes is to be found anywhere outside India, save in the tradition about St. Thomas."

XVIII., p. 357.

CALAMINA.

On this city of the martyrdom of St. Thomas, see _Indian Antiquary_, x.x.xII., pp. 148 seq. in Mr. Philipps' paper, and x.x.xIII., Jan., 1904, pp. 31-2, a note signed W.R.P.

XIX., p. 361. "In this kingdom [Mutfili] also are made the best and most delicate buckrams, and those of highest price; in sooth they look like tissue of spider's web!"

In Nan p'i (in Malabar) Chau Ju-kwa has (p. 88): "The native products include pearls, foreign cotton-stuff of all colours (i.e. coloured chintzes) and _tou-lo mien_ (cotton-cloth)." Hirth and Rockhill remark that this cotton-cloth is probably "the buckram which looks like tissue of spider's web" of which Polo speaks, and which Yule says was the famous muslin of Masulipatam. Speaking of Cotton, Chau Ju-kwa (pp. 217-8) writes: "The _ki pe_ tree resembles a small mulberry-tree, with a hibiscus-like flower furnishing a floss half an inch and more in length, very much like goose-down, and containing some dozens of seeds. In the south the people remove the seed from the floss by means of iron chopsticks, upon which the floss is taken in the hand and spun without troubling about twisting together the thread. Of the cloth woven therefrom there are several qualities; the most durable and the strongest is called _t'ou-lo-mien_; the second quality is called _fan-pu_ or 'foreign cloth'; the third 'tree cotton' or _mu-mien_; the fourth _ki-pu_. These textures are sometimes dyed in various colours and brightened with strange patterns. The pieces measure up to five or six feet in breadth."

XXI., p. 373.

THE CITY OF CAIL.

Prof. E.H. PARKER writes in the _Journal of the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Soc._, x.x.xVII., 1906, p. 196: "Yule's identification of Kayal with the Kolkhoi of Ptolemy is supported by the Sung History, which calls it both Ko-ku-lo and Ku-lo; it was known at the beginning of the tenth century and was visited by several Chinese priests. In 1411 the Ming Dynasty actually called it Ka-i-leh and mention a chief or king there named Ko-pu-che-ma."

XXII., p. 376. "OF THE KINGDOM OF COILUM.--So also their wine they make from [palm-] sugar; capital drink it is, and very speedily it makes a man drunk."

Chau Ju-kwa in Nan p'i (Malabar) mentions the wine (p. 89): "For wine they use a mixture of honey with cocoanuts and the juice of a flower, which they let ferment." Hirth and Rockhill remark, p. 91, that the Kambojians had a drink which the Chinese called _mi-t'ang tsiu_, to prepare which they used half honey and half water, adding a ferment.

XXII., p. 380 n. "This word [_Sappan_] properly means _j.a.pan_, and seems to have been given to the wood as a supposed product of that region."

"The word _sappan_ is not connected with j.a.pan. The earliest records of this word are found in Chinese sources. _Su-fang su-pwan_, to be restored to _'supang_ or _'spang_, _'sbang_; _Caesalpinia sappan_, furnishing the sappan wood, is first described as a product of Kiu-chen (Tong King) in the _Nan fang ts'ao mi chuang_, written by Ki Han at the end of the third or beginning of the fourth century. J. de Loureiro (_Flora cochinchinensis_, p. 321) observes in regard to this tree, 'Habitat in altis montibus Cochinchinae: indeque a mercatoribus sinensibus abunde exportatur.' The tree accordingly is indigenous to Indo-China, where the Chinese first made its acquaintance. The Chinese transcription is surely based on a native term then current in Indo-China, and agrees very well with Khmer _sban_ (or _sbang_): see AYMONIER et CABATON, _Dict.

cam-francais_, 510, who give further Cam _hapan_, Batak _sopan_, Maka.s.sar _sappan_, and Malay _sepan_. The word belongs to those which the Mon-Khmer and Malayan languages have anciently in common." (Note of Dr. B. LAUFER.)

XXIV., p. 386, also pp. 391, 440.

FANDARAINA.