The Travels of Marco Polo
Chapter 161 : Possibly the latter may have been meant by Marco." [Captain Gill (_River of Golde

Possibly the latter may have been meant by Marco." [Captain Gill (_River of Golden Sand_, II. p. 341) at Yung-Ch'ang, speaking of the beads of a necklace, writes: "One hundred and eight is the regulation number, no one venturing to wear a necklace, with one bead more or less."]

Ward says: "The Hindus believe the repet.i.tion of the name of G.o.d is an act of adoration.... _j.a.pa_ (as this act is called) makes an essential part of the daily wors.h.i.+p.... The wors.h.i.+pper, taking a string of beads, repeats the name of his guardian deity, or that of any other G.o.d, counting by his beads 10, 28, 108, 208, adding to every 108 not less than 100 more."

(Madras ed. 1863, pp. 217-218.)

No doubt the number in the text should have been 108, which is apparently a mystic number among both Brahmans and Buddhists. Thus at Gautama's birth 108 Brahmans were summoned to foretell his destiny; round the great White PaG.o.da at Peking are 108 pillars for illumination; 108 is the number of volumes const.i.tuting the Tibetan scripture called _Kahgyur_; the merit of copying this work is enhanced by the quality of the ink used, thus a copy in red is 108 times more meritorious than one in black, one in silver 108^2 times, one in gold, 108^3 times; according to the Malabar Chronicle Parasurama established in that country 108 Iswars, 108 places of wors.h.i.+p, and 108 Durga images; there are said to be 108 shrines of especial sanct.i.ty in India; there are 108 _Upanishads_ (a certain cla.s.s of mystical Brahmanical sacred literature); 108 rupees is frequently a sum devoted to alms; the rules of the Chinese Triad Society a.s.sign 108 blows as the punishment for certain offences;--108, according to Athenaeus, were the suitors of Penelope! I find a Tibetan tract quoted (by _Koeppen_, II. 284) as ent.i.tled, "The Entire Victor over all the 104 Devils," and this is the only example I have met with of 104 as a mystic number.

NOTE 4.--The _Saggio_, here as elsewhere, probably stands for the _Miskal_.

NOTE 5.--This is stated also by Abu Zaid, in the beginning of the 10th century. And Reinaud in his note refers to Mas'udi, who has a like pa.s.sage in which he gives a name to these companions exactly corresponding to Polo's _Feoilz_ or Trusty Lieges: "When a King in India dies, many persons voluntarily burn themselves with him. These are called _Balanjariyah_ (sing. _Balanjar_), as if you should say 'Faithful Friends' of the deceased, whose life was life to them, and whose death was death to them."

(_Anc. Rel._ I. 121 and note; _Mas._ II. 85.)

On the murder of Ajit Singh of Marwar, by two of his sons, there were 84 _satis_, and "so much was he beloved," says Tod, "that even men devoted themselves on his pyre" (I. 744). The same thing occurred at the death of the Sikh Guru Hargovind in 1645. (_H. of Sikhs_, p. 62.)

Barbosa briefly notices an inst.i.tution like that described by Polo, in reference to the King of Narsinga, i.e. Vijayanagar. (_Ram._ I. f. 302.) Another form of the same bond seems to be that mentioned by other travellers as prevalent in Malabar, where certain of the Nairs bore the name of _Amuki_, and were bound not only to defend the King's life with their own, but, if he fell, to sacrifice themselves by das.h.i.+ng among the enemy and slaying until slain. Even Christian churches in Malabar had such hereditary _Amuki_. (See _P. Vinc. Maria_, Bk. IV. ch. vii., and _Cesare Federici_ in _Ram._ III. 390, also _Faria y Sousa_, by Stevens, I. 348.) There can be little doubt that this is the Malay _Amuk_, which would therefore appear to be of Indian origin, both in name and practice. I see that De Gubernatis, without noticing the Malay phrase, traces the term applied to the Malabar champions to the Sanskrit _Amokhya_, "indissoluble," and _Amukta_, "not free, bound." (_Picc. Encic. Ind._ I, 88.) The same practice, by which the followers of a defeated prince devote themselves in _amuk_ (_vulgo_ running _a-muck_),[4] is called in the island of Bali _Bela_, a term applied also to one kind of female Sati, probably from S. _Bali_, "a sacrifice." (See _Friedrich in Batavian Trans._ XXIII.) In the first syllable of the _Balanjar_ of Mas'udi we have probably the same word. A similar inst.i.tution is mentioned by Caesar among the Sotiates, a tribe of Aquitania. The _Feoilz_ of the chief were 600 in number and were called _Soldurii_; they shared all his good things in life, and were bound to share with him in death also. Such also was a custom among the Spanish Iberians, and the name of these _Amuki_ signified "sprinkled for sacrifice." Other generals, says Plutarch, might find a few such among their personal staff and dependents, but Sertorius was followed by many myriads who had thus devoted themselves. Procopius relates of the White Huns that the richer among them used to entertain a circle of friends, some score or more, as perpetual guests and partners of their wealth. But, when the chief died, the whole company were expected to go down alive into the tomb with him. The King of the Russians, in the tenth century, according to Ibn Fozlan, was attended by 400 followers bound by like vows. And according to some writers the same practice was common in j.a.pan, where the friends and va.s.sals who were under the vow committed _hara kiri_ at the death of their patron. The _Likamankwas_ of the Abyssinian kings, who in battle wear the same dress with their master to mislead the enemy--"Six Richmonds in the field"--form apparently a kindred inst.i.tution. (_Bell. Gall._ iii. c. 22; _Plutarch, in Vit. Sertorii; Procop. De B. Pers._ I. 3: _Ibn Fozlan_ by _Fraehn_, p. 22; _Sonnerat_, I.

97.)

NOTE 6.--However frequent may have been wars between adjoining states, the south of the peninsula appears to have been for ages free from foreign invasion until the Delhi expeditions, which occurred a few years later than our traveller's visit; and there are many testimonies to the enormous acc.u.mulations of treasure. Gold, according to the _Masalak-al-Absar_, had been flowing into India for 3000 years, and had never been exported.

Firishta speaks of the enormous spoils carried off by Malik Kafur, every soldier's share amounting to 25 Lbs. of gold! Some years later Mahomed Tughlak loads 200 elephants and several thousand bullocks with the precious spoil of a single temple. We have quoted a like statement from Wa.s.saf as to the wealth found in the treasury of this very Sundara Pandi Dewar, but the same author goes far beyond this when he tells that Kales Dewar, Raja of Ma'bar about 1309, had acc.u.mulated 1200 crores of gold, i.e. 12,000 millions of dinars, enough to girdle the earth with a four-fold belt of bezants! (_N. and E._ XIII. 218, 220-221, _Brigg's Firishta_, I. 373-374; _Hammer's Ilkhans_, II. 205.)

NOTE 7.--Of the ports mentioned as exporting horses to India we have already made acquaintance with KAIS and HORMUZ; of DOFAR and ADEN we shall hear further on; _Soer_ is SOHaR the former capital of Oman, and still a place of some little trade. Edrisi calls it "one of the oldest cities of Oman, and of the richest. Anciently it was frequented by merchants from all parts of the world; and voyages to China used to be made from it." (I. 152.)

Ras.h.i.+duddin and Wa.s.saf have identical statements about the horse trade, and so similar to Polo's in this chapter that one almost suspects that he must have been their authority. Wa.s.saf says: "It was a matter of agreement that Malik-ul-Islam Jamaluddin and the merchants should embark every year from the island of KAIS and land at MA'BAR 1400 horses of his own breed.... It was also agreed that he should embark as many as he could procure from all the isles of Persia, such as Katif, Lahsa, Bahrein, Hurmuz, and Kalhatu. The price of each horse was fixed from of old at 220 dinars of red gold, on this condition, that if any horses should happen to die, the value of them should be paid from the royal treasury. It is related by authentic writers that in the reign of Atabek Abu Bakr of (Fars), 10,000 horses were annually exported from these places to Ma'bar, Kambayat, and other ports in their neighbourhood, and the sum total of their value amounted to 2,200,000 dinars.... They bind them for 40 days in a stable with ropes and pegs, in order that they may get fat; and afterwards, without taking measures for training, and without stirrups and other appurtenances of riding, the Indian soldiers ride upon them like demons.... In a short time, the most strong, swift, fresh, and active horses become weak, slow, useless, and stupid. In short, they all become wretched and good for nothing.... There is, therefore, a constant necessity of getting new horses annually." Amir Khusru mentions among Malik Kafur's plunder in Ma'bar, 5000 Arab and Syrian horses. (_Elliot_, III. 34, 93.)

The price mentioned by Polo appears to be intended for 500 dinars, which in the then existing relations of the precious metals in Asia would be worth just about 100 marks of silver. Wa.s.saf's price, 220 dinars of red gold, seems very inconsistent with this, but is not so materially, for it would appear that the _dinar of red gold_ (so called) was worth _two dinars_.[5]

I noted an early use of the term _Arab chargers_ in the famous Bodleian copy of the Alexander Romance (1338):

"Alexand' descent du destrier Arrabis."

NOTE 8.--I have not found other mention of a condemned criminal being allowed thus to sacrifice himself; but such suicides in performance of religious vows have occurred in almost all parts of India in all ages.

Friar Jorda.n.u.s, after giving a similar account to that in the text of the parade of the victim, represents him as _cutting off his own head_ before the idol, with a peculiar two-handled knife "like those used in currying leather." And strange as this sounds it is undoubtedly true. Ibn Batuta witnessed the suicidal feat at the Court of the Pagan King of Mul-Java (somewhere on the const of the Gulf of Siam), and Mr. Ward, without any knowledge of these authorities, had heard that an instrument for this purpose was formerly preserved at Ks.h.i.+ra, a village of Bengal near Nadiya.

The thing was called _Karavat_; it was a crescent-shaped knife, with chains attached to it forming stirrups, so adjusted that when the fanatic placed the edge to the back of his neck and his feet in the stirrups, by giving the latter a violent jerk his head was cut off. Padre Tieffentaller mentions a like instrument at Prag (or Allahabad). Durgavati, a famous Queen on the Nerbada, who fell in battle with the troops of Akbar, is a.s.serted in a family inscription to have "severed her own head with a scimitar she held in her hand." According to a wild legend told at Ujjain, the great king Vikramajit was in the habit of cutting off his own head _daily_, as an offering to Devi. On the last performance the head failed to re-attach itself as usual; and it is now preserved, petrified, in the temple of Harsuddi at that place.

I never heard of anybody in Europe performing this extraordinary feat except Sir Jonah Barrington's Irish mower, who made a dig at a salmon with the b.u.t.t of his scythe-handle and dropt his own head in the pool! (_Jord._ 33; _I.B._ IV. 246; _Ward_, Madras ed. 249-250; _J.A.S.B._ XVII. 833; _Ras Mala_, II. 387.)

NOTE 9.--Satis were very numerous in parts of S. India. In 1815 there were one hundred in Tanjore alone. (_Ritter_, VI. 303; _J. Cathay_, p. 80.)

NOTE 10.--"The people in this part of the country (Southern Mysore) consider the ox as a living G.o.d, who gives them bread; and in every village there are one or two bulls to whom weekly or monthly wors.h.i.+p is performed." (_F. Buchanan_, II. 174.) "The low-caste Hindus, called _Gavi_ by Marco Polo, were probably the caste now called _Paraiyar_ (by the English, _Pariahs_). The people of this caste do not venture to kill the cow, but when they find the carcase of a cow which has died from disease, or any other cause, they cook and eat it. The name _Paraiyar_, which means 'Drummers,' does not appear to be ancient."[6] (_Note by the Rev. Dr.

Caldwell_.)

In the history of Sind called _Chach Namah_, the Hindus revile the Mahomedan invaders as _Chandals_ and cow-eaters. (_Elliot_, I. 172, 193).

The low castes are often styled from their unrestricted diet, e.g.

_Halal-Khor_ (P. "to whom all food is lawful"), _Sab-khawa_ (H.

"omnivorous").

Babu Rajendralal Mitra has published a learned article on _Beef in ancient India_, showing that the ancient Brahmans were far from entertaining the modern horror of cow-killing. We may cite two of his numerous ill.u.s.trations. _Goghna_, "a guest," signifies literally "a cow-killer,"

i.e. he for whom a cow is killed. And one of the sacrifices prescribed in the _Sutras_ bears the name of _Sula-gava_ "spit-cow," i.e.

roast-beef. (_J.A.S.B._ XLI. Pt. I. p. 174 seqq.)

NOTE 11.--The word in the G.T. is _losci dou buef_, which Pauthier's text has converted into _suif de buef_--in reference to Hindus, a preposterous statement. Yet the very old Latin of the Soc. Geog. also has _pinguedinem_, and in a parallel pa.s.sage about the Jogis (infra, ch.

xx.), Ramusio's text describes them as daubing themselves with powder of ox-_bones_ (_l'ossa_). Apparently _l'osci_ was not understood (It.

_uscito_).

NOTE 12.--Later travellers describe the descendants of St. Thomas's murderers as marked by having one leg of immense size, i.e. by _elephantiasis_. The disease was therefore called by the Portuguese _Pejo de Santo Toma_.

NOTE 13.--Mr. Nelson says of the Madura country: "The horse is a miserable, weedy, and vicious pony; having but one good quality, endurance. The breed is not indigenous, but the result of constant importations and a very limited amount of breeding." (_The Madura Country_, Pt. II. p. 94.) The ill success in breeding horses was exaggerated to impossibility, and made to extend to all India. Thus a Persian historian, speaking of an elephant that was born in the stables of Khosru Parviz, observes that "never till then had a she-elephant borne young in Iran, any more than a lioness in Rum, a tabby cat in China (!), or _a mare in India_." (_J.A.S._ ser. III. tom. iii. p. 127.)

[Major-General Crawford T. Chamberlain, C.S.I., in a report on Stud Matters in India, 27th June 1874, writes: "I ask how it is possible that horses could be bred at a moderate cost in the Central Division, when everything was against success. I account for the narrow-chested, congenitally unfit and malformed stock, also for the creaking joints, knuckle over futtocks, elbows in, toes out, seedy toe, bad action, weedy frames, and other degeneracy: 1st, to a damp climate, altogether inimical to horses; 2nd, to the operations being intrusted to a race of people inhabiting a country where horses are not indigenous, and who therefore have no taste for them...; 5th, treatment of mares. To the impure air in confined, non-ventilated hovels, etc.; 6th, improper food; 7th, to a chronic system of tall rearing and forcing." (_MS. Note_.--H.Y.)]

NOTE 14.--This custom is described in much the same way by the Arabo-Persian Zakariah Kazwini, by Ludovico Varthema, and by Alexander Hamilton. Kazwini ascribes it to Ceylon. "If a debtor does not pay, the King sends to him a person who draws a line round him, wheresoever he chance to be; and beyond that circle he dares not to move until he shall have paid what he owes, or come to an agreement with his creditor. For if he should pa.s.s the circle the King fines him three times the amount of his debt; one-third of this fine goes to the creditor and two-thirds to the King." Pere Bouchet describes the strict regard paid to the arrest, but does not notice the symbolic circle. (_Gildem._ 197; _Varthema_, 147; _Ham._ I. 318; _Lett. Edif._ XIV. 370.)

"The custom undoubtedly prevailed in this part of India at a former time.

It is said that it still survives amongst the poorer cla.s.ses in out-of-the-way parts of the country, but it is kept up by schoolboys in a serio-comic spirit as vigorously as ever. Marco does not mention a very essential part of the ceremony. The person who draws a circle round another imprecates upon him the name of a particular divinity, whose curse is to fall upon him if he breaks through the circle without satisfying the claim." (_MS. Note by the Rev. Dr. Caldwell_.)

NOTE 15.--The statement about the only rains falling in June, July, and August is perplexing. "It is entirely inapplicable to every part of the Coromandel coast, to which alone the name Ma'bar seems to have been given, but it is quite true of the _western_ coast generally." (_Rev. Dr. C._) One can only suppose that Polo inadvertently applied to Maabar that which he knew to be true of the regions both west of it and east of it. The Coromandel coast derives its chief supply of rain from the north-east monsoon, beginning in October, whereas both eastern and western India have theirs from the south-west monsoon, between June and September.

NOTE 16.--Abraham Roger says of the Hindus of the Coromandel coast: "They judge of lucky hours and moments also by trivial accidents, to which they pay great heed. Thus 'tis held to be a good omen to everybody when the bird _Garuda_ (which is a red hawk with a white ring round its neck) or the bird _Pala_ flies across the road in front of the person from right to left; but as regards other birds they have just the opposite notion.... If they are in a house anywhere, and have moved to go, and then any one should sneeze, they will go in again, regarding it as an ill omen," etc.

(_Abr. Roger_, pp. 75-76.)

NOTE 17.--Quoth Wa.s.saf: "It is a strange thing that when these horses arrive there, instead of giving them raw barley, they give them roasted barley and grain dressed with b.u.t.ter, and boiled cow's milk to drink:--

"Who gives sugar to an owl or a crow?

Or who feeds a parrot with a carcase?

A crow should be fed with carrion, And a parrot with candy and sugar.

Who loads jewels on the back of an a.s.s?

Or who would approve of giving dressed almonds to a cow?"

--_Elliot_, III. 33.

"Horses," says Athanasius Nikitin, "are fed on peas; also on _Kicheri_, boiled with sugar and oil; early in the morning they get _s.h.i.+shenivo_."

This last word is a mystery. (_India in the XVth Century_, p. 10.)

"Rice is frequently given by natives to their horses to fatten them, and a sheep's head occasionally to strengthen them." (_Note by Dr. Caldwell_.)

The sheep's head is peculiar to the Deccan, but _ghee_ (boiled b.u.t.ter) is given by natives to their horses, I believe, all over India. Even in the stables of Akbar an imperial horse drew daily 2 lbs. of flour, 1-1/2 lb.

of sugar, and in winter 1/2 lb. of _ghee_! (_Ain. Akb._ 134.)

It is told of Sir John Malcolm that at an English table where he was present, a brother officer from India had ventured to speak of the sheep's head custom to an unbelieving audience. He appealed to Sir John, who only shook his head deprecatingly. After dinner the unfortunate story-teller remonstrated, but Sir John's answer was only, "My dear fellow, they took you for one Munchausen; they would merely have taken me for another!"

NOTE 18.--The nature of the inst.i.tution of the Temple dancing-girls seems to have been scarcely understood by the Traveller. The like existed at ancient Corinth under the name of [Greek: Ierodouloi], which is nearly a translation of the Hindi name of the girls, _Deva-dasi_. (_Strabo_, VIII.

6, -- 20.) "Each (Dasi) is married to an idol when quite young. The female children are generally brought up to the trade of the mothers. It is customary with a few castes to present their superfluous daughters to the PaG.o.das." (_Nelson's Madura Country_, Pt. II. 79.) A full account of this matter appears to have been read by Dr. Shortt of Madras before the Anthropological Society But I have only seen a newspaper notice of it.

NOTE 19.--The first part of this paragraph is rendered by Marsden: "The natives make use of a kind of bedstead or cot of very light canework, so ingeniously contrived that when they repose on them, and are inclined to sleep, _they can draw close the curtains about them by pulling a string_."

This is not translation. An approximate ill.u.s.tration of the real statement is found in Pyrard de Laval, who says (of the Maldive Islanders): "Their beds are hung up by four cords to a bar supported by two pillars.... The beds of the king, the grandees, and rich folk are made thus that they may be swung and rocked with facility." (_Charton_, IV. 277.) In the _Ras Mala_ swinging cots are several times alluded to. (I. 173, 247, 423.) In one case the bed is mentioned as suspended to the ceiling by chains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PaG.o.da at Tanjore.]

[1] "_Audax omnia perpeti_," etc.