IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
CX11 PRELIMINARY ESSAY.
be easy to discover in a list of Chinese sovereigns any name resembling Kalatin son of Shakhbar or Shakhir. In one of the notes appended to this paper will be given an abstract of the chief points of this journey, real or pretended.)
85. The account of China in the Geography of Edrisi, written under the patronage of King Roger II of Sicily, and completed in 1153-54, is, like the whole of his account of South-eastern Asia, including India, very meagre and confused. Professing to give the distances between places, he generally under-estimates these enormously, insomuch that in a map compiled from his distances Asia would, I apprehend, assume very contracted dimensions. Owing to his manner of dealing with the world in successive climates or zones of latitude the passages in his work treating of China are scattered over nearly all parts of the book ; but the general result is something like the following :
China is a great and populous empire whose supreme king is called the Baghbugh.2 This sovereign is just, powerful, sage, and provident, easy and gentle in his administration, generous in his gifts, attentive to what goes on in foreign countries, but much occupied with the interests of his own subjects, who are admitted to his presence readily, and without having to apply for the intervention of subordinates. In religion he follows an idolatrous faith differing but little from that of India ; but he follows it devoutly, and is liberal to the poor.
The people are dark like those of Hind and Sind. They live upon rice, coco-nut milk, sugar, and mokl (said to be the fruit of
have no possibility of assimilation to those in the text (Deg. i, 124129) .
1 See Note XII.
2 This word in various forms, Baghb•ugh, Baghbûr, Faghfûr, is applied as a generic title to the emperors of China by old Arabian and Persian writers, and appears in Marco Polo as applied to the dethroned Sung emperor in the form Facfur (part i, c. 62, 63). It is, according to Neumann, a translation of the Chinese title Tientsé or Son of Heaven" into old Persian, in which Bak is Divinity (Sansk. Bhaga, Hindi Bhagwhn), and Fur is Son" (Sansk. putra). The elements of the name are still to be found in the modern Persian dictionaries : "Bagh, The name of an Idol," and Par, A Son." So Shahpûr, the Sapor of the Romans, is
" King's Son" (see Biirck's Polo, p. 629 ; Pauthicr's Polo, 453 ; F. Johnson's Dict.).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.