IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
| clxxxvi | PRELIMINARY ESSAY. |
Assam, whilst the muslins that pass through a ring are the produce of Eastern Bengal (Dacca muslins). Pegu is known in Burma, Buddhistoclassically, as Rahrnaniya,1 and I have little doubt that this is the name involved, though I should be sorry to define more particularly the limits of the region intended by the Arab writer.2
Then come an inland people of white complexion with pierced ears, and remarkable for their beauty, called KASHIB'N, or, as Masudi has it, Kaman. M. Reinaud says Mysore, but only because he had last said Visiapur. He cannot suppose that the people of Mysore are white in any sense. All that can be said is that this and all the other kingdoms
` mentioned afterwards appear to be in Farther India. These are KAI-
RANJ, said to be on the sea, probably the sea called Kadranj, in the list of seas between Oman and China ;3 then MUJAH, where there is much good musk and very long ranges of snowy mountains ; and MABAD or MAYAD, the people of both of which resemble the Chinese, whilst the latter touch the Chinese frontier. These are to be sought in the vicinity of Yunan, which has much musk and very long ranges of snowy mountains.
NOTE XII.
'ABSTRACT OF THE TRAVELS OF IBN MUHALHAL.
Quitting Khorasan and the Mahomedan cities of Mawarulnahr, with the ambassadors of China, as mentioned in the text, the party came first to the territory of HARKAH (or Harkat). It took a month to pass through this region, and then they came to that of THATHAH, through which they travelled for twenty days. The people of this country are in alliance with those of Harkat to repel the inroads of the Pagans, and they are subject to the orders of the Emperor of China. They pay tribute also to Harkat, as the latter lies between them and the Musulman
1 The great Burmese inscription at Kaungmtidhau Pagoda, near Ava, thus defines : " All within the great districts of Hanzawadi (i.e., the city of Pegu), Digun (Rangoon), Dala (opposite Rangoon), Kothian, Youngmyo, and Mauttama (Martaban) is the great kingdom of RAMANIYA" (Mission to Ava, p. 351.) Arramaniya is also used in the Ceylonese annals to designate some country of the Transgangetic Peninsula (see Tumour's Epitome, p. 41). The sounding titles of many of the Indo-Chinese princes refer to their possession of vast numbers of elephants.
2 The kings of India as given by Ibn Khurdadbah (supra, p. cix), are the Balhara, the kings of Jabah, Tafan, Juzr, Ghcnah or 'Anah, Rahma, and Kamrun. G-hanah seems to have no parallel in other lists, nor can I conjecture what is meant.
3 A passage quoted by Dulaurier, in relation to camphor, from an Arabic author, Ishak Bin Amram, says that the best camphor comes from "Herenj, which is Little China." This seems to point either to Borneo or to Cochin China (Jour. Asiat., ser. iv, tom. viii, p. 218).
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