IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
264 155. CIN
case of ci- = ,f-, see « Ciandu ». The « Sulistan » of RR, 435, and of BI, 447, is a compromise. Polo gives «Cielstan» as one of the eight « kingdoms » of Persia. Cf. Y, I, 85; LS, 245, 262; and the notices « Shill » and « Shülistàn » by MINORSKY in EI. Fra Mauro, copying Polo, writes «Ceistan » (HALLBERG, 148-149).
There is on the Chinese map of c. 1330 and in the corresponding list of YS, 63, 16 b, a name, âR IJ - Shê-la-tzû, which BRETSCHNEIDER (Br, II, 127) believed to be Sülistan (his opinion is adopted in MINORSKY'S notice) ; I think it is more probably Sirâz (see « Çiraç »). Next to it,
however, there is another name, fa *IJ Hsieh-la-shih, in which BRETSCHNEIDER saw Sirâz, and
which becomes available for Sûlistän. But the transcription would be most unsatisfactory. We should expect either simply a transcription of Sill, or a complete transcription of Sûlistàn. I have no certain solution to propose. Särabs (Serakhs) is too far away in the north, and moreover appears as Sa-la-ha-hsi, Sarabs. Perhaps we ought to read in both texts ig *IJ A Hsieh-la-fu, Sirâf. No solution is offered in T'u Chi, 160, 24 a.
| 155. CIN chuigi, chuuichan V ci F im FA, TA3 cin F, L, TAI, TA3, Z; R | cino, zino VB cym FA cyn FB, P | cui L, VA çin Z çiri, ziri LT |
The name occurs in Polo only in connection with the « sea of Cin », our China Sea, «Cin» being, according to the traveller, the name given to « Mangi » (q. zv.) by the « islanders » of those
parts. Polo evidently refers to the Persian form - ein. BENEDETTO'S hypothesis (B', 441)
that « CM » should probably be pronounced « Sin » on account of the Arabic « as-Sin » cannot be retained. HALLBERG (pp. 125, 148), under « Cataia» and « Cin », refers the reader to an «appendix» which I believe has never been published.
Classical antiquity knew China and the Chinese under two names, Clips (Lat. Seres), and *Olv (?; O7va, Oc""vac) or Sinai. Both have been the subject of long controversies, summed up in YULE, Hobson-Jobson2, 196-198, and Cathay (Y1 I, 1-28). I agree with VON GUTSCHMID (Kleine Schriften, III, 606) that the formal distinction between « Seres » and « Sinai » is peculiar to Ptolemy and his school.
I shall not enter into a detailed examination of the name « Seres », but some statements will be of use for the further discussion of *Oiv. The occurrence of « Seres » in Ctesias and Onesicritus (in Strabo) is extremely doubtful (Y', I, 14), but the name was familiar to authors of the 1st cent. B.c. (Virgil, Horace, etc.). /npcxa, «silk textiles », are said to be mentioned at the end of the 4th cent. B.C. by Nearchus (in Strabo, xv, 1, 20), and a',pcx6v is hardly to be separated from
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.