IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
123. CASCAR 197
adopt a transcription (j' Sha-lo (*Sa-iak; cf. STEIN, Ancient Khotan, i, 48). Various attempts
have been made in China and in Europe to account for this name.
The oldest one is due to Hsüan-tsang, who, in a note of his Memoirs of 64.6, states that Shu-lo is an inaccurate rendering of the name of the capital, and that the correct form of
the latter name is ~j L 4ÿl Shih-li-ki-li-to-ti (*gjét-lji-kiat-liét-tâ-tiei). JULIEN (Mémoires,
II, 219) restored this as *Srikritati; if we abide by Hsüan-tsang's rules of transcription, the original ought to be *grikrtàti. Of course, Hsüan-tsang was himself mistaken when he tried to explain Shu-lo by the beginning of his *S`rikrati . The latter name, to judge from Hsüan-tsang's words, must be a sanskritized name of the capital, being some epithet beginning with Sri-, « fortunate », though the second part remains unexplained. FRANKE'S « grikiritadhi » (SPA W, 1903, 738; STEIN, Ancient Khotan, 50) is not acceptable. The variants mentioned by Ltvi (BEFEO, v, 261), and which have been taken into account by MARQUART, Wehrôt and der Fluss Arang, 68, are valueless : the second fij li is a wrong duplication of the first one, and #t ch'ien is a wrong duplication of L chi.
Another explanation was proposed at the beginning of the 8th cent. by g. ti Hui-yüan, a priest of Hsi-an-fu, in his commentary on the Avataî zsaka (Lo Chên-yü is mistaken when, in his
t, fn Ping-yin kao, 2 b, he identifies this Hui-yüan with a Tun-huang priest Hui-yüan for
whom a document was written by Tu Mu c. 845; neither the date nor the place will fit). Finding the name Shu-lo in the new translation of the Avatagisaka made in 695-699, Hui-yüan commented
on it as follows (Tokyo Tripit. of Meiji, , x, 121 a,140 b) : « The correct name is It tt f11
Ch'ieh-lu-shu-ta-lo (*K'ja-luo-sju-tit-iak). This country ( = China) has from old preserved it in the abbreviated form Shu-lo (*Siwo-iak), in which, moreover, the sound tt shu (*ju) was altered to iFj shu (*ySiwo). This name, however, is the name of a mountain in that country, and the designation was made on account [of the mountain]. Moreover, the name is sometimes translated 'Kingdom of Wicked Nature; it is because the nature of the people of that country is mostly savage and cruel. » The changes made to Hui-yüan's text in later compilations are few and unimportant.
S. LAvi discovered this passage in 1902, and drew from it conclusions which were sharply
opposed by O. FRANKE and PISCHEL (cf. BEFEO, II, 246-255; HI, 339-341; iv, 543-579; SPA W, 1903, 184-1%; 735-745; 1905, 238-248; J. HALtvY, Le berceau de l'écriture kharos ri, in Rev. sémitique, 1903, reprint of 15 pp.). Two different problems were concerned : the restoration of the « correct » name proposed by Hui-yüan, and its application.
LvI had restored Ch'ieh-lu-shu-ta-lo to Kharostra. FRANCKE and PISCHEL suggested
*Kalusàntara, or *Kalusadhara, or *Kalusottara, all entirely unlikely forms, which ought not to have been accepted, as they were more or less, in STEIN, Ancient Khotan, I, 49. LfvI's Kharostra is the regular original suggested by the Chinese transcription, except in two points : fli to (*tdt) generally renders a form in -t-, not in -r-; 101 to (*lak) is abnormal for -ra. Ltvi's explanation of the final character as rendering a locative Kharostre of the Sanskrit original is unfounded. My own view is that we have here to deal with an iranized form like *Kharostrag. We can now appreciate better than thirty-five years ago the important part played by the Iranians in the diffusion of Hindu doctrines in China. The texts of the Avataipsaka show a strong influence of
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.