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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
163. CNGUI 391
of a taboo. In 806-820, Su-ch'ien became a dependency of Hsü-chou and of P'ei-chou from 976 down to our days, almost without interruption (Ta-Ch'ing i-t'ung chih, 69, 4a).
In spite of PAUTHIER, there is little probability that Su-ch'ien was popularly called Ssûchou in Polo's days, as a survival, from T'ang times, of the century during which it was the seat of the department of Ssû-chou, and notwithstanding the fact that the new seat of Ssû-chou had already had, in the 13th cent., a long tradition of the name. But it is not much more likely that the name of Su-yü, tabooed in 762, should have still been in current use, as CHARIGNON thinks, at the end of the 13th cent. Chinese geographical names have never had the fixity and duration we are accustomed to in the West. If CHARIGNON was right, we should have to suppose that Polo uses -g- here before -i not as he usually does in value of y-, but to mark the hiatus between su and yü, as he does perhaps with the first -g- of « Coigangiu » (though not in « Cauyu »); before -i, however, it ought to be -gh- (see « Paughin »). The whole of this argument is not very satisfactory.
Provisionally, I incline to the following solution. The first part of the name would represent the su of Su-ch'ien, but read hsii (cf. « Cuigiu » < *Siugiu = Hsü-chou in Ssû-ch'uan). The character has both pronunciations, and although the K'ang-hsi tziï-tien and most of our Western authors (PLAYFAIR, GILES, etc.) write Su-ch'ien, a pronunciation Hsü-ch'ien (« Siu-ts'ien », in French spelling) may have been and is perhaps still in use locally. CHARIGNON, who was there himself, writes «Siu-ts'ien », unfortunately without any comment on the possible dual pronunciation su and hsü. As to the second part of the name, the -giu of the best mss. generally represents chou in Polo. But it may be that the name was altered by copyists under the influence of the frequent -giu = chou. Suppose Polo wished to refer to Hsü-ch'ien; he, or rather Rustichello, would put it down as «Siucin» or «Ciucin »; it is an easy change for a copyist of the archetype (all our mss. have common faults) to turn this into «Ciugiu ».
163. CIUGUI (c. 177)
| caiguy FA chongiughati TA3 cinguos S ciugui F, L (?) | ciuguy FB congu ighati (?) TA' cuigui F, Z, L cyngui VL | tingui R zengui V zinguj VA |
This represents a pronunciation crugi (for yugi ?; but we would expect « gioghi ») of Skr. yogin > Hind. yogi, «ascetic ». The form MJJJf cho-ki, noted in India by Ma Huan some time before 1433, represents also yogi (cf. TP, 1915, 450). For other transcriptions, cf. YULE, HobsonJobson2, 461-462; DALGADO, Glosscirio Luso-Asicitico, I, 490-494; Mircea ELIADE, Yoga, Paris, 1936, 254-265. LoKoTSCH, Etym. Wörterbuch, No. 2169, is very brief on the point.
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