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0207 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 207 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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314. PIANFU   803

of Lung-ya-mên came in 1325 ( YS, 29, 9 b). Lung-ya may be a semantic adaptation of a native name, although ROUFFAER did not bring it in when discussing the ancient names of Singapore and Johor in Bijdragen, Lxxvii, 156, and seems to have considered it to be purely Chinese. The kingdom of Ai - Pin-tan (= Bintan) is named under 1323 in YS, 23, 4 b.

Polo, after a digression to « Malaiur », starts his account again from « Pentan ». On the probably wrong repetition of « Pentan » in the middle of this chapter, cf. « Malaiur ».

Odoric speaks of « Paten » (var. « Pantem », etc.; Maundevilie, « Pathen », etc.), also called « Maiamasimi » (var. « Taiamasim », etc.; Maundeville, « Taiamassy », etc.; cf. HALLBERG, 413; Y1, II, 155; Icy, 447). The names are so uncertain and the data so vague that no safe conclusion can be reached for the present as to the place Odoric intended to describe. By reading « Talamasi », we should not be very far from Ibn Ballùlah's « Tawaiisi »; that does not help much however, as « Tawaiisi » is otherwise unknown.

314. PIANFU

panfa TA3 paymphu VL

pianfu F, FA, FB, L, TAI, VA, VB; R

piansu LT, VB pufun V

pyanfu P, Z zianfu VB

All commentators agree that this is   4) P'ing-yang-fu in Shan-hsi. As in the case of

Taianfu, of Saianfu, etc., « Pianfu » must be the form used by Persians in China. Rasidu-'d-Din,

in Bl, II, 181, is made by BLOCHET to speak of 1'   Tung-ping-fu, that is to say   'r J j
Tung-p'ing-fu in Shan-tung (see « Tundinfu »), which is irreconcilable with the trend of the narrative;

but the real reading is i   ;~ Pung-yang-fu = P'ing-yang-fu. The vowel of p'ing has often
been labialized in Central Asia, and in Chinese Turkestan, one hears regularly Taipung for - ZJ T'ai-p'ing; in Mongolian, K'ai-p'ing has given Käibung (see « Chemeinfu »); the title p'ing-chang, transcribed ~,1~i fnjän in Persian, is perhaps to be vocalized funJan, instead of the generally adopted finjan. The identification is made certain by the comparison of Ber, III, 21 (and Persian text, 32), with the corresponding passage of the Shêng-wu ch'in-chêng lu, 53 a. In both cases, Raid mentions side by side (in « scholarly » transcription) T'ai-yuan-fu and P'ing-yang-fu, and names the Qara-mörän, just as we have the three names given in succession by Polo. As has been surmised

long ago (cf. YI, I, 285), it probably was P'ing-yang which was transliterated   Bigan or
Bingan in 1421 by Sàh-Rult's envoys. But the form is not certain; in THEVENOT'S Relations de divers voyages curieux, 4th part, p. 14, it is written « Nikian », and I suspect that it is the « Sigaan » of WITSEN'S Noord en Oost Tartaryen, 1785, I, 494; a critical edition of the original of WITSEN'S list is badly needed.