National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

386. ZAFU   885

Tarikh-i-Rashidi, 257, 296; STEIN, Ancient Khotan, 87, 88). It may be worth pointing out that Hsü Sung, who had travelled in Chinese Turkestan, devotes a passage of his Hsi yü shui-tao chi, completed in 1821, to ancient sites at Yàrkänd : « At the south-eastern corner inside the city, there is an

old stûpa (   fou-t'u), more than 300 feet high; the Moslems call it it Ift T'u-t'ê (? Tut) and say
that it was built by people of the kingdom of K'a-Ia-ho-t'ai (Qara-Litaï); it is entirely made of bricks, without beams or rafters. South of the city, there is an old tomb, with several tens of pine-trees and cypresses, and stone sheep, camels and horses, and also with two men of stone holding in their hands the tablet (hu) and carrying swords. People say that it is the tomb of a man of the kingdom of Qara-Litai. If any one tries to dig there, there is wind and rain. The people of that region cal-the Chinese Ho-t'ai (Litai) ». Hsü Sung was a careful scholar, and in view of the evident exaggel ration in the height of the st üpa, one may be permitted to doubt whether he ever visited it himself. But the details given suggest that it was a Buddhist stüpa, and consequently prior to the QaraLitai occupation of the 12th cent. The name is not clear; tut means « mulberry » in Turki, but could not be used alone as the name of a stiipa. The tomb with the stone statues of men and animals is still more puzzling; the arrangement suggests a Chinese prototype, and the Qara-Litai may have used it. But no conclusion can be reached at present, and Hsü Sung's information can only be taken as an incentive to further inquiries on the spot.

Some Polo Mss. mention at Yârkänd the presence of Jacobites alongside with Nestorians; for a discussion of this point, see « Jacobins ».

385.  YRAC

arac TAl, TA3   irach V   yrac F, FA, FB, L, LT

hirach R   irachi VB   yrach Z

`Iraq, our Irak. I do not find the name in any other western mediaeval source. Polo misapplies it when he includes Tabriz in Yrac; cf. Y, I, 75.

386.  ZAFU

zafu VB (cf. CACIONFU and CAICIU).