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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
I7O
MARCO POLO Boom I.
table and unfettered by traditions, were perhaps a modified remnant of the Buddhist Eremites. Colonel Newall, in a paper on the Rishis of Káshrnir, traces theirs to a number of Shiáh Sayads, who fled to Káshmir in the time of Timur. But evidently the genus was of much earlier date, long preceding the introduction of Islam. ( Vie et V. de H. T. p. 390 ; Lassen, III. 709 ; Ayeen Akb. II. 147, III. 151; J. A. S. B. XXXIX. pt. i. 265.)
We see from the Dabistan that in the 17th century Káshmir continued to be a great resort of Magian mystics and sages of various sects, professing great abstinence and credited with preternatural powers. And indeed Vámbéry tells us that even in oui own day the Kashmiri Dervishes are pre-eminent among their Mahomedan brethren for cunning, secret arts, skill in exorcisms, etc. (Dab. I. 113 seqq. II. 147-148 Vámb. Sk. of Cent. Asia, 9.)
NOTE 6.—The first precept of the Buddhist Decalogue, or Ten Obligations of the Religious Body, is not to take life. But animal food is not forbidden, though restricted. Indeed it is one of the circumstances in the Legendary History of Sakya Muni, which looks as if it must be true, that he is related to have aggravated his fatal illness by eating a dish of pork set before him by a hospitable goldsmith. Giorgi says the butchers in Tibet are looked on as infamous ; and people selling sheep or the like will make a show of exacting an assurance that these are not to be slaughtered. In Burma, when a British party wanted beef, the owner of the bullocks would decline to make one over, but would point one out that might be shot by the foreigners.
In Tibetan history it is told of the persecutor Langdarma that he compelled members of the highest orders of the clergy to become hunters and butchers. A Chinese collection of epigrams, dating from the 9th century, gives a facetious list of Incongruous Conditions, among which we find a poor Parsi, a sick Physician, a fat Bride, a Teacher who does not know his letters, and a Butcher who reads the Scriptures (of Buddhism) ! (Alph. Tib. 445 ; Koeppen, I. 74; N. and Q., C. and J. III. 33.)
NOTE 7. —Coral is still a very popular adornment in the Himalayan countries. The merchant Tavernier says the people to the north of the Great Mogul's territories and in the mountains of Assam and Tibet were the greatest purchasers of coral. ( Tr. in India, Bk. II. ch. xxiii.)
CHAPTER XXXII.
OF THE GREAT RIVER OF BADASHAN.
IN leaving Badashan you ride twelve days between east
and north-east, ascending a river that runs through land
belonging to a brother of the Prince of Badashan, and
containing a good many towns and villages and scattered
habitations. The people are Mahommetans, and valiant
in war. At the end of those twelve days you come to a
province of no great size, extending indeed no more
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