IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
446
MARCO POLO BOOK II.
greatly pleased if he did so. And since then he has
taken to do for the poor so much as you have heard.l]
NOTE I.—This is a curious testimony to an ameliorating effect of Buddhism on rude nations. The general establishment of medical aid for men and animals is alluded to in the edicts of Asoka ; # and hospitals for the diseased and destitute were found by Fahian at Palibothra, whilst Hiuen Tsang speaks of the distribution of food and medicine at the Punyasczlds or " Houses of Beneficence," in the Panjáb. Various examples of a charitable spirit in Chinese Institutions will be found in a letter by Pére d'Entrecolles in the XVth Recueil of Lettres Ec antes ; and a similar detail in Nevius's China and the Chinese, eh. xv. ( See Prinsey's Essays, II, 15; Beal's Fahhian, 107 ; Pd. Bouda'. II. Igo.) The Tartar sentiment towards the poor survives on the Arctic shores :—" The Yakuts regard the rich as favoured by the gods ; the poor as rejected and cast out by them." (Billings, Fr. Tranls. I. 233.)
CHAPTER X XXIII.
[CONCERNING THE ASTROLOGERS IN THE CITY OF CAMBALUC.J
[THERE are in the city of Cambaluc, what with Christians,
Saracens, and Cathayans, some five thousand astrologers
and soothsayers, whom the Great Kaan provides with
annual maintenance and clothing, just as he provides the
poor of whom we have spoken, and they are in the con-
stant exercise of their art in this city.
They have a kind of astrolabe on which are inscribed
the planetary signs, the hours and critical points of the
whole year. And every year these Christian, Saracen,
and Cathayan astrologers, each sect apart, investigate by
means of this astrolabe the course and character of the
whole year, according to the indications of each of its
Moons, in order to discover by the natural course and
disposition of the planets, and the other circumstances
of the heavens, what shall be the nature of the weather,
and what peculiarities shall be produced by each Moon
* As rendered by J. Prinsep. But I see that Professor H. H. Wilson did not admit the passage to bear that meaning.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.