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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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CHAP. XLI.   CITY OF SI-NGAN FU

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Whatever may have been the origin of the name Kenjanfu, Baron V. Richthofen was, on the spot, made aware of its conservation in the exact form of the Ramusian Polo. The Roman Catholic missionaries there emphatically denied that Marco could ever have been at Si-ngan fu, or that the city had ever been known by such a name as Kenjan-fu. On this the Baron called in one of the Chinese pupils of the Mission, and asked him directly what had been the name of the city under the Yuen Dynasty. Ht. replied at once with remarkable clearness : " QUEN-ZAN-FU." Everybody present was struck by the exact correspondence of the Chinaman's pronunciation of the name with that which the German traveller had adopted from Ritter.

[The vocabulary Eweï Hwei (Mahomedan) of the College of Interpreters at Peking transcribes King chao from the Persian Kin-chang, a name it gives to the Shen-si province. King chao was called Ngan-si fu in 1277. (Devéria, Epigraphic) p. 9.) Ken-jan comes from Kin-chang =King-chao = Si-ngan fu.—H. C.]

Martini speaks, apparently from personal knowledge, of the splendour of the city, as regards both its public edifices and its site, sloping gradually up from the banks of the River Wei, so as to exhibit its walls and palaces at one view like the interior of an amphitheatre. West of the city was a sort of Water. Park, enclosed by a wall 30 li in circumference, full of lakes, tanks, and canals from the Wei, and within this park were seven fine palaces and a variety of theatres and other places of public diversion. To the south-east of the city was an artificial lake with palaces, gardens, park, etc., originally formed by the Emperor Hiaowu (B.c. loo), and to the south of the city was another considerable lake called Fan. This may be the Fanchan Lake, beside which Rashid says that Ananda, the son of Mangalai, built his palace.

The adjoining districts were the seat of a large Musulman population, which in 1861-1862 [and again in 1895 (See II ~llby, Tibet, ch. xxv.)—H. C.] rose in revolt against the Chinese authority, and for a time was successful in resisting it. The capital itself held out, though invested for two years ; the rebels having no artillery. The movement originated at Hwachau, some 6o miles east of Si-ngan fu, now totally destroyed. But the chief seat of the Mahomedans is a place which they call Salar, identified with Hochau in Kansuh, about 70 miles south-west of Lanchau-fu, the capital of that province. [Mr. Rockhill (Land of the Lainas, p. 4o) writes : " Colonel Yule, quoting a Russian work, has it that the word Salar is used to designate Ho-chou, but this is not absolutely accurate. Prjevalsky (Mongolia, II. 149) makes the following complicated statement : ` The Karatangutans outnumber the Mongols in Koko-nor, but their chief habitations are near the sources of the Yellow River, where they are called Salirs ; they profess the Mohammedan religion, and have rebelled against China.' I will only remark here that the Salar have absolutely no connection with the so-called Kara-tangutans, who are Tibetans. In a note by Archimandrite Palladius, in the same work (II. 7o), he attempts to show a connection between the Salar and a colony of Mohammedans who settled in Western Kan-Suh in the last century, but the Ming shin (History of the Ming Dynasty) already makes mention of the Salar, remnants of various Turkish tribes (Hsi-ch'iang) who had settled in the districts of Ho-chou, Huang-chou, T'ao-chou, and Min-chou, and who were a source of endless trouble to

the Empire. (See Wei Yuen, Sheng wu-I'i, vii. 35 ; also Huang clz'ing slzilz kung t'z', v. 7.) The Russian traveller, Potanin, found the Salar living in twenty-four villages,

near Hsün-hua t'ing, on the south bank of the Yellow River. (See Proc. R. G. S. ix. 234.) The Annals of the Ming Dynasty (Ming Shill, ch. 330) say that An-ting wei, 1500 li south-west of Kan-chou, was in old times known as Sa-li IVei-wu-e zr. These

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published at Shang-hai in 1895 and 1897 ; the author died last year (29th September, 1901), and the translation which was to form a third part has not yet appeared. The Rev. Dr. J. Legge has given a

translation and the Chinese text of the monument, in 1888.—H. C.]

Stone monuments of character strictly analogous are frequent in the precincts of Buddhist sanctuaries, and probably the idea of this one was taken from the Buddhists. It is reasonably supposed by Pauthier that the monument may have been buried in 845, when the Emperor Wu-Tsung issued an edict, still extant, against the vast multiplication of Buddhist convents, and ordering their destruction. A clause in the edict also orders the foreign bonzes of Ta-T'sii: and /flubupa (Christian

and 1llobed or Magian 7) to return to secular life.

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