IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
MARCO POLO Boox IL
I00
t
~
~
1
by the Burmese nobles, but the princess was already with child by the Bengal prince ; and their son eventually succeeded to the Burmese throne under the name of Alaungtsi-thu. When king, he travelled ali over his dominions, and visited the images which Anaurahta had set up in India. He also maintained intercourse with the King of Patteik-Kara and married his daughter. Alaungtsi-thu is stated to have lived to the age of rot years, and to have reigned 75. Even then his death was hastened by his son Nara.thu, who smothered him in the temple called Shwé-Ku (" Golden Cave "), at Pagán, and also put to death his Bengali step-mother. 'l'he father of the latter sent eight brave men, disguised as Brahmans, to avenge his daughter's death. Having got access to the royal presence through their sacred character, they slew King Narathu and then themselves. Hence King Narathu is known in the Burmese history as the Kalá-Kya Meng, or " King slain by the Hindus." He was building the great Temple at Pagán called Dha;nmayangyi, at the time of his death, which occurred about the year 1171. The great-grandson of this king was Narathihapade (presumably Narasinlza pati), the king reigning at the time of the Mongol invasion.
All these circumstances show tolerably close relations between Burma and Bengal, and also that the dynasty then reigning in Burma was descended from a Bengal stock. Sir Arthur Phayre, after noting these points, remarks : " From all these circumstances, and from the conquests attributed to Anaurahta, it is very probable that, after the conquest of Bengal by the Mahoredans in the 13th century, the kings of Burma would assume the title of Kings of Bengal. This is nowhere expressly stated in the Burmese history, but the course of events renders it very probable. We know that the claim to Bengal was asserted by the kings of Burma in long after years. In the Journal of the Marquis of Hastings, under the date of 6th September, 1818, is the following passage : ` The king of Burma favoured us early this year with the obliging requisition that we should cede to him Moorshedabad and the provinces to the east of it, which he deigned to say were all natural dependencies of his throne.' And at the time of the disputes on the frontier of Arakan, in 18231824, which led to the war of the two following years, the Governor of Arakan made a similar demand. We may therefore reasonably conclude that at the close of the 13th century of the Christian era the kings of Pagán called themselves kings of Burma and of Bengala." (MS. Note by Sir Arthur Phayre ; see also his paper in j. A. S. B. vol. XXXV I I. part I.)
NOTE 3.—It is very difficult to know what to make of the repeated assertions of old writers as to the numbers of men carried by war-elephants, or, if we could admit those numbers, to conceive how the animal could have carried the enormous structure necessary to give them space to use their weapons. The Third Book of Maccabees is the most astounding in this way, alleging that a single elephant carried 32 stout men, besides the Indian Mahaut. Bochart indeed supposes the number here to be a clerical error for 12, but this would even be extravagant. Friar Jordanus is, no doubt, building on the Maccabees rather than on his own Oriental experience when he says that the elephant " carrieth easily more than 3o men." Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius, speaks of to to 15 ; Ibn Batuta of about 20 ; and a great elephant sent by Timur to the Sultan of Egypt is said to have carried 20 drummers. Christopher Borri says that in Cochin China the elephant did ordinarily carry 13 or 14 persons, 6 on each side in two tiers of 3 each, and 2 behind. On the other hand, among the ancients, Strabo and Aelian speak of three soldiers only in addition to the driver, and Livy, describing the Battle of Magnesia, of four. These last are reason-
able statements.
(Bockart, Hierozoicon, ed. 3rd, p. 266 ; ford., p. 26 ; Philost. trad. par A. Chassaing, liv. II. c. ii. ; Ibn Bat. II. 223 ; N. and E. XIV. 51o; Cochin China, etc., London, 1633, ed. 3 ; Arnzandi, Hist. Militaire des Elephants, 259 segq. 442. )
í
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.