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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. LXI. THE CITY OF CIIINANGLI
135
an individual who may have personally known Marco Polo, in speaking of the custom prevalent there of exposing the dead, adds : " There are some, however, who burn their dead. These are all descendants of Chinese immigrants."
[Professor J. J. M. de Groot remarks that " being of religious origin, cremation is mostly denoted in China by clerical terms, expressive of the metamorphosis the funeral pyre is intended to effect, viz. ` transformation of man ' ; ` transformation of the body ' ;
metamorphosis by fire.' Without the clerical sphere it bears no such high-sounding names, being simply called ` incineration of corpses.' A term of illogical composition, and nevertheless very common in the books, is ` fire burial.' " It appears that during the Sung Dynasty cremation was especially common in the provinces of Shan-si, Cheh-kiang, and Kiang-su. During the Mongol Dynasty, the instances of cremation which are mentioned in Chinese books are, relatively speaking, numerous. Professor de Groot says also that " there exists evidence that during the Mongol domination cremation also throve in Fuhkien." (Religious System of China, vol. iii. pp. 1391, 1409, 141o.) —II. C.]
(Doolittle, 190 ; Deg uig nes, I. 69 ; Cathay, pp. 247, 479 ; Reinaud, I. 56 ; India in the X Vtlz Century, p. 23 ; Senzedo, p. 95 ; Rim. Am. Asiat. I. 128.)
i
CHAPTER LXI.
4
CONCERNING THE CITY OF CHINANGLI, AND THAT OF TADINFU, AND THE REBELLION OF LITAN.
CHINANGLI is a city of Cathay as you go south, and it
belongs to the Great Kaan ; the people are Idolaters,
and have paper-money. There runs through the city
a great and wide river, on which a large traffic in silk
goods and spices and other costly merchandize
passes up and down.
When you travel south from Chinangli for five days,
you meet everywhere with fine towns and villages, the
people of which are all Idolaters, and burn their dead, and
are subject to the Great Kaan, and have paper-money,
and live by trade and handicrafts, and have all the
necessaries. of life in great abundance. But there is
nothing particular to mention on the way till you come,
at the end of those five days, to TADINFU.1
This, you must know, is a very great city, and in old
times was the seat of a great kingdom ; but the Great
Kaan conquered it by force of arms. Nevertheless it is
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