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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. IV. THE SEA OF CHIN
1
265
outward and the other that brings them homeward ;
and the one of these winds blows all the winter, and the
other all the summer. And you must know these regions
are so far from India that it takes a long time also for
the voyage thence.
Though that Sea is called the Sea of Chin, as I have
told you, yet it is part of the Ocean Sea all the same.
But just as in these parts people talk of the Sea of
England and the Sea of Rochelle, so in those countries
they speak of the Sea of Chin and the Sea of India, and
so on, though they all are but parts of the Ocean.3
Now let us have done with that region which is very
inaccessible and out of the way. Moreover, Messer
Marco Polo never was there. And let me tell you the
Great Kaan has nothing to do with them, nor do they
render him any tribute or service.
So let us go back to Zayton and take up the order of
our book from that point.'
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NOTE I.—" Several of the (Chinese) gods have horns on the forehead, or wear animals' heads ; some have three eyes. . . . Some are represented in the Indian manner with a multiplicity of arms. We saw at Yang-cheu fu a goddess with thirty arms." (Deguignes, I. 364-366.)
The reference to any particular form of idolatry here is vague. But in Tibetan Buddhism, with which Marco was familiar, all these extravagances are prominent, though repugnant to the more orthodox Buddhism of the South.
When the Dalai Lama carne to visit the Altun Khan, to secure the reconversion of the Mongols in 1577, he appeared as a manifest embodiment of the Bodhisatva Avalokiteçvara, with four hands, of which two were always folded across the breast !
The same Bodhisatva is sometimes represented with eleven heads. Manjushri
manifests himself in a golden body with woo hands and moo Patras or vessels, in each of which were I000 figures of Sakya visible, etc. (Koeppen, II. 137 ; Vassilyev,
200.
No'rE 2.—Polo seems in this passage to be speaking of the more easterly Islands of the Archipelago, such as the Philippines, the Moluccas, etc., but with vague ideas
of their position.
NOTE 3.—In this passage alone Polo makes use of the now familiar name of CHINA. " Chin," as he says, " in the language of those Isles means Manzi." In fact, though the form Chin is more correctly Persian, we do get the exact form China from " the language of those Isles," i.e. from the Malay. China is also used in
Japanese.
What he says about the Ocean and the various names of its harts is nearly a
version of a passage in the geographical Poem of Dionysius, ending :—
0U-run 'S2Keav63 7reptUbapo,ue yaîav cí7raaav
Toîos am Kai TOîa µET' úvôpácrcv ovvó,ua8' eÄKwv (42-3).
VIP
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