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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
322
MARCO POLO l3ooK Itt.
lastly, there is the house (of Adam), which he made with his own hands. It is of an oblong quadrangular shape like a sepulchre, with a door in the middle, and is formed
of great tabular slabs of marble, not cemented, but merely laid one upon another. (Cathay, 358.) A Chinese account, translated in Amyot's Afémoires, says that at the foot of the mountain is a Monastery of Bonzes, in which is seen the veritable body of
Fo, in the attitude of a man lying on his side " (KIV. 25). [Ma-Huan says (p. 212) : " Buddhist temples abound there. In one of them there is to be seen a full length recumbent figure of Shâkyamuni, still in a very good state of preservation. The dais on
which the figure reposes is inlaid with all kinds of precious stones. It is made of sandal-
wood and is very handsome. The temple contains a Buddha's tooth and other relics. This must certainly be the place where Shâkyamuni entered Nirvâna."—H. C.]
Osorio, also, in his history of Emanuel of Portugal, says : " Not far from it (the
Peak) people go to see a small temple in which are two sepulchres, which are the objects of an extraordinary degree of superstitious devotion. For they believe that in
these were buried the bodies of the first man and his wife " (f. 120 y.). A German traveller (Daniel Parthey, Nürnberg, 1698) also speaks of the tomb of Adam and his sons on the mountain. (See Fabricius, Cod. Pseudep. Vet. Test. II. 31 ; also Ouseley's Travels, I. 59.)
It is a perplexing circumstance that there is a double set of indications about the footmark. The Ceylon traditions, quoted above from Hardy, call its length 3 inches
less than a carpenter's cubit. Modern observers estimate it at 5 feet or 5- feet. Hardy accounts for this by supposing that the original footmark was destroyed in the end of the sixteenth century. But Ibn Batuta, in the 14th, states it at i i spans, or more than the modern report. [Ibn Khordâdhbeh at 70 cubits.—H. C.] Marignolli, on the other hand, says that he measured it and found it to be 22 palms, or about half
a Prague ell, which corresponds in a general way with Hardy's tradition. Valentyn calls it i ell in length ; Knox says 2 feet ; Herman Bree (De Bry ?), quoted by
Fabricius, 81 spans ; a Chinese account, quoted below, 8 feet. These discrepancies remind one of the ancient Buddhist belief regarding such footmarks, that they seemed greater or smaller in proportion to the faith of the visitor ! (See Koeppen, I. 529, and
Beal's Fah-hian, p. 27.) .
The chains, of which Ibn Batuta gives a particular account, exist still. The highest was called (he says) the chain of the Slzahadat, or Credo, because the fearful
abyss below made pilgrims recite the profession of belief. Ashraf, a Persian poet of the 15th century, author of an Alexandriad, ascribes these chains to the great conqueror, who devised them, with the assistance of the philosopher Bolinas,* in order to scale the mountain, and reach the sepulchre of Adam. (See Ouseley, I. 54 segq.) There are inscriptions on some of the chains, but I find no account of them. (Skeen's Adam's Peak, Ceylon, 187o, p. 226. )
No'rE 2.—The general correctness with which Marco has here related the legendary history of Sakya's devotion to an ascetic life, as the preliminary to his becoming the Buddha or Divinely Perfect Being, shows what a strong impression the tale had made upon him. He is, of course, wrong in placing the scene of the history in Ceylon, though probably it was so told him, as the vulgar in all Buddhist countries do seem to localise the legends in regions known to them.
Sakya Sinha, Sakya Muni, or Gautama, originally called Siddhárta, was the son
4.
+; of Súddhodhana, the Kshatriya prince of Kapilavastu, a small state north of the
Ganges, near the borders of Oudh. His high destiny had been foretold, as well as
44 the objects that would move him to adopt the ascetic life. To keep these from his
knowledge, his father caused three palaces to be built, within the limits of which the prince should pass the three seasons of the year, whilst guards were posted to bar the approach of the dreaded objects. But these precautions were defeated by inevitable destiny and the power of the Devas.
* Apollonia (of Macedonia) is made Bolina ; so Bolinas=Apolloiiius (Tyanaeus).
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