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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
| CHAP. XVII. " TRUSTY LIEGES " | 347 | ||||||||||||
| devotees, some of whom go about repeating this one word alone. When I mentioned Marco Polo's word to two learned Hindus at different times, they said, No doubt he meant Bagava.'* The Saiva Rosary contains 32 beads ; the doubled form of the same, sometimes used, contains 64 ; the Vaishnava Rosary contains io8. Possibly the latter may have been meant by Marco." [Captain Gill (River of Golden Sand, II. p. 341) at Yung-Ch'ang, speaking of the beads of a necklace, writes : " One hundred and eight is the regulation number, no one venturing to wear a necklace, with one bead more or less "] Ward says : " The Hindtís believe the repetition of the name of God is an act of adoration jcip (as this act is called) makes an essential part of the daily No doubt the number in the text should have been io8, which is apparently a mystic number among both Brahmans and Buddhists. Thus at Gautama's birth i08 Brahmans were summoned to foretell his destiny ; round the great White Pagoda at Peking are io8 pillars for illumination ; xo8 is the number of volumes constituting the Tibetan scripture called Iíáli;yur; the merit of copying this work is enhanced by the quality of the ink used, thus a copy in red is io8 times more meritorious than one in black, one in silver io8 2 times, one in gold, io8.3 times ; according to the Malabar Chronicle Parasurama established in that country 108 Iswars, io8 places of worship, and io8 Durga images; there are said to be io8 shrines of especial sanctity in India ; there are io8 Upanishads (a certain class of mystical Brahmanical sacred literature) ; I08 rupees is frequently a sum devoted to alms ; the rules of the Chinese Triad Society assign io8 blows as the punishment for certain offences ;—io8, according to Athenaeus, were the suitors of Penelope ! I find a Tibetan tract quoted (by Koeppen, II. 284) as entitled, " The Entire Victor over all the 104 Devils," and this is the only example I have met with of 104 as a mystic number. NOT! 4.—The Saggio, here as elsewhere, probably stands for the Misled/. NOTE 5.—This is stated also by Abu Zaid, in the beginning of the loth century. And Reinaud in his note refers to Mas'udi, who has a like passage in which he gives a name to these companions exactly corresponding to Polo's Féoilz or Trusty Lieges : " When a King in India dies, many persons voluntarily burn themselves with him. These are called Baldn,iaríyak (sing. Baldnjar), as if you should say ` Faithful Friends ' of the deceased, whose life was life to them, and whose death was death to them." (Anc. Rel. I. 121 and note ; Mas. II. 85.) On the murder of Ajit Singh of Marwar, by two of his sons, there were 84 satis, and " so much was he beloved," says Tod, " that even men devoted themselves on his pyre" (I. 744). The same thing occurred at the death of the Sikh Gúrú I Iargovind in 1645. (IL of Sikhs, p. 62.) Barbosa briefly notices an institution like that described by Polo, in reference to the King of Narsinga, i.e. Vijayanagar. (Rain. I. f. 302.) Another form of the same bond seems to be that mentioned by other travellers as prevalent in Malabar, where certain of the Nairs bore the name of Annzrki, and were bound not only to defend the King's life with their own, but, if he fell, to sacrifice themselves by dashing among the enemy and slaying until slain. Even Christian churches in Malabar had such hereditary fl muki. (See P. Vine. Maria, Bk. IV. eh. vii., and Cesare Federici in Ram. III. 390, also ,aria y Sousa, by Stevens, I. 348.) There can be little doubt that this is the Malay Ai/ink, which would therefore appear to be of Indian origin, both in name and practice. I see that De Gubernatis, without noticing the Malay phrase, traces the term applied to the Malabar champions to the Sanskrit Amokllya, "indissoluble," and Amukta, " not free, bound." (Pict. Encic. Ind. I. 88.) The same practice, by which the followers of a defeated prince devote themselves in amuk (vulgo running | |||||||||||||
| * M. Pauthier has suggested the same explanation in his notes. | |||||||||||||
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