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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
MARCO POLO BOOK III.
350
Id
f
any other cause, they cook and eat it. The name 'Paraiyar, which means SM
` Drummers,' does not appear to be ancient." * (Note by the Rev. Dr. Caldwell.) ;111
In the history of Sind called Chach Namah, the Hindus revile the Mahomedan 11
invaders as Chandáls and cow-eaters. (Elliot, I. 172, 193). The low castes are often styled from their unrestricted diet, e.g. Halál-Khor (P. " to whom all food is lawful "), Sab-kJzawá (H. " omnivorous ").
Bábú Rájendralál Mitra has published a learned article on Beef in ancient India,
showing that the ancient Brahmans were far from entertaining the modern horror of $i
cow-killing. We may cite two of his numerous illustrations. God hna, " a guest," ,I
signifies literally " a cow-killer," i.e. he for whom a cow is killed. And one of the sacrifices prescribed in the Szítras bears the name of Sríla - ava " spit-cow," i.e. roast-
beef. (J. A. S. B. XLI. Pt. I. p. 174 segq. )
NOTE I I. —The word in the G. T. is losci clou beef, which Pauthier's text has converted into suif de buef—in reference to Hindus, a preposterous statement. Yet the very old Latin of the Soc. Géog. also has piny; uedinenz, and in a parallel passage about the Jogis (infra, eh. xx. ), Ramusio's text describes them as daubing themselves with powder of ox-bones (l'ossa). Apparently l'osci was not understood (It. uscito).
No I'E 12. —Later travellers describe the descendants of St. Thomas's murderers as marked by having one leg of immense size, i.e. by elephantiasis. The disease was
therefore called by the Portuguese Pejo de Santo Toma.
NOTE 13.—Mr. Nelson says of the Madura country : " The horse is a miserable, weedy, and vicious pony ; having but one good quality, endurance. The breed is not indigenous, but the result of constant importations and a very limited amount of breeding." (The Madura Country, Pt. II. p. 94.) The ill success in breeding horses was exaggerated to impossibility, and made to extend to all India. Thus a Persian historian, speaking of an elephant that was born in the stables of Khosru Parviz, observes that " never till then had a she-elephant borne young in Irán, any more than a lioness in Rúm, a tabby cat in China (!), or a mare in India." (J. A. S. sér. III. tom. iii. p. 127.)
[Major-General Crawfurd T. Chamberlain, C.S.I., in a report on Stud Matters in India, 27th June 1874, writes : " I ask how it is possible that horses coulid be bred at a moderate cost in the Central Division, when everything was against success. I account for the narrow-chested, congenitally unfit and malformed stock, also for the creaking joints, knuckle over fittocks, elbows in, toes out, seedy toe, bad action, weedy frames, and other degeneracy : ist, to a damp climate, altogether inimical to horses ; 2nd, to the operations being intrusted to a race of people inhabiting a country where horses are not indigenous, and who therefore have no taste for them . . . ; 5th, treatment of mares. To the impure air in confined, non-ventilated hovels, etc. ; 6th, improper food ; 7th, to a chronic system of tall rearing and forcing." (MS. Note.—H. Y.)]
NOTE 14.—This custom is described in much the same way by the Arabo-Persian Zakariah Kazwini, by Ludovico Varthema, and by Alexander Hamilton. Kazwini ascribes it to Ceylon. " If a debtor does not pay, the King sends to him a person who draws a line round him, wheresoever he chance to be ; and beyond that circle he dares not to move until he shall have paid what he owes, or come to an agreement with his creditor. For if he should pass the circle the King fines him three times the amount of his debt ; one-third of this fine goes to the creditor and two-thirds to the King." Père Bouchet describes the strict regard paid to the arrest, but does not notice the symbolic circle. (Gildem. 197 ; Varthema, 147 ; Hain. I. 318 ; Lett. Edif. XIV. 37o.)
" The custom undoubtedly prevailed in this part of India at a former time. It is
* I observe, however, that Sir Walter Elliot thinks it possible that the Paraya which appears on the oldest of Indian inscriptions as the naine of a nation, coupled with Chola and Kerala (Coromandel end Malabar), is that of the modern despised tribe. (J. Ethjz. Soc. n. s. I. 1o3.)
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