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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. XXIII. THE COUNTRY 'CALLED COMARI .4'. .'
383
Durgá. The monthly bathing in her honour, spoken of by the author of the Periplus, is still continued, though now the pilgrims are few. Abulfeda speaks of Rds Kumhdri as the limit between Malabar and Ma'bar. Kunu ri is the Tamul pronunciation of the Sanskrit word and probably Comari was Polo's pronunciation.
At the beginning of the Portuguese era in India we hear of a small Kingdom of C0MOR1, the prince of which had succeeded to the kingdom of Kaulam. And this,
as Dr. Caldwell points out, must have been the state which is now called Travancore. Kumari has been confounded by some of the Arabian Geographers, or their modern commentators, with K'nzdr, one of the regions supplying aloes-wood, and which was apparently Khmer or Kamboja. (Caldwell's Dray. Grammar, p. 67 ; Gildem. 185 ; Ram. I. 333. )
The cut that we give is, as far as I know, the first genuine view of Cape Comorin ever published.
[Mr. Talboys Wheeler, in his History of India, vol. iii. (p. 386), says of this tract :
" The region derives its name from a temple which was erected there in honour of Kumárf, ' the Virgin ' ; the infant babe who had been exchanged for Krishna, and ascended to heaven at the approach of Kansa." And in a note :
" Colonel Yule identifies Kumárf with Durgá. This is an error. The temple of Kumárí was erected by Krishna Raja of Narsinga, a zealous patron of the Vaishnavas."
Mr. Wheeler quotes Faria y Souza, who refers the object of worship to what is meant for this story (II. 394), but I presume from Mr. Wheeler's mention of the
builder of the temple, which does not occur in the Portuguese history, that he has
other information. The application of the Virgin title connected with the name of the place, may probably have varied with the ages, and, as there is no time to obtain
other evidence, I have removed the words which identified the existing temple with
that of Durgá. But my authority for identifying the object of worship, in whose honour the pilgrims bathe monthly at Cape Comorin, with Durgá, is the excellent
one of Dr. Caldwell. (See his Dravidian Grammar as quoted in the passage above.)
Krishna Raja of whom Air. Wheeler speaks, reigned after the Portuguese were established in India, but it is not probable that the Krishna stories of that class were
even known in the Peninsula (or perhaps anywhere else) in the time of the author of the PeriLlus, 1450 years before ; and 'tis as little likely that the locality owed its name to Yasoda's Infant, as that it owed it to the Madonna in St. Francis Xavier's Church that overlooks the Cape.
Fra Paolino, in his unsatisfactory way ( Viaggio, p. 68), speaks of Cape Comorin,
" which the Indians call Canyamuri, Virginis Promontorium, or simply Conan' or Cunzarí ` a Virgin,' because they pretend that anciently the goddess Comari ` the
Damsel,' who is the Indian Diana or Ilecate, used to bathe " etc. However, we can discover from his book elsewhere (see pp. 79, 285) that by the Indian Diana he means Párvatí, i.e. Durgá.
Lassen at first * identified the Kumárí of the Cape with Párvatf ; but afterwards connected the name with a story in the Mahábhárata about certain Apsarases changed into Crocodiles.`[ On the whole there does not seem sufficient ground to deny that Párvatí was the original object of worship at Kumárf, though the name may have lent itself to various legends.]
NOTE 2.—I have not been able to ascertain with any precision what animal is meant by Gat Paul. The term occurs again, coupled with monkeys as here, at p. 240 of the Geog. Text, where, speaking of Abyssinia, it is said : " Il ont gat paulz et autre gat-mailzzon si divisez," etc. Gatto maiizzone, for an ape of some kind, is common in old Italian, the latter part of the term, from the Pers. llfai;nún, being
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* Ind. Alt. ist ed. I. 1.58.
t Id. 564 ; and 2nd ed. I. 193.
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