Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 283 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0283	Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1

never been really alive in Greek, was due to the analogy of Θίς, «sand-heap», «down», gen. Θινός,
acc. Θῖνα. The name of the Egyptian town may also be responsible, to a certain extent, for the
declension of the name in the Periplus. But, at the same time, I cannot accept Frisk's hypothesis
of a nominative *Θίς (< *Θιν-ς) for the name of the Chinese town. Either the name was Θῖνα
in the nominative (with a final -α which was not necessarily etymological), and the declension is
irregular and due to analogy; or the nominative was *Θίν, with a regular declension due perhaps
to the attraction of that of Θίς.

In the following century, Ptolemy speaks of the Σῖναι and of their sea-port Κατtίγαρα as
being south of the Σηρικοί. A name Σχίνη in Vettius Valens (c. 161-180) may possibly refer to
China, although the form cannot easily be accounted for (cf. TP, 1912, 733). Cosmas Indico-
pleustes (middle of the 6th cent.) refers three times to Τζινίστα; the name is more completely
given as Τζινίσταν in an astrological text (ibid.).

The view has long prevailed that «Sères» was the name used by those who had heard of
China by land, and *Θιν, «Sinai», Τζινίσταν by those who had heard of it by sea. Such was still
the opinion of Yule (Y¹, I, 1) and Laufer (TP, 1912, 725), and it has been repeated in 1936 by
Hennig (Terrae incognitae, I, 169 sq.). As the Sanskrit and Malay name of China is «Cīna»
(«Čīna»), attempts have been made to explain the name as a Malayan term, for the etymology of
which extravagant hypotheses, like Richthofen's 日南 «Jih-nan» or Terrien de Lacouperie's
禛 Tien, were proffered; I need not repeat the refutation I published in BEFEO, IV, 143-149.
Evidently in connection with the «Malayan» hypothesis, Yule thought it «remarkable» that «the
name of China is used in the Japanese maps» (Y¹, I, 2). But the Malay name «Čīna» is
merely, like so many others, borrowed from the Sanskrit. As to the «Shina» (not «China») of
Japanese maps, it is not a survival of a «Malayan» form which had reached Japan independently,
but represents the modern Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese Buddhist transcription Chih-na
of the Skr. Cīna.

The whole case rests on a curious misunderstanding. It is true that the author of the
Periplus, and Cosmas after him, had heard of China by sea, but only inasmuch as they had
reached India by sea. They did not go farther east, and the names they use are those they had
heard in India, and probably from Iranians in the north-western part of the coasts of India.

The originals of the names are not doubtful : *Θίν and «Sinai» render forms connected
with Skr. Cīna; Τζινίσταν (more correctly Τζινίσταν) has long been équated with Skr. Cīnasthāna.
Yule (Y¹, I, 11) was of opinion that the names must have reached the Greek world «through
people of Arabian speech», as the Arabs, lacking the sound ć, made Cīna (Čīna) «into Sīn, and
perhaps sometimes into Thīn». This is certainly an error. The various transcriptions with θ-,
σ-, τζ- are not due to an Arabic intermediary, but represent so many attempts to render the ć-
which did not exist in Greek : it was in the same way that the king Candragupta had become in
Greek Sandrakottos.

But, if the connection of *Θίν and Τζινίσταν with Cīna and Cīnasthāna is not open to
doubt, I am not certain that they are the direct representatives of Sanskrit forms. If θ- renders
ć-, *Θίν is really *Čīn, not Cīna (Čīna). As will be seen further on, there is a language in
which the name of China occurs at an early date without the final vowel; this is Middle Persian.

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books