Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 493 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0493	Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1

devoted to a 娑羅綿樹 so-lo mien-shu, or « so-lo cotton tree », which existed west of the district
city of T'ung-wang. It required the extended arms of three or four men to embrace it; it first
gave flowers, and later gave leaves; the flowers opened only when there was a warm summer. The
pistils (蕊 jui) of the flowers had a floss (綿 mien) which was called 娑羅棉 so-lo mien, « so-lo
cotton » (no stress can be laid upon the use of the two forms of mien in our very faulty editions of
the T'ai-p'ing kuang-chi). It is to be remarked that this tree was brought into a miraculous
connection with a famous deceased Buddhist monk, and that some of the particulars given about
the tree (its size, and the flowers preceding the leaves) recur in descriptions of so-lo trees in texts
which are supposed to refer to śāla trees. In fact, the tree of Li-chou may have been a Bombax.
The Pên-ts'ao kang-mu (36, 72 b) cites an interesting text which it says occurs in 覲穩 Chu
Mu's 方與志 Fang-yü chih (« Geography ») : « 平緬 P'ing-mien produces 娑羅 so-lo trees (shu);
the big ones are thirty or fifty feet high. They form seeds (tzŭ) which have floss (mien). This
floss is made into threads and woven to make white felt (白氈 po-chan; perhaps a misreading of
白氈 po-tieh) [and] tou-lo-mien. » LAUFER (Sino-Iranica, 491), when using this important text,
said that Chu Mu was an author of the Sung dynasty. It is true that Chu Mu, of the Sung dynasty,
published about 1239 a geographical work entitled 方與勝覽 Fang-yü shêng-lan (cf. Ssŭ-k'u . . .,
68, 10 a), but the circuit (lu) of P'ing-mien (« Pacified Burma »), in the region of the present
T'êng-yüeh, was established only in 1276 (YS, 61, 13 a). So there can be no doubt that the quo-
tation really comes not from Chu Mu's Fang-yü shêng-lan, but from the [至朝混一] Shêng-
ch'ao hun-i fang-yü shêng-lan which was published under Qubilai's reign (1260-1294; cf. Miao
Ch'üan-sun's I-fêng-t'ang tu-shu hsü-chi, 3, 1 a) and incorporated (in 1307?; cf. Kuan-ku-t'ang
ts'ang-shu mu, 3, 27 b, where « 31th » ta-tê year must be a slip for « 11th ») into the [事文類聚
翰] 墨大全 [Shih-wên lei-chü] Han-mo ta-ch'üan; unfortunately I have at present no access to
the latter collection. It is, at any rate, clear that the so-lo tree of this text is either a cotton tree
or a silk-cotton tree. The size would suggest a silk-cotton tree, but it is only the floss of the
cotton tree which could be used for weaving tou-lo-mien.
The same may be said of the passage from the Ko-ku yao-lun also adduced by LAUFER (ibid.).
The Ko-ku yao-lun was published in 1387 and again in 1388, and added to in 1456-1459. Among
the passages which belong to the original redaction, we read (Hsi-yin-hsüan ts'ung-shu ed., 8, 4 b) :
« 兜羅錦 Tou-lo-chin. The tou-lo-chin is a product of the Southern Barbarians (Nan-Fan), of
the Western Barbarians (Hsi-Fan) and of Yün-nan. It is woven with the 錦 chin inside the seeds
of the 娑羅 so-lo tree (shu), and is similar to velvet (剪絨 chien-jung). It is five or six feet in
breadth, and is much used for making blankets (pei) and also clothes can be made of it. » Chin
means « brocade », but tou-lo chin must be a corrupt reading for tou-lo-[綿]mien, as already said
by LAUFER. As we have seen above (cf. supra, p. 431), tou-lo-mien was under the Ming dynasty
the designation of a cotton velvet; moreover, it is mien, « floss », not chin, « brocade », which is
found « inside the seeds » of the so-lo tree, and this so-lo tree must be the cotton tree, Gossypium
arboreum.
This conclusion is fully borne out by the fact that so-lo, as a designation of the cotton tree,
has survived down to the present day, mainly in the modernized form already used in the Ko-ku
yao-lun. According to the Ming i-t'ung chih (87, 17 b), completed in 1461, the « 梭羅 so-lo tree

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