Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 432 (Color Image)

0432	Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1

*Aros. Consequently, even the apparent A-tuan should be read O-tuan, Odon. Bretschneider,
while allowing that the pseudo-A-tuan was a designation of Khotan in one case, thought that the
military colony owed its name to the region of the «Su sing hai» (read 星宿海 Hsing-hsiu-hai)
situated at the sources of the Huang-ho, the name of which means «Starry Sea» and appears in
YS, 63, 1a, as «O-duan nao-rh», a Mongol form of the same meaning as the Chinese name. But
here again Bretschneider is inaccurate. The Mongol name of the Hsing-hsiu-hai is written in
the YS Huo-tun nao-êrh, i. e. Hodun na'ur. Hodun, «star», in written Mongol odun, is one of
the words which were still pronounced in the Mongol period with an initial h-, which the Uighur-
Mongol writing however did not note. No such h- ever occurs in the transcription of the name
of Khotan, nor does it exist in the pseudo-A-tuan (to be read O-tuan). Moreover, the second
character of huo-tun renders -dun, while the second character of A-tuan or O-tuan can only
represent -don. The two names have nothing in common.
I have said that Khotan appears in the YS either as Yü-t'ien, or as Wo-tuan (Odon). There
is however at least one exception : in the map of c. 1330 and in the corresponding list of YS,
63, 15b, the name is written 忽旋 Hu-t'an, Ḥutan (= Ḥotan; cf. Br, II, 47). But the exception
is only apparent, since we know that the map (and consequently the list derived from it) is of
Mussulman origin. I do not think that the official workshop of 忽阡八里 Hu-tan-pa-li (*Qudan-
baliq?), mentioned in YS, 85, 16a, after the workshop of Beš-baliq, has anything to do with
Khotan.
At the time of the re-conquest of Chinese Turkestan in the 18th cent., the Manchu dynasty,
combining the living name Hotan with the ancient Chinese transcription Yü-t'ien, gave to Khotan
the new administrative name of 和闐 Ho-t'ien. In more recent times, the old Chinese name
Yü-t'ien was itself revived, but misapplied as the official designation of the district (hsien) created
at Kerya.
The Turco-Mongol form Odon of the name Khotan can be found elsewhere. The Tibetan
chronicle partly translated by Schlagintweit, Die Könige von Tibet (Abh. d. Bay. Ak. d. W. x
[1866], No. 3, 847) mentions in the North what Schlagintweit renders as «the tribe of O-don-
kas-ǧkar». While thinking of Kāšyar for «kas-ǧkar», the translator could do nothing with
«O-don». But it is evident that the chronicler spoke of «the people of Khotan (O-don) and of
Kāšyar (Kas-ǧkar)».
I think that Odon also occurs in a Syriac text. When Rabban Çauma and the future Mār
Yahbalaha III started from Peking for the Holy Land, they reached c. 1274 a city in which we
all agree to see Khotan, although the name is written «Lôṭôn» in the ms. Chabot (Hist. du
patriarche Mar Jabalaha III, 22), followed by Budge (The Monks of Kûblai Khân, 138),
corrected «Lôṭôn» to «Hôṭôn», putting the alteration to the account of a confusion in Syriac
writing. I am in favour of another solution. We know that when Rabban Çauma was sent to
the Pope and the kings of Europe, he wrote his diary in Persian (Chabot, 93), and this accounts,
in my opinion, for the wrong form «Ônbâr» which occurs for *Lônbar, «Lombardy» : the
confusion was made by misreading لونبار *Lônbâr as اونبار Ônbâr (cf. Chabot, Supplt, 2; Budge, 181).
But it is not only the diary of his travels in Europe which must have been originally written in
Persian. In a later part of the work, the double corruption «Baidar» instead of «Baidû» (Budge,

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