Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 450 (Color Image)

0450	Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1

edition of RADLOV's Uigurische Sprachdenkmäler, 282). Now, kābāz is clearly derived from a
Prakrit form of karpāsa (cf. Pali, kappāsa). In the Ming Sino-Uighur Vocabulary of the Board
of Translators, the Uighur word for cotton (mien-hua) is given as kādās, which KLAPROTH
(Abhandlung über die Sprache und Schrift der Uiguren, 14) read kedis and proposed to correct
to kedin; in the latter form he saw an equivalent of the Ar. quṭun, «cotton» (cf. also BANG,
Vom Köktürkischen zum Osmanischen, IV, 14). This is not acceptable, since the Uighur word
belonged to the palatal class and so could hardly render quṭun, and since moreover quṭun did
not pass into any Turkish dialect. I have no doubt that kādās is one of the many corrupt forms
which have crept into the Vocabulary, and that the original word was *kābās = kābāz. The
word has survived in modern Turfan Turki as كباز kābāz, vulg. kiwāz (cf. VON LE COQ, in
Túrán, I [1918], 454); it is transcribed 克頗斯 k'o-p'o-ssŭ *kāpās, in Hsi-yü t'u-chih, 43, 4 a.
But, though po-tieh has been used as an equivalent of karpāsa > kābāz, kābāz itself was rather
the name of the cotton plant, not of the cotton goods, which latter sense, on the other hand,
was given to po-tieh. The real Uighur word for cotton goods was bōz. This word, certainly
connected with Greek βύσσος (> Arab. and Pers. bāzz, Osm. bāz, Russ. byaz'), which itself
rests on an old Semitic original (cf. LEWY, Die semit. Fremdwörter im Griechischen, 125-126; MÜL-
LER, Uigurica, II, 70; LAUFER, Sino-Iranica, 574; BANG, Vom Köktürkischen zum Osmanischen,
IV, 14), is already given with the meaning «cotton goods» in Kāšγarī (BROCKELMANN, 48, where
the vocalization būz should be discarded), and is perhaps to be recognized in the 布帛 p'o-pu or *p'o
(*b'uot) cloth» which was offered by the T'u-chüeh in 593 (cf. TP, 1929, 216). Bōz has passed,
with the same meaning, into Mong. bōs (> Dayur būri; cf. POPPE, Dagurskoe nareče, 56, 141),
JUČEN *busu, Manchu boso (RAMSTEDT, Kalm. Wörterbuch, 56, adds Čuvaš pir, which is correct,
and Ch. 布 pu [*puo], «cloth»; but pu, which moreover did not in ancient times refer to cotton,
is too old a Chinese word not to be indigenous). Bōz being the true Uighur word for «cotton
goods», we are not surprised to find it used in the Uighur translation of the Sitātapatradhāraṇī
in a passage where the Chinese translation gives po-tieh (cf. MÜLLER, Uigurica, II, 70), nor to
find in the Uighur version of the Suvarṇaprabhāsa, which was made from the Chinese, po-tieh,
«white tieh», literally rendered yürüng bōz- «white bōz» (MALOV, Suvarṇaprabhāsa, 444¹⁺¹²).
There is no foundation for RADLOV's statement (Uigurische Sprachdenkmäler, p. 120) that bōz
had been preceded in Uighur by another word, also meaning «cotton stuff», which he read
«kokpu». Perhaps he laboured under the idea that the -pu of his «kokpu» rendered Ch. 布 pu,
«cloth», later «cotton cloth», or he may have connected his «kokpu» with the late Mongolian köböng,
«cotton». But «kokpu» often occurs in the documents (cf. RADLOV's index, p. 279), and is
clearly the designation of some sort of money. It is the same word which F. W. K. MÜLLER,
reading it «quanbo», had restored as 官寶 kuan-pao, without any translation (Ostasiat. Zeitschr.
VIII, 324). This was nearer the mark, but still unsatisfactory, since the reading is certainly
qoqbō (or qoapō). In such circumstances, I think there can be no doubt that the original
form was 國寶 kuo-pao (*kʷok-pâu), which means both «national treasure» and «national cur-
rency». The second -q- shows that the term was an ancient one in Uighur, having been bor-
rowed when final occlusive consonants were still heard in northern Chinese, i. e. before A. D. c. 1000.

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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