国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

in some region in the vicinity of India, but some more information may be worth giving here.
Helped by the vagueness of the term « India » in the early Middle Ages, too reasons seem to me to
have played a great part in the misconception. One was the theory of the four rivers flowing
from Paradise, one of which, the Γηών or Jīhūn, was identified with both the Oxus and the Nile
(see « Gion »); the other, the title of the very popular legend of « Barlaam and Joasaph ». Although
the story is really derived from that of Śākyamuni (see « Josafat »), its title says that it was brought
ἐκ τῆς ἐνδοτέρας τῶν Αἰθιόπων χώρας, τῆς Ἰνδῶν δεγομένης, « from the 'interior' region of the
Ethiopians, the one called 'of the Indians' » (cf. H. ZOTENBERG, Notice sur le livre de Barlaam et
Joasoph, 5, 69). ZOTENBERG (p. 83) thought that the mention of these Ethiopians as حبش Habašah,
« Abyssinians », in the Arabic version of the legend was not original, but due to a later change.
Through Father PEETERS' masterly investigations in Anal. Bolland., XLIX [1931], 276-312, we
know that, contrary to ZOTENBERG's theory, the legendary biography of Śākyamuni, translated
into Pahlavī about A. D. 500, was later retranslated into Arabic, then into Georgian, and the Georgian,
or possibly the Arabic version, was used c. A. D. 1000 by the Greek forger of the famous novel.
So it is the Arabic translation which is responsible for the location of the story in « Abyssinia »; this,
in its turn, was rendered as « Ethiopia » by the Georgian translator (cf. MARR', in ZVOIRAO, XI,
50-51), and the « Interior Ethiopia called India » became popular in the West owing to the great
diffusion of the novel in Greek and Latin. I shall examine under « Prester Johan » to what extent
the Ethiopian India of Barlaam and Joasaph may have to be taken into account in the story of
Prester John.

PEETERS (loc. cit., 296) says that, according to the conception which still prevailed among
European geographers of the 13th-14th cents., what was then meant as « Ethiopia » was Trans-
gangetic India; and a reference is given to Mgr. MERCATI's Monum. Vaticana veterum diocesim
Columbensem... respicientia, 1923, p. 8. It is true that « India parva que est Ethiopia » is strangely
misplaced in the so-called Marino Sanudo map between « Persia » and « India magna » (in fact
north-west of the latter). But the said map, due in fact to Paolino da Venezia, is a poor production,
of very small account. On the Catalan Map, dated 1375, « Ethiopia » is at its proper place in Africa.
The reference to Mgr. Mercati bears on Pope John XXII's letter of December 1, 1329, commending
« magnifico viro Imperatori Aethiopum » Jourdain Cathala, bishop of « Columbum » (= Quilon)
in India. Under « Abasce », I have already expressed the opinion, contrary to that of GOLUBOVICH,
MERCATI, MOULE, and PEETERS, that in John XXII's letter, and probably also in Montecorvino's
letter of February 13, 1306, Ethiopia (i. e. Abyssinia) was really meant. At least for John XXII's
letter, a document which was not yet published when my note on « Abasce » was written seems to
settle the question. It is well known that John XXII had divided missionary work in Asia between
the Franciscans and the Dominicans, the Franciscans having the « Tartars of the Ponent » (= the
Golden Horde), Mongolia, and China, and the Dominicans the dominions of the Ilkhans in Persia,
the greater part of the « Middle Empire », i. e. Čayatai dominions, and India; Jourdain Cathala's
bishopric of Columbum, like the rest of the Dominican missions, was under the authority of the
archbishopric of Sultānīyah (Sultanieh), created in 1318. Now, one of the archbishops of Sultanieh,
John III (de Galonifontibus ?), probably a Frenchman, who had long lived in the East, came back
to Europe c. 1398 with a mission from Tamerlane and was still in the West when he wrote in 1404