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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2 |
| 312. PEM | 801 |
is RUGE'S misreading). In other words, we would have here another example of -g- (-gh- before i not to give J-) used to mark the hiatus stop (see « Coigangiu »).
The hsien of Pao-ying received that name in 676, became a chou in 1227, and almost immediately (?) thereafter was changed into a military area (chün); it is under the name of Pao-ying-chiin that the diarist of 1276 registers his passage there (cf. TP, 1915, 396, 413-414). In 1279, it was raised to An-i-fu, but degraded to Pao-ying-hsien in 1283 (cf. YS, 59, 11 a; TP, 1915, 414; Ta-Ch'ing i-t'ung chih, 66, map, 3 a; text, 2 a). The name used by Polo is thus quite correct for the time when he wrote.
312. PEM
| pain, paines, pera FB pein F, Fr, FA, L, V(cor.) peiti, terchin VB peiu F | pem Ft, FA(?), Z peym TA1, TAS; R peyn LT, P; G | piem, pien VA pin V poyn VL |
This is certainly the correct form, despite BENEDETTO'S hesitation (B1, 446); we might only suppose that « Pein » of F is Peim > Pei > Pein, and that the « Pem » of Z is this same last form Pein misread *Pem (hence *Pe > Pen in Fra Mauro, Zu, 36; HALLBERG, 409). R has « Peym ». There is no doubt that Polo dictated a form with final -m. « Pem » is Hsüan-tsang's P'i-mo (*P'iei-muâ); this last name has been restored into Bhimâ by Stan. JULIEN, but the p'i of P'i-mo is an ancient aspirate (p'-), and the theoretical reading is *Phema, or possibly *Phima. The « Pim » of the ancient Turkish map mentioned in Y, I, 192, is interesting as a survival, but gives no clue to the proper pronunciation, as Pim can also be read Bim, Pém, Bém. More stress may be laid on the Phye-ma of ancient Tibetan texts referring to the region of Khotan, and F. W. THOMAS is probably right in seeing in that Phye-ma Hsüan-tsang's P'i-mo (Zeitschr. für Buddhismus, September 1924; Notes relating to... Ancient Khotan, p. 2 of the reprint).
« Pem » has been placed by HUNTINGTON at Keriya, by STEIN at Uzun-tati (better Uzun-tatir, « Long Tatir »; tatir means a stretch of hard barren ground), by CHARIGNON at Endereh. But HUNTINGTON'S view belongs to an early stage of the archaeological study of Chinese Turkestan; CHARIGNON'S theory (Ch, I, 104-107) is vitiated from the start because he denies the identity of P'imo and Pem and keeps « Pein » so as to identify it phonetically (!) with the T'ang station of Pohsien. In the present state of our knowledge, the identification of P'i-mo and Pem with Uzuntatir is the only plausible one, and it is at least probable.
I leave aside Abu Dulaf's ,.*U Bahâ, corrected to 3,.., Bimà by the last commentators (cf. Fe, 217-218). The form is uncertain, the location unknown, and the whole account most untrustworthy.
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