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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

of Lung-ya-mên came in 1325 (YS, 29, 9 b). Lung-ya may be a semantic adaptation of a native
name, although ROUFFAER did not bring it in when discussing the ancient names of Singapore
and Johor in Bijdragen, LXXVII, 156, and seems to have considered it to be purely Chinese. The
kingdom of 米 丹 Pin-tan (= Bintan) is named under 1323 in YS, 23, 4 b.
Polo, after a digression to « Malaiur », starts his account again from « Pentan ». On the probably
wrong repetition of « Pentan » in the middle of this chapter, cf. « Malaiur ».
Odoric speaks of « Paten » (var. « Pantem », etc.; Maundeville, « Pathen », etc.), also called
« Malamasimi » (var. « Talamasim », etc.; Maundeville, « Talamassy », etc.; cf. HALLBERG, 413; Y¹,
II, 155; Wy, 447). The names are so uncertain and the data so vague that no safe conclusion
can be reached for the present as to the place Odoric intended to describe. By reading « Talamasi »,
we should not be very far from Ibn Baṭṭūṭah's « Ṭawālisī »; that does not help much however, as
« Ṭawālisī » is otherwise unknown.

314. PIANFU

panfa TA³ piansu LT, VB pyanfu P, Z
paymphu VL pufun V zianfu VB
pianfu F, FA, FB, L, TA¹, VA, VB; R

All commentators agree that this is 平 陽 府 P'ing-yang-fu in Shan-hsi. As in the case of
Taianfu, of Saianfu, etc., « Pianfu » must be the form used by Persians in China. Rašīdu-'d-Dīn,
in Bl, II, 181, is made by BLOCHET to speak of ڤو دنڤ تنڤ Tung-ping-fu, that is to say 東 平 府
Tung-p'ing-fu in Shan-tung (see « Tundinfu »), which is irreconcilable with the trend of the narrative;
but the real reading is ڤو دنڤ ڤنڤ Pung-yang-fu = P'ing-yang-fu. The vowel of p'ing has often
been labialized in Central Asia, and in Chinese Turkestan, one hears regularly Taipung for 太 平
T'ai-p'ing; in Mongolian, K'ai-p'ing has given Käibung (see « Chemeinfu »); the title p'ing-chang,
transcribed فنجان fnǰān in Persian, is perhaps to be vocalized funǰān, instead of the generally
adopted fīnǰān. The identification is made certain by the comparison of Ber, III, 21 (and Persian
text, 32), with the corresponding passage of the Shêng-wu ch'in-chêng lu, 53 a. In both cases,
Rašid mentions side by side (in « scholarly » transcription) T'ai-yüan-fu and P'ing-yang-fu, and names
the Qara-mörän, just as we have the three names given in succession by Polo. As has been surmised
long ago (cf. Y¹, I, 285), it probably was P'ing-yang which was transliterated بيكان Bigan or بكان
Bingan in 1421 by Šāh-Ruḫ's envoys. But the form is not certain; in THEVENOT's Relations de
divers voyages curieux, 4th part, p. 14, it is written « Nikian », and I suspect that it is the « Sigaan »
of WITSEN's Noord en Oost Tartaryen, 1785, I, 494; a critical edition of the original of WITSEN's
list is badly needed.