National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

334. SEMENAT

semach G semenat F, Fr, t, FA, FB, VB sermach VA
sembelech VL semenath Z seruenath R
semenach P seminat V

All the Mss. agree in reading «Semenat», although we should expect «Somenat»; in fact, the
Medici Map reads «Somenath» (HALLBERG, 468). On Somnāth in Guzerat, cf. Y, II, 400-401;
Fe, 734, سومنات and سومنات Sōmnāt or Sōmanāt (the transcription «Sūmanāt» is arbitrary). It
may be that, in Polo's time, something was still heard of the original second vowel of Somanātha,
hence the three syllables of his spelling. Somnāth is not named by BARBOSA, but is probably
referred to under the obscure designation of «Patenexy» (= Pattan + ?; cf. DAMES, Barbosa, I,
108, 126).

A kingdom of 蘇木達 Su-mu-ta or 須門那 Hsü-mên-na is mentioned in YS, 12, 4 a
(under 1282); 14, 4 a (under 1286); 210, 8 b; Yüan wên lei, 41, 20 b, and is probably the same as
the kingdom of 須文那 BRETSCHNEIDER, which has a notice in the Tao-i chih-lio of 1349-1350. It
has been supposed by BRETSCHNEIDER (Br, I, 191) and by YULE (Y¹, I, 82) that this was Somnāth;
this solution is accepted, although doubtfully, by FUJITA in his commentary on the Tao-i chih-lio
(92 b). ROCKHILL rejects it, because Hsü-wên-na produces pepper, and he proposes Mangalore
(TP, 1914, 435; 1915, 463); but the latter has no phonetic connection with the Chinese name.
I think that, in fact, Su-mu-ta, Hsü-mên-na, and Hsü-wên-na, all represent [Dvāra] Samudra, called
Dūrū Samundūr by Rašīdu-'d-Dīn, the capital of the Bilal Rajas immediately north of Ma'abar
(cf. ELLIOT, Hist. of India, I², 73; Y¹, I, 82). In 1282 and in 1286, the name of Hsü-mên-na or
Su-mu-ta is linked with that of Ma'abar. In 1282, the king was 打 古 兒 Ta-ku-êrh (*Dagur?)
and his minister was 那里八合剌覩赤 Na-li-pa-ha [read 答 ta?]-la-t'an-ch'ih (*Naribhadra-
tanči?). The name of the kingdom itself is given by Rašīdu-'d-Dīn as «Deogir», and this name
also is probably meant by Chinese texts when, in YS, 20, 3 b, we read that in 1300 an embassy arrived
from the state of 滔 占 兒 Tiao-chi-êrh, which is exactly Deogir.

But YULE is mistaken (Y, I, 82) when he attributes to [Dvāra] Samudra, in 1286, not the embassy
from Hsü-mên-na, but that from Su-mu-tu-la (which he wrongly reads «Sumuntala» instead of
Sumudra). This last embassy came from the Malay state of Samudra (see «Sumatra»), as is tes-
tified by the «name» (in fact the title) of the king, Tuhan-pati (the order in the enumeration is not
as given by YULE; it is headed by Ma'abar and Hsü-mên-na, and Su-mu-tu-la comes last of the ten
names; cf. also YULE, Hobson-Jobson², 865-866).

335. SENDAL

On several occasions, Polo mentions the sort of textile called «sendal», or, in the plural, «sen-
daus». This is a well-known word, frequently met with in mediaeval texts, which must have been,
as a rule, the designation of a silk taffeta; it was very similar to, and sometimes confounded with