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

Stockholm, I, 39-59, and, above all, 王 壁 文 Wang Pi-wên, «On the City and Streets of Ta-tu, Capital of the Yüan Dynasty» (in Chinese), in Bull. of the Soc. for Research in Chinese Architecture, VI, 3 (September 1936), 69-120, with illustrations.

351. TAMBUR

tambur Z tembul R

Betel-leaf. Skr. tāmbūla > Pers. تامبل tāmbūl, sometimes تامبل tāmbāl. This paragraph, then known only from RAMUSIO, has long been suspected; the discovery of Z has proved it is genuine, but Z writes « tambur », and this last form has been adopted in RR, 324, and B¹, 455, and by me as the only extant Ms. form. But nobody doubts that Polo knew Persian; on the other hand, betel-chewing was almost unknown in the West in RAMUSIO's time, and RAMUSIO died before he could see GARCIA's Colloquios printed at Goa in 1563 and which precisely give the same form tembul (cf. YULE, Hobson-Jobson², 914). The inference is that RAMUSIO may have found tembul in some Polo manuscript. Although YULE says nothing about it, it is also the betel-leaf which is spoken of by Polo when he mentions a certain herb chewed by the Brahmans.
The word tāmbūla occurs for the first time in non-Indian texts in Hsüan-tsang's Life as 擔 步 羅 tan-pu-lo (tâm-b'uo-lâ), but has been misunderstood by the translators (cf. TP, 1921-22, 76; 1931, 438-439). On the history of betel-chewing, cf. Fe, 248-250; PENZER, Ocean of Story, VIII, 237-319; and my remarks in TP, 1931, 438-444.

352. TANA

caman (?) VB caria P thaman FB
camba Pr chana VA thoma VL
cana G tana F, Fr, t, TA¹, TA², Z tima F
canam R tanaim FA torna V
canna LTr tanan FAt, L

On Thāna, on the island of Salsette, about 20 miles north of Bombay, cf. Y, II, 396; YULE, Hobson-Jobson², 895; Y¹, II, 113-115; III, 75-80; DAMES, Barbosa, I, 152-153 (corrects YULE on several points); Fe, 96 and 735. Odoric writes « Tana »; Jourdain Cathala, «Thana »; Guillaume Adam, «Tana» (Hist. des Crois., Arm., II, 552); Fra Mauro, «Tanna» (HALLBERG, 506; but in a later hand, and with a probable « Tana » above); cf. also GOLUBOVICH, Bibl. bio-bibl., II, 567-568.
YULE (Y, II, 396) says the Catalan Map mentions a «Cucintana» and explains it by a form «Kūkin-Tāna» of Ibn Baṭṭūṭah. DAMES was mistaken in objecting that DEFRÉMERY's edition, II, 177, has only « Kanbāyat », « Tāna », and « Kūlam »; YULE's quotation of the Arabic traveller is from DEFRÉ-