CHAPTER XXX.
OF THE PROVINCE OF PASHAI.
You must know that ten days’ journey to the south of Badashan there is
a Province called PASHAI, the people of which have a peculiar language,
and are Idolaters, of a brown complexion. They are great adepts in
sorceries and the diabolic arts. The men wear earrings and brooches of
gold and silver set with stones and pearls. They are a pestilent people
and a crafty; and they live upon flesh and rice. Their country is very
hot.{1}
Now let us proceed and speak of another country which is seven days’
journey from this one towards the south-east, and the name of which is
KESHIMUR.
NOTE 1.—The name of PASHAI has already occurred (see ch. xviii.)
linked with DIR, as indicating a tract, apparently of very rugged
and difficult character, through which the partizan leader Nigúdar
passed in making an incursion from Badakhshan towards Káshmir. The
difficulty here lies in the name _Pashai_, which points to the
south-west, whilst _Dir_ and all other indications point to the
south-east. But Pashai seems to me the reading to which all texts
tend, whilst it is clearly expressed in the G. T. (_Pasciai_),
and it is contrary to all my experience of the interpretation of
Marco Polo to attempt to torture the name in the way which has been
common with commentators professed and occasional. But dropping
this name for a moment, let us see to what the other indications do
point.
In the meagre statements of this and the next chapter, interposed
as they are among chapters of detail unusually ample for Polo,
there is nothing to lead us to suppose that the Traveller ever
personally visited the countries of which these two chapters treat.
I believe we have here merely an amplification of the information
already sketched of the country penetrated by the Nigudarian bands
whose escapade is related in chapter xviii., information which was
probably derived from a Mongol source. And these countries are in
my belief _both_ regions famous in the legends of the Northern
Buddhists, viz. UDYÁNA and KÁSHMIR.
Udyána lay to the north of Pesháwar on the Swát River, but from the
extent assigned to it by Hiuen Tsang, the name probably covered a
large part of the whole hill-region south of the Hindu-Kúsh from
Chitrál to the Indus, as indeed it is represented in the Map of
Vivien de St. Martin (_Pèlerins Bouddhistes_, II.). It is regarded
by Fahian as the most northerly Province of India, and in his
time the food and clothing of the people were similar to those of
Gangetic India. It was the native country of Padma Sambhava, one
of the chief apostles of Lamaism, _i.e._ of Tibetan Buddhism, and
a great master of enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they
prevailed in Udyána in old times, were probably strongly tinged
with Sivaitic magic, and the Tibetans still regard that locality
as the classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft.
Hiuen Tsang says of the inhabitants: “The men are of a soft
and pusillanimous character, _naturally inclined to craft and
trickery_. They are fond of study, but pursue it with no ardour.
_The science of magical formulae is become a regular professional
business with them_. They generally wear clothes of white cotton,
and rarely use any other stuff. Their spoken language, in spite of
some differences, has a strong resemblance to that of India.”
These particulars suit well with the slight description in our
text, and the Indian atmosphere that it suggests; and the direction
and distance ascribed to Pashai suit well with Chitral, which may
be taken as representing Udyána when approached from Badakhshan.
For it would be quite practicable for a party to reach the town of
Chitrál in ten days from the position assigned to the old capital
of Badakhshan. And from Chitrál the road towards Káshmir would lie
over the high Lahori pass to DIR, which from its mention in chapter
xviii. we must consider an obligatory point. (_Fah-hian_, p. 26;
_Koeppen_, I. 70; _Pèlerins Boud._ II. 131–132.)
[“Tao-lin (a Buddhist monk like Hiuen Tsang) afterwards left the
western regions and changed his road to go to Northern India;
he made a pilgrimage to _Kia-che-mi-louo_ (Káshmir), and then
entered the country of _U-ch’ang-na_ (Udyána)....” (Ed. Chavannes,
_I-tsing_, p. 105.)—H. C.]
We must now turn to the name _Pashai_. The Pashai Tribe are now
Mahomedan, but are reckoned among the aboriginal inhabitants of the
country, which the Afghans are not. Baber mentions them several
times, and counts their language as one of the dozen that were
spoken at Kabul in his time. Burnes says it resembles that of the
Kafirs. A small vocabulary of it was published by Leech, in the
seventh volume of the _J. A. S. B._, which I have compared with
vocabularies of Siah-posh Kafir, published by Raverty in vol.
xxxiii. of the same journal, and by Lumsden in his _Report of the
Mission to Kandahar_, in 1837. Both are Aryan, and seemingly of
Professor Max Müller’s class _Indic_, but not _very_ close to one
another.[1]
Ibn Batuta, after crossing the Hindu-Kúsh by one of the passes
at the head of the Panjshir Valley, reaches the Mountain BASHÁI
(Pashai). In the same vicinity the Pashais are mentioned by Sidi
’Ali, in 1554. And it is still in the neighbourhood of Panjshir
that the tribe is most numerous, though they have other settlements
in the hill-country about Nijrao, and on the left bank of the
Kabul River between Kabul and Jalalabad. _Pasha_ and _Pasha_-gar
is also named as one of the chief divisions of the Kafirs, and it
seems a fair conjecture that it represents those of the Pashais who
resisted or escaped conversion to Islam. (See _Leech’s Reports_ in
Collection pub. at Calcutta in 1839; _Baber_, 140; _Elphinstone_,
I. 411; _J. A. S. B._ VII. 329, 731, XXVIII. 317 _seqq._, XXXIII.
271–272; _I. B._ III. 86; _J. As._ IX. 203, and _J. R. A. S._ N.S.
V. 103, 278.)
The route of which Marco had heard must almost certainly have been
one of those leading by the high Valley of Zebák, and by the Doráh
or the Nuksán Pass, over the watershed of Hindu-Kúsh into Chitrál,
and so to Dir, as already noticed. The difficulty remains as to
how he came to apply the name _Pashai_ to the country south-east
of Badakhshan. I cannot tell. But it is at least possible that
the name of the Pashai tribe (of which the branches even now are
spread over a considerable extent of country) may have once had a
wide application over the southern spurs of the Hindu-Kúsh.[2]
Our Author, moreover, is speaking here from hearsay, and hearsay
geography without maps is much given to generalising. I apprehend
that, along with characteristics specially referable to the Tibetan
and Mongol traditions of Udyána, the term Pashai, as Polo uses
it, vaguely covers the whole tract from the southern boundary of
Badakhshan to the Indus and the Kabul River.
But even by extending its limits to Attok, we shall not get within
seven marches of Káshmir. It is 234 miles by road from Attok to
Srinagar; more than twice seven marches. And, according to Polo’s
usual system, the marches should be counted from Chitrál, or some
point thereabouts.
Sir H. Rawlinson, in his _Monograph on the Oxus_, has indicated
the probability that the name _Pashai_ may have been originally
connected with _Aprasin_ or _Paresín_, the Zendavestian name for
the Indian Caucasus, and which occurs in the Babylonian version
of the Behistun Inscription as the equivalent of Gadára in the
Persian, _i.e._ _Gandhára_, there applied to the whole country
between Bactria and the Indus. (See _J. R. G. S._ XLII. 502.) Some
such traditional application of the term Pashai might have survived.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The Kafir dialect of which Mr. Trumpp collected some particulars
shows in the present tense of the substantive verb these remarkable
forms:— _Ei sŭm_, _Tŭ sis_, _siga sĕ_; _Ima sĭmĭs_, _Wĭ sik_, _Sigĕ
sin_.
[2] In the _Tabakāt-i-Násiri_ (_Elliot_, II. 317) we find mention
of the Highlands of _Pasha-Afroz_, but nothing to define their
position.