CHAPTER XLIV.

OF THE CITY OF CAMPICHU.

Campichu is also a city of Tangut, and a very great and noble one.

Indeed it is the capital and place of government of the whole province

of Tangut.{1} The people are Idolaters, Saracens, and Christians,

and the latter have three very fine churches in the city, whilst the

Idolaters have many minsters and abbeys after their fashion. In these

they have an enormous number of idols, both small and great, certain

of the latter being a good ten paces in stature; some of them being

of wood, others of clay, and others yet of stone. They are all highly

polished, and then covered with gold. The great idols of which I speak

lie at length.{2} And round about them there are other figures of

considerable size, as if adoring and paying homage before them.

Now, as I have not yet given you particulars about the customs of these

Idolaters, I will proceed to tell you about them.

You must know that there are among them certain religious recluses

who lead a more virtuous life than the rest. These abstain from all

lechery, though they do not indeed regard it as a deadly sin; howbeit

if any one sin against nature they condemn him to death. They have an

Ecclesiastical Calendar as we have; and there are five days in the

month that they observe particularly; and on these five days they would

on no account either slaughter any animal or eat flesh meat. On those

days, moreover, they observe much greater abstinence altogether than on

other days.{3}

Among these people a man may take thirty wives, more or less, if he

can but afford to do so, each having wives in proportion to his wealth

and means; but the first wife is always held in highest consideration.

The men endow their wives with cattle, slaves, and money, according

to their ability. And if a man dislikes any one of his wives, he just

turns her off and takes another. They take to wife their cousins and

their fathers’ widows (always excepting the man’s own mother), holding

to be no sin many things that we think grievous sins, and, in short,

they live like beasts.{4}

Messer Maffeo and Messer Marco Polo dwelt a whole year in this city

when on a mission.{5}

Now we will leave this and tell you about other provinces towards the

north, for we are going to take you a sixty days’ journey in that

direction.

NOTE 1.—Campichiu is undoubtedly Kanchau, which was at this time,

as Pauthier tells us, the chief city of the administration of

_Kansuh_, corresponding to Polo’s Tangut. _Kansuh_ itself is a name

compounded of the names of the two cities _Kan_-chau and _Suh_-chau.

[Kanchau fell under the Tangut dominion in 1208. (_Palladius_,

p. 10.) The Musulmans mentioned by Polo at Shachau and Kanchau

probably came from Khotan.—H. C.]

The difficulties that have been made about the form of the name

_Campiciou_, etc., in Polo, and the attempts to explain these,

are probably alike futile. Quatremère writes the Persian form

of the name after Abdurrazzak as _Kamtcheou_, but I see that

Erdmann writes it after Rashid, I presume on good grounds, as

_Ckamidschu_, _i.e._ _Ḳamiju_ or _Ḳamichu_. And that this _was_

the Western pronunciation of the name is shown by the form which

Pegolotti uses, _Camexu_, _i.e._ Camechu. The _p_ in Polo’s spelling

is probably only a superfluous letter, as in the occasional old

spelling of _dampnum_, _contempnere_, _hympnus_, _tirampnus_,

_sompnour_, _Dampne Deu_. In fact, Marignolli writes Polo’s

_Quinsai_ as _Campsay_.

It is worthy of notice that though Ramusio’s text prints the

names of these two cities as _Succuir_ and _Campion_, his own

pronunciation of them appears to have been quite well understood

by the Persian traveller Hajji Mahomed, for it is perfectly clear

that the latter recognized in these names Suhchau and Kanchau.

(See _Ram._ II. f. 14v.) The second volume of the _Navigationi_,

containing Polo, was published after Ramusio’s death, and it is

possible that the names as he himself read them were more correct

(_e.g._ _Succiur, Campjou_).

[Illustration: Colossal Figure, Buddha entering Nirvana.

“=Et si voz di qu’il ont de ydres que sunt grant dix pas.... Ceste

grant ydres gigent.=” ...]

NOTE 2.—This is the meaning of the phrase in the G. T.: “_Ceste

grande ydre_ gigent,” as may be seen from Ramusio’s _giaciono

distesi_. Lazari renders the former expression, “giganteggia

un idolo,” etc., a phrase very unlike Polo. The circumstance

is interesting, because this recumbent Colossus at Kanchau is

mentioned both by Hajji Mahomed and by Shah Rukh’s people. The

latter say: “In this city of Kanchú there is an Idol-Temple 500

cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length which

measures 50 paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the

instep is 21 cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are

other idols of a cubit (?) in height, besides figures of _Bakshis_

as large as life. The action of all is hit off so admirably that

you would think they were alive.” These great recumbent figures

are favourites in Buddhist countries still, _e.g._ in Siam, Burma,

and Ceylon. They symbolise Sakya Buddha entering _Nirvána_. Such a

recumbent figure, perhaps the prototype of these, was seen by Hiuen

Tsang in a Vihara close to the Sál Grove at Kusinágara, where Sakya

entered that state, _i.e._ died. The stature of Buddha was, we are

told, 12 cubits; but Brahma, Indra, and the other gods vainly tried

to compute his dimensions. Some such rude metaphor is probably

embodied in these large images. I have described one 69 feet long

in Burma (represented in the cut), but others exist of much greater

size, though probably none equal to that which Hiuen Tsang, in the

7th century, saw near Bamian, which was 1000 feet in length! I have

heard of but one such image remaining in India, viz. in one of the

caves at Dhamnár in Málwa. This is 15 feet long, and is popularly

known as “Bhim’s Baby.” (_Cathay_, etc., pp. cciii., ccxviii.;

_Mission to Ava_, p. 52; _V. et V. de H. T._, p. 374: _Cunningham’s

Archæl. Reports_, ii. 274; _Tod_, ii. 273.)

[“The temple, in which M. Polo saw an idol of Buddha, represented

in a lying position, is evidently _Wo-fo-sze_, _i.e._ ‘Monastery of

the lying Buddha.’ It was built in 1103 by a Tangut queen, to place

there three idols representing Buddha in this posture, which have

since been found in the ground on this very spot.” (_Palladius_,

_l.c._ p. 10.)

Rubruck (p. 144) says: “A Nestorian, who had come from Cathay told

me that in that country there is an idol so big that it can be

seen from two days off.” Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 144, _note_)

writes: “The largest stone image I have seen is in a cave temple at

Yung-kán, about 10 miles north-west of Ta t’ung Fu in Shan-si. Père

Gerbillon says the Emperor K’ang-hsi measured it himself and found

it to be 57 _chih_ high (61 feet). (_Duhalde, Description_, IV.

352.) I have seen another colossal statue in a cave near Pinchou in

north-west Shan-si, and there is another about 45 miles south of

Ning-hsia Fu, near the left bank of the Yellow River. (_Rockhill,

Land of the Lamas_, 26, and _Diary_, 47.) The great recumbent

figure of the ‘Sleeping Buddha’ in the Wo Fo ssŭ, near Peking, is

of clay.”

King Haython (Brosset’s ed. p. 181) mentions the statue in clay, of

an extraordinary height, of a God (Buddha) aged 3040 years, who is

to live 370,000 years more, when he will be superseded by another

god called _Madri_ (Maitreya).—H. C.]

[Illustration: Great Lama Monastery.]

NOTE 3.—Marco is now speaking of the Lamas, or clergy of Tibetan

Buddhism. The customs mentioned have varied in details, both

locally and with the changes that the system has passed through in

the course of time.

The institutes of ancient Buddhism set apart the days of new and

full moon to be observed by the _Sramanas_ or monks, by fasting,

confession, and listening to the reading of the law. It became

usual for the laity to take part in the observance, and the number

of days was increased to three and then to four, whilst Hiuen Tsang

himself speaks of “the six fasts of every month,” and a Chinese

authority quoted by Julien gives the days as the 8th, 14th, 15th,

23rd, 29th, and 30th. Fahian says that in Ceylon preaching took

place on the 8th, 14th, and 15th days of the month. Four is the

number now most general amongst Buddhist nations, and the days

may be regarded as a kind of Buddhist Sabbath. In the southern

countries and in Nepal they occur at the moon’s changes. In Tibet

and among the Mongol Buddhists they are not at equal intervals,

though I find the actual days differently stated by different

authorities. Pallas says the Mongols observed the 13th, 14th, and

15th, the three days being brought together, he thought, on account

of the distance many Lamas had to travel to the temple—just as in

some Scotch country parishes they used to give two sermons in one

service for like reason! Koeppen, to whose work this note is much

indebted, says the Tibetan days are the 14th, 15th, 29th, 30th,

and adds as to the manner of observance: “On these days, by rule,

among the Lamas, nothing should be tasted but farinaceous food and

tea; the very devout refrain from all food from sunrise to sunset.

The Temples are decorated, and the altar tables set out with the

holy symbols, with tapers, and with dishes containing offerings

in corn, meal, tea, butter, etc., and especially with small

pyramids of dough, or of rice or clay, and accompanied by much

burning of incense-sticks. The service performed by the priests

is more solemn, the music louder and more exciting, than usual.

The laity make their offerings, tell their beads, and repeat _Om

mani padma hom_,” etc. In the _concordat_ that took place between

the Dalai-Lama and the Altun Khaghan, on the reconversion of the

Mongols to Buddhism in the 16th century, one of the articles was

the entire prohibition of hunting and the slaughter of animals on

the monthly fast days. The practice varies much, however, even in

Tibet, with different provinces and sects—a variation which the

Ramusian text of Polo implies in these words: “For five days, or

_four days_, or _three_ in each month, they shed no blood,” etc.

In Burma the Worship Day, as it is usually called by Europeans,

is a very gay scene, the women flocking to the pagodas in their

brightest attire. (_H. T. Mémoires_, I. 6, 208; _Koeppen_, I.

563–564, II. 139, 307–308; _Pallas, Samml._ II. 168–169).

NOTE 4.—These matrimonial customs are the same that are afterwards

ascribed to the Tartars, so we defer remark.

NOTE 5.—So Pauthier’s text, “_en legation_.” The G. Text includes

Nicolo Polo, and says, “on business of theirs that is not worth

mentioning,” and with this Ramusio agrees.