CHAPTER LXI.

OF THE CITY OF CHANDU, AND THE KAAN’S PALACE THERE.

And when you have ridden three days from the city last mentioned,

between north-east and north, you come to a city called CHANDU,{1}

which was built by the Kaan now reigning. There is at this place a very

fine marble Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with

figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety of trees and

flowers, all executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with

delight and astonishment.{2}

Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass of 16 miles,

and inside the Park there are fountains and rivers and brooks, and

beautiful meadows, with all kinds of wild animals (excluding such as

are of ferocious nature), which the Emperor has procured and placed

there to supply food for his gerfalcons and hawks, which he keeps there

in mew. Of these there are more than 200 gerfalcons alone, without

reckoning the other hawks. The Kaan himself goes every week to see his

birds sitting in mew, and sometimes he rides through the park with a

leopard behind him on his horse’s croup; and then if he sees any animal

that takes his fancy, he slips his leopard at it,{3} and the game when

taken is made over to feed the hawks in mew. This he does for diversion.

Moreover [at a spot in the Park where there is a charming wood] he has

another Palace built of cane, of which I must give you a description.

It is gilt all over, and most elaborately finished inside. [It is

stayed on gilt and lackered columns, on each of which is a dragon all

gilt, the tail of which is attached to the column whilst the head

supports the architrave, and the claws likewise are stretched out right

and left to support the architrave.] The roof, like the rest, is formed

of canes, covered with a varnish so strong and excellent that no amount

of rain will rot them. These canes are a good 3 palms in girth, and

from 10 to 15 paces in length. [They are cut across at each knot, and

then the pieces are split so as to form from each two hollow tiles, and

with these the house is roofed; only every such tile of cane has to be

nailed down to prevent the wind from lifting it.] In short, the whole

Palace is built of these canes, which (I may mention) serve also for a

great variety of other useful purposes. The construction of the Palace

is so devised that it can be taken down and put up again with great

celerity; and it can all be taken to pieces and removed whithersoever

the Emperor may command. When erected, it is braced [against mishaps

from the wind] by more than 200 cords of silk.{4}

The Lord abides at this Park of his, dwelling sometimes in the Marble

Palace and sometimes in the Cane Palace for three months of the year,

to wit, June, July, and August; preferring this residence because it

is by no means hot; in fact it is a very cool place. When the 28th day

of [the Moon of] August arrives he takes his departure, and the Cane

Palace is taken to pieces.{5} But I must tell you what happens when he

goes away from this Palace every year on the 28th of the August [Moon].

You must know that the Kaan keeps an immense stud of white horses and

mares; in fact more than 10,000 of them, and all pure white without a

speck. The milk of these mares is drunk by himself and his family, and

by none else, except by those of one great tribe that have also the

privilege of drinking it. This privilege was granted them by Chinghis

Kaan, on account of a certain victory that they helped him to win long

ago. The name of the tribe is HORIAD.{6}

Now when these mares are passing across the country, and any one falls

in with them, be he the greatest lord in the land, he must not presume

to pass until the mares have gone by; he must either tarry where he is,

or go a half-day’s journey round if need so be, so as not to come nigh

them; for they are to be treated with the greatest respect. Well, when

the Lord sets out from the Park on the 28th of August, as I told you,

the milk of all those mares is taken and sprinkled on the ground. And

this is done on the injunction of the Idolaters and Idol-priests, who

say that it is an excellent thing to sprinkle that milk on the ground

every 28th of August, so that the Earth and the Air and the False Gods

shall have their share of it, and the Spirits likewise that inhabit

the Air and the Earth. And thus those beings will protect and bless

the Kaan and his children and his wives and his folk and his gear, and

his cattle and his horses, his corn and all that is his. After this is

done, the Emperor is off and away.{7}

But I must now tell you a strange thing that hitherto I have forgotten

to mention. During the three months of every year that the Lord resides

at that place, if it should happen to be bad weather, there are certain

crafty enchanters and astrologers in his train, who are such adepts in

necromancy and the diabolic arts, that they are able to prevent any

cloud or storm from passing over the spot on which the Emperor’s Palace

stands. The sorcerers who do this are called TEBET and KESIMUR, which

are the names of two nations of Idolaters. Whatever they do in this way

is by the help of the Devil, but they make those people believe that

it is compassed by dint of their own sanctity and the help of God.{8}

[They always go in a state of dirt and uncleanness, devoid of respect

for themselves, or for those who see them, unwashed, unkempt, and

sordidly attired.]

These people also have a custom which I must tell you. If a man is

condemned to death and executed by the lawful authority, they take his

body and cook and eat it. But if any one die a natural death then they

will not eat the body.{9}

There is another marvel performed by those BACSI, of whom I have been

speaking as knowing so many enchantments.{10} For when the Great Kaan

is at his capital and in his great Palace, seated at his table, which

stands on a platform some eight cubits above the ground, his cups are

set before him [on a great buffet] in the middle of the hall pavement,

at a distance of some ten paces from his table, and filled with wine,

or other good spiced liquor such as they use. Now when the Lord desires

to drink, these enchanters by the power of their enchantments cause the

cups to move from their place without being touched by anybody, and to

present themselves to the Emperor! This every one present may witness,

and there are ofttimes more than 10,000 persons thus present. ’Tis a

truth and no lie! and so will tell you the sages of our own country who

understand necromancy, for they also can perform it.{11}

And when the Idol Festivals come round, these _Bacsi_ go to the Prince

and say: “Sire, the Feast of such a god is come” (naming him). “My

Lord, you know,” the enchanter will say, “that this god, when he gets

no offerings, always sends bad weather and spoils our seasons. So we

pray you to give us such and such a number of black-faced sheep,”

naming whatever number they please. “And we beg also, good my lord,

that we may have such a quantity of incense, and such a quantity of

lignaloes, and”—so much of this, so much of that, and so much of

t’other, according to their fancy—“that we may perform a solemn service

and a great sacrifice to our Idols, and that so they may be induced to

protect us and all that is ours.”

The _Bacsi_ say these things to the Barons entrusted with the

Stewardship, who stand round the Great Kaan, and these repeat them to

the Kaan, and he then orders the Barons to give everything that the

Bacsi have asked for. And when they have got the articles they go and

make a great feast in honour of their god, and hold great ceremonies of

worship with grand illuminations and quantities of incense of a variety

of odours, which they make up from different aromatic spices. And then

they cook the meat, and set it before the idols, and sprinkle the

broth hither and thither, saying that in this way the idols get their

bellyful. Thus it is that they keep their festivals. You must know that

each of the idols has a name of his own, and a feast-day, just as our

Saints have their anniversaries.{12}

They have also immense Minsters and Abbeys, some of them as big as

a small town, with more than two thousand monks (_i.e._ after their

fashion) in a single abbey.{13} These monks dress more decently than

the rest of the people, and have the head and beard shaven. There are

some among these _Bacsi_ who are allowed by their rule to take wives,

and who have plenty of children.{14}

Then there is another kind of devotees called SENSIN, who are men of

extraordinary abstinence after their fashion, and lead a life of such

hardship as I will describe. All their life long they eat nothing but

bran,{15} which they take mixt with hot water. That is their food:

bran, and nothing but bran; and water for their drink. ’Tis a lifelong

fast! so that I may well say their life is one of extraordinary

asceticism. They have great idols, and plenty of them; but they

sometimes also worship fire. The other Idolaters who are not of this

sect call these people heretics—_Patarins_ as we should say{16}—because

they do not worship their idols in their own fashion. Those of whom I

am speaking would not take a wife on any consideration.{17} They wear

dresses of hempen stuff, black and blue,{18} and sleep upon mats; in

fact their asceticism is something astonishing. Their idols are all

feminine, that is to say, they have women’s names.{19}

Now let us have done with this subject, and let me tell you of the

great state and wonderful magnificence of the Great Lord of Lords; I

mean that great Prince who is the Sovereign of the Tartars, CUBLAY by

name, that most noble and puissant Lord.

NOTE 1.—[There were two roads to go from Peking to Shangtu: the

eastern road through Tu-shi-k’ow, and the western (used for the

return journey) road by Ye-hu ling. Polo took this last road, which

ran from Peking to Siuen-te chau through the same places as now;

but from the latter town it led, not to Kalgan as it does now,

but more to the west, to a place called now Shan-fang pú where

the pass across the Ye-hu ling range begins. “On both these roads

_nabo_, or temporary palaces, were built, as resting-places for

the Khans; eighteen on the eastern road, and twenty-four on the

western.” (_Palladius_, p. 25.) The same author makes (p. 26) the

following remarks: “M. Polo’s statement that he travelled three

days from Siuen-te chau to Chagannor, and three days also from the

latter place to Shang-tu, agrees with the information contained

in the ‘Researches on the Routes to Shangtu.’ The Chinese authors

have not given the precise position of Lake Chagannor; there are

several lakes in the desert on the road to Shangtu, and their names

have changed with time. The palace in Chagannor was built in 1280”

(according to the _Siu t’ung kien_).—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—_Chandu_, called more correctly in Ramusio _Xandu_, _i.e._

SHANDU, and by Fr. Odorico _Sandu_, viz. SHANG-TU or “Upper Court,”

the Chinese title of Kúblái’s summer residence at Kaipingfu,

_Mongolicè_ Keibung (see ch. xiii. of Prologue) [is called also

_Loan king_, _i.e._ “the capital on the Loan River,” according to

Palladius, p. 26.—H. C.]. The ruins still exist, in about lat. 40°

22′, and a little west of the longitude of Peking. The site is 118

miles in direct line from Chaghan-nor, making Polo’s three marches

into rides of unusual length.[1] The ruins bear the Mongol name

of _Chao Naiman Sumé Khotan_, meaning “city of the 108 temples,”

and are about 26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, a bustling,

dirty town of modern origin, famous for the manufactory of idols,

bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of Buddhism. The site

was visited (though not described) by Père Gerbillon in 1691, and

since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell

of the British Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor,

made a journey thither from the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass

(_supra_ p. 26), Kalgan, and the vicinity of Chaghan-nor, the route

that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their annual

migration, by Kúblái and his successors.

The deserted site, overgrown with rank weeds and grass, stands but

little above the marshy bed of the river, which here preserves the

name of Shang-tu, and about a mile from its north or left bank. The

walls, of earth faced with brick and unhewn stone, still stand,

forming, as in the Tartar city of Peking, a double _enceinte_, of

which the inner line no doubt represents the area of the “Marble

Palace” of which Polo speaks. This forms a square of about 2 _li_

(⅔ of a mile) to the side, and has three gates—south, east, and

west, of which the southern one still stands intact, a perfect

arch, 20 ft. high and 12 ft. wide. The outer wall forms a square of

4 _li_ (1⅓ mile) to the side, and has six gates. The foundations

of temples and palace-buildings can be traced, and both enclosures

are abundantly strewn with blocks of marble and fragments of lions,

dragons, and other sculptures, testifying to the former existence

of a flourishing city, but exhibiting now scarcely one stone upon

another. A broken memorial tablet was found, half buried in the

ground, within the north-east angle of the outer rampart, bearing

an inscription in an antique form of the Chinese character, which

proves it to have been erected by Kúblái, in honour of a Buddhist

ecclesiastic called Yun-Hien. Yun-Hien was the abbot of one of

those great minsters and abbeys of _Bacsis_, of which Marco

speaks, and the exact date (no longer visible) of the monument was

equivalent to A.D. 1288.[2]

[Illustration:

Heading

In the Old Chinese Seal-Character, of an INSCRIPTION

on a Memorial raised by KÚBLÁI-KAAN

to a Buddhist Ecclesiastic in the vicinity of his SUMMER-PALACE

at SHANG-TU in Mongolia.

Reduced from a facsimile obtained on the spot by Dr. _S. W. Bushell_,

1872.]

This city occupies the south-east angle of a more extensive

enclosure, bounded by what is now a grassy mound, and embracing,

on Dr. Bushell’s estimate, about 5 square miles. Further knowledge

may explain the discrepancy from Marco’s dimension, but this must

be the park of which he speaks.[3] The woods and fountains have

disappeared, like the temples and palaces; all is dreary and

desolate, though still abounding in the game which was one of

Kúblái’s attractions to the spot. A small monastery, occupied by

six or seven wretched Lamas, is the only building that remains in

the vicinity. The river Shangtu, which lower down becomes the Lan

[or Loan]-Ho, was formerly navigated from the sea up to this place

by flat grain-boats.

[Mgr. de Harlez gave in the _T’oung Pao_ (x. p. 73) an inscription

in _Chuen_ character on a _stele_ found in the ruins of Shangtu,

and built by an officer with the permission of the Emperor; it is

probably a token of imperial favour; the inscription means: _Great

Longevity_.—H. C.]

In the wail which Sanang Setzen, the poetical historian of the

Mongols, puts, perhaps with some traditional basis, into the mouth

of Toghon Temur, the last of the Chinghizide Dynasty in China, when

driven from his throne, the changes are rung on the lost glories of

his capital _Daïtu_ (see _infra_, Book II. ch. xi.) and his summer

palace _Shangtu_; thus (I translate from Schott’s amended German

rendering of the Mongol):

“My vast and noble Capital, My Daïtu, My splendidly adorned!

And Thou my cool and delicious Summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung!

Ye, also, yellow plains of Shangtu, Delight of my godlike Sires!

I suffered myself to drop into dreams,—and lo! my Empire was gone!

Ah Thou my Daïtu, built of the nine precious substances!

Ah my Shangtu-Keibung, Union of all perfections!

Ah my Fame! Ah my Glory, as Khagan and Lord of the Earth!

When I used to awake betimes and look forth, how the breezes blew

loaded with fragrance!

And turn which way I would all was glorious perfection of beauty!

• • • • •

Alas for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World!

Alas for my Daïtu, seat of Sanctity, Glorious work of the

Immortal KÚBLÁI!

All, all is rent from me!”

It was, in 1797, whilst reading this passage of Marco’s narrative

in old Purchas that Coleridge fell asleep, and dreamt the dream of

Kúblái’s Paradise, beginning:

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred River, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.”

It would be a singular coincidence in relation to this poem were

Klaproth’s reading correct of a passage in Rashiduddin which he

renders as saying that the palace at Kaiminfu was “called Langtin,

and was built after a plan that Kúblái had seen in a dream, and

had retained in his memory.” But I suspect D’Ohsson’s reading is

more accurate, which runs: “Kúblái caused a Palace to be built for

him east of Kaipingfu, called Lengten; _but he abandoned it in

consequence of a dream._” For we see from Sanang Setzen that the

Palaces of Lengten and Kaiming or Shangtu were distinct; “Between

the year of the Rat (1264), when Kúblái was fifty years old, and

the year of the Sheep (1271), in the space of eight years, he

built four great cities, viz. for Summer Residence SHANGTU KEIBUNG

Kürdu Balgasun, for Winter Residence Yeke DAÏTU Khotan, and on

the shady side of the Altai (see ch. li. note 3, _supra_) Arulun

TSAGHAN BALGASUN, and Erchügin LANGTING Balgasun.” A valuable

letter from Dr. Bushell enables me now to indicate the position

of Langtin: “The district through which the river flows eastward

from Shangtu is known to the Mongolians of the present day by the

name of _Lang-tírh_ (_Lang-ting’rh_).... The ruins of the city are

marked on a Chinese map in my possession Pai-dseng-tzu, _i.e._

‘White City,’ implying that it was formerly an Imperial residence.

The remains of the wall are 7 or 8 _li_ in diameter, of stone, and

situated about 40 _li_ north-north-west from Dolon-nor.”

(_Gerbillon_ in _Astley_, IV. 701–716; Klaproth, in _J. As._

sér. II. tom. xi. 345–350; _Schott, Die letzten Jahre der

Mongolenherrschaft in China_ (Berl. Acad. d. Wissensch. 1850, pp.

502–503); _Huc’s Tartary_, etc., p. 14 _seqq._; _Cathay_, 134, 261;

_S. Setzen_, p. 115; _Dr. S. W. Bushell, Journey outside the Great

Wall_, in _J. R. G. S._ for 1874, and MS. notes.)

One of the pavilions of the celebrated Yuen-ming-Yuen may give some

idea of the probable style, though not of the scale, of Kúblái’s

Summer Palace.

Hiuen Tsang’s account of the elaborate and fantastic ornamentation

of the famous Indian monasteries at Nalanda in Bahár, where Mr.

Broadley has lately made such remarkable discoveries, seems to

indicate that these fantasies of Burmese and Chinese architecture

may have had a direct origin in India, at a time when timber was

still a principal material of construction there: “The pavilions

had pillars adorned with dragons, and posts that glowed with all

the colours of the rainbow, sculptured frets, columns set with

jade, richly chiselled and lackered, with balustrades of vermilion,

and carved open work. The lintels of the doors were tastefully

ornamented, and the roofs covered with shining tiles, the

splendours of which were multiplied by mutual reflection and from

moment to moment took a thousand forms.” (_Vie et Voyages_, 157.)

NOTE 3.—[Rubruck says (_Rockhill_, p. 248): “I saw also the envoy

of a certain Soldan of India, who had brought eight leopards and

ten _greyhounds_, taught to sit on horses’ backs, as leopards

sit.”—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—Ramusio’s is here so much more lucid than the other texts,

that I have adhered mainly to his account of the building. The

roof described is of a kind in use in the Indian Archipelago,

and in some other parts of Transgangetic India, in which the

semi-cylinders of bamboo are laid just like Roman tiles.

Rashiduddin gives a curious account of the way in which the

foundations of the terrace on which this palace stood were erected

in a lake. He says, too, in accord with Polo: “Inside the city

itself a second palace was built, about a bowshot from the first:

but the Kaan generally takes up his residence in the palace outside

the town,” _i.e._, as I imagine, in Marco’s Cane Palace. (_Cathay_,

pp. 261–262.)

[“The _Palace of canes_ is probably the Palm Hall, _Tsung tien_,

alias _Tsung mao tien_, of the Chinese authors, which was situated

in the western palace garden of Shangtu. Mention is made also in

the _Altan Tobchi_ of a cane tent in Shangtu.” (_Palladius_, p.

27.)—H. C.]

Marco might well say of the bamboo that “it serves also a great

variety of other purposes.” An intelligent native of Arakan who

accompanied me in wanderings on duty in the forests of the Burmese

frontier in the beginning of 1853, and who used to ask many

questions about Europe, seemed able to apprehend almost everything

except the possibility of existence in a country without bamboos!

“When I speak of bamboo huts, I mean to say that posts and walls,

wall-plates and rafters, floor and thatch, and the withes that bind

them, are all of bamboo. In fact, it might almost be said that

among the Indo-Chinese nations the staff of life is _a bamboo!_

Scaffolding and ladders, landing-jetties, fishing apparatus,

irrigation wheels and scoops, oars, masts, and yards [and in China,

sails, cables, and caulking, asparagus, medicine, and works of

fantastic art], spears and arrows, hats and helmets, bow, bowstring

and quiver, oil-cans, water-stoups and cooking-pots, pipe-sticks

[tinder and means of producing fire], conduits, clothes-boxes,

pawn-boxes, dinner-trays, pickles, preserves, and melodious musical

instruments, torches, footballs, cordage, bellows, mats, paper;

these are but a few of the articles that are made from the bamboo;”

and in China, to sum up the whole, as Barrow observes, it maintains

order throughout the Empire! (_Ava Mission_, p. 153; and see also

_Wallace, Ind. Arch._ I. 120 _seqq._)

[Illustration: Pavilion at Yuen-ming-Yuen.]

NOTE 5.—“The Emperor ... began this year (1264) to depart from

Yenking (Peking) in the second or third month for Shangtu, not

returning until the eighth month. Every year he made this passage,

and all the Mongol emperors who succeeded him followed his

example.” (_Gaubil_, p. 144.)

[“The Khans usually resorted to Shangtu in the 4th moon and

returned to Peking in the 9th. On the 7th day of the 7th moon there

were libations performed in honour of the ancestors; a shaman, his

face to the north, uttered in a loud voice the names of Chingiz

Khan and of other deceased Khans, and poured mare’s milk on the

ground. The propitious day for the return journey to Peking was

also appointed then.” (_Palladius_, p. 26.)—H. C.]

NOTE 6.—White horses were presented in homage to the Kaan on New

Year’s Day (_the White Feast_), as we shall see below. (Bk. II. ch.

xv.) Odoric also mentions this practice; and, according to Huc,

the Mongol chiefs continued it at least to the time of the Emperor

K’ang-hi. Indeed Timkowski speaks of annual tributes of white

camels and white horses from the Khans of the Kalkas and other

Mongol dignitaries, in the present century. (_Huc’s Tartary_, etc.;

_Tim._ II. 33.)

By the HORIAD are no doubt intended the UIRAD or OIRAD, a name

usually interpreted as signifying the “Closely Allied,” or

Confederates; but Vámbéry explains it as (Turki) _Oyurat_, “Grey

horse,” to which the statement in our text appears to lend colour.

They were not of the tribes properly called Mongol, but after their

submission to Chinghiz they remained closely attached to him.

In Chinghiz’s victory over Aung-Khan, as related by S. Setzen,

we find Turulji Taishi, the son of the chief of the Oirad, one

of Chinghiz’s three chief captains; perhaps that is the victory

alluded to. The seats of the Oirad appear to have been about the

head waters of the Kem, or Upper Yenisei.

In A.D. 1295 there took place a curious desertion from the service

of Gházán Khan of Persia of a vast corps of the Oirad, said

to amount to 18,000 _tents_. They made their way to Damascus,

where they were well received by the Mameluke Sultan. But their

heathenish practices gave dire offence to the Faithful. They were

settled in the _Sáhil_, or coast districts of Palestine. Many died

speedily; the rest embraced Islam, spread over the country, and

gradually became absorbed in the general population. Their sons and

daughters were greatly admired for their beauty. (_S. Setz._ p. 87;

_Erdmann_, 187; _Pallas, Samml._ I. 5 _seqq._; _Makrizi_, III. 29;

_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ II. p. 159 _seqq._)

[With reference to Yule’s conjecture, I may quote Palladius (_l.c._

p. 27): “It is, however, strange that the Oirats alone enjoyed the

privilege described by Marco Polo; for the highest position at the

Mongol Khan’s court belonged to the Kunkrat tribe, out of which the

Khans used to choose their first wives, who were called Empresses

of the first _ordo_.”—H. C.]

NOTE 7.—Rubruquis assigns such a festival to the month of May: “On

the 9th day of the May Moon they collect all the white mares of

their herds and consecrate them. The Christian priests also must

then assemble with their thuribles. They then sprinkle new cosmos

(_kumíz_) on the ground, and make a great feast that day, for

according to their calendar, it is their time of first drinking

new cosmos, just as we reckon of our new wine at the feast of St.

Bartholomew (24th August), or that of St. Sixtus (6th August),

or of our fruit on the feast of St. James and St. Christopher”

(25th July). [With reference to this feast, Mr. Rockhill gives

(_Rubruck_, p. 241, note) extracts from _Pallas, Voyages_, IV. 579,

and _Professor Radloff, Aus Siberien_, I. 378.—H. C.] The Yakuts

also hold such a festival in June or July, when the mares foal, and

immense wooden goblets of kumíz are emptied on that occasion. They

also pour out kumíz for the Spirits to the four quarters of heaven.

The following passage occurs in the narrative of the Journey of

Chang Te-hui, a Chinese teacher, who was summoned to visit the

camp of Kúblái in Mongolia, some twelve years before that Prince

ascended the throne of the Kaans:[4]

“On the 9th day of the 9th Moon (October), the Prince, having

called his subjects before his chief tent, performed the libation

of the milk of a white mare. This was the customary sacrifice

at that time. The vessels used were made of birch-bark, not

ornamented with either silver or gold. Such here is the respect for

simplicity....

“At the last day of the year the Mongols suddenly changed their

camping-ground to another place, for the mutual congratulation

on the 1st Moon. Then there was every day feasting before the

tents for the lower ranks. Beginning with the Prince, all dressed

themselves in white fur clothing....[5]

“On the 9th day of the 4th Moon (May) the Prince again collected

his vassals before the chief tent for the libation of the milk of a

white mare. This sacrifice is performed twice a year.”

It has been seen (p. 308) that Rubruquis also names the 9th day

of the May moon as that of the consecration of the white mares.

The autumn libation is described by Polo as performed on the 28th

day of the August moon, probably because it was unsuited to the

circumstances of the Court at Cambaluc, where the Kaan was during

October, and the day named was the last of his annual stay in the

Mongolian uplands.

Baber tells that among the ceremonies of a Mongol Review the Khan

and his staff took kumíz and sprinkled it towards the standards. An

Armenian author of the Mongol era says that it was the custom of

the Tartars, before drinking, to sprinkle drink towards heaven, and

towards the four quarters. Mr. Atkinson notices the same practice

among the Kirghiz; and I found the like in old days among the

Kasias of the eastern frontier of Bengal.

The time of year assigned by Polo for the ceremony implies some

change. Perhaps it had been made to coincide with the Festival

of Water Consecration of the Lamas, with which the time named

in the text seems to correspond. On that occasion the Lamas go

in procession to the rivers and lakes and consecrate them by

benediction and by casting in offerings, attended by much popular

festivity.

Rubruquis seems to intimate that the Nestorian priests were

employed to consecrate the white mares by incensing them. In the

rear of Lord Canning’s camp in India I once came upon the party of

his _Shutr Suwárs_, or dromedary-express riders, busily engaged in

incensing with frankincense the whole of the dromedaries, which

were kneeling in a circle. I could get no light on the practice,

but it was very probably a relic of the old Mongol custom. (_Rubr._

363; _Erman_, II. 397; _Billings’ Journey_, Fr. Tr. I. 217;

_Baber_, 103; _J. As._ sér. V. tom. xi. p. 249; _Atk. Amoor_, p.

47; _J. A. S. B._ XIII. 628; _Koeppen_, II. 313.)

NOTE 8.—The practice of weather-conjuring was in great vogue among

the Mongols, and is often alluded to in their history.

The operation was performed by means of a stone of magical virtues,

called _Yadah_ or _Jadah-Tásh_, which was placed in or hung over

a basin of water with sundry ceremonies. The possession of such a

stone is ascribed by the early Arab traveller Ibn Mohalhal to the

_Ḳímák_, a great tribe of the Turks. In the war raised against

Chinghiz and Aung Khan, when still allies, by a great confederation

of the Naiman and other tribes in 1202, we are told that Sengun,

the son of Aung Khan, when sent to meet the enemy, caused them to

be enchanted, so that all their attempted movements against him

were defeated by snow and mist. The fog and darkness were indeed so

dense that many men and horses fell over precipices, and many also

perished with cold. In another account of (apparently) the same

matter, given by Mir-Khond, the conjuring is set on foot by the

_Yadachi_ of Buyruk Khan, Prince of the Naiman, but the mischief

all rebounds on the conjurer’s own side.

In Tului’s invasion of Honan in 1231–1232, Rashiduddin describes

him, when in difficulty, as using the _Jadah_ stone with success.

Timur, in his Memoirs, speaks of the Jets using incantations to

produce heavy rains which hindered his cavalry from acting against

them. A _Yadachi_ was captured, and when his head had been taken

off the storm ceased.

Baber speaks of one of his early friends, Khwaja Ka Mulai, as

excelling in falconry and acquainted with _Yadagarí_ or the

art of bringing on rain and snow by means of enchantment. When

the Russians besieged Kazan in 1552 they suffered much from

the constant heavy rains, and this annoyance was universally

ascribed to the arts of the Tartar Queen, who was celebrated as an

enchantress. Sháh Abbás believed he had learned the Tartar secret,

and put much confidence in it. (_P. Della V._ I. 869.)

[Grenard says (II. p. 256) the most powerful and most feared of

sorcerers [in Chinese Turkestan] is the _djâduger_, who, to produce

rain or fine weather, uses a jade stone, given by Noah to Japhet.

Grenard adds (II. 406–407) there are sorcerers (Ngag-pa-snags-pa)

whose specialty is to make rain fall; they are similar to the

Turkish _Yadachi_ and like them use a stone called “water cristal,”

_chu shel_; probably jade stone.

Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 245, note) writes: “Rashideddin states

that when the Urianghit wanted to bring a storm to an end, they

said injuries to the sky, the lightning and thunder. I have seen

this done myself by Mongol storm-dispellers. (See _Diary_, 201,

203.) ‘The other Mongol people,’ he adds, ‘do the contrary. When

the storm rumbles, they remain shut up in their huts, full of

fear.’ The subject of storm-making, and the use of stones for that

purpose, is fully discussed by Quatremère, _Histoire_, 438–440.”

(Cf. also _Rockhill_, _l.c._ p. 254.)—H. C.]

An edict of the Emperor Shi-tsung, of the reigning dynasty,

addressed in 1724–1725 to the Eight Banners of Mongolia, warns

them against this rain-conjuring: “If I,” indignantly observes

the Emperor, “offering prayer in sincerity have yet room to fear

that it may please Heaven to leave MY prayer unanswered, it is

truly intolerable that mere common people wishing for rain should

at their own caprice set up altars of earth, and bring together

a rabble of Hoshang (Buddhist Bonzes) and Taossé to conjure the

spirits to gratify their wishes.”

[“Lamas were of various extraction; at the time of the great

assemblies, and of the Khan’s festivities in Shangtu, they erected

an altar near the Khan’s tent and prayed for fine weather; the

whistling of shells rose up to heaven.” These are the words in

which Marco Polo’s narrative is corroborated by an eye-witness who

has celebrated the remarkable objects of Shangtu (_Loan king tsa

yung_). These Lamas, in spite of the prohibition by the Buddhist

creed of bloody sacrifices, used to sacrifice sheep’s hearts to

Mahakala. It happened, as it seems, that the heart of an executed

criminal was also considered an agreeable offering; and as the

offerings could be, after the ceremony, eaten by the sacrificing

priests, Marco Polo had some reason to accuse the Lamas of

cannibalism. (_Palladius_, 28.)—H. C.]

The practice of weather-conjuring is not yet obsolete in Tartary,

Tibet, and the adjoining countries.[6]

Weather-conjuring stories were also rife in Europe during the

Middle Ages. One such is conspicuously introduced in connection

with a magical fountain in the romance of the _Chevalier au Lyon_:

“Et s’i pant uns bacins d’or fin

A une si longue chaainne

Qui dure jusqu’a la fontainne.

Lez la fontainne troveras

Un perron tel con tu verras

* * * *

S’au bacin viaus de l’iaue prandre

Et dessor le perron espandre,

La verras une tel tanpeste

Qu’an cest bois ne remandra beste,”

etc. etc.[7]

The effect foretold in these lines is the subject of a woodcut

illustrating a Welsh version of the same tale in the first volume

of the _Mabinogion_. And the existence of such a fountain is

alluded to by Alexander Neckam. (_De Naturis Rerum_, Bk. II. ch.

vii.)

In the _Cento Novelle Antiche_ also certain necromancers exhibit

their craft before the Emperor Frederic (Barbarossa apparently):

“The weather began to be overcast, and lo! of a sudden rain began

to fall with continued thunders and lightnings, as if the world

were come to an end, and hailstones that looked like steel-caps,”

etc. Various other European legends of like character will be found

in _Liebrecht’s Gervasius von Tilbury_, pp. 147–148.

Rain-makers there are in many parts of the world; but it is

remarkable that those also of Samoa in the Pacific operate by means

of a _rain-stone_.

Such weather conjurings as we have spoken of are ascribed by Ovid

to Circe:

“Concipit illa preces, et verba venefica dicit;

Ignotosque Deos ignoto carmine adorat,

* * * *

_Tunc quoque cantato densetur carmine caelum,

Et nebulas exhalat humus_.”—_Metam._ XIV. 365.

And to Medea:—

————“Quum volui, ripis mirantibus, amnes

In fontes rediere suos ... (another feat of the Lamas)

... _Nubila pello,

Nubilaque induco; ventos abigoque, vocoque_.”—_Ibid._ VII. 199.

And by Tibullus to the _Saga_ (_Eleg._ I. 2, 45); whilst

Empedocles, in verses ascribed to him by Diogenes Laertius, claims

power to communicate like secrets of potency:—

“By my spells thou may’st

To timely sunshine turn the purple rains,

And parching droughts to fertilising floods.”

(See _Cathay_, p. clxxxvii.; _Erdm._ 282; _Oppert_, 182 _seqq._;

_Erman_, I. 153; _Pallas, Samml._ II. 348 _seqq._; _Timk._ I. 402;

_J. R. A. S._ VII. 305–306; _D’Ohsson_, II. 614; and for many

interesting particulars, _Q. R._ p. 428 _seqq._, and _Hammer’s

Golden Horde_, 207 and 435 _seqq._)

NOTE 9.—It is not clear whether Marco attributes this cannibalism

to the Tibetans and Kashmirians, or brings it in as a particular of

Tartar custom which he had forgotten to mention before.

The accusations of cannibalism indeed against the Tibetans in old

accounts are frequent, and I have elsewhere (see _Cathay_, p. 151)

remarked on some singular Tibetan practices which go far to account

for such charges. Della Penna, too, makes a statement which bears

curiously on the present passage. Remarking on the great use made

by certain classes of the Lamas of human skulls for magical cups,

and of human thigh bones for flutes and whistles, he says that

to supply them with these _the bodies of executed criminals were

stored up at the disposal of the Lamas_; and a Hindu account of

Tibet in the _Asiatic Researches_ asserts that when one is killed

in a fight both parties rush forward and struggle for the liver,

which they eat (vol. xv).

[Carpini says of the people of Tibet: “They are pagans; they have

a most astonishing, or rather horrible, custom, for, when any

one’s father is about to give up the ghost, all the relatives meet

together, and they eat him, as was told to me for certain.” Mr.

Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 152, note) writes: “So far as I am aware,

this charge [of cannibalism] is not made by any Oriental writer

against the Tibetans, though both Arab travellers to China in the

ninth century and Armenian historians of the thirteenth century say

the Chinese practised cannibalism. The Armenians designate China by

the name _Nankas_, which I take to be Chinese _Nan-kuo_, ‘southern

country,’ the _Manzi_ country of Marco Polo.”—H. C.]

But like charges of cannibalism are brought against both Chinese

and Tartars very positively. Thus, without going back to the

Anthropophagous Scythians of Ptolemy and Mela, we read in the

_Relations_ of the Arab travellers of the ninth century: “In

China it occurs sometimes that the governor of a province revolts

from his duty to the emperor. In such a case he is slaughtered

and eaten. _In fact, the Chinese eat the flesh of all men who

are executed by the sword_.” Dr. Rennie mentions a superstitious

practice, the continued existence of which in our own day he has

himself witnessed, and which might perhaps have given rise to some

such statement as that of the Arab travellers, if it be not indeed

a relic, in a mitigated form, of the very practice they assert to

have prevailed. After an execution at Peking certain large pith

balls are steeped in the blood, and under the name of _blood-bread_

are sold as a medicine for consumption. _It is only to the blood of

decapitated criminals that any such healing power is attributed_.

It has been asserted in the annals of the _Propagation de la Foi_

that the Chinese executioners of M. Chapdelaine, a missionary who

was martyred in Kwang-si in 1856 (28th February), were seen to eat

the heart of their victim; and M. Huot, a missionary in the Yun-nan

province, recounts a case of cannibalism which he witnessed. Bishop

Chauveau, at Ta Ts’ien-lu, told Mr. Cooper that he had seen men

in one of the cities of Yun-nan eating the heart and brains of a

celebrated robber who had been executed. Dr. Carstairs Douglas of

Amoy also tells me that the like practices have occurred at Amoy

and Swatau.

[With reference to cannibalism in China see _Medical Superstitions

an Incentive to Anti-Foreign Riots in China_, by _D. J. Macgowan,

North China Herald_, 8th July, 1892, pp. 60–62. Mr. E. H. Parker

(_China Review_, February–March, 1901, 136) relates that the

inhabitants of a part of Kwang-si boiled and ate a Chinese officer

who had been sent to pacify them. “The idea underlying this

horrible act [cannibalism] is, that by eating a portion of the

victim, especially the heart, one acquires the valour with which he

was endowed.” (_Dennys’ Folk-lore of China_, 67.)—H. C.]

Hayton, the Armenian, after relating the treason of a Saracen,

called Parwana (he was an Iconian Turk), against Abaka Khan,

says: “He was taken and cut in two, and orders were issued that

in all the food eaten by Abaka there should be put a portion of

the traitor’s flesh. Of this Abaka himself ate, and caused all his

barons to partake. _And this was in accordance with the custom

of the Tartars_.” The same story is related independently and

differently by Friar Ricold, thus: “When the army of Abaga ran

away from the Saracens in Syria, a certain great Tartar baron was

arrested who had been guilty of treason. And when the Emperor Khan

was giving the order for his execution the Tartar ladies and women

interposed, and begged that he might be made over to them. Having

got hold of the prisoner they boiled him alive, and cutting his

body up into mince-meat gave it to eat to the whole army, as an

example to others.” Vincent of Beauvais makes a like statement:

“When they capture any one who is at bitter enmity with them, they

gather together and eat him in vengeance of his revolt, and like

infernal leeches suck his blood,” a custom of which a modern Mongol

writer thinks that he finds a trace in a surviving proverb. Among

more remote and ignorant Franks the cannibalism of the Tartars was

a general belief. Ivo of Narbonne, in his letter written during the

great Tartar invasion of Europe (1242), declares that the Tartar

chiefs, with their dog’s head followers and other _Lotophagi_

(!), ate the bodies of their victims like so much bread; whilst

a Venetian chronicler, speaking of the council of Lyons in 1274,

says there was a discussion about making a general move against the

Tartars, “_porce qu’il manjuent la char humaine._” These latter

writers no doubt rehearsed mere popular beliefs, but Hayton and

Ricold were both intelligent persons well acquainted with the

Tartars, and Hayton at least not prejudiced against them.

The old belief was revived in Prussia during the Seven Years’ War,

in regard to the Kalmaks of the Russian army; and Bergmann says

the old Kalmak warriors confessed to him that they had done what

they could to encourage it by cutting up the bodies of the slain

in presence of their prisoners, and roasting them! But Levchine

relates an act on the part of the Kirghiz Kazaks which was no jest.

They drank the blood of their victim if they did not eat his flesh.

There is some reason to believe that cannibalism was in the Middle

Ages generally a less strange and unwonted horror than we should at

first blush imagine, and especially that it was an idea tolerably

familiar in China. M. Bazin, in the second part of _Chine Moderne_,

p. 461, after sketching a Chinese drama of the Mongol era (“The

Devotion of Chao-li”), the plot of which turns on the acts of a

body of cannibals, quotes several other passages from Chinese

authors which indicate this. Nor is this wonderful in the age that

had experienced the horrors of the Mongol wars.

That was no doubt a fable which Carpini heard in the camp of the

Great Kaan, that in one of the Mongol sieges in Cathay, when the

army was without food, one man in ten of their own force was

sacrificed to feed the remainder.[8] But we are told in sober

history that the force of Tului in Honan, in 1231–1232, was reduced

to such straits as to eat grass and human flesh. At the siege of

the Kin capital Kaifongfu, in 1233, the besieged were reduced to

the like extremity; and the same occurred the same year at the

siege of Tsaichau; and in 1262, when the rebel general Litan was

besieged in Tsinanfu. The Taiping wars the other day revived the

same horrors in all their magnitude. And savage acts of the same

kind by the Chinese and their Turk partisans in the defence of

Kashgar were related to Mr. Shaw.

Probably, however, nothing of the kind in history equals what

Abdallatif, a sober and scientific physician, describes as having

occurred before his own eyes in the great Egyptian famine of A.H.

597 (1200). The horrid details fill a chapter of some length, and

we need not quote from them.

Nor was Christendom without the rumour of such barbarities.

The story of King Richard’s banquet in presence of Saladin’s

ambassadors on the head of a Saracen curried (for so it surely

was),—

“soden full hastily

With powder and with spysory,

And with saffron of good colour”—

fable as it is, is told with a zest that makes one shudder; but the

tale in the _Chanson d’Antioche_, of how the licentious bands of

ragamuffins, who hung on the army of the First Crusade, and were

known as the _Tafurs_,[9] ate the Turks whom they killed at the

siege, looks very like an abominable truth, corroborated as it

is by the prose chronicle of worse deeds at the ensuing siege of

Marrha:—

“A lor cotiaus qu’il ont trenchans et afilés

Escorchoient les Turs, aval parmi les près.

Voiant Paiens, les ont par pièces découpés.

En l’iave et el carbon les ont bien quisinés,

Volontiers les menjuent sans pain et dessalés.”[10]

(_Della Penna_, p. 76; _Reinaud, Rel._ I. 52; _Rennie’s Peking_,

II. 244; _Ann. de la Pr. de la F._ XXIX. 353, XXI. 298; _Hayton_

in _Ram._ ch. xvii.; _Per. Quat._ p. 116; _M. Paris_, sub. 1243;

_Mél. Asiat. Acad. St. Pétersb._ II. 659; _Canale_ in _Arch. Stor.

Ital._ VIII.; _Bergm. Nomad. Streifereien_, I. 14; _Carpini_,

638; _D’Ohsson_, II. 30, 43, 52; _Wilson’s Ever Victorious Army_,

74; _Shaw_, p. 48; _Abdallatif_, p. 363 _seqq._; _Weber_, II. 135;

_Littré, H. de la Langue Franç._ I. 191; _Gesta Tancredi_ in _Thes.

Nov. Anecd._ III. 172.)

NOTE 10.—_Bakhshi_ is generally believed to be a corruption of

_Bhikshu_, the proper Sanscrit term for a religious mendicant,

and in particular for the Buddhist devotees of that character.

_Bakhshi_ was probably applied to a class only of the Lamas, but

among the Turks and Persians it became a generic name for them all.

In this sense it is habitually used by Rashiduddin, and thus also

in the Ain Akbari: “The learned among the Persians and Arabians

call the priests of this (Buddhist) religion _Bukshee_, and in

Tibbet they are styled Lamas.”

According to Pallas the word among the modern Mongols is used in

the sense of _Teacher_, and is applied to the oldest and most

learned priest of a community, who is the local ecclesiastical

chief. Among the Kirghiz Kazaks again, who profess Mahomedanism,

the word also survives, but conveys among them just the idea that

Polo seems to have associated with it, that of a mere conjuror or

“medicine-man”; whilst in Western Turkestan it has come to mean a

Bard.

The word Bakhshi has, however, wandered much further from its

original meaning. From its association with persons who could read

and write, and who therefore occasionally acted as clerks, it

came in Persia to mean a clerk or secretary. In the Petrarchian

Vocabulary, published by Klaproth, we find _scriba_ rendered

in _Comanian_, _i.e._ Turkish of the Crimea, by _Bacsi_. The

transfer of meaning is precisely parallel to that in regard to

our _Clerk_. Under the Mahomedan sovereigns of India, _Bakhshi_ was

applied to an officer performing something like the duties of a

quartermaster-general; and finally, in our Indian army, it has

come to mean a paymaster. In the latter sense, I imagine it has

got associated in the popular mind with the Persian _bakhshídan_,

to bestow, and _bakhshísh_. (See a note in _Q. R._ p. 184 _seqq._;

_Cathay_, p. 474; _Ayeen Akbery_, III. 150; _Pallas, Samml._ II.

126; _Levchine_, p. 355; _Klap. Mém._ III.; _Vámbéry, Sketches_, p.

81.)

The sketch from the life, on p. 326, of a wandering Tibetan

devotee, whom I met once at Hardwár, may give an idea of the sordid

_Bacsis_ spoken of by Polo.

NOTE 11.—This feat is related more briefly by Odoric: “And jugglers

cause cups of gold full of good wine to fly through the air, and

to offer themselves to all who list to drink.” (_Cathay_, p. 143.)

In the note on that passage I have referred to a somewhat similar

story in the _Life of Apollonius_. “Such feats,” says Mr. Jaeschke,

“are often mentioned in ancient as well as modern legends of Buddha

and other saints; and our Lamas have heard of things very similar

performed by conjuring _Bonpos_.” (See p. 323.) The moving of

cups and the like is one of the sorceries ascribed in old legends

to Simon Magus: “He made statues to walk; leapt into the fire

without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread of stones; changed

his shape; assumed two faces at once; converted himself into a

pillar; caused closed doors to fly open spontaneously; made the

vessels in a house seem to move of themselves,” etc. The Jesuit

Delrio laments that credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute,

should have allowed diabolic tricks to be played before them, “as,

for example, things of iron, and silver goblets, or other heavy

articles, to be moved by bounds from one end of a table to the

other, without the use of a magnet or of any attachment.” The pious

prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the conjuror a certain

Cesare Maltesio. Another Jesuit author describes the veritable

mango-trick, speaking of persons who “within three hours’ space did

cause a genuine shrub of a span in length to grow out of the table,

besides other trees that produced both leaves and fruit.”

In a letter dated 1st December, 1875, written by Mr. R. B. Shaw,

after his last return from Kashgar and Lahore, this distinguished

traveller says: “I have heard stories related regarding a Buddhist

high priest whose temple is said to be not far to the east of

Lanchau, which reminds me of Marco Polo and Kúblái Khan. This high

priest is said to have the magic power of attracting cups and

plates to him from a distance, so that things fly through the air

into his hands.” (_MS. Note_.—H. Y.)

The profession and practice of exorcism and magic in general is

greatly more prominent in Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism than in any

other known form of that religion. Indeed, the old form of Lamaism

as it existed in our traveller’s day, and till the reforms of

Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), and as it is still professed by the _Red_

sect in Tibet, seems to be a kind of compromise between Indian

Buddhism and the old indigenous Shamanism. Even the reformed

doctrine of the Yellow sect recognises an orthodox kind of magic,

which is due in great measure to the combination of Sivaism with

the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the institutes are contained

in the vast collection of the _Jud_ or Tantras, recognised among

the holy books. The magic arts of this code open even a short

road to the Buddhahood itself. To attain that perfection of power

and wisdom, culminating in the cessation of sensible existence,

requires, according to the ordinary paths, a period of three

_asankhyas_ (or say Uncountable Time × 3), whereas by means of

the magic arts of the _Tantras_ it may be reached in the course

of three _rebirths_ only, nay, of one! But from the Tantras also

can be learned how to acquire miraculous powers for objects

entirely selfish and secular, and how to exercise these by means of

_Dhárani_ or mystic Indian charms.

Still the orthodox Yellow Lamas professedly repudiate and despise

the grosser exhibitions of common magic and charlatanism which

the Reds still practise, such as knife-swallowing, blowing fire,

cutting off their own heads, etc. But as the vulgar will not

dispense with these marvels, every great orthodox monastery in

Tibet _keeps a conjuror_, who is a member of the unreformed, and

does not belong to the brotherhood of the convent, but lives in

a particular part of it, bearing the name of _Choichong_, or

protector of religion, and is allowed to marry. The magic of these

Choichong is in theory and practice different from the orthodox

Tantrist magic. The practitioners possess no literature, and hand

down their mysteries only by tradition. Their fantastic equipments,

their frantic bearing, and their cries and howls, seem to identify

them with the grossest Shamanist devil dancers.

Sanang Setzen enumerates a variety of the wonderful acts which

could be performed through the _Dhárani_. Such were, sticking a peg

into solid rock; restoring the dead to life; turning a dead body

into gold; penetrating everywhere as air does; flying; catching

wild beasts with the hand; reading thoughts; making water flow

backwards; eating tiles; sitting in the air with the legs doubled

under, etc. Some of these are precisely the powers ascribed to

Medea, Empedocles, and Simon Magus, in passages already cited.

Friar Ricold says on this subject: “There are certain men whom the

Tartars honour above all in the world, viz. the _Baxitae_ (_i.e._

_Bakhshis_), who are a kind of idol-priests. These are men from

India, persons of deep wisdom, well-conducted, and of the gravest

morals. They are usually acquainted with magic arts, and depend on

the counsel and aid of demons; they exhibit many illusions, and

predict some future events. For instance, one of eminence among

them was said to fly; the truth, however, was (as it proved), that

he did not fly, but did walk close to the surface of the ground

without touching it; and _would seem to sit down without having any

substance to support him_.” This last performance was witnessed by

Ibn Batuta at Delhi, in the presence of Sultan Mahomed Tughlak;

and it was professedly exhibited by a Brahmin at Madras in the

present century, a descendant doubtless of those Brahmans whom

Apollonius saw walking two cubits from the ground. It is also

described by the worthy Francis Valentyn as a performance known and

practised in his own day in India. It is related, he says, that “a

man will first go and sit on three sticks put together so as to

form a tripod; after which, first one stick, then a second, then

the third shall be removed from under him, and the man shall not

fall but shall still remain sitting in the air! Yet I have spoken

with two friends who had seen this at one and the same time; and

one of them, I may add, mistrusting his own eyes, had taken the

trouble to feel about with a long stick if there were nothing on

which the body rested; yet, as the gentleman told me, he could

neither feel nor see any such thing. Still, I could only say that I

could not believe it, as a thing too manifestly contrary to reason.”

Akin to these performances, though exhibited by professed jugglers

without claim to religious character, is a class of feats which

might be regarded as simply inventions if told by one author

only, but which seem to deserve prominent notice from their being

recounted by a series of authors, certainly independent of one

another, and writing at long intervals of time and place. Our

first witness is Ibn Batuta, and it will be necessary to quote

him as well as the others in full, in order to show how closely

their evidence tallies. The Arab Traveller was present at a great

entertainment at the Court of the Viceroy of Khansa (_Kinsay_ of

Polo, or Hang-chau fu): “That same night a juggler, who was one of

the Kán’s slaves, made his appearance, and the Amír said to him,

‘Come and show us some of your marvels.’ Upon this he took a wooden

ball, with several holes in it, through which long thongs were

passed, and, laying hold of one of these, slung it into the air.

It went so high that we lost sight of it altogether. (It was the

hottest season of the year, and we were outside in the middle of

the palace court.) There now remained only a little of the end of

a thong in the conjuror’s hand, and he desired one of the boys who

assisted him to lay hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by

the thong, and we lost sight of him also! The conjuror then called

to him three times, but getting no answer, he snatched up a knife

as if in a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared

also! By and bye he threw down one of the boy’s hands, then a foot,

then the other hand, and then the other foot, then the trunk, and

last of all the head! Then he came down himself, all puffing and

panting, and with his clothes all bloody, kissed the ground before

the Amír, and said something to him in Chinese. The Amír gave some

order in reply, and our friend then took the lad’s limbs, laid them

together in their places, and gave a kick, when, presto! there

was the boy, who got up and stood before us! All this astonished

me beyond measure, and I had an attack of palpitation like that

which overcame me once before in the presence of the Sultan of

India, when he showed me something of the same kind. They gave me a

cordial, however, which cured the attack. The Kazi Afkharuddin was

next to me, and quoth he, ‘_Wallah!_ ’tis my opinion there has been

neither going up nor coming down, neither marring nor mending; ’tis

all hocus pocus!’”

Now let us compare with this, which Ibn Batuta the Moor says he

saw in China about the year 1348, the account which is given us

by Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances

of a Chinese gang of conjurors, which he witnessed at Batavia

about the year 1670 (I have forgotten to note the year). After

describing very vividly the _basket-murder_ trick, which is well

known in India, and now also in Europe, and some feats of bamboo

balancing similar to those which were recently shown by Japanese

performers in England, only more wonderful, he proceeds: “But now

I am going to relate a thing which surpasses all belief, and which

I should scarcely venture to insert here had it not been witnessed

by thousands before my own eyes. One of the same gang took a ball

of cord, and grasping one end of the cord in his hand slung the

other up into the air with such force that its extremity was beyond

reach of our sight. He then immediately climbed up the cord with

indescribable swiftness, and got so high that we could no longer

see him. I stood full of astonishment, not conceiving what was to

come of this; when lo! a leg came tumbling down out of the air.

One of the conjuring company instantly snatched it up and threw it

into the basket whereof I have formerly spoken. A moment later a

hand came down, and immediately on that another leg. And in short

all the members of the body came thus successively tumbling from

the air and were cast together into the basket. The last fragment

of all that we saw tumble down was the head, and no sooner had that

touched the ground than he who had snatched up all the limbs and

put them in the basket turned them all out again topsy-turvy. Then

straightway we saw with these eyes all those limbs creep together

again, and in short, form a whole man, who at once could stand

and go just as before, without showing the least damage! Never

in my life was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful

performance, and I doubted now no longer that these misguided

men did it by the help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally

impossible that such things should be accomplished by natural

means.” The same performance is spoken of by Valentyn, in a passage

also containing curious notices of the basket-murder trick, the

mango trick, the sitting in the air (quoted above), and others; but

he refers to Melton, and I am not sure whether he had any other

authority for it. The cut on this page is taken from Melton’s plate.

[Illustration: Chinese Conjuring Extraordinary.]

Again we have in the Memoirs of the Emperor Jahángir a detail

of the wonderful performances of seven jugglers from Bengal who

exhibited before him. Two of their feats are thus described:

“_Ninth_. They produced a man whom they divided limb from limb,

actually severing his head from the body. They scattered these

mutilated members along the ground, and in this state they lay for

some time. They then extended a sheet or curtain over the spot, and

one of the men putting himself under the sheet, in a few minutes

came from below, followed by the individual supposed to have been

cut into joints, in perfect health and condition, and one might

have safely sworn that he had never received wound or injury

whatever ... _Twenty-third_. They produced a chain of 50 cubits in

length, and in my presence threw one end of it towards the sky,

_where it remained as if fastened to something in the air_. A dog

was then brought forward, and being placed at the lower end of the

chain, immediately ran up, and reaching the other end, _immediately

disappeared in the air_. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a

lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the chain, and all

equally disappeared at the upper end of the chain. At last they

took down the chain and put it into a bag, no one ever discovering

in what way the different animals were made to vanish into the air

in the mysterious manner above described.”

[There would appear (says the _Times of India_, quoted by the

_Weekly Dispatch_, 15th September, 1889) to be a fine field of

unworked romance in the annals of Indian jugglery. One Siddeshur

Mitter, writing to the Calcutta paper, gives a thrilling account

of a conjurer’s feat which he witnessed recently in one of the

villages of the Hooghly district. He saw the whole thing himself,

he tells us, so there need be no question about the facts. On the

particular afternoon when he visited the village the place was

occupied by a company of male and female jugglers, armed with

bags and boxes and musical instruments, and all the mysterious

paraphernalia of the peripatetic _Jadugar_. While Siddeshur was

looking on, and in the broad, clear light of the afternoon, a man

was shut up in a box, which was then carefully nailed up and bound

with cords. Weird spells and incantations of the style we are

all familiar with were followed by the breaking open of the box,

which, “to the unqualified amazement of everybody, was found to be

perfectly empty.” All this is much in the usual style; but what

followed was so much superior to the ordinary run of modern Indian

jugglery that we must give it in the simple Siddeshur’s own words.

When every one was satisfied that the man had really disappeared,

the principal performer, who did not seem to be at all astonished,

told his audience that the vanished man had gone up to the heavens

to fight Indra. “In a few moments,” says Siddeshur, “he expressed

anxiety at the man’s continued absence in the aerial regions, and

said that he would go up to see what was the matter. A boy was

called, who held upright a long bamboo, up which the man climbed

to the top, whereupon we suddenly lost sight of him, and the boy

laid the bamboo on the ground. Then there fell on the ground before

us the different members of a human body, all bloody,—first one

hand, then another, a foot, and so on, until complete. The boy then

elevated the bamboo, and the principal performer, appearing on

the top as suddenly as he had disappeared, came down, and seeming

quite disconsolate, said that Indra had killed his friend before

he could get there to save him. He then placed the mangled remains

in the same box, closed it, and tied it as before. Our wonder and

astonishment reached their climax when, a few minutes later, on the

box being again opened, the man jumped out perfectly hearty and

unhurt.” Is not this rather a severe strain on one’s credulity,

even for an Indian jugglery story?]

In Philostratus, again, we may learn the antiquity of some juggling

tricks that have come up as novelties in our own day. Thus at

Taxila a man set his son against a board, and then threw darts

tracing the outline of the boy’s figure on the board. This feat was

shown in London some fifteen or twenty years ago, and humorously

commemorated in _Punch_ by John Leech.

(_Philostratus_, Fr. Transl. Bk. III. ch. xv. and xxvii.; _Mich.

Glycas_, Ann. II. 156, Paris ed.; _Delrio, Disquis. Magic._ pp. 34,

100; _Koeppen_, I. 31, II. 82, 114–115, 260, 262, 280; _Vassilyev_,

156; _Della Penna_, 36; _S. Setzen_, 43, 353; _Pereg. Quat._ 117;

_I. B._ IV. 39 and 290 _seqq._; _Asiat. Researches_, XVII. 186;

_Valentyn_, V. 52–54; _Edward Melton, Engelsch Edelmans, Zeldzaame

en Gedenkwaardige Zee en Land Reizen, etc., aangevangen in den

Jaare 1660 en geendigd in den Jaare 1677_, Amsterdam, 1702, p. 468;

_Mem. of the Emp. Jahangueir_, pp. 99, 102.)

[Illustration: CHO-KHANG

The Grand Temple of Buddha at LHASA]

NOTE 12.—[“The maintenance of the Lamas, of their monasteries,

the expenses for the sacrifices and for transcription of sacred

books, required enormous sums. The Lamas enjoyed a preponderating

influence, and stood much higher than the priests of other creeds,

living in the palace as if in their own house. The perfumes, which

M. Polo mentions, were used by the Lamas for two purposes; they

used them for joss-sticks, and for making small turrets, known

under the name of _ts’a-ts’a_; the joss-sticks used to be burned

in the same way as they are now; the _ts’a-ts’a_ were inserted in

_suburgas_ or buried in the ground. At the time when the _suburga_

was built in the garden of the Peking palace in 1271, there were

used, according to the Empress’ wish, 1008 turrets made of the

most expensive perfumes, mixed with pounded gold, silver, pearls,

and corals, and 130,000 _ts’a-ts’a_ made of ordinary perfumes.”

(_Palladius_, 29.)—H. C.]

NOTE 13.—There is no exaggeration in this number. Turner speaks

of 2500 monks in one Tibetan convent. Huc mentions Chorchi, north

of the Great Wall, as containing 2000; and Kúnbúm, where he and

Gabet spent several months, on the borders of Shensi and Tibet, had

nearly 4000. The missionary itinerary from Nepal to L’hasa given by

Giorgi, speaks of a group of convents at a place called Brephung,

which formerly contained 10,000 inmates, and at the time of the

journey (about 1700) still contained 5000, including attendants.

Dr. Campbell gives a list of twelve chief convents in L’hasa and

its vicinity (not including the Potala or Residence of the Grand

Lama), of which one is said to have 7500 members, resident and

itinerary. Major Montgomerie’s Pandit gives the same convent 7700

Lamas. In the great monastery at L’hasa called _Labrang_, they

show a copper kettle holding more than 100 buckets, which was

used to make tea for the Lamas who performed the daily temple

service. The monasteries are usually, as the text says, like small

towns, clustered round the great temples. That represented at p.

224 is at Jehol, and is an imitation of the Potala at L’hasa.

(_Huc’s Tartary_, _etc._, pp. 45, 208, etc.; _Alph. Tibetan_, 453;

_J. A. S. B._ XXIV. 219; _J. R. G. S._ XXXVIII. 168; _Koeppen_,

II. 338.) [_La Géographie_, II. 1901, pp. 242–247, has an article

by Mr. J. Deniker, _La Première Photographie de Lhassa_, with a

view of _Potala_, in 1901, from a photograph by M. O. Norzunov;

it is interesting to compare it with the view given by Kircher in

1670.—H. C.]

[“The monasteries with numbers of monks, who, as M. Polo asserts,

behaved decently, evidently belonged to Chinese Buddhists,

_ho-shang_; in Kúblái’s time they had two monasteries in Shangtu,

in the north-east and north-west parts of the town.” (_Palladius_,

29.) Rubruck (_Rockhill’s_ ed. p. 145) says: “All the priests

(of the idolaters) shave their heads, and are dressed in saffron

colour, and they observe chastity from the time they shave their

heads, and they live in congregations of one or two hundred.”—H. C.]

NOTE 14.—There were many anomalies in the older Lamaism, and it

permitted, at least in some sects of it which still subsist, the

marriage of the clergy under certain limitations and conditions.

One of Giorgi’s missionaries speaks of a Lama of high _hereditary_

rank as a spiritual prince who marries, but separates from his

wife as soon as he has a son, who after certain trials is deemed

worthy to be his successor. [“A good number of Lamas were married,

as M. Polo correctly remarks; their wives were known amongst the

Chinese, under the name of _Fan-sao_.” (_Ch’ue keng lu_, quoted by

_Palladius_, 28.)—H. C.] One of the “_reforms_” of Tsongkhapa was

the absolute prohibition of marriage to the clergy, and in this

he followed the institutes of the oldest Buddhism. Even the _Red

Lamas_, or unreformed, cannot now marry without a dispensation.

But even the oldest orthodox Buddhism had its Lay brethren and Lay

sisters (_Upásaka_ and _Upásiká_), and these are to be found in

Tibet and Mongolia (_Voués au blanc_, as it were). They are called

by the Mongols, by a corruption of the Sanskrit, _Ubashi_ and

_Ubashanza_. Their vows extend to the strict keeping of the five

great commandments of the Buddhist Law, and they diligently ply the

rosary and the prayer-wheel, but they are not pledged to celibacy,

nor do they adopt the tonsure. As a sign of their amphibious

position, they commonly wear a red or yellow girdle. These are what

some travellers speak of as the lowest order of Lamas, permitted to

marry; and Polo may have regarded them in the same light.

(_Koeppen_, II. 82, 113, 276, 291; _Timk._ II. 354; _Erman_, II.

304; _Alph. Tibet._ 449.)

[Illustration: Monastery of Lamas.]

NOTE 15.—[Mr. Rockhill writes to me that “bran” is certainly

Tibetan _tsamba_ (parched barley).—H. C.]

NOTE 16.—Marco’s contempt for _Patarins_ slips out in a later

passage (Bk. III. ch. xx.). The name originated in the eleventh

century in Lombardy, where it came to be applied to the “heretics,”

otherwise called “Cathari.” Muratori has much on the origin of the

name Patarini, and mentions a monument, which still exists, in

the Piazza de’ Mercanti at Milan, in honour of Oldrado Podestà of

that city in 1233, and which thus, with more pith than grammar,

celebrates his meritorious acts:—

“Qui solium struxit Catharos _ut debuit_ UXIT.”

Other cities were as piously Catholic. A Mantuan chronicler records

under 1276: “Captum fuit Sermionum seu redditum fuit Ecclesiæ, et

capti fuerunt cercha CL Patarini contra fidem, inter masculos et

feminas; qui omnes ducti fuerunt Veronam, et ibi incarcerati, _et

pro magna parte_ COMBUSTI.” (_Murat. Dissert._ III. 238; _Archiv.

Stor. Ital._ N.S. I. 49.)

NOTE 17.—Marsden, followed by Pauthier, supposes these unorthodox

ascetics to be Hindu Sanyasis, and the latter editor supposes even

the name _Sensi_ or _Sensin_ to represent that denomination. Such

wanderers do occasionally find their way to Tartary; Gerbillon

mentions having encountered five of them at Kuku Khotan (_supra_,

p. 286), and I think John Bell speaks of meeting one still further

north. But what is said of the great and numerous idols of the

_Sensin_ is inconsistent with such a notion, as is indeed, it seems

to me, the whole scope of the passage. Evidently no occasional

vagabonds from a far country, but some indigenous sectaries, are

in question. Nor would bran and hot water be a Hindu regimen.

The staple diet of the Tibetans is _Chamba_, the meal of toasted

barley, mixed sometimes with warm water, but more frequently with

hot tea, and I think it is probable that these were the elements

of the ascetic diet rather than the mere _bran_ which Polo speaks

of. Semedo indeed says that some of the Buddhist devotees professed

never to take any food but tea; knowing people said they mixed

with it pellets of sun-dried beef. The determination of the sect

intended in the text is, I conceive, to be sought in the history of

Chinese or Tibetan Buddhism and their rivals.

Both Baldelli and Neumann have indicated a general opinion that

the _Taossé_ or some branch of that sect is meant, but they have

entered into no particulars except in a reference by the former to

_Shien-sien_, a title of perfection affected by that sect, as the

origin of Polo’s term _Sensin_. In the substance of this I think

they are right. But I believe that in the text this Chinese sect

are, rightly or wrongly, identified with the ancient Tibetan sect

of _Bon-po_, and that part of the characters assigned belong to

each.

First with regard to the _Taossé_. These were evidently the

_Patarini_ of the Buddhists in China at this time, and Polo was

probably aware of the persecution which the latter had stirred up

Kúblái to direct against them in 1281—persecution at least it is

called, though it was but a mild proceeding in comparison with the

thing contemporaneously practised in Christian Lombardy, for in

heathen Cathay, books, and not human creatures, were the subjects

doomed to burn, and even that doom was not carried out.

[“The Tao-sze,” says M. Polo, “were looked upon as heretics by

the other sects; that is, of course, by the Lamas and Ho-shangs;

in fact in his time a passionate struggle was going on between

Buddhists and Tao-sze, or rather a persecution of the latter by the

former; the Buddhists attributed to the doctrine of the Tao-sze a

pernicious tendency, and accused them of deceit; and in support

of these assertions they pointed to some of their sacred books.

Taking advantage of their influence at Court, they persuaded Kúblái

to decree the burning of these books, and it was carried out in

Peking.” (_Palladius_, 30.)—H. C.]

The term which Polo writes as _Sensin_ appears to have been that

popularly applied to the Taossé sect at the Mongol Court. Thus we

are told by Rashíduddín in his History of Cathay: “In the reign

of Din-Wang, the 20th king of this (the 11th) Dynasty, TAI SHANG

LÁI KÚN, was born. This person is stated to have been accounted a

prophet by the people of Khitá; his father’s name was Hán; like

Shák-múni he is said to have been conceived by light, and it is

related that his mother bore him in her womb no less a period than

80 years. The people who embraced his doctrine were called شن شن

(_Shăn-shăn_ or _Shinshin_).” This is a correct epitome of the

Chinese story of _Laokiun_ or _Lao-tsé_, born in the reign of _Ting

Wang_ of the Cheu Dynasty. The whole title used by Rashíduddín,

_Tai Shang Lao Kiun_, “The Great Supreme Venerable Ruler,” is that

formerly applied by the Chinese to this philosopher.

Further, in a Mongol [and Chinese] inscription of the year 1314

from the department of Si-ngan fu, which has been interpreted and

published by Mr. Wylie, the Taossé priests are termed _Senshing_.

[See _Devéria, Notes d’Épigraphie_, pp. 39–43, and Prince _R.

Bonaparte’s Recueil_, Pl. xii. No. 3.—H. C.]

Seeing then that the very term used by Polo is that applied by both

Mongol and Persian authorities of the period to the Taossé, we can

have no doubt that the latter are indicated, whether the facts

stated about them be correct or not.

The word Senshing-ud (the Mongol plural) is represented in the

Chinese version of Mr. Wylie’s inscription by _Sín-săng_, a

conventional title applied to literary men, and this perhaps is

sufficient to determine the Chinese word which _Sensin_ represents.

I should otherwise have supposed it to be the _Shin-sian_ alluded

to by Baldelli, and mentioned in the quotations which follow;

and indeed it seems highly probable that two terms so much alike

should have been confounded by foreigners. Semedo says of the

Taossé: “They pretend that by means of certain exercises and

meditations one shall regain his youth, and others shall attain to

be _Shien-sien_, _i.e._ ‘Terrestrial Beati,’ in whose state every

desire is gratified, whilst they have the power to transport

themselves from one place to another, however distant, with speed

and facility.” Schott, on the same subject, says: “By _Sian_ or

_Shin-sian_ are understood in the old Chinese conception, and

particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao [or Taossé] sect, persons

who withdraw to the hills to lead the life of anchorites, and who

have attained, either through their ascetic observances or by the

power of charms and elixirs, to the possession of miraculous gifts

and of terrestrial immortality.” And M. Pauthier himself, in his

translation of the Journey of Khieu, an eminent doctor of this

sect, to the camp of the Great Chinghiz in Turkestan, has related

how Chinghiz bestowed upon this personage “a seal with a tiger’s

head and a diploma” (surely a lion’s head, _P’aizah_ and _Yarligh_;

see _infra_, Bk. II. ch. vii. note 2), “wherein he was styled _Shin

Sien_ or Divine Anchorite.” _Sian-jin_ again is the word used by

Hiuen Tsang as the equivalent to the name of the Indian _Rishis_,

who attain to supernatural powers.

[“_Sensin_ is a sufficiently faithful transcription of _Sien-seng_

(Sien-shing in Pekingese); the name given by the Mongols in

conversation as well as in official documents, to the Tao-sze,

in the sense of preceptors, just as Lamas were called by them

_Bacshi_, which corresponds to the Chinese _Sien-seng_. M. Polo

calls them fasters and ascetics. It was one of the sects of

Taouism. There was another one which practised cabalistic and other

mysteries. The Tao-sze had two monasteries in Shangtu, one in the

eastern, the other in the western part of the town.” (_Palladius_,

30.) —H. C.]

One class of the Tao priests or devotees does marry, but another

class never does. Many of them lead a wandering life, and

derive a precarious subsistence from the sale of charms and

medical nostrums. They shave the sides of the head, and coil the

remaining hair in a tuft on the crown, in the ancient Chinese

manner; moreover, says Williams, they “_are recognised by their

slate-coloured robes_.” On the feast of one of their divinities

whose title Williams translates as “High Emperor of the Sombre

Heavens,” they assemble before his temple, “and having made a

great fire, about 15 or 20 feet in diameter, go over it barefoot,

preceded by the priests and bearing the gods in their arms. They

firmly assert that if they possess a sincere mind they will not

be injured by the fire; but both priests and people get miserably

burnt on these occasions.” Escayrac de Lauture says that on those

days they leap, dance, and whirl round the fire, striking at the

devils with a straight Roman-like sword, and sometimes wounding

themselves as the priests of Baal and Moloch used to do.

(_Astley_, IV. 671; _Morley_ in _J. R. A. S._ VI. 24; _Semedo_,

111, 114; _De Mailla_, IX. 410; _J. As._ sér. V. tom. viii. 138;

_Schott über den Buddhismus_ etc. 71; _Voyage de Khieou_ in _J.

As._ sér. VI. tom. ix. 41; _Middle Kingdom_, II. 247; _Doolittle_,

192; _Esc. de Lauture, Mém. sur la Chine, Religion_, 87, 102;

_Pèler. Boudd._ II. 370, and III. 468.)

Let us now turn to the _Bon-po_. Of this form of religion and

its sectaries not much is known, for it is now confined to the

eastern and least known part of Tibet. It is, however, believed

to be a remnant of the old pre-Buddhistic worship of the powers

of nature, though much modified by the Buddhistic worship with

which it has so long been in contact. Mr. Hodgson also pronounces

a collection of drawings of Bonpo divinities, which were made for

him by a mendicant friar of the sect from the neighbourhood of

Tachindu, or Ta-t’sien-lu, to be saturated with _Sakta_ attributes,

_i.e._ with the spirit of the Tantrika worship, a worship which he

tersely defines as “a mixture of lust, ferocity, and mummery,”

and which he believes to have originated in an incorporation with

the Indian religions of the rude superstitions of the primitive

Turanians. Mr. Hodgson was told that the Bonpo sect still possessed

numerous and wealthy Vihars (or abbeys) in Tibet. But from the

information of the Catholic missionaries in Eastern Tibet, who

have come into closest contact with the sect, it appears to be now

in a state of great decadence, “oppressed by the Lamas of other

sects, the _Peunbo_ (Bonpo) think only of shaking off the yoke,

and getting deliverance from the vexations which the smallness of

their number forces them to endure.” In June, 1863, apparently

from such despairing motives, the Lamas of Tsodam, a Bonpo convent

in the vicinity of the mission settlement of Bonga in E. Tibet,

invited the Rev. Gabriel Durand to come and instruct them. “In

this temple,” he writes, “are the _monstrous idols_ of the sect

of Peunbo; horrid figures, whose features only Satan could have

inspired. They are disposed about the enclosure according to their

power and their seniority. Above the pagoda is a loft, the nooks

of which are crammed with all kinds of diabolical trumpery; little

idols of wood or copper, hideous masques of men and animals,

superstitious Lama vestments, drums, trumpets of human bones,

sacrificial vessels, in short, all the utensils with which the

devil’s servants in Tibet honour their master. And what will

become of it all? The Great River, whose waves roll to Martaban

(the Lu-kiang or Salwen), is not more than 200 or 300 paces

distant.... Besides the infernal paintings on the walls, eight

or nine monstrous idols, seated at the inner end of the pagoda,

were calculated by their size and aspect to inspire awe. In the

middle was _Tamba-Shi-Rob_, the great doctor of the sect of the

Peunbo, squatted with his right arm outside his red scarf, and

holding in his left the vase of knowledge.... On his right hand

sat _Keumta-Zon-bo_, ‘the All-Good,’ ... with ten hands and three

heads, one over the other.... At his right is _Dreuma_, the most

celebrated goddess of the sect. On the left of Tamba-Shi-Rob was

another goddess, whose name they never could tell me. On the left

again of this anonymous goddess appeared _Tam-pla-mi-ber_, ...

a monstrous dwarf environed by flames and his head garnished

with a diadem of skulls. _He trod with one foot on the head of

Shakia-tupa_ [_Shakya Thubba_, _i.e._ ‘the Mighty Shakya,’ the usual

Tibetan appellation of Sakya Buddha himself].... The idols are made

of a coarse composition of mud and stalks kneaded together, on

which they put first a coat of plaster and then various colours, or

even silver or gold.... _Four oxen would scarcely have been able to

draw one of the idols_.” Mr. Emilius Schlagintweit, in a paper on

the subject of this sect, has explained some of the names used by

the missionary. _Tamba-Shi-Rob_ is “_bs_tanpa _g_Shen-rabs,” _i.e._

the doctrine of Shen-rabs, who is regarded as the founder of the

Bon religion. [Cf. _Grenard_, II. 407.—H. C.] _Keun-tu-zon-bo_ is

“Kun-tu-_b_zang-po,” “_the All Best_.”

[_Bon-po_ seems to be (according to Grenard, II. 410) a “coarse

naturism combined with ancestral worship” resembling Taoism. It

has, however, borrowed a good deal from Buddhism. “I noticed,”

says Mr. Rockhill (_Journey_, 86), “a couple of grimy volumes

of Bönbo sacred literature. One of them I examined; it was a

funeral service, and was in the usual Bönbo jargon, three-fourths

Buddhistic in its nomenclature.” The Bon-po Lamas are above all

sorcerers and necromancers, and are very similar to the _kam_

of the Northern Turks, the _bô_ of the Mongols, and lastly to

the _Shamans_. During their operations, they wear a tall pointed

black hat, surmounted by the feather of a peacock, or of a cock,

and a human skull. Their principal divinities are the White God

of Heaven, the Black Goddess of Earth, the Red Tiger and the

Dragon; they worship an idol called _Kye’-p’ang_ formed of a mere

block of wood covered with garments. Their sacred symbol is the

_svastika_ turned from right to left 卍. The most important of

their monasteries is Zo-chen gum-pa, in the north-east of Tibet,

where they print most of their books. The Bonpos Lamas “are very

popular with the agricultural Tibetans, but not so much so with the

pastoral tribes, who nearly all belong to the Gélupa sect of the

orthodox Buddhist Church.” A. K. says, “Buddhism is the religion of

the country; there are two sects, one named Mangba and the other

Chiba or Baimbu.” _Explorations made by A—— K——_, 34. _Mangba_ means

“Esoteric,” _Chiba_ (_p’yi-ba_), “Exoteric,” and _Baimbu_ is Bönbo.

_Rockhill, Journey_, 289, _et passim.; Land of the Lamas_, 217–218;

_Grenard, Mission Scientifique_, II. 407 _seqq._—H. C.]

There is an indication in Koeppen’s references that the followers

of the _Bon_ doctrine are sometimes called in Tibet _Nag-choi_,

or “Black Sect,” as the old and the reformed Lamas are called

respectively the “Red” and the “Yellow.” If so, it is reasonable

to conclude that the first appellation, like the two last, has a

reference to the colour of clothing affected by the priesthood.

The Rev. Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul: “There are no Bonpos in

our part of the country, and as far as we know there cannot be many

of them in the whole of Western Tibet, _i.e._ in Ladak, Spiti, and

all the non-Chinese provinces together; we know, therefore, not

much more of them than has been made known to the European public

by different writers on Buddhism in Tibet, and lately collected

by Emil de Schlagintweit.... Whether they can be with certainty

identified with the Chinese _Taossé_ I cannot decide, as I don’t

know if anything like historical evidence about their Chinese

origin has been detected anywhere, or if it is merely a conclusion

from the similarity of their doctrines and practices.... But the

Chinese author of the _Wei-tsang-tu-Shi_, translated by Klaproth,

under the title of _Description du Tubet_ (Paris, 1831), renders

_Bonpo_ by _Taossé_. So much seems to be certain that it was the

ancient religion of Tibet, before Buddhism penetrated into the

country, and that even at later periods it several times gained the

ascendancy when the secular power was of a disposition averse to

the Lamaitic hierarchy. Another opinion is that the Bon religion

was originally a mere fetishism, and related to or identical with

Shamanism; this appears to me very probable and easy to reconcile

with the former supposition, for it may afterwards, on becoming

acquainted with the Chinese doctrine of the ‘Taossé,’ have adorned

itself with many of its tenets.... With regard to the following

particulars, I have got most of my information from our Lama, a

native of the neighbourhood of Tashi Lhunpo, whom we consulted

about all your questions. The extraordinary asceticism which

struck Marco Polo so much is of course not to be understood as

being practised by all members of the sect, but exclusively, or

more especially, by the _priests_. That these _never_ marry, and

are consequently more strictly celibatary than many sects of the

Lamaitic priesthood, was confirmed by our Lama.” (Mr. Jaeschke then

remarks upon the _bran_ to much the same effect as I have done

above.) “The Bonpos are by all Buddhists regarded as heretics.

Though they worship idols partly the same, at least in name, with

those of the Buddhists, ... their rites seem to be very different.

The most conspicuous and most generally known of their customs,

futile in itself, but in the eyes of the common people the greatest

sign of their sinful heresy, is that they perform the religious

ceremony of making a turn round a sacred object _in the opposite

direction_ to that prescribed by Buddhism. As to their dress, our

Lama said that they had no particular colour of garments, but their

priests frequently wore red clothes, as some sects of the Buddhist

priesthood do. Mr. Heyde, however, once on a journey in our

neighbouring county of Langskar, saw a man _clothed in black with

blue borders_, who the people said was a _Bonpo_.”

[Mr. Rockhill (_Journey _, 63) saw at Kao miao-tzŭ “a _red_-gowned,

long-haired Bönbo Lama,” and at Kumbum (p. 68), “was surprised to

see quite a large number of Bönbo Lamas, recognisable by their

huge mops of hair and their _red_ gowns, and also from their being

dirtier than the ordinary run of people.”—H. C.]

The identity of the Bonpo and Taossé seems to have been accepted by

Csoma de Körös, who identifies the Chinese founder of the latter,

Lao-tseu, with the Shen-rabs of the Tibetan Bonpos. Klaproth

also says, “Bhonbp’o, Bhanpo, and _Shen_, are the names by which

are commonly designated (in Tibetan) the Taoszu, or followers of

the Chinese philosopher Laotseu.”[11] Schlagintweit refers to

Schmidt’s Tibetan Grammar (p. 209) and to the Calcutta edition of

the _Fo-kouè-ki_ (p. 218) for the like identification, but I do

not know how far any two of these are independent testimonies.

General Cunningham, however, fully accepts the identity, and

writes to me: “Fahian (ch. xxiii.) calls the heretics who

assembled at Râmagrâma _Taossé_,[12] thus identifying them with

the Chinese Finitimists. The Taossé are, therefore, the same as

the _Swâstikas_, or worshippers of the mystic cross _Swasti_,

who are also _Tirthakaras_, or ‘Pure-doers.’ The synonymous word

_Punya_ is probably the origin of _Pon_ or _Bon_, the Tibetan

Finitimists. From the same word comes the Burmese _P’ungyi_ or

_Pungi_.” I may add that the Chinese envoy to Cambodia in 1296,

whose narrative Rémusat has translated, describes a sect which he

encountered there, apparently Brahminical, as _Taossé_. And even

if the Bonpo and the Taossé were not fundamentally identical, it

is extremely probable that the Tibetan and Mongol Buddhists should

have applied to them one name and character. Each played towards

them the same part in Tibet and in China respectively; both were

heretic sects and hated rivals; both made high pretensions to

asceticism and supernatural powers; both, I think we see reason

to believe, affected the dark clothing which Polo assigns to the

_Sensin_; both, we may add, had “great idols and plenty of them.”

We have seen in the account of the Taossé the ground that certain

of their ceremonies afford for the allegation that they “sometimes

also worship fire,” whilst the whole account of that rite and of

others mentioned by Duhalde,[13] shows what a powerful element of

the old devil-dancing Shamanism there is in their practice. The

French Jesuit, on the other hand, shows us what a prominent place

female divinities occupied in the Bon-po Pantheon,[14] though we

cannot say of either sect that “their idols are all feminine.” A

strong symptom of relation between the two religions, by the way,

occurs in M. Durand’s account of the Bon Temple. We see there that

_Shen-rabs_, the great doctor of the sect, occupies a chief and

central place among the idols. Now in the Chinese temples of the

Taossé the figure of _their_ Doctor _Lao-tseu_ is one member of

the triad called the “Three Pure Ones,” which constitute the chief

objects of worship. This very title recalls General Cunningham’s

etymology of Bonpo.

[Illustration: Tibetan Bacsi.]

[At the quarterly fair (_yueh kai_) of Ta-li (Yun-Nan), Mr. E.

C. Baber (_Travels_, 158–159) says: “A Fakir with a praying

machine, which he twirled for the salvation of the pious at the

price of a few cash, was at once recognised by us; he was our old

acquaintance, the Bakhsi, whose portrait is given in _Colonel

Yule’s Marco Polo_.”—H. C.]

(_Hodgson_, in _J. R. A. S._ XVIII. 396 _seqq._; _Ann. de la Prop.

de la Foi_, XXXVI. 301–302, 424–427; _E. Schlagintweit, Ueber die

Bon-pa Sekte in Tibet_, in the _Sitzensberichte_ of the Munich

Acad. for 1866, Heft I. pp. 1–12; _Koeppen_, II. 260; _Ladak_,

p. 358; _J. As._ sér. II. tom. i. 411–412; _Rémusat. Nouv. Mél.

Asiat._ I. 112; _Astley_, IV. 205; _Doolittle_, 191.)

NOTE 18.—Pauthier’s text has _blons_, no doubt an error for

_blous_. In the G. Text it is _bloies_. Pauthier interprets the

latter term as “blond ardent,” whilst the glossary to the G. Text

explains it as both _blue_ and _white_. _Raynouard’s Romance Dict._

explains _Bloi_ as “Blond.” Ramusio has _biave_, and I have no

doubt that _blue_ is the meaning. The same word (_bloie_) is used

in the G. Text, where Polo speaks of the bright colours of the

Palace tiles at Cambaluc, and where Pauthier’s text has “_vermeil

et jaune et vert_ et blou,” and again (_infra_, Bk. II. ch. xix.),

where the two corps of huntsmen are said to be clad respectively in

_vermeil_ and in _bloie_. Here, again, Pauthier’s text has _bleu_.

The Crusca in the description of the _Sensin_ omits the colours

altogether; in the two other passages referred to it has _bioda,

biodo_.

[“The Tao-sze, says Marco Polo, wear dresses of black and blue

linen; _i.e._ they wear dresses made of tatters of black and blue

linen, as can be seen also at the present day.” (_Palladius_,

30.)—H. C.]

NOTE 19.—[“The idols of the Tao-sze, according to Marco Polo’s

statement, have female names; in fact, there are in the pantheon

of Taoism a great many female divinities, still enjoying popular

veneration in China; such are _Tow Mu_ (the ‘Ursa major,’

constellation), _Pi-hia-yuen Kiun_ (the celestial queen), female

divinities for lying-in women, for children, for diseases of the

eyes; and others, which are to be seen everywhere. The Tao-sze

have, besides these, a good number of male divinities, bearing

the title of _Kiun_ in common with female divinities; both

these circumstances might have led Marco Polo to make the above

statement.” (_Palladius_, p. 30.)—H. C.]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] This distance is taken from a tracing of the map prepared for Dr.

Bushell’s paper quoted below. But there is a serious discrepancy

between this tracing and the observed position of Dolon-nor, which

determines that of Shang-tu, as stated to me in a letter from Dr.

Bushell. [See Note 1.]

[2] These particulars were obtained by Dr. Bushell through the

Archimandrite Palladius, from the MS. account of a Chinese

traveller who visited Shangtu about two hundred years ago, when

probably the whole inscription was above ground. The inscription is

also mentioned in the Imp. Geography of the present Dynasty, quoted

by Klaproth. This work gives the interior wall 5 _li_ to the side,

instead of 2 _li_, and the outer wall 10 _li_, instead of 4 _li_.

By Dr. Bushell’s kindness, I give a reduction of his sketch plan

(see _Itinerary Map_, No. IV. at end of this volume), and also a

plate of the heading of the inscription. The translation of this

is: “Monument conferred by the Emperor of the August Yuen (Dynasty)

in memory of His High Eminence Yun Hien (styled) Chang-Lao

(canonised as) Shou-Kung (Prince of Longevity).” [See _Missions de

Chine et du Congo_, No. 28, Mars, 1891, Bruxelles.]

[3] Ramusio’s version runs thus: “The palace presents one side to the

centre of the city and the other to the city wall. And from either

extremity of the palace where it touches the city wall, there runs

another wall, which fetches a compass and encloses a good 16 miles

of plain, and so that no one can enter this enclosure except by

passing through the palace.”

[4] This narrative, translated from Chinese into Russian by Father

Palladius, and from the Russian into English by Mr. Eugene

Schuyler, Secretary of the U.S. Legation at St. Petersburg, was

obligingly sent to me by the latter gentleman, and appeared in the

_Geographical Magazine_ for January, 1875, p. 7.

[5] See Bk. II. chap. xiv. note 3.

[6] In the first edition I had supposed a derivation of the Persian

words _Jádú_ and _Jádúgari_, used commonly in India for conjuring,

from the Tartar use of _Yadah_. And Pallas says the Kirghiz call

their witches _Jádugar_. (_Voy._ II. 298.) But I am assured by Sir

H. Rawlinson that this etymology is more than doubtful, and that at

any rate the Persian (_Jádú_) is probably older than the Turkish

term. I see that M. Pavet de Courteille derives _Yadah_ from a

Mongol word signifying “change of weather,” etc.

[7] [See W. Foerster’s ed., _Halle_, 1887, p. 15, 386.—H. C.]

[8] A young Afghan related in the presence of Arthur Conolly at Herat

that on a certain occasion when provisions ran short the Russian

General gave orders that 50,000 men should be killed and served out

as rations! (I. 346.)

[9] Ar. _Táfir_, a sordid, squalid fellow.

[10] [Cf. Paulin Paris’s ed., 1848, II. p. 5.—H. C.]

[11] _Shen_, or coupled with _jin_ “people,” _Shenjin_, in this sense

affords another possible origin of the word _Sensin_; but it may in

fact be at bottom, as regards the first syllable, the same with the

etymology we have preferred.

[12] I do not find this allusion in Mr. Beal’s new version of Fahian.

[See Rémusat’s éd. p. 227; Klaproth says (_Ibid._ p. 230) that the

_Tao-szu_ are called in Tibetan _Bonbò_ and _Youngdhroungpa_.—H.

C.]

[13] Apparently they had at their command the whole encyclopædia of

modern “Spiritualists.” Duhalde mentions among their sorceries

the art of producing by their invocations the figures of Lao-tseu

and their divinities in the air, and of _making a pencil to write

answers to questions without anybody touching it_.

[14] It is possible that this may point to some report of the mystic

impurities of the Tantrists. The _Saktián_, or Tantrists, according

to the Dabistan, hold that the worship of a female divinity affords

a greater recompense. (II. 155.)

BOOK SECOND.

(1.) ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT KAAN CUBLAY; OF HIS PALACES AND CAPITAL; HIS

COURT, GOVERNMENT, AND SPORTS.

(2.) CITIES AND PROVINCES VISITED BY THE TRAVELLER ON ONE JOURNEY

WESTWARD FROM THE CAPITAL TO THE FRONTIERS OF MIEN IN THE DIRECTION

OF INDIA.

(3.) AND ON ANOTHER SOUTHWARD FROM THE CAPITAL TO FUCHU AND ZAYTON.