The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
CHAPTER XLIV.
1847 words | Chapter 304
OF THE CITY OF CAMPICHU.
Campichu is also a city of Tangut, and a very great and noble one.
Indeed it is the capital and place of government of the whole province
of Tangut.{1} The people are Idolaters, Saracens, and Christians,
and the latter have three very fine churches in the city, whilst the
Idolaters have many minsters and abbeys after their fashion. In these
they have an enormous number of idols, both small and great, certain
of the latter being a good ten paces in stature; some of them being
of wood, others of clay, and others yet of stone. They are all highly
polished, and then covered with gold. The great idols of which I speak
lie at length.{2} And round about them there are other figures of
considerable size, as if adoring and paying homage before them.
Now, as I have not yet given you particulars about the customs of these
Idolaters, I will proceed to tell you about them.
You must know that there are among them certain religious recluses
who lead a more virtuous life than the rest. These abstain from all
lechery, though they do not indeed regard it as a deadly sin; howbeit
if any one sin against nature they condemn him to death. They have an
Ecclesiastical Calendar as we have; and there are five days in the
month that they observe particularly; and on these five days they would
on no account either slaughter any animal or eat flesh meat. On those
days, moreover, they observe much greater abstinence altogether than on
other days.{3}
Among these people a man may take thirty wives, more or less, if he
can but afford to do so, each having wives in proportion to his wealth
and means; but the first wife is always held in highest consideration.
The men endow their wives with cattle, slaves, and money, according
to their ability. And if a man dislikes any one of his wives, he just
turns her off and takes another. They take to wife their cousins and
their fathers’ widows (always excepting the man’s own mother), holding
to be no sin many things that we think grievous sins, and, in short,
they live like beasts.{4}
Messer Maffeo and Messer Marco Polo dwelt a whole year in this city
when on a mission.{5}
Now we will leave this and tell you about other provinces towards the
north, for we are going to take you a sixty days’ journey in that
direction.
NOTE 1.—Campichiu is undoubtedly Kanchau, which was at this time,
as Pauthier tells us, the chief city of the administration of
_Kansuh_, corresponding to Polo’s Tangut. _Kansuh_ itself is a name
compounded of the names of the two cities _Kan_-chau and _Suh_-chau.
[Kanchau fell under the Tangut dominion in 1208. (_Palladius_,
p. 10.) The Musulmans mentioned by Polo at Shachau and Kanchau
probably came from Khotan.—H. C.]
The difficulties that have been made about the form of the name
_Campiciou_, etc., in Polo, and the attempts to explain these,
are probably alike futile. Quatremère writes the Persian form
of the name after Abdurrazzak as _Kamtcheou_, but I see that
Erdmann writes it after Rashid, I presume on good grounds, as
_Ckamidschu_, _i.e._ _Ḳamiju_ or _Ḳamichu_. And that this _was_
the Western pronunciation of the name is shown by the form which
Pegolotti uses, _Camexu_, _i.e._ Camechu. The _p_ in Polo’s spelling
is probably only a superfluous letter, as in the occasional old
spelling of _dampnum_, _contempnere_, _hympnus_, _tirampnus_,
_sompnour_, _Dampne Deu_. In fact, Marignolli writes Polo’s
_Quinsai_ as _Campsay_.
It is worthy of notice that though Ramusio’s text prints the
names of these two cities as _Succuir_ and _Campion_, his own
pronunciation of them appears to have been quite well understood
by the Persian traveller Hajji Mahomed, for it is perfectly clear
that the latter recognized in these names Suhchau and Kanchau.
(See _Ram._ II. f. 14v.) The second volume of the _Navigationi_,
containing Polo, was published after Ramusio’s death, and it is
possible that the names as he himself read them were more correct
(_e.g._ _Succiur, Campjou_).
[Illustration: Colossal Figure, Buddha entering Nirvana.
“=Et si voz di qu’il ont de ydres que sunt grant dix pas.... Ceste
grant ydres gigent.=” ...]
NOTE 2.—This is the meaning of the phrase in the G. T.: “_Ceste
grande ydre_ gigent,” as may be seen from Ramusio’s _giaciono
distesi_. Lazari renders the former expression, “giganteggia
un idolo,” etc., a phrase very unlike Polo. The circumstance
is interesting, because this recumbent Colossus at Kanchau is
mentioned both by Hajji Mahomed and by Shah Rukh’s people. The
latter say: “In this city of Kanchú there is an Idol-Temple 500
cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length which
measures 50 paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the
instep is 21 cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are
other idols of a cubit (?) in height, besides figures of _Bakshis_
as large as life. The action of all is hit off so admirably that
you would think they were alive.” These great recumbent figures
are favourites in Buddhist countries still, _e.g._ in Siam, Burma,
and Ceylon. They symbolise Sakya Buddha entering _Nirvána_. Such a
recumbent figure, perhaps the prototype of these, was seen by Hiuen
Tsang in a Vihara close to the Sál Grove at Kusinágara, where Sakya
entered that state, _i.e._ died. The stature of Buddha was, we are
told, 12 cubits; but Brahma, Indra, and the other gods vainly tried
to compute his dimensions. Some such rude metaphor is probably
embodied in these large images. I have described one 69 feet long
in Burma (represented in the cut), but others exist of much greater
size, though probably none equal to that which Hiuen Tsang, in the
7th century, saw near Bamian, which was 1000 feet in length! I have
heard of but one such image remaining in India, viz. in one of the
caves at Dhamnár in Málwa. This is 15 feet long, and is popularly
known as “Bhim’s Baby.” (_Cathay_, etc., pp. cciii., ccxviii.;
_Mission to Ava_, p. 52; _V. et V. de H. T._, p. 374: _Cunningham’s
Archæl. Reports_, ii. 274; _Tod_, ii. 273.)
[“The temple, in which M. Polo saw an idol of Buddha, represented
in a lying position, is evidently _Wo-fo-sze_, _i.e._ ‘Monastery of
the lying Buddha.’ It was built in 1103 by a Tangut queen, to place
there three idols representing Buddha in this posture, which have
since been found in the ground on this very spot.” (_Palladius_,
_l.c._ p. 10.)
Rubruck (p. 144) says: “A Nestorian, who had come from Cathay told
me that in that country there is an idol so big that it can be
seen from two days off.” Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 144, _note_)
writes: “The largest stone image I have seen is in a cave temple at
Yung-kán, about 10 miles north-west of Ta t’ung Fu in Shan-si. Père
Gerbillon says the Emperor K’ang-hsi measured it himself and found
it to be 57 _chih_ high (61 feet). (_Duhalde, Description_, IV.
352.) I have seen another colossal statue in a cave near Pinchou in
north-west Shan-si, and there is another about 45 miles south of
Ning-hsia Fu, near the left bank of the Yellow River. (_Rockhill,
Land of the Lamas_, 26, and _Diary_, 47.) The great recumbent
figure of the ‘Sleeping Buddha’ in the Wo Fo ssŭ, near Peking, is
of clay.”
King Haython (Brosset’s ed. p. 181) mentions the statue in clay, of
an extraordinary height, of a God (Buddha) aged 3040 years, who is
to live 370,000 years more, when he will be superseded by another
god called _Madri_ (Maitreya).—H. C.]
[Illustration: Great Lama Monastery.]
NOTE 3.—Marco is now speaking of the Lamas, or clergy of Tibetan
Buddhism. The customs mentioned have varied in details, both
locally and with the changes that the system has passed through in
the course of time.
The institutes of ancient Buddhism set apart the days of new and
full moon to be observed by the _Sramanas_ or monks, by fasting,
confession, and listening to the reading of the law. It became
usual for the laity to take part in the observance, and the number
of days was increased to three and then to four, whilst Hiuen Tsang
himself speaks of “the six fasts of every month,” and a Chinese
authority quoted by Julien gives the days as the 8th, 14th, 15th,
23rd, 29th, and 30th. Fahian says that in Ceylon preaching took
place on the 8th, 14th, and 15th days of the month. Four is the
number now most general amongst Buddhist nations, and the days
may be regarded as a kind of Buddhist Sabbath. In the southern
countries and in Nepal they occur at the moon’s changes. In Tibet
and among the Mongol Buddhists they are not at equal intervals,
though I find the actual days differently stated by different
authorities. Pallas says the Mongols observed the 13th, 14th, and
15th, the three days being brought together, he thought, on account
of the distance many Lamas had to travel to the temple—just as in
some Scotch country parishes they used to give two sermons in one
service for like reason! Koeppen, to whose work this note is much
indebted, says the Tibetan days are the 14th, 15th, 29th, 30th,
and adds as to the manner of observance: “On these days, by rule,
among the Lamas, nothing should be tasted but farinaceous food and
tea; the very devout refrain from all food from sunrise to sunset.
The Temples are decorated, and the altar tables set out with the
holy symbols, with tapers, and with dishes containing offerings
in corn, meal, tea, butter, etc., and especially with small
pyramids of dough, or of rice or clay, and accompanied by much
burning of incense-sticks. The service performed by the priests
is more solemn, the music louder and more exciting, than usual.
The laity make their offerings, tell their beads, and repeat _Om
mani padma hom_,” etc. In the _concordat_ that took place between
the Dalai-Lama and the Altun Khaghan, on the reconversion of the
Mongols to Buddhism in the 16th century, one of the articles was
the entire prohibition of hunting and the slaughter of animals on
the monthly fast days. The practice varies much, however, even in
Tibet, with different provinces and sects—a variation which the
Ramusian text of Polo implies in these words: “For five days, or
_four days_, or _three_ in each month, they shed no blood,” etc.
In Burma the Worship Day, as it is usually called by Europeans,
is a very gay scene, the women flocking to the pagodas in their
brightest attire. (_H. T. Mémoires_, I. 6, 208; _Koeppen_, I.
563–564, II. 139, 307–308; _Pallas, Samml._ II. 168–169).
NOTE 4.—These matrimonial customs are the same that are afterwards
ascribed to the Tartars, so we defer remark.
NOTE 5.—So Pauthier’s text, “_en legation_.” The G. Text includes
Nicolo Polo, and says, “on business of theirs that is not worth
mentioning,” and with this Ramusio agrees.
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