Volume II Part 52 (2/2)

Again, if one of them is in the house, and is meditating a purchase, should he see a tarantula (such as are very common in that country) on the wall, provided it advances from a quarter that he deems lucky, he will complete his purchase at once; but if it comes from a quarter that he considers unlucky he will not do so on any inducement. Moreover, if in going out, he hears any one sneeze, if it seems to him a good omen he will go on, but if the reverse he will sit down on the spot where he is, as long as he thinks that he ought to tarry before going on again. Or, if in travelling along the road he sees a swallow fly by, should its direction be lucky he will proceed, but if not he will turn back again; in fact they are worse (in these whims) than so many Patarins![NOTE 4]

These Abraiaman are very long-lived, owing to their extreme abstinence in eating. And they never allow themselves to be let blood in any part of the body. They have capital teeth, which is owing to a certain herb they chew, which greatly improves their appearance, and is also very good for the health.

There is another cla.s.s of people called _Chughi_, who are indeed properly Abraiaman, but they form a religious order devoted to the Idols.

They are extremely long-lived, every man of them living to 150 or 200 years. They eat very little, but what they do eat is good; rice and milk chiefly. And these people make use of a very strange beverage; for they make a potion of sulphur and quicksilver mixt together and this they drink twice every month. This, they say, gives them long life; and it is a potion they are used to take from their childhood.[NOTE 5]

There are certain members of this Order who lead the most ascetic life in the world, going stark naked; and these wors.h.i.+p the Ox. Most of them have a small ox of bra.s.s or pewter or gold which they wear tied over the forehead. Moreover they take cow-dung and burn it, and make a powder thereof; and make an ointment of it, and daub themselves withal, doing this with as great devotion as Christians do show in using Holy Water.

[Also if they meet any one who treats them well, they daub a little of this powder on the middle of his forehead.[NOTE 6]]

They eat not from bowls or trenchers, but put their victuals on leaves of the Apple of Paradise and other big leaves; these, however, they use dry, never green. For they say the green leaves have a soul in them, and so it would be a sin. And they would rather die than do what they deem their Law p.r.o.nounces to be sin. If any one asks how it comes that they are not ashamed to go stark naked as they do, they say, ”We go naked because naked we came into the world, and we desire to have nothing about us that is of this world. Moreover, we have no sin of the flesh to be conscious of, and therefore we are not ashamed of our nakedness, any more than you are to show your hand or your face. You who are conscious of the sins of the flesh do well to have shame, and to cover your nakedness.”

They would not kill an animal on any account, not even a fly, or a flea, or a louse,[NOTE 7] or anything in fact that has life; for they say these have all souls, and it would be sin to do so. They eat no vegetable in a green state, only such as are dry. And they sleep on the ground stark naked, without a sc.r.a.p of clothing on them or under them, so that it is a marvel they don't all die, in place of living so long as I have told you.

They fast every day in the year, and drink nought but water. And when a novice has to be received among them they keep him awhile in their convent, and make him follow their rule of life. And then, when they desire to put him to the test, they send for some of those girls who are devoted to the Idols, and make them try the continence of the novice with their blandishments. If he remains indifferent they retain him, but if he shows any emotion they expel him from their society. For they say they will have no man of loose desires among them.

They are such cruel and perfidious Idolaters that it is very devilry! They say that they burn the bodies of the dead, because if they were not burnt worms would be bred which would eat the body; and when no more food remained for them these worms would die, and the soul belonging to that body would bear the sin and the punishment of their death. And that is why they burn their dead!

Now I have told you about a great part of the people of the great Province of Maabar and their customs; but I have still other things to tell of this same Province of Maabar, so I will speak of a city thereof which is called Cail.

NOTE 1.--The form of the word _Abraiaman, -main or -min_, by which Marco here and previously denotes the Brahmans, probably represents an incorrect Arabic plural, such as _Abrahamin_; the correct Arabic form is _Barahimah_.

What is said here of the Brahmans coming from ”_Lar_, a province west of St. Thomas's,” of their having a special King, etc., is all very obscure, and that I suspect through erroneous notions.

Lar-Desa, ”The Country of Lar,” properly _Lat-desa_, was an early name for the territory of Guzerat and the northern Konkan, embracing _Saimur_ (the modern Chaul, as I believe), Tana, and Baroch. It appears in Ptolemy in the form _Larike_. The sea to the west of that coast was in the early Mahomedan times called the Sea of Lar, and the language spoken on its sh.o.r.es is called by Mas'udi _Lari_. Abulfeda's authority, Ibn Said, speaks of Lar and Guzerat as identical. That position would certainly be very ill described as lying west of Madras. The kingdom most nearly answering to that description in Polo's age would be that of the Bellal Rajas of Dwara Samudra, which corresponded in a general way to modern Mysore. (_Mas'udi_, I. 330, 381; II. 85; _Gildem._ 185; _Elliot_, I. 66.)

That Polo's ideas on this subject were incorrect seems clear from his conception of the Brahmans as a cla.s.s of _merchants_. Occasionally they may have acted as such, and especially as agents; but the only case I can find of Brahmans as a cla.s.s adopting trade is that of the Konkani Brahmans, and they are said to have taken this step when expelled from Goa, which was their chief seat, by the Portuguese. Marsden supposes that there has been confusion between Brahmans and Banyans; and, as Guzerat or Lar was the country from which the latter chiefly came, there is much probability in this.

The high virtues ascribed to the Brahmans and Indian merchants were perhaps in part matter of tradition, come down from the stories of Palladius and the like; but the eulogy is so constant among mediaeval travellers that it must have had a solid foundation. In fact it would not be difficult to trace a chain of similar testimony from ancient times down to our own. Arrian says no Indian was ever accused of falsehood. Hiuen Tsang ascribes to the people of India eminent uprightness, honesty, and disinterestedness. Friar Jorda.n.u.s (circa 1330) says the people of Lesser India (Sind and Western India) were true in speech and eminent in justice; and we may also refer to the high character given to the Hindus by Abul Fazl. After 150 years of European trade indeed we find a sad deterioration. Padre Vincenzo (1672) speaks of fraud as greatly prevalent among the Hindu traders. It was then commonly said at Surat that it took three Jews to make a Chinaman, and three Chinamen to make a Banyan. Yet Pallas, in the last century, noticing the Banyan colony at Astrakhan, says its members were notable for an upright dealing that made them greatly preferable to Armenians. And that wise and admirable public servant, the late Sir William Sleeman, in our own time, has said that he knew no cla.s.s of men in the world more strictly honourable than the mercantile cla.s.ses of India.

We know too well that there is a very different aspect of the matter. All extensive intercourse between two races far asunder in habits and ideas, seems to be demoralising in some degrees to both parties, especially to the weaker. But can we say that deterioration has been all on one side? In these days of lying labels and plastered s.h.i.+rtings does the character of English trade and English goods stand as high in Asia as it did half a century ago! (_Pel. Boudd._ II. 83; _Jorda.n.u.s_, p. 22; _Ayeen Akb._ III.

8; _P. Vincenzo_, p. 114; _Pallas, Beytrage_, III. 85; _Rambles and Recns._ II. 143.)

NOTE 2.--The kingdom of Maabar called _Soli_ is CHOLA or SOLADESAM, of which Kanchi (Conjeveram) was the ancient capital.[1] In the Ceylon Annals the continental invaders are frequently termed _Solli_. The high terms of praise applied to it as ”the best and n.o.blest province of India,”

seem to point to the well-watered fertility of Tanjore; but what is said of the pearls would extend the territory included to the sh.o.r.es of the Gulf of Manar.

NOTE 3.--Abraham Roger gives from the Calendar of the Coromandel Brahmans the character, lucky or unlucky, of every hour of every day of the week; and there is also a chapter on the subject in _Sonnerat_ (I. 304 seqq.).

For a happy explanation of the term _Choiach_ I am indebted to Dr.

Caldwell: ”This apparently difficult word can be identified much more easily than most others. Hindu astrologers teach that there is an unlucky hour every day in the month, i.e. during the period of the moon's abode in every _nakshatra_, or lunar mansion, throughout the lunation. This inauspicious period is called _Tyajya_, 'rejected.' Its mean length is one hour and thirty-six minutes, European time. The precise moment when this period commences differs in each nakshatra, or (which comes to the same thing) in every day in the lunar month. It sometimes occurs in the daytime and sometimes at night;--see _Colonel Warren's Kala Sankatila_, Madras, 1825, p. 388. The Tamil p.r.o.nunciation of the word is _tiyacham_, and when the nominative case-termination of the word is rejected, as all the Tamil case-terminations were by the Mahomedans, who were probably Marco Polo's informants, it becomes _tiyach_, to which form of the word Marco's _Choiach_ is as near as could be expected.” (MS. Note.)[2]

The phrases used in the pa.s.sage from Ramusio to express the time of day are taken from the canonical hours of prayer. The following pa.s.sage from _Robert de Borron's Romance of Merlin_ ill.u.s.trates these terms: Gauvain ”quand il se levoit le matin, avoit la force al millor chevalier del monde; et quant vint a heure de prime si li doubloit, et a heure de tierce aussi; et quant il vint a eure de midi si revenoit a sa premiere force ou il avoit este le matin; et quant vint a eure de nonne et a toutes les seures de la nuit estoit-il toudis en sa premiere force.” (Quoted in introd. to _Messir Gauvain_, etc., edited by _C. Hippeau_, Paris, 1862, pp. xii.-xiii.) The term _Half Tierce_ is frequent in mediaeval Italian, e.g. in Dante:--

”Levati sut disse'l Maestro, in piede: La via e lunga, e'l cammino e malvagio: E gia il Sole a mezza terza riede.” (Inf. x.x.xiv,)

_Half-prime_ we have in Chaucer:--

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