A Mantuan chronicler records under
1276: "Captum fuit Sermionum seu redditum fuit Ecclesiae, 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.
