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.)
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 Podesta 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 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.
