The Difficulty Here Lies In The
Name Pashai, Which Points To The South-West, Whilst Dir And All Other
Indications Point To The South-East.
But Pashai seems to me the reading to
which all texts tend, whilst it is clearly expressed in the
G. T.
(Pasciai), and it is contrary to all my experience of the interpretation
of Marco Polo to attempt to torture the name in the way which has been
common with commentators professed and occasional. But dropping this name
for a moment, let us see to what the other indications do point.
In the meagre statements of this and the next chapter, interposed as they
are among chapters of detail unusually ample for Polo, there is nothing to
lead us to suppose that the Traveller ever personally visited the
countries of which these two chapters treat. I believe we have here merely
an amplification of the information already sketched of the country
penetrated by the Nigudarian bands whose escapade is related in chapter
xviii., information which was probably derived from a Mongol source. And
these countries are in my belief both regions famous in the legends of
the Northern Buddhists, viz. UDYANA and KASHMIR.
Udyana lay to the north of Peshawar on the Swat River, but from the extent
assigned to it by Hiuen Tsang, the name probably covered a large part of
the whole hill-region south of the Hindu-Kush from Chitral to the Indus,
as indeed it is represented in the Map of Vivien de St. Martin (Pelerins
Bouddhistes, II.). It is regarded by Fahian as the most northerly
Province of India, and in his time the food and clothing of the people
were similar to those of Gangetic India.
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