Among The Kirghiz
Kazzaks Again, Who Profess Mahomedanism, The Word Also Survives, But
Conveys Among Them Just The Idea That Polo Seems To Have Associated With
It, That Of A Mere Conjuror Or "Medicine-Man"; Whilst In Western Turkestan
It Has Come To Mean A Bard.
The word Bakhshi has, however, wandered much further from its original
meaning.
From its association with persons who could read and write, and
who therefore occasionally acted as clerks, it came in Persia to mean a
clerk or secretary. In the Petrarchian Vocabulary, published by Klaproth,
we find scriba rendered in Comanian, i.e. Turkish of the Crimea, by
Bacsi. The transfer of meaning is precisely parallel to that in regard
to our Clerk. Under the Mahomedan sovereigns of India, Bakhshi was
applied to an officer performing something like the duties of a
quartermaster-general; and finally, in our Indian army, it has come to
mean a paymaster. In the latter sense, I imagine it has got associated in
the popular mind with the Persian bakhshidan, to bestow, and
bakhshish. (See a note in Q. R. p. 184 seqq.; Cathay, p. 474; Ayeen
Akbery, III. 150; Pallas, Samml. II. 126; Levchine, p. 355; Klap.
Mem. III.; Vambery, Sketches, p. 81.)
The sketch from the life, on p. 326, of a wandering Tibetan devotee, whom
I met once at Hardwar, may give an idea of the sordid Bacsis spoken of
by Polo.
NOTE 11. - This feat is related more briefly by Odoric: "And jugglers cause
cups of gold full of good wine to fly through the air, and to offer
themselves to all who list to drink." (Cathay, p. 143.) In the note on
that passage I have referred to a somewhat similar story in the Life of
Apollonius.
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