So let us go back to Zayton and take up the order of our book from that
point.[NOTE 4]
NOTE 1. - "Several of the (Chinese) gods have horns on the forehead, or
wear animals' heads; some have three eyes.... Some are represented in the
Indian manner with a multiplicity of arms. We saw at Yang-cheu fu a
goddess with thirty arms." (Deguignes, I. 364-366.)
The reference to any particular form of idolatry here is vague. But in
Tibetan Buddhism, with which Marco was familiar, all these extravagances
are prominent, though repugnant to the more orthodox Buddhism of the
South.
When the Dalai Lama came to visit the Altun Khan, to secure the
reconversion of the Mongols in 1577, he appeared as a manifest embodiment
of the Bodhisatva Avalokitecvara, with four hands, of which two were
always folded across the breast! The same Bodhisatva is sometimes
represented with eleven heads. Manjushri manifests himself in a golden
body with 1000 hands and 1000 Patras or vessels, in each of which were
1000 figures of Sakya visible, etc. (Koeppen, II. 137; Vassilyev,
200.)
NOTE 2. - Polo seems in this passage to be speaking of the more easterly
Islands of the Archipelago, such as the Philippines, the Moluccas, etc.,
but with vague ideas of their position.
NOTE 3. - In this passage alone Polo makes use of the now familiar name of
CHINA. "Chin" as he says, "in the language of those Isles means
Manzi." In fact, though the form Chin is more correctly Persian, we do
get the exact form China from "the language of those Isles," i.e. from
the Malay. China is also used in Japanese.
What he says about the Ocean and the various names of its parts is nearly
a version of a passage in the geographical Poem of Dionysius, ending: -
[Greek:
Outos Okeanos peridedrome gaian hapasan
Toios eon kai toia met' andrasin ounomath' elkon] (42-3).
So also Abulfeda: "This is the sea which flows from the Ocean Sea....
This sea takes the names of the countries it washes. Its eastern extremity
is called the Sea of Chin ... the part west of this is called the Sea of
India ... then comes the Sea of Fars, the Sea of Berbera, and lastly the
Sea of Kolzum" (Red Sea).
NOTE 4. - The Ramusian here inserts a short chapter, shown by the awkward
way in which it comes in to be a very manifest interpolation, though
possibly still an interpolation by the Traveller's hand: -
"Leaving the port of Zayton you sail westward and something south-westward
for 1500 miles, passing a gulf called CHEINAN, having a length of two
months' sail towards the north. Along the whole of its south-east side it
borders on the province of Manzi, and on the other side with Anin and
Coloman, and many other provinces formerly spoken of.
