I Have Been Unable To Find Any
Modern Indication Of The Monument That Was Shown By The Mahomedans As The
Tomb, And Sometimes As The House, Of Adam; But Such A Structure There
Certainly Was, Perhaps An Ancient Kist-Vaen, Or The Like.
John
Marignolli, who was there about 1349, has an interesting passage on the
subject:
"That exceeding high mountain hath a pinnacle of surpassing
height, which on account of the clouds can rarely be seen. [The summit is
lost in the clouds. (Ibn Khordadhbeh, p. 43.) - H.C.] But God, pitying
our tears, lighted it up one morning just before the sun rose, so that we
beheld it glowing with the brightest flame. [They say that a flame bursts
constantly, like a lightning, from the Summit of the mountain. - (Ibn
Khordadhbeh, p. 44.) - H.C.] In the way down from this mountain there is
a fine level spot, still at a great height, and there you find in order:
first, the mark of Adam's foot; secondly, a certain statue of a sitting
figure, with the left hand resting on the knee, and the right hand raised
and extended towards the west; lastly, there is the house (of Adam), which
he made with his own hands. It is of an oblong quadrangular shape like a
sepulchre, with a door in the middle, and is formed of great tabular slabs
of marble, not cemented, but merely laid one upon another. (Cathay,
358.) A Chinese account, translated in Amyot's Memoires, says that at
the foot of the mountain is a Monastery of Bonzes, in which is seen the
veritable body of Fo, in the attitude of a man lying on his side" (XIV.
25). [Ma-Huan says (p. 212): "Buddhist temples abound there. In one of
them there is to be seen a full length recumbent figure of Shakyamuni,
still in a very good state of preservation. The dais on which the figure
reposes is inlaid with all kinds of precious stones. It is made of
sandalwood and is very handsome. The temple contains a Buddha's tooth and
other relics. This must certainly be the place where Shakyamuni entered
Nirvana." - H.C.] Osorio, also, in his history of Emanuel of Portugal,
says: "Not far from it (the Peak) people go to see a small temple in which
are two sepulchres, which are the objects of an extraordinary degree of
superstitious devotion. For they believe that in these were buried the
bodies of the first man and his wife" (f. 120 v.). A German traveller
(Daniel Parthey, Nurnberg, 1698) also speaks of the tomb of Adam and his
sons on the mountain. (See Fabricius, Cod. Pseudep. Vet. Test. II. 31;
also Ouseley's Travels, I. 59.)
It is a perplexing circumstance that there is a double set of indications
about the footmark. The Ceylon traditions, quoted above from Hardy, call
its length 3 inches less than a carpenter's cubit. Modern observers
estimate it at 5 feet or 5-1/2 feet. Hardy accounts for this by supposing
that the original footmark was destroyed in the end of the sixteenth
century.
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