The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

Nassir-uddin Mahmud of the Turki House of Iltitmish;[5] but, though both Sind and Bengal acknowledged his supremacy, no part of Peninsular India had yet been invaded, and throughout the long period of our Traveller’s residence in the East the Kings of Delhi had their hands too full, owing to the incessant incursions of the Mongols across the Indus, to venture on extensive campaigning in the south. Hence the Dravidian Kingdoms of Southern India were as yet untouched by foreign conquest, and the accumulated gold of ages lay in their temples and treasuries, an easy prey for the coming invader. In the Indo-Chinese Peninsula and the Eastern Islands a variety of kingdoms and dynasties were expanding and contracting, of which we have at best but dim and shifting glimpses. That they were advanced in wealth and art, far beyond what the present state of those regions would suggest, is attested by vast and magnificent remains of Architecture, nearly all dating, so far as dates can be ascertained, from the 12th to the 14th centuries (that epoch during which an architectural afflatus seems to have descended on the human race), and which are found at intervals over both the Indo-Chinese continent and the Islands, as at Pagán in Burma, at Ayuthia in Siam, at Angkor in Kamboja, at Borobodor and Brambánan in Java. All these remains are deeply marked by Hindu influence, and, at the same time, by strong peculiarities, both generic and individual. [Illustration: Autograph of Hayton, King of Armenia, _circa_ A.D. 1243. “... =e por so qui cestes lettres soient fermes e establis ci avuns escrit l’escrit de notre main vermoil e sayelé de notre ceau pendant=....”] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] See Heyd, _Le Colonie Commerciali degli Italiani_, etc., passim. [2] We endeavour to preserve throughout the book the distinction that was made in the age of the Mongol Empire between _Khán_ and _Ḳaán_ (خان and قآان, as written by Arabic and Persian authors). The former may be rendered _Lord_, and was applied generally to Tartar chiefs whether sovereign or not; it has since become in Persia, and especially in Afghanistan, a sort of “Esq.,” and in India is now a common affix in the names of (Musulman) Hindustanis of all classes; in Turkey alone it has been reserved for the Sultan. _Ḳaán_, again, appears to be a form of _Kháḳán_, the Χαγάνος of the Byzantine historians, and was the peculiar title of the supreme sovereign of the Mongols; the Mongol princes of Persia, Chaghatai, etc., were entitled only to the former affix (Khán), though _Ḳaán_ and _Ḳhaḳán_ are sometimes applied to them in adulation. Polo always writes _Kaan_ as applied to the Great Khan, and does not, I think, use _Khan_ in any form, styling the subordinate princes by their name only, as _Argon_, _Alau_, etc. _Ilkhan_ was a special title assumed by Huláku and his successors in Persia; it is said to be compounded from a word _Il_, signifying tribe or nation. The relation between _Khán_ and _Khaḳán_ seems to be probably that the latter signifies “_Khán of Kháns_,” Lord of Lords. Chinghiz, it is said, did not take the higher title; it was first assumed by his son Okkodai. But there are doubts about this. (See _Quatremère’s Rashid_, pp. 10 _seqq._ and _Pavet de Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental._) The tendency of swelling titles is always to degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new form, _Khán-khánán_, was devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied to one of the high officers of state. [Mr. Rockhill writes (_Rubruck_, p. 108, note): “The title _Khan_, though of very great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after A.D. 560, at which time the use of the word _Khatun_ came in use for the wives of the Khan, who himself was termed _Ilkhan_. The older title of _Shan-yü_ did not, however, completely disappear among them, for Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the Ghuz Turks, or Turkomans, still bore the title of _Jenuyeh_, which Sir Henry Rawlinson (_Proc. R. G. S._, v. 15) takes to be the same word as that transcribed _Shan-yü_ by the Chinese (see _Ch’ien Han shu_, Bk. 94, and _Chou shu_, Bk. 50, 2). Although the word _Khakhan_ occurs in Menander’s account of the embassy of Zemarchus, the earliest mention I have found of it in a Western writer is in the _Chronicon_ of Albericus Trium Fontium, where (571), under the year 1239, he uses it in the form _Cacanus_”—Cf. _Terrien de Lacouperie, Khan, Khakan, and other Tartar Titles_. Lond., Dec. 1888.—H. C.] [3] “China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it.”—_P. Parrenin_ in _Lett. Édif._ XXIV. 58. [4] _E.g._ the Russians still call it Khitai. The pair of names, _Khitai_ and _Machin_, or Cathay and China, is analogous to the other pair, _Seres_ and _Sinae_. _Seres_ was the name of the great nation in the far East as known by land, _Sinae_ as known by sea; and they were often supposed to be diverse, just as Cathay and China were afterwards. [5] There has been much doubt about the true form of this name. _Iltitmish_ is that sanctioned by Mr. Blochmann (see _Proc. As. Soc. Bengal_, 1870, p. 181). III. THE POLO FAMILY. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS DOWN TO THEIR FINAL RETURN FROM THE EAST. [Sidenote: Alleged origin of the Polos.]