The Name of China and its Geography in Cosmas Indicopleustes
来源：岁月联盟
时间：2010-09-06
“Now this country of silk is situated in the remotest of all the Indies, and lies to the left of those who enter the Indian sea, far beyond the Persian Gulf, and the island called by the Indians Selediba and by the Greeks Taprobanê. It is called Tzinitza, and is surrounded on the left by the ocean, just as Barbaria is surrounded by it on the right. The Indian philosophers, called the Brachmans, say that if you stretch a cord from Tzinitza to pass through Persia, onward to the Roman dominions, the middle of the earth would be quite correctly traced, and they are perhaps right.”[1]
He also notices the different distances from Tzinitza to Persia from the two directions:
“For the country in question deflects considerably to the left, so that the loads of silk passing by land through one nation after another, reach Persia in a comparatively short time; whilst the route by sea to Persia is vastly greater. For just as great a distance as the Persian Gulf runs up into Persia, so great distance and even a greater has one to run, who, being bound for Tzinitza, sails eastward from Taprobanê; while besides, the distance from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Taprobanê and parts beyond through the whole width of the Indian sea are very considerable. He then who comes by land from Tzinitza to Persia shortens very considerably the length of the journey. This is why there is always to be found a great quantity of silk in Persia. Beyond Tzinitza there is neither navigation nor any land to inhabit.”[2]
In the book xi, which is supposed to be an extract from other geographical treatise of the same author,[3] Cosmas, in the account of Indian animals and the island of Taprobanê, speaks of this country with the name of Tzinista like this:
“The island, being as it is, in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all parts of India and from Persia and Ethiopia, and it likewise sends out many of its own. And from the remotest countries, I mean Tzinista and other trading places, it received silk, aloes, cloves, sandalwood and other products, and these again are passed on to marts on this side, such as Male (the Malabar littoral), where pepper grows, and to Calliana (Kalyâna near Bombay) which exports copper and sesame-logs, and cloth for making dresses, for it also is a great place of business. And to Sindu (Diu-Sind of the mouth of the Indus) ,……and to Persia and the Homerite country, and to Adulê. And the island receives imports from all these marts which we have mentioned and passes them onto the remoter ports, while, at the same time, exporting its own produce in both directions.”[4]
It is all agreed that, Tzinitza and Tzinista, with their common stem “Tzini”, as “Sinae” in previous Greek-Roman authors, refer to one and same country, viz., China. As to their origins, however, various opinions exist among scholars, some think that both of them are transcriptions of Sanscrit Cinasthāna,[5] the others suggest that Tzinista be of Persian origin.[6]
It seems to me, however, the two names derive probably quite differently. In the beginning of the 18th century when the learned Benedictine monk Montfaucon edited the Christian Topography, he noticed that “Tzinitza … in the Vatican copy (of the 8th or 9th century) is read Tzknê (Tzinê?) Tsina, or Sina, namely, the country of the Sinae.”[7] This fact induces me to believe that Tzinitza is composed of “Tzini” and “tza” (tza), of which “tza”, as a suffix, is certainly no indispensable attachment in Greek,[8] in other words, Tzinitza is not a transliteration of Sanscrit Cinasthāna.
As to the origin of Tzinista, I’am inclined to its Persian origin. China, linguistically, had been exclusively known to India with the name Cina or Cini; Cinasthāna in Sanscrit comes from some central Asian dialect. In a Sogdian letter of the 1st century AD found by A. Stein, appears a notable Cynstn, which, according to R. Gauthiot and B. Laufer,[9] represents one form of Činastān (i.e. the land of Cina), and written as Tzinistan in Syriac in the well-known Nestorian Tablet of Si-gan fou. Činastān, in its turn, appeared as Cinasthāna in Sanscrit, and as Činistan (or Činastān) in Persian (Pahlevi). Obviously, Tzinista had more chance to derive from the Persian Činistan or the Syriac Tzinistan in its origin.
Historically, our suggestion is also reinforced by several evident facts: first of all, Cosmas was a trader in his early career, his statement that he had sailed upon the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf for commercial pursuits,[10] and that he admitted contemptuously in his later life that people “who to procure silk for the miserable gains of commerce, hesitate not to travel to the uttermost ends of the earth”,[11] demonstrates that he had been familiar with or had participated in the gain-thirst silk trade in the western stage of the silk road in his earlier career as a trading dealer, although he had less chance to extend his commercial sphere to Tzinitza; In this capacity, he was highly accessible to the Persian traders, who, in Cosmas’ time, monopolized unshakably the silk trade on both the central silk road and the silk market in India and Ceylon;[12] and in the second place, Cosmas was a Nestorian,[13] the common belief facilated him to contact with the numerous Nestorians who, speaking chiefly in Syriac, were occupied with the silk trade in the Persia territory and the central Asia even further beyond, and thus it is highly possible for him to hear the name for China through the Persian linguistic system (to which the Sogdian dialect belong) or Syriac dialect. In each of the two circumstances, China would have been known to Cosmas with the name of Tzinista.
It is suggested by some scholars that Cosmas, with Tzinitza, refers to Malaya or Cochin-china, the northern bend is that of the Gulf of Siam.[14] However, it would be hardly intelligible to identified Tzinitza with such a region. For, Cosmas’ acceptance of the statement of the Indian philosophers (Brahmans) that the middle of the earth would be quite traced if a corn was stretched from Tzinitza to Persia and onward onto the Roman Empire (certainly with Byzantium as its center), shows that Cosmas located Tzinitza in the same parallel with Persia and the Roman Empire; and the fact that Tzinitza was regarded as “the country of silk” and it “deflects considerably to the left” make it impossible to connect Tzinitza with Malaya and the Cochin-china, which has in neither Chinese nor western sources been lined up with “the country of silk”.
In his recent studies on Cosmas’s geography, Prof. M. Kordosis suggests that Tzinitza be identified with Assam. He believes that “the distance, from Taprobanê, equal to the length of the Persian Gulf or a little longer, and the direction (‘on the left’) exclude the maritime route, through Malacca, even if we consider that the Persian Gulf extends to the river Indus”; and the fact that Assam had been a land known from an early time to the western authors would reinforce this argument;[15] he also supposes that “it must be considered as certain that Cosmas does not deal with the well known central silk route which passed through Tarim, north of Kun-lun mountains. Cosmas knows only the areas surrounding Indian Ocean and not those north of Himalaya”.[16]
Undoubtedly, Prof. Kordosis’ identification of Tzinitza with Assam is sounder on its part and it is certain that the region of Assam is covered by the name of Tzinitza. To the facts that he has already pointed out, we might add other ones: from the Christian era, the region beyond the Ganges was covered by the name of “India extra”, and the Indian race expanded as far as to the west part of the modern Yunnan province of China. Hua-yang-guo-zhi (Record of the kingdom Hua-yang), written by Chang Ju in 347 AD, has it that: “the Yong-chang prefecture (in modern Yunnan) was established by the decree of the Emperor Mingti (in 69 AD)… there live now the races of Ming-pu, Jiu-liao, Piao-yue, Luo-pu and the people of In-du (India).”[17] Burma, especially the north Burma, can similarly be categorized racially and culturally as “Indian”. As early as 300 AD the Indian letter was introduced to Burma with the Indian colonization of Burma; the earliest inscriptions in Burma were all carved in Kadamba letter, which had been commonly used in Bombay of India.[18] The Assam region is true of being “situated in the remotest of all the Indies” as Cosmas said; and moreover, it is from this region that the well-known Yunnan-Assam-Burma route[19] passed through, by which traffics of the Greek-Roman world were conducted into China. As early as the beginning of the 2nd century, the Romans extended their trading sphere to the east coast of the Bay of Bengal and further to the interior of China, which is clearly shown by the fact that the Roman conjurors arrived in China by Burma in 120 AD.[20] As a result, it is not surprising for a Greek-Roman like Cosmas to be aware of this region.
Nevertheless, I can not agree with Prof. Kordosis in his suggestion that Cosmas would refer, with the name of Tzinitza, only to the region of Assam and that the central Silk Road is not touched in his statement, for this point of view is obviously not reconcilable with other points in Cosmas. For, first of all, Cosmas’s comparison of Tzinitza with Persia and the Roman Empire indicates that those three nations could geographically be located in the same parallel, and politically be placed on a par in their greatness and importance. Assam had evidently no chance to emerge into such an eminence, albeit its role in traffic between China and India.
Moreover, Cosmas knew the distance from Tzinitza to Persia by land is shorter than that by sea, and by which he explains the fact why “there is always to be found a great quantity of silk in Persia.” If we take into consideration that the cnetral silk route had played dominant role in the movement of silk from China to the West before the middle of the 8th century, it will be odd and unconceivable for any trader with acute insight to overlook the vital artery of traffic, and therefore it would be paradoxical to conclude that the central silk route is ignored by such a silk dealer as Cosmas.
Finally, Cosmas enumerates the nations and well-known places in order like this:
“If one measures in a straight cord line the stages which make up the length of the earth from Tzinitza to the west, he will find that there are somewhere about four hundred stages, each thirty miles in length. The measurement is to be made in this way: from Tzinitza to the borders of Persia, between are included all Unnia (Gr. Ούννία), India, and the country of the Bactrians, there are about one hundred and fifty stages at least; the whole country of the Persians has eighty stations; and from Nisibis to Seleucia there are thirteen stages; and from Seleucia to Rome and the Gaul and Iberia… there are more than one hundred and fifty stages; thus making altogether the number of stages to be four hundred, more or less.”[21]
Unnia was also called the White Hun by Cosmas in the book xi of his work, and was known to other Byzantine authors (such as Theophanes and Procopius) with the name of Ephthalites or Hephthalites, it was the dominant nation in Tansoxiana in the very beginning of the 6th century. Cosmas’ mention of Unnia together with India (certainly the north India in this case) and Bactria and the roughly correct idea of all these nations and regions in their geographical positions indicates that the central silk road is not overlooked in his description. This fact help us to make further inference that China proper was not out of his horizon of Cosmas, for no other land but China could be lined up together in a straight cord line with Unnia, (north) India, Bactria, Nisibis, Seleucia etc. Cosmas’ belief that the world is rectangular plane with about 400 stages in the length and 200 stages in the breadth shows that Tzinitza is the most east land, which is also proven by Cosmas’ words that “beyond Tzinitza there is neither navigation nor any land to inhabit”. As to the absence in Cosmas’ description of the name of Seres, the Greek-Roman traditional appellation for north China when they approached it from the land road, it could be easily understood with the fact that the name had almost disappeared in that time in all Byzantine authors.[22]
Our point of view will be corroborated by other sources. As we have said, Cosmas’ Tzinitza intends for the Thinae (or Sinae) of the earlier Greek-Roman authors, and accordingly, it would be helpful to obtain a geographical idea of Thinae in the previous cases. In the late 1st century, an anonymous author who had sailed to south India and Ceylon, in his Periplus Maris Erythaei, gives a narrative about the land of Thinae:
“Behind this region (i.e. Chryse, ‘the Golden Land’) the sea come to a termination somewhere in Thinae, and in the interior of that region, quite to the north, there is a very great city called Thinae, from which raw silk and silk thread and silk stuffs are brought overland through Bactria to Barygaza (italic mine), as they are on the other hand by the Ganges river to Limyrice.[23] It is not easy, however, to get to this Thinae, and few and far between are those who come from it.”
“the Golden Land” (Suvarnahūmi in Sanscrit) is suggested to be identified with some area of the east coast of the Bay of Bengal,[24] and Thinae be placed in somewhere adjoining India, Yunnan province (in southwest China) and Burma, the great city of Thinae, which was situated “quite to the north” and whence silk was transported to Bactria, could not but be located in northern China. It is obvious that the anonymous author in his case was, while noticing the route passing by the southwest of China (modern Yunnan province), aware of the very existence of the central silk route passing through the edges of the Tarim basin, in other word, the hinterland of China is implicated in his geographical idea of Thinae, although in a very dim way.
In the 2nd century, Ptolemy, availing of himself of the sources from his contemporary traders and travellers, provides news on the land of Thinae (Σίναι, in form of Sinae):
“They (the traders) also agree that the land of Seres with their metropolis lies to the north of the land of the Sinae, and that all that is further east than these is a Terra Incognita full of marshy lagoons in which great canes grow, and that so densely that people are able to cross the marshes by means of them. They tell also that there is not only a road from those countries to Bactria by the Stone Tower, but also a road to India which goes through Palimbothra. (italic mine) And the road from the metropolis of the Sinae to the part of Cattigara runs towards the southwest…”[25]
Cattigara here is believed to be Hanoi, the present capital city of Vietnam, while the metropolis of Sinae be Lo-yang of the Later Han Dynasty, and the Sinae be Tongking (in north Vietnam) and the south China;[26] equally noteworthily, aware also is of the central silk route through the Central Asia (Stone Tower, Bactria).
These two cases lead us to believe that the ancient Greek-Roman traders, whoever travelled to south India and Ceylon, would notice invariably the region which extend from the Ganges to south China, referring to one part of it or another with the name of Thinae; but they would unfailingly at same time be conscious of the existence of its interior land, whence the well-known silk route took departure and led through central Asia to the West and India. In other words, Cosmas would, as in cases of the two above-mentioned authors, cover far more spacious area than the Assam region by the name Tzinitza.
As to the eastern boundary of China, Cosmas offers the notable places and regions beyond India and Taprobanê:
“And then again on the continent is Marallo, a mart exporting chank shells, the Caber which exports alabandenum, and then farther away is the clove country, then Tzinista which produces the silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the ocean surrounds it on the east.”[27]
Prof. Kordosis suggests that “the clove country” (caryophyllon) be located somewhere in eastern coast of India next to Marallo amd Kaber ( Chavêris in Ptolemy, Kâvêrîpattam at the mouth of the Podu-Kâvêrî), and identified Tzinista with Assam and no more, and he, therefore, thinks that “it is doubtful also that Cosmas knew by hearsay that China was washed, on the eastern side, by the ocean; it was not necessary for him to be informed, on this issue, because his point of view is based in the theory that the known world (ecumene) was surrounded by the ocean …… His view about China is correct by chance, as his view for Ethiopian is wrong, equally by chance.”[28] In other words, he thinks that Cosmas remained still in dark about the boundary of China.
To judge this point of view, it is necessary to fix the position of “the country of clove”. In the above-mentioned passage concerning the island of Ceylon, Cosmas speaks of clove and other products of east provenance like this:
“From the remotest countries, I mean Tzinista and other trading places, it (Ceylon) received silk, aloes, cloves, sandalwood and other products, and these again are passed on to marts on this side.”[29]
Of the trading places where Ceylon received the eastern products from, the eastern coast of India is not so famous for cloves, whereas the eastern Indonesian islands has long been known for being indigenous of clove. H. Yule said that “Cosmas professes no knowledge of geographical details between Ceylon and China, but he is aware that the clove country lies between the two, which is in itself a considerable step in geography for the 6th century.”[30] Silk, aloes and sandalwood also serve us as hints to decide the position of Tzinista. As we know, aloes are indigenous to the Malay Archipelago and south China, and Cambodia, Tenasserin, the Malayan peninsula, Borneo, the Philippine islands and Moluccas are famous for this product as well; and Sandalwood is found in quantity in south-east Asia, i. e. Indonesian islands.[31] Tzinista, the land of silk which is located by Cosmas beyond those trading places, could, therefore, be no other but China proper.
Historically, it was from south China that silk cargoes were for most part carried along the sea route to Ceylon and India and further beyond by the intermediary Kun-lun people (the Malayans and Indonesians) in the end of 5th cnetury and the very beginning of the 6th century when Cosmas was occupied with trade as a business man.[32] As a result of the prosperous trade in the southeast Asia and the trans-indian ocean, it is not dificult for a acute observer such as Cosmas to get sketchy but realistic idea for the east boundary of China. His actual knowledge on the configuration of the east coast of China would confirm him in the religious belief that the known world (ecumene) was surrounded by the ocean, otherwise, he would, as his predecessor Ptolemy, put east of Tzinitza (or Tzinista) a “terra incognita”.
In conclusion, we are strongly inclined to believe that Cosmas had a more or less correct idea of the position of China, although in a dim way, and he therefore can be supposed to be the first Greek or Roman who speaks of China in a matter-to-fact, and not as a land enveloped in half mythical haze.[33]
[1] Cosmas, The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk, tr. by J. W. McCrindle, New York, 1897, pp. 47-48.
[2] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, pp. 48-49.
[3] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, Introduction, p. viii; M.L.W. Laistner, The Decay of Geographical knowledge and the Decline of Exploration, A.D. 300-500, In A. Newton (ed.), Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages, London and New York, 1996, p. 34; J Bury, The Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian, vol. II, Dover, 1958, p. 320.
[4] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, pp. 365-366.
[5] G. Coedès, Textes d’auteurs grecs et latins relatifs à l’Extrême-Orient, depuis le IVe siècle av. J.C. Jusqu’ au XIVe siècle, Paris 1910, p. XXIX; Pauthier, L’inscription Syro-chinoise de Si-ngan-fou, Paris 1858, p. 42.
[6] P. Pelliot, Notes on Marco Polo, I, Paris, 1959, p. 268; G. F. Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, Princeton, 1951, p. 41. H.Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, vol. I, London, 1915, p. 28: “The form of the name which he gives the country is remarkable, Tzinitza, …but…more correctly Tzinista, representing the Chinasthāna of the old Hindoos, the Chinista of the Persians, and all but identical with the name given to China in the Syriac inscription of Si-ngan fu, …viz., Tzinisthan.”
[7] Collectio nova Patrum et Scriptorum Graecorum, Eusebii Caesariensis, Athanasii & Cosmae Aegyptii, Parisiis 1706, p. 137; Cosmas, The Christian Topography, p. 48.
[8] Cosmas, as himself narrates, was barrenly-educated, he could only, as he confessed himself, write in a homely style. In his Bibliotheka, Photius, the Patriarch of Constantinople in the middle 9th century, condemned Cosmas’ writing as being below mediocrity in style, and faulty in its syntax. See Cosmas, The Christian Topography, introduction, p. iii.
[9] R. Gauthiot, Toung Pao, 1913; B. Laufer, Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contribution to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran, (Chicago, 1919, tr. by Lin Jun-yin) Beijing, 1964, pp. 403-4.
[10] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, p. 39.
[11] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, p. 47.
[12] According to Procopius, the Emperor Justinian I (527-565) sent, presumably in 531 AD, an envoy to the Ethiopians, requested the Ethiopians that they should buy silk from India (Ceylon) and sell it to the Romans, thus they would make a lot of money, while the Romans profit in only one way, namely that they would no longer be compelled to pay their money over to their enenmy (the Persians). The Ethiopians accepted the proposal, but they were not able to fulfil their promise, for “the Persian merchants always located themselves at the very harbour where the Indian shops first put in, (since they inhabit the adjoining country) and are accustomed to buy the whole cargoes.” Procopius, History of the Wars, ed. by H. B. Dewing，London, 1958, I, xx, 9-12.
[13] That Cosmas was the Nestorian was firmly established. Cf. Cosmas, The Christian Topography, introduction, p. ix.
[14] C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, London, 1897, vol. I, p. 193, note: Tzinitza “is probably only a dim notion of Malaya or Cochin-china; the northern bend he describes is probably that of the Gulf of Siam.” Zhang Xing-lang, The Collections of Sources on Relations between China and West, Beijing, 1977, vol. 1, p. 55.
[15] M. Kordosis, The Limits of the Known Land (Ecumene) in the East, according to Cosmas Indicopleustes: Tzinista (China) and the Ocean, Byzantion, (Bruxelles 1999) tom. LXIX, pp. 102-103; and the same argument also apppears in his earlier paper “The Route from Byzantium to India and vice versa, according to Cosmas Indicopleustes”, in Yavanika: Indo-Hellenic Studies, Isgars (India) 5 (1995), pp. 87-90.
[16] Kordosis, The Limits of the Known Land, p. 104.
[17] Hua-yang-guo-zhi, edited by Ren Nai-qiang, Shanghai, 1987, p. 290.
[18] G. E. Harvey, History of Burma, from the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824 the Beginning of the English Conquest, Longman, Green and Co., 1925, tr. by Yao Nan, Beijing 1959, pp. 36-38.
[19] This route includes two branches, of which one leads from Yunnan to Assam along the Brahmaptra to the Ganges and Patna; the other leads from Yunnan, along the Irrawaddy to the mouth of this river, or by the Thanlwin to Mawlamyine, and whence to the mouth of the Ganges.
[20] Hou-Han-shu, ch. 86: “During the 1st year of Yong-ning (120 AD) the king of the country of Shan (i.e. Burma), named Yong-you-tiao, again sent an embassy who, being received to His Majesty’s presence, offered musicians and jugglers. The latter could conjure, spit fire, bind and release their limbs without assistance, change the heads of cow and horse, and were clever at dancing with up to ten balls. They said themselves: ‘we are men from the west of the sea; the west of the sea is the country of Ta-chin (the Roman Empire). In the southwest of the country of Shan one passes through to Ta-chin.’” Cf. Hirth, China and Roman Orient: Researches into their Ancient and Medieval Relations as Represented in Old Chinese Records, Leipsic & Münich, Shanghai & Hongkong, 1885, pp. 36-37, pp. 97-98.
[21] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, pp. 49-50
[22] For example, China was known by Theophylactus Simocatta with the name Taugas (Ταυγάς). See, Theophylactus Simocatta, Istoria, ed. By C. De Boor-P. Wirth, Leipzig 1972, pp. 176-177.
[23] In the west coast of the Tamils. H. Yule, Cathay, vol. I, p. 183, n. 4: “The meaning is probably the same as that of Ptolemy’s statement… that there was not only one road from Sinae or Seres to Bactriana by the Stone Tower, but also another direct to Palibothra on the Ganges.”
[24] Coedès, Textes, p. XVII; Yule, Cathay, vol. I, p. 183, n. 2.
[25] Coedès, Textes, p. 44; Yule, Cathay, vol. I, p. 193-194.
[26] Coedès, Textes, p. XXIV; F. Hith-W. Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua:His work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, entitled Chu-fan-zhi, Taipei 1970, p. 2.
[27] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, p.367.
[28] Kordosis, The Limits of the Known Land, p. 104-105.
[29] Cosmas, The Christian Topography, p. 365-366.
[30] Yule, Cathay, vol. 1, p. 28.
[31] J. I. Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire 29 B.C. to A.D. 641, Oxford, 1969, p. 61; Yule, Cathay, vol. 1, p. 28; Hirth-Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua, p. 3, n. 1.
[32] Liu-Song-shu, or History of the Liu Song Dynasty (420-479) written in 488, has it: “Ta-chin (the Roman Empire) and Tian-chu (India) were far away in the vastness of the West, (even) when the Han Dynasties had sent expeditions these routes had been found to be particularly difficult and (some) merchandise, on which (China) depended, had come from Tongking; it had sailed on the waves of the sea, following the wind, and travelling afar to (China)….. Ther are articles such as rhinoceros’ horn and kingfisher feathers and rarities such as serpent pears and asbestos; there are thousand of varieties, all of which the rulers eagerly coveted. Therefore ships come in a continuous stream, and merchants and envoys jostled with each other.” Nan-Qi-shu, or History of the Qi Dynasty (479-502), speaks of a Chinese official, “who calculated carefully the silk and brocade used to trade with the merchants of the Kun-lun ships.” Zhang Xu-shan, Η Κίνα καί τό Βυζάντιο. Σχέσεις- Έμπόριο- Άμοιβαίες γνώσεις, από τίς αρχές του 6ου ως τα μέσα του 7ου αι., Ιστορικογεωγραφικά, Αθήνα, 1998, pp. 313-314.
[33] Yule, Cathay, vol. 1, p. 25; René Etiemble, L’Europe Chinoise, (Chinese trans. by Geng Sheng), Beijing, 2000, p. 55; F. Hith-W. Rockhill, Chau Ju-kua, p. 5.