(Translation) 芝峯類說.諸國部.外國

Student 8 : Younès M'Ghari

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• Translations:

29. 土魯番。在火州西百里。古交河縣。亦曰車師國。氣候多煖少雨雪。土宜麻麥。人皆屋居信佛法。有靈山周二十餘里。悉五色砂石。光焰灼火。四回峻壑。天巧奇絶。草木不生。禽獸鮮少。蓋佛書所稱靈山是也。

Turpan¹ is 100 li away in the West from Huozhou². It belongs to the ancient 틀:Jiaohe⁴. It is also called the Jushi Kingdom⁵. Its climate is very warm and it rarely rains or snows. The local products are sesame and wheat. People [there] all live in houses and believe in Buddhism. The area extends over more than 20 li. The whole five colors⁶ are sand and stones 틀:Or 'sandstone'. The light flare, the fire burns. There are four deep gullies. The sky is incredibly wonderful.⁷ The grass and trees do not grow. The birds and beasts are very few. There are Buddhist scripts praising the spirits in the mountain.

30. 黑婁。近土魯番。山川草木禽獸皆黑。男女亦然。有鹽澤産石鹽。堅白如石。可琢爲器。以盛酒食。不鹽而鹹。哈烈等地亦産云。

Heilou⁸ is close to Turpan. The mountains, rivers, grass, trees, birds, beasts are all dark. Men and women are too. There are salt ponds that produce rock salt. It is solid and white like stones. It can be cut to serve as a tool to drink and eat. It takes [humidity]⁹ in and is salty. In Herat¹⁰ and other places it is also produced in this way.

31. 哈烈。去嘉峪關萬三千里。四面大山而少雨。男髡首。衣尚白。乃喪易靑黑。人多善走。日行三百里。氣候常煖。男女瀆亂無恥。然有學舍。講習經義。省刑薄斂。寡爭好施。務農桑。蓋其俗亦淳朴矣。

Herat is at 13000 li, starting from the Jiayu Pass¹¹. There are big mountains in the four directions and it rarely rains. Men shave their head, dress 틀:向 (dress always in white? used to dress in white?) in white and so they lost the blue and the black. People are very mobile, [they] walk 300 li a day. The climate is often warm. Men and women are rude, turbulent and shameless. If there were schools, if they received instruction and appropriated the intentions of the Classics, they would dimunish the [number of] penalties and lighten the [weight of the] taxes, they would less fight and good at working, they would deal with agriculture and sericulture. Their customs would probably also be simple and honest.

32. 于闐大國。在葱嶺北。東西五千里。南北千里。人機巧。喜浮屠法。相見輒跪。得問遺書。戴于首乃發之。稍知尊卑禮節。狀貌亦似華人。有白玉河，綠玉河，黑玉河。産玉珊瑚膃肭臍。

Yutian¹² is a large kingdom. It is at the North of Congling. There are 5000 li from the East to the West and 1000 li from the South to the North. People [there] are 틀:Relatively clever. They celebrate Buddha's dharma. When they meet 틀:The Buddha together? each other?, they often kneel. {{One can find lost books [there]?}}.

¹ 土魯番: sinitic name of Turpan, a city located in modern Xinjiang, China, written as 吐鲁番 in Contemporary Mandarin Chinese (pinyin: Tǔlǔfān; Uyghur: تورپان).

² 火州: one of the designations of the city 高昌 (pinyin: Gāochāng; Uyghur: قاراغوجا) during the Yuan and Ming dynasties.

³ 交河: 틀:One of the regions of China located at the East of Beijing.

⁴ 縣: translating this word 'county' as in Mandarin Chinese may pose the problem of its important size.

⁵ 車師: the Jushi (pinyin: Jūshī), or Gushi (Mandarin: 姑師; pinyin: Gūshī), were a people who established a kingdom during the 1st millennium BCE in the Turpan basin.

⁶ 五色: it can be metaphorically understood here as 'the environment' or 'the view'.

⁷ Interestingly, this passage looks familiar to the one of the 历代兴衰演义, written about a century later by Lǚ Fǔ (吕撫): "群山悉五色，砂石光焰灼人，峻壑穷崖，天巧奇绝。"

⁸ I could not find a place name that would correspond to this city today.

⁹ The author might also be thinking of salt as only an 'ingredient' absorbing liquids and sauces.

¹⁰ 哈烈: ancient sinitic designation for the city Herat in Afghanistan (Persian and Pashto: هرات‎); in 1413, the sovereign Shah Rukh Mirza of the Timurid empire (r. 1404-1447) sends the emperor Yongle of the Ming (r. 1402-1424) a tribute; the same year, the latter sends a delegation to Herat. This is probably how the author came to know about Herat.

¹¹ 嘉峪關: the Jiayu Pass (pinyin: Jiāyù Guān) is the first frontier fortress at the west end of the Ming dynasty Great Wall of China, in modern Gansu, China.

¹² 于闐: from the Han dynasty until at least the Tang dynasty, the ancient Iranic Saka Buddhist kingdom of Khotan (56-1006) was was known in Chinese as Yutian (于闐, 于窴, or 於闐; pinyin: Yútián).

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