Chapter 75

OF THE COUNTRY CALLED COMARI.

Comari is a country belonging to India, and there you can see something of the North Star, which we had not been able to see from the Lesser Java thus far. In order to see it you must go some 30 miles out to sea, and then you see it about a cubit above the water.{1}

This is a very wild country, and there are beasts of all kinds there, especially monkeys of such peculiar fashion that you would take them for men! There are also _gatpauls_{2} in wonderful diversity, with bears, lions, and leopards, in abundance.

NOTE 1.—_Kumári_ is in some versions of the Hindu cosmography the most southerly of the nine divisions of Jambodvipa, the Indian world. Polo’s Comari can only be the country about Cape COMORIN, the κομάρια ἄκρον of Ptolemy, a name derived from the Sanskrit _Kumári_, “a Virgin,” an appellation of the goddess Durgá. The monthly bathing in her honour, spoken of by the author of the _Periplus_, is still continued, though now the pilgrims are few. Abulfeda speaks of _Rás Kumhări_ as the limit between Malabar and Ma’bar. _Kumări_ is the Tamul pronunciation of the Sanskrit word and probably _Comări_ was Polo’s pronunciation.

At the beginning of the Portuguese era in India we hear of a small Kingdom of COMORI, the prince of which had succeeded to the kingdom of Kaulam. And this, as Dr. Caldwell points out, must have been the state which is now called Travancore. Kumari has been confounded by some of the Arabian Geographers, or their modern commentators, with _Kumár_, one of the regions supplying aloes-wood, and which was apparently _Khmer_ or Kamboja. (_Caldwell’s Drav. Grammar_, p. 67; _Gildem._ 185; _Ram._ I. 333.)

The cut that we give is, as far as I know, the first genuine view of Cape Comorin ever published.

[Mr. Talboys Wheeler, in his _History of India_, vol. iii. (p. 386), says of this tract:

“The region derives its name from a temple which was erected there in honour of Kumárí, ‘the Virgin’; the infant babe who had been exchanged for Krishna, and ascended to heaven at the approach of Kansa.” And in a note:

“Colonel Yule identifies Kumárí with Durgá. This is an error. The temple of Kumárí was erected by Krishna Raja of Narsinga, a zealous patron of the Vaishnavas.”

Mr. Wheeler quotes Faria y Souza, who refers the object of worship to what is meant for this story (II. 394), but I presume from Mr. Wheeler’s mention of the builder of the temple, which does not occur in the Portuguese history, that he has other information. The application of the Virgin title connected with the name of the place, may probably have varied with the ages, and, as there is no time to obtain other evidence, I have removed the words which identified the _existing temple_ with that of Durgá. But my authority for identifying the _object of worship_, in whose honour the pilgrims bathe monthly at Cape Comorin, with Durgá, is the excellent one of Dr. Caldwell. (See his _Dravidian Grammar_ as quoted in the passage above.) Krishna Raja of whom Mr. Wheeler speaks, reigned after the Portuguese were established in India, but it is not probable that the Krishna stories of that class were even known in the Peninsula (or perhaps anywhere else) in the time of the author of the _Periplus_, 1450 years before; and ’tis as little likely that the locality owed its name to Yasoda’s Infant, as that it owed it to the Madonna in St. Francis Xavier’s Church that overlooks the Cape.

Fra Paolino, in his unsatisfactory way (_Viaggio_, p. 68), speaks of Cape Comorin, “which the Indians call _Canyamuri_, _Virginis Promontorium_, or simply _Comarí_ or _Cumarí_ ‘a Virgin,’ because they pretend that anciently the goddess _Comari_ ‘the Damsel,’ who is the Indian Diana or Hecate, used to bathe” etc. However, we can discover from his book elsewhere (see pp. 79, 285) that by the Indian Diana he means Párvatí, _i.e._ Durgá.

Lassen at first[1] identified the Kumárí of the Cape with Párvatí; but afterwards connected the name with a story in the Mahábhárata about certain _Apsarases_ changed into Crocodiles.[2] On the whole there does not seem sufficient ground to deny that Párvatí was the _original_ object of worship at Kumárí, though the name may have lent itself to various legends.]

NOTE 2.—I have not been able to ascertain with any precision what animal is meant by _Gat-paul_. The term occurs again, coupled with monkeys as here, at p. 240 of the Geog. Text, where, speaking of Abyssinia, it is said: “_Il ont_ gat paulz _et autre gat-maimon si divisez_,” etc. _Gatto maimone_, for an ape of some kind, is common in old Italian, the latter part of the term, from the Pers. _Maimún_, being possibly connected with our _Baboon_. And that the _Gat-paul_ was also some kind of ape is confirmed by the Spanish Dictionaries. Cobarrubias gives: “_Gato-Paus_, a kind of tailed monkey. _Gato-paus, Gato pablo_; perhaps as they call a monkey ‘Martha,’ they may have called this particular monkey ‘Paul,’” etc. (f. 431 v.). So also the _Diccion. de la Lengua Castellana comp. por la Real Academia_ (1783) gives: “_Gato Paul_, a kind of monkey of a grey colour, black muzzle and very broad tail.” In fact, the word is used by Columbus, who, in his own account of his third voyage, describes a hill on the coast of Paria as covered with a species of _Gatos Paulos_. (See _Navarrete_, Fr. ed. III. 21, also 147–148.) It also occurs in _Marmol, Desc. General de Affrica_, who says that one kind of monkeys has a black face; “_y estas comunemente se llaman en España_ Gatos Paules, _las quales se crian en la tierra de los Negros_” (I. f. 27). It is worth noting that the revisers of the text adopted by Pauthier have not understood the word. For they substitute for the “_Il hi a_ gat paul _si divisez qe ce estoit mervoille_” of the Geog. Text, “_et si a moult de_ granz paluz _et moult grans pantains à merveilles_”—wonderful swamps and marshes! The Pipino Latin has adhered to the correct reading—“_Ibi sunt_ cati qui dicuntur pauli, _valde diversi ab aliis_.”

[1] _Ind. Alt._ 1st ed. I. 158.

[2] _Id._ 564; and 2nd ed. I. 103.