The Customs of the Kingdoms of India

by Marco Polo

Inspired by PenguinÂ's innovative Great Ideas series, our new Great Journeys series presents the most incredible tours, voyages, treks, expeditions, and travels ever written—from Isabella BirdÂ's exaltation in the dangers of grizzlies, rattlesnakes, and cowboys in the Rocky Mountains to Marco PoloÂ's mystified reports of a giant bird that eats elephants during his voyage along the coasts of India. Each beautifully packaged volume offers a way to see the world anew, to rediscover great civilizations and legends, vast deserts and unspoiled mountain ranges, unusual flora and strange new creatures, and much more.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History, India, Classics, Adventure, Tanzania

85 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2007

About the author

From 1271, Marco Polo of Venice explored Asia to 1295; the only available Travels of Marco Polo accounted China to Europeans until the 1500s.

Marco Polo spun a tale of how people gave a life of sensual pleasure and a potion to make young Assassins to yearn for paradise, their reward for dying in action, before their secret missions.

Stories and various documents also alternatively point to his ancestry, originating in Korčula, Croatia.

People well knew this trader. He recorded his adventures in a published book. People lost the original copies of his works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo

Reviews

[Sportyrod · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Marco”...”Polo”... The stories told of adventures around the Indian Ocean would have been exciting back when few people travelled the world, especially to far out places. The storytelling is fairly lighthearted. It sounds as one might expect to hear from a sailor back from a whaling expedition. Tall tales mixed with some interesting real ones.

The thing that lost it for me was the make-believe stories (eg a gryphon picking up an elephant). The true stories would have been incredible so why make things up? It could be like when the old sailors would tell of krakens so others wouldn’t go near their treasured lands I’m not sure. It was only a short story of just under 100 pages and I did possibly learn a thing or two.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I bought this from a charity shop because of the nice cover but I regret it 😂

[Ape · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is possibly one of these excerpt books (this being from a set of 20) where I am glad it is just an excerpt, because now I've read this, I don't think I'll bother reading the full book. I am working my way through this set in no particular order, and some I do want to read the full books of; others I don't.Not that it was awful, don't get me wrong, but it hasn't been my favourite so far.

This one is from the early 1300s, about Marco Polo's accounts of his travels around the middle east and the Indian subcontinent. It's interesting to read the little introduction at the start - this was actually all written down after the event. He was locked up in prison with another guy, and he did the talking, and this guy wrote it down. And it does have this oral element, as he's speaking directly to the reader, often with comments like "now I shall tell you how it worked".

It does get a little repetitive at times, as he skips from city to city, kingdom to kingdom, and starts them all of by saying they had their own language, king, were idolaters, you can see the Pole star this well/bad from there, these are the spices they had... can get a little diffecult to distinguish one from the other. And some of the stories are obviously not true, it's like the old fish I caught but it got away story - islands with people who have dogs heads rather than human heads; eagles that carry away elephants... but I suppose all of this was part of the adventurers culture back then.

[Meg Scarbie]

feels like what the translator has done here is what I used to do in S3 English where I’d copy and paste the wikipedia but change random words. it was very bleh and in dire need of an editor.

“In this country they make date wine with the addition of various spices, and very good it is.” well marco polo soz to make u roll in ur grave (tomb?) and all but this book is very bad it is.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Customs of the Kingdoms of India is a brief excerpt from Marco Polo's "Travels." This expert covers the Eastern kingdoms of Africa, the coast of Western India, including Gujarat, and Malabar, Hormuz and Iran, and Ceylon. Marco Polo traveled these areas in the late 13th century, on his way to visit the Yuan Emperor in China. Travels is a wonderful travelogue by a European in a world full of mystery. His culture shock is evident in his writing, as is the excitement of discovering something he has never experienced before. The Customs of India section is equally interesting.

So why just 3 stars? I rated this three stars because I should have just read the full "Travels." This book seems a bit skeezy as a business model. Breaking up a book that is about 400 pages long, into 4 or 5 texts and selling them individually may be a bit strange. The Customs of India is interesting, to be sure, but so are Marco Polo's travelogues through Central Asia, China, and the Middle East. The whole package is surely a bit more enjoyable then just a taste.

All things considered, Marco Polo's travelogues are obviously works of classic literature. Part travel writing on customs, trade goods, and cultural norms, part filled with stories and legends from those he encounters, part pure fabrication, Marco Polo's travel writings remain exciting and controversial to this day. However, they are surely worth reading in their entirety. This expert is interesting, but probably worth passing up for the whole "Travels" as there is much more of interest to read about. The Customs of the Kingdoms of India is a quick and enjoyable read, but it is just a chapter in a larger story. I would recommend that instead.

[Popco · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Let me tell you"
"You may take it for a fact"
"You must know"

I don't ever want to read those phrases again. If all variations of "let me tell you" in this book had been left out, there might have been room for the many more interesting things that Polo deemed "tedious to tell/enumerate". I'd swear the phrase pops up at an average of two times a page, which starts getting old after the first ten pages or so.

'The customs of the Kingdoms of India' is repetitive and badly written, sometimes even jumping back and forth between locations because Polo "forgot" to tell a story he had meant to tell earlier in the book. If ever a work needed editing, this would be it.
After all the stories he must have heard on his travels, I would've expected Polo to be a better storyteller himself. And since his travels were written down by an actual novelist (Rustichello) there is no excuse for this absolute travesty. There is no reason whatsoever for a man who reads and writes for a living to sound like a drunken sailor reminiscing about his travels in front of an equally drunk and unwilling audience. And then... and then... LET ME TELL YOU!

So why two stars and not one? Well, is was interesting to read such a completely different and strange recounting of the world through the eyes of someone who lived 700 years ago. In fact, I do plan on reading the complete 'Travels' someday. This excerpt is only about 80 pages, so I don't regret reading it and wouldn't mind recommending it to others.

However, this would have been a much better (not to mention informational) book if it had been annotated, putting Polo's observations in a historical context and trying to parse fact from fiction.

[Bookshop · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marco Polo had a very irritating way of writing. He peppered the book with "Let me tell you", "You must know that...", and "I have told you that...". It is not a travelogue but more a patronizing story telling. The story, however, was methodically told from one country to another, moving quickly when there was nothing interesting to tell.

The coverage was quite extensive from India to Africa despite the title. I think there might be more interesting travelogue about this part of the world than this skinny book.

[Daren · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I had a dollar for every "Let me tell you", "You must know that...", and "I have told you that...", I would be a little better off than I am now. Similarly annoying in the writing is that the first sentence about any country / province etc explain that the inhabitants are idolaters, and that they go about quite naked... repetitive to say the least.

Still it is interesting to read, as there are many other books which attempt to determine his route and which of his writings can be tied to actual places and events and which are simply fanciful re-tellings of stories Polo was told.

[Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

for the quote on the cover (the cover, of course, being how i choose all my books):
"They say that a man who goes to sea must be a man in despair."

[Chuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well Marco Polo certainly knew how to spin a yarn.
I'm not sure what was more farfetched... the unicorn leather, the harvesting of diamonds by throwing meat on a string down a canyon and digging through eagle shit after they ate the meat, the mother of two kings who threatened to cut her boobs off every time they quarreled, or the griffons in Madagascar that were large enough to pick up elephants.

I mean... wow.

Despite the farfetched stories, the bad writing, the ethnocentrism, the religiocentrism, among many other things... I was able to appreciate this travel excerpt for what it was. It is amazing that I'm able to read the words of someone who has been dead for over 7 centuries.
Let us not forget this was written by a venetian merchant in the 1300s... so adjust your expectations accordingly.

I was able to enjoy this after adjusting expectations... also I'm not sure if Marco Polo was just making shit up to entertain readers, or if he was repeating the superstitions and beliefs of those around him.. We are so used to imagining the past from our own 21st century perspectives, that we forget people did not think as we do today. People actually believed in dragons, unicorns, griffons, and didn't understand science or basic logic.

We are tempted to think of historical figures as people like us... people with the same fundamental values but wearing different clothes.
Nothing could be further from the truth. You need look no further than your own parents, aunts and uncles. They were born in the same century as you, yet I'm willing to bet you find many of their opinions and values to be obsolete relics from a distant time.

It's kind of fascinating once you embrace the idea the Marco Polo might have actually believed a lot of what he wrote... griffons big enough to prey on elephants... the world must've seemed like a much more magical, terrifying place to people in the middle ages.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another in the Penguin ‘Great Journeys’ series. In this one, Marco Polo does what it says in the title. I quite enjoyed the exotica, but after a while his narratives became more like a combination of an old-fashioned geography text book and Tripadvisor – this is the climate of and these are the goods this kingdom trades in, and these are the things you can expect to see there.

Once again, the whole of Polo’s travels may be greater than this part of them on its own. Nevertheless, I rather liked his businesslike style: ‘You must know that in this kingdom…’, ‘Let me tell you next of some other marvels…’, ‘Here is another thing at which…’, ‘Now that we have told you the facts about this kingdom in due order…’. These traits were complemented by not infrequently interesting accounts of dancing or wildlife, but in turn these were tainted by white male European prejudices such as ‘The women of this island are very ugly to look at… Altogether their appearance is quite repulsive’. He frequently speaks frankly about sexual practices of men and women and of animals, but after a while such information just becomes another item for him to tick off his checklist of things to mention for his readers back home.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excerpt from Marco Polo's original book....

Given the author is writing from the 13th century and that our ancestors could be creatively naive, the book is a combination of fact and fiction with some propaganda/personal opinion thrown in for good measure. As a result readers will often find Polo speaking about idols and the people as idolaters who more or less run around bare as the day to differentiate themselves from us. At the same time, he also ensures to make note of the things they do right that also aren't seen in Europe such as kings following their laws before their people as an example.

The basic tone of the book reads as one guy remembering a collection of narratives that ate stringed together for the book. As a result the topic sometimes changes randomly in whimsical rabbit trails before he brings the story back to point.

All in all it makes for an interesting yet very outdated travel guide that leans more towards fantasy rather than fact. And as such should be enjoyable only as a recreational and fantastical travel read than a modern travel guide for today's travelers.

[Aaron White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who knows how much of this is truly what Marco Polo saw (and related to his prison-mate), how much is embellished, and how much is just straight made-up? Regardless, this is the account of a man who has travelled vastly and to places and amongst people that were the subject of myth and speculation in Europe. It gives us a possible picture of some local customs in India and Africa (or at least what locals were telling Polo or allowing him to see, and almost certainly misunderstand), and also the thoughts and biases of a representative of 13th century Italy, albeit a fairly singular one. His description of yogis, and of Sakyamuni Burkhan - the Buddha - is especially fascinating. One suspects this could be the first time the larger European population had heard of many of these people and ideas, which Polo tries to describe with some accuracy, though also with the term “idolaters”. He is also dismissive towards the “Saracens” of whom Europeans did have some knowledge.

[Piper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Large portions are identical to "Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls".
I didn´t realize that both were holding excerpts from the same source material.
Like in the other book a lot of sentences begin with "Let me tell you".
The language is simple and very repetitive.
And his accounts (thou interesting) sound quite fantastical so take it with a grain of salt.
I understand that it was a different time back then, but some of his writing is really taking it too far:
"They are quite black and go entirely naked except that they cover their private parts. Their hair is so curly that it can scarcely be straightened out with the aid of water. They have big mouths and their noses are so flattened and their lips and eyes so big that they are horrible to look at. Anyone who saw them in another country would say that they were devils."
2,5 Stars

[Maria Stallmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its slightly exasperating repetitions of “let me tell you” and outdated (obviously) views on other races and religions, this is a fascinating peek into medieval asian customs and kingdoms and how one western explorer perceived them - though of course it is impossible to tell the truth from outrageous fantasy!

[Sam Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third in a series of 20 abridged Penguin Great Journeys. Marco Polo’s account doesn’t really stand up to those given by Herodotus and Mas’udi in the previous two books. The writing is rather repetitive and reads too much like a list for my taste.

[SpaceBear · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marco Polos thoughts on the culture and kingdoms of India in the 13th century. Interesting account, less so for the accuracy of the descriptions of India, and more so for the fantastical and bombastic stories that Marco Polo tells.

[Olena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far fetched yarns but very entertaining

[Crispin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trail-blazing actions and attitudes from the 12 and 1300s for the colonialists and tourists of future centuries.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive; not quite as whimsical as sir John Mandeville.

[50andsomething · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of its time.

[Bairavi Vijay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as interesting a read as I thought. Quick read but took longer because I lost interest :)

[Caleb Barron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat repetitive but relatively interesting. You can see so many ideas around the nobility of the act of exploration come from Marco Polo's elevation of it.

[Jake]

Reminded me a little bit of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

The tern 'India' obviously meant something more extensive to the Europeans of the 13th century than the land we now associate with the subcontinent. In this account it begins in Hormuz, the Persian gulf port now in Iran. Polo provides anecdotes of an ancient 'Sheikh of the Assassins' that could have come from the '1001 nights'.

The on to the lands of the Bay of Bengal - Ceylon and Andaman, whose people are 'idolaters and live like wild beasts.' Then on to Malabar, which is 'the best part of India.' Pearl fishing and the practices of the Brahmans there to entertain us. There are towns and cities aplenty in these rich lands, and their peoples are also idolaters.

But India also stretches across the Indian Ocean and Madagascar and Zanzibar and also includes the strange land of Male and Female Island, where women live on one and men the other. The account seems to be a fantasy woven around a few basic facts leaving you to wonder exactly what the traveller saw there.... Then, the circuit goes through Aden, whose Sultan was supposedly so cruel to his Christian subjects, and eventually arriving back at Hormuz.

[Felicity Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Each book a small but concise collection of abridged excerpts (ideal for those who may otherwise have found the longer accounts daunting), each man and indeed women a pioneer in his or her own right.

Despite synopsis that by and large read like something you'd find in an edition of Boy's Own, not one of the seven books in the series that I have read so far was in fact like that.

No matter the content, that much of it was actually interesting, the writing is invariably dull, some of the language used ... Hmm! Lets just say that some of the depictions whilst very much of their time will doubtlessly be construed as unacceptable nowadays.

That said, individuals I know relatively little of, my appetite whetted, I'm keen to learn more about them.

Copyright ... Felicity Grace Terry @ Pen and Paper

[Andrea Renfrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up for two simples facts: 1. I am collecting all of Penguin Books Great Ideas publications and 2. There are elephants on the front cover. I adore elephants. They are powerful, dignified, trustworthy, humorous, and endearing. Marco Polo’s The Customs of the Kingdoms of India has little do with elephants...

read my review here: http://anakalianwhims.wordpress.com/2...

[Johanna Lomuljo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Binasa ko to noong time na dapat pinag-aaralan ko ang East Asian kingdoms for Histo haha. Pero in all fairness, na-appreciate ko tuloy yung mga lessons namin before. Lalo na yung sa Jainism, dammit hardcore pala super. While binabasa ko ito, ang daming moments na naisip kong "What?" kasi borderline fiction na yata yung stories ni Marco. OA kasi yung details. haha. Pero nice na book.

[Russell Mark Olson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stick to traveling Marco, writing ain't your forte, let me tell you.


Still, interesting though.

[Akshat · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting insight into medieval India and beyond from a medieval (and slightly prejudiced and racist) European perspective.