Reorientations
The Worlding of Marco Polo
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20055549 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sharon Kinoshita (0000-0001-7594-5912, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Pages | 39-57 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Cosmopolitanism and the Middle Ages (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan US (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/9781137045096_3 |
| OpenAlex | W2462102584 |
| ISBN | 9781137045096 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 11 |
In verse 71 of his Masnavi, the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi recounts the tale of "The Elephant in the Dark." Some Hindus had brought an elephant for exhibition and placed it in a dark house. Crowds of people were going into that dark place to see the beast. Finding that ocular inspection was impossible, each visitor felt it with his palm in the darkness. The palm of one fell on the trunk. "This creature is like a water-spout," he said. The hand of another lighted on the elephant's ear. To him the beast was evidently like a fan. Another rubbed against its leg. "I found the elephant's shape is like a pillar," he said. Another laid his hand on its back. "Certainly this elephant was like a throne," he said. KeywordsThirteenth CenturySilk RoadMetropolitan MuseumGold ThreadEarly Fourteenth CenturyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves
Art · Art history · Cartography · Elephant trunks · Exhibition · Fell · Geography · Throne · Visitor pattern · Byzantine Studies and History · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Islamic Studies and History
| Citations per year | 0.25 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2014 - 2024 (11) |
| Highly cited | No |