Indian Antiquary Vol 09

SR No.: 032501
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 398
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 107

APRIL, 1880.)
CHINGHIZ KHAN AND HIS ANCESTORS.
93
kent-ling Juchi in 1218 the Ulas Bede returned 200 li in circumference. There the she-wolf home to its head-quarters at Karakorum, and bore ten male young ones, who eventually marwas replaced by 10,000 Tarkomang. Erdmann, ried, and each one took a different family name. D'Ohsson," and Von Hammer all state the A-se-na, who was the cleverest was chosen as same fact of the Uighurs. This points to their king, and he ordered that the heads of his Uighur and Bede being synonymous terms, standards should be shaped like the heads of
view which is strengthened when we find the wolves, to show that he did not ignore his Turks of northern Tibet called Shara Uighur origin." hy Ssanang Setzen. Now it is very extra- Another legend reports that the Turks sprang ordinary that the neighbourhood of the Kentei | from the country of So, situated to the north of mountains was the original homeland of the Ui. the country of the Hiong-nu. Their chief named ghurs, from which they in fact sprang. The mean- Kha-pam-pu had sixteen brothers, one of whom ing of the story then is--that Burtechino became was called I-chi-ni-shuai-tu. He had a shethe ruler of the Turkish tribe of the Uighurs, wolf for a mother. His brothers were all weak and the inference is a priori a reasonable one, and withont spirit. He, on the contrary, was very that the legend belonged originally to the Turks, strong, and could control the wind and rain. and not to the Mongols. On inquiring further He married two wives, one the ruler of summer this is amply confirmed. The story of the wolf is and the other of winter, by each of whom he in fact a Turkish story. We are told of the Usiun, had two sons. The eldest of these sons was a Turkish tribe, who were probably the ancestors called No-tu-la-shi. His father's subjects of the Tukiu or Turks proper, that the Hiong-nu made him king, and at the same time adopted having attacked them, and killed their chief, his the name of Tu-kiu or Turks. He married ten son was, like Romulus, miraculously tended by wives, whose sons took the family names of their a she-wolf who suckled him, and by a bird mothers. A-se-na was one of these names." which brought him food. The ruler of the Sena or A-se-na is the equivalent of chino, and Hiong-nu having heard of this miracle deemed means wolf. the child to be divine, undertook his education, In these Turkish legends we assuredly have and eventually gave him the command of his the origin of the Mongol Saga. In both we western dominions." But it is in the legendary have a wolf for the common ancestor, in both history of the Takiu or l'urks proper that we it lives near a great lake which it crosses. In meet with the real parallel to our story. In one both it goes to the East or North-East on leavversion of this we read that the ancestors of the ing it." In both it reaches a mountain, and Tukiu lived on the western borders of the Si-hai then brings forth offspring. or Western lake. There they were destroyed by Again, the derivation of the stem-father of a neighbouring nation, who killed them all with- the race from the Si-hai or Western lake, the ont distinction, except a boy of ten years old, on Tenghiz of the Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi, exactly accords whom the enemy had a certain compassion, and with what we know of the original homeland of spared his life although they cut off his hands the Turks proper, namely, the country round lake and feet. He now dragged himself to a great Issikul. Rashidu'd-dit and his followers marsh, where he remained concealed. There he describe the valley in which the wolf settled as was tended by a she-wolf, who eventually became named Irgene-kun. This according to Abu'l. pregnant by him. As the enemy still sought to ghazi means a sharp-peaked girdle of mountains destroy the young man, the she-wolf, who was (op cit. p. 32), a description which applies adherself carried off by a spirit, took him with her, mirably to the actual cradle-land of the Turks, and transported him to the east of the Si-hai. namely, the mountain girdled and secluded valley She stopped with him on a mountain to the of Issikul, which district was still known in north-west of the kingdom of Kaochang, i.e. of the 13th century as Organum, and is referred to the Uighurs of Bishbalig, where they found a under that name by Rubruquis. I may add cavern opening upon a retired valley more than that the range of hills west of the Volga run80 Temudachin der Unerschütterliche, p. 878-4.
* Vindelou, pp. 91, 92, Klaproth, Journ. Ariat. Ist
Ber. t. II., PP. 900, 211. 1. Visdelou, op. cit. p. 92. Histoire des Mongols, vol. I. p. 228.
26 See Abel Remusat, Nouv Journ. Asiat. tom. IX. PP. » De Guignes, vol. II. p. 56.
186-7.