Indian Antiquary Vol 14

SR No.: 032506
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 418
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 18 MB

Page 168

146
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[MAY, 1885.
also said that in the country they would now The old man smiled at this, and remarked have to traverse there were precipitous moun- that goblins fled when they met a good tains and wide marshes which could not be man, and that it did not behove & Taonist crossed by a cart. He proposed that they
to entertain such notions. should travel on horseback, and leave some of Presently the travellers reached & small their people behind. Ch'ang-ch'un agreed, and Uighur town, north of the Tien-shan range, left nine of his disciples, for whom he built a probably Gu-chen, where the road from the monastery, the rich contributing money and the
nurth joins that going west. The Uighurs poor labour. It was completed in less than a went out to meet the sage and presented him month, and was called Si-hia Kuan, from the with fruits and Persian linen cloth. Travelling name of Ch'ang-Ch'an's birthplace, Si-hia westwards he crossed a river and passed two Early in September 1221, the sage again set
small towns; the land was artificially irrigated, out with 10 disciples and 20 Mongols from the and wheat was just beginning to ripen. This station with two carts. Chen-hai also accom- was in September. He now reached Bie-sze-ma, panied him with an escort of 100 horsemen. The
1.e. Bish-baligh (the modern Urumtsi), the district they now traversed, apparently the so- capital of the Uighurs, where the king and called Sukhe Gobi, was said to be infested by officers and people, the Baddhist and Taonist goblins, and one of Chen-hai's servants reported priests, went out to meet him. that he himself had been pulled by the hair by
He lodged in a vineyard outside the city, and one, while the Khân of the Naimans was also
was supplied with wine made from grapes, charmed there by a goblin, to whom he had had fruits, &o. by the relatives of the king. People to offer a sacrifice. After travelling S. W. for crowded round him, and about him were seen 3 days and then to the S. E., passing a great
Buddhists, Taonists and Confucianists. Leaving mountain and traversing & vast defile, the
again, they in four days halted east of Lun-t'ai, travellers reached the Kin-shan,or golden
where they were met by the chief of the Tie-gie mountains, i.e. the Altai, or rather that branch (i... the Tersa of the Persian writers) by whom of them known as Ek-tag, over which the road a high dignitary of the Nestorians is probably had been planned and constructed by the 3rd
meant. Thence they went on again to Ch'angprince, i.e. by Ogotai, when the army marched
ba-la (i.e. Chang-balig), which is also mentioned westwards. This pass was probably the one
in the itinerary of Yeliu-Hiliang and is there followed by the modern road from Kobdoplaced east of the river Ma-na-sze. It is into the valley of the Uranga. The Mongol
probably the modern Manas. Its ruler was also escort was employed in dragging the carts a Uighur and an old friend of Chen-hai, and up the steep ascents and putting drags upon the went with his relatives and the Uighar prieste wheels when descending. Having crossed the
to meet them. He entertained the sage with a mountains, upon which Ch'ang Ch'un composed a dinner on a terrace, and his wife gave them poem, they proceeded southwards, and traversed wine. They also supplied them with very the wastes of the Western Gobi, the most large water-melons and sweet melons. Here difficult part of their journey. “We have before he also conversed with a Buddhist priest by 118," said Chen-hai, “the po-ku tsien (field of means of an interpreter. West of this there white bones). Alloveris thickly strewn with black were neither Buddhists nor Taouists. Going stoneg. ... That is an old battle-field, a onwards along the sandy deserts north of the field of death. One time a whole army perished
Tien-shan, the travellers reached the ragged there from exhaustion; no one escaped. A country about Lake Sairam, through which we short time ago, at the same place, the army of the are told roads had been cut by Chinghiz' second Naimans was destroyed by Chinghiz." It isson, 1,0. Chagatai. He made these roads through curious to find this waste still called Naiman the rooks, and built 48 bridges with the wood Minggan Gobi, while a range of hills traversing which grow on the mountains. The bridges it is called Naiman Ula. To prevent being were so wide that two carts could pass over charmed by the goblins Ch'ang Ch'an's com. them abreast. The travellers having crossed panions rubbed their horses' heads with blood. the Borokhoro Monntains entered a more fertile ibid. pp. 28 and 29.
* Brotwohneider, Notar, pp. 139 and 230.