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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[APRIL, 1880.
preserve for us the earliest edition of the Saga, and that we must discard it all as an invention of the Lamas in the 16th century.
Having got rid of the accretions which the old tradition received at the hands of the Muhammadans of Persia and the Tibetan Lamas, let us now approach the older edition of it.
The authorities, old and young, eastern and western, agree in deducing the Mongol Imperial stock from Burtechino. First, as to the etymology of this name. Chino in Mongol means a wolf," burte means the bluish-grey colour which the fur of many animals acquires on the approach of winter. So that Burtechino means merely the blue-grey, or winter-coated wolf, and we find that in the Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi the ancestor of the Imperial family is simply called a blue wolf. This grey-blue colour is equivalent to that of the sky, and means in fact Celestial. Hence we find the royal race of the Mongols is known as that of the Borjigs, 1.. the grey or blue-grey eyed, from boro, grey or grey-blue,' tho celestial being who visited Alan Goa, as I shall mention presently, having had eyes of this colour. Again Ssanang Setzen tells us Chinghiz Khan gave his people the name of Köke Mongol, i. e. Blue Mongols, o and blue was the Imperial colour of the Yuan dynasty. In all these cases it no doubt refers to the heavenly or supernatural origin of the family whose members are so often apostrophized by Ssanang Betzen as the sons of the Tengri or of Heaven. Let us now continue our story. Burteohino, we are told, married Gon Maral. Goa means white or shining, and is used as a personal name, and given to noble ladies; maral means a hind. The blue wolf therefore married a white hind. In an abridgment of Chinese history written by Yuan-leao-fan, and quoted by Visdelon" the wolf is said'to have been white aud the hind grey. Together they roamed across the Tenghiz (i.e. the lake or sea), and having reached the sources of the river Onon in the mountain Barkhan, they had a son, who was called Bedetse Khân. This is the story as told in the Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi, in a Chinese work cited by Klaproth, and in a Chinese dictionary entitled Wang-sing-t'ung-pu, in which last how
ever the blue wolf has been converted by some rationalizer of the legend into a man of great size and a blue colour, and the white hind into A miserable and deserted woman :" Ssanang Setzen has sophisticated the story after his own fashion; he has converted the river Onon into Jake Baikal, and he adds a paragraph to glorify his protegés the Lama. Be says that on arriv. ing at the mountain Burkhan, Burtechino lived for a while with the people Bede who dwelt there. When they had interrogated him on the motives of his journey, and discovered that he was descended from the Indian Olana Ergükdeksen as well as from the Tibetan Tol Essen, they discussed matters together, and said, “this young man is of high birth, and we have no one to rule over us, let ne make him our chief." Thereupon they made him their leader, and followed all his commands. He had two sons Bêdês Khan and Bêdêtsd Khan."
The mountain Burkhan, the Barkhan Khaldana of Ssanang Setzen, the sacred mountain chain of the Mongols, is the famous Kentei Khan range, where the Onon takes its rise, which is called Burkhan-ula in the Chinese geographical work translated by Hyacinthe and Klaproth.There Chinghiz was buried. Burkhan in Mongolian means divine', and Buddha ncoording to Dr. Bretschneider is known among the Mongols as Sakyamuni Burkhan. As we have seen Ssanang Setzen calls the inhabitants of the Burkban Khalduna mountains the Bedo people. The Altan Topchi calls this country the land of Zud, which is porhaps & corruption of Bede. Now Bedêtsê or Batachi, according to Palladius, is a derivative of Bede or Bata(Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi, note 7). The name is in fact an eponymous one, created out of the race named Bede. This name Bede gave rise to a fierce polemic between Klaproth and Schmidt. I believe with Remusat that it is merely a corruption of the Chinese" Pe-ti," northern barbarians. In tho Tibetan work named Nom Gharkoi Todonkhoi Tolli the Turkish tribes known as Hor-pa to the Tibetans are called Bädä Hor. Again, we are told by Erdmann, who is doubtless quoting Rashidu'd din, that after the capture of Yangbi
Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 294. • Schmidt, Saagang Setsen, p. 372 note 1.
Id. p. 875 note 9. 1. Op. cit. pp. 71, and 380 note 22. 1 Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, D. 266. » Suanang Betzen, p. 37.
13 Schmidt, op. cit. p. 378 note 3.
Bibl. Orient. Supp. p. 840. 16 Tableau historiques de l'Asie, p. 159. 16 Asia Polyglotta, p. 263. ." Ssanang Setaen, p. 59. 1 Timkofski's Travels, vol. II., p. 226. *Schmidt, Forschungen, d., p. 65.
