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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
books. According to this legend there lived in early days a Khân who was called Galdan Duger Khagan by the Tangutans and Badaringoi Zagan Tyngyri by the Mongols. Once when he was ill, and prayed Sakyamuni to go, to his aid, the latter appeared to him in the person of a distinguished Lama, who told him his illness arose from the fact that he did not know God, that he did not accept his laws, nor reverence the priesthood but despised their teaching. If he would reverse all this, would pray to God, follow his laws, hold the priesthood in honour, and would devote his son and nine of his chief supporters to a religious life, he should be restored to health. He thereupon ordered his son and nine of his chief people to adopt the religious life. This order was very distasteful to them, and they fled to an inaccessible place where he could not hear of them. There they joined themselves to the people of the country, and needing a chief to lead them in their various struggles, they elected the son of their late Khân, and it was thought that as they had a new Khân he should have a new name. At this time a small bird flew by, and alighted near their place of assembly, and cried out with a clear voice Chingiz, Chingiz. Thereupon they gave him the name Chingiz, his previous name as given him by his father was Sotubogdo. The names of his nine chief supporters were-1, Suldusun-torgun-shara; 2, Dsallirte-Kua-Mokholi; 3, Zua Mirgan; 4, Kulu Borji; 5, Urianu-dsalma; 6, Bosogon-dsap; 7, Kara-kirgo; 8, Borogol; 9, Shingun Kutukhtu. This curious legend is a good type of the distorted history which passes muster among the Lamas, and in which their faith is dragged in on all possible occasions in spite of anachronisms.
We may here devote a few words to the titles
Khakan and Khân.
As Quatremère says, we meet in the historians of the Mongols with the two titles of Khân and Kaan or Khakan. The former is common to the Turks and Mongols, and is doubtless connected with the Chinese Han. Kaan and Khakan are the same word. Remusat says that in Mongol the k in the middle of a word is often changed into a simple aspiration, or is
31 i, e. Tibetans.
Müller, Samb. Russ. Gesch, vol. VI, p. 114-115. 33 Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, p. 163.
[MAY, 1882.
dropped altogether with the vowel supporting it; thus kobakun a son is pronounced heubeun; sibbakan a bird, sibbun; maku bad, mu; ekulan a mountain, aula. He adds further that originally Khakan was the same as Khân and Kaan, although the two latter titles had afterwards acquired a special meaning." Quatremère shews from the use of the word Khakan or Khagan by Ssanang Setzen and from the letters of Arghun and Uljaitu that Kaan is in effect a mere form of Khakan.
The term Khan having been employed by the Turks to designate any sovereign prince, it was necessary, when the hierarchy of chiefs was created by the Mongols with a supreme chief governing several minor Khâns, to distinguish him, and he therefore was styled Khakan or Kaan. Thus in the Uighur vocabu. lary sent home by Amyot, Khakan is explained by the Chinese term wang-ti, i. e. supreme emperor. In the letters of the Ilkhans above cited the supreme Khân is referred to as the Khakan. The Arab author of the Mesalekalabsar similarly distinguishes the supreme Khân as the Great Kaan." Marco Polo always applies the name Kaan to the supreme Khân. We have therefore limited the name Khakan in these papers to the supreme Mongol Chief, making it equivalent to Khân of Khâns, and applied that of Khân indiscriminately to any ruling sovereign. It is curious to trace the degradation of this latter title. Generally among the early Mongols and Turks it was strictly limited to the reigning sovereign, just as our word king is. But the descendants of Timur finding the title too simple, like the Byzantine emperors in the days of their decay, took other titles to themselves and passed that of Khân on to their subordinates. Thus we read in the Akbar Nameh that Sultan Ali, having received the title of Khân from Humayun, Sikander was given the same title. The later emperors of Hindustan still further degraded it by adding adjectives to increase its force. Thus we read in the same work that Khoja Abd'al-Majid received the title of Asaf Khân. Hosain KuliBeg received the style of Khân-i Zeman; Iskendar Khân that of Khan-i Alam. In the history of Shah Abbas mention is made of a Khân-i Alam
* Id., p. 168 note.
25 Quatremère, Histoire des Mongols, pp. 10-15.
