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JULY, 1882.]
CHINGHIZ KHAN AND HIS ANCESTORS.
191
In the hunt they will follow me, and they must superintend the putting up of the kibitkas and other things.
"One of the body-guards with Shigikhutukh will see to putting away and distributing dresses, armour, bows and arrows, and military arms. Another must look after nets and ropes. The body-guards with Cherbi must give out the felts. While the camp is being laid out the Sanban archers together with the archers of Yesuntai must be on the right side of the Tent, the braves of Arkhai in front of it, and the Sanban of Bukhi and the others on the left. The night body-guards who look after the Tent and kibitkas must be near the Tent on both sides. All the Sanban of the life-guards and the domestics under the command of Dodaicherbi must be constantly near the tent."
Such is the account preserved for us in the Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi of the organization of Chinghiz Khân's immediate dependents and of his guards. It shows what a life of adventure and difficulty that of the nomades of Central Asia is. How surprise and unexpected attack have to be guarded against at every turn, and what an array of precautions was deemed necessary by the great chief who had supplanted so many others, and who must have been surrounded by many jealous and envious peers. At the Kuriltai, at which this organization was perfected, there was also apparently issued the code of laws which afterwards became so famous.
The Jihan-kushai says that "in accordance with the wishes of Chinghiz Khân his laws and ordinances were written down in books, and the collection was known by the title Yasa- nameh-buzurg." Vassaf tells us that the word yasa in the language of Khuarezmo meant an order of the king.' M. Quatrèmere urges on the contrary that the word is of Mongol origin.
The question of its Mongol or Turkish etymology was made the subject of a diseussion by Von Hammer and Schmidt. The former quotes three Turkish dictionaries in which it occurs. In the Ferhengi Shuuri published at Constantinople we read "Yasa in the language of the Khuarezmians means a royal
order, and was the name of Chinghiz Khân's collection of laws." In the Turkish dictionary Lehjetut-Lughat published at the same place, Yasak is explained as a universal expression for a prohibition, while in the Jagatai dictionary published at Calcutta yasa is also glossed as meaning a command or order. Schmidt, on the other hand, says the word is Mongol, and that it ought to be written yassale, which means order, regulation or reform. In the modern pronunciation he says it is written drassak, y and d being interchangeable letters at the beginning of Mongol words. It is derived, he says, from the verb yassakho or drassakho, to set in order, put right, whence also yassal or drassal, a remedy for a disease, and Yassakchi or Drassakchi, the title of several princes who have been legislators; also the verb yassaklakho or drassaklakho, to carry out the law or to punish. It seems to me that in this case Schmidt has proved his point. Not only has he shewn that the word has a number of related forms in Mongol, but the term is still in use both among the Mongols and Kalmuks, and it would seem that like some other terms it passed into Turkish from Mongol. The term eventually acquired a much wider meaning, and included that of a penalty and also of a tax. As is well known, the tax exacted by the early Cossaks from the various Siberian tribes whom they conquered was termed yasak. Yasak is the form of the word as given by the Armenian historian Vartan, who says that by this word the Tartars designated the institutions of Chinghiz Khân.° Vassaf tells us the Mongols had another name besides yasa for their code. He speaks of the Great Law Book which they call Tunjin. He adds that the meaning of the word tunjin is "to be on one's guard."* Schmidt declares there is no such word in Mongol.' Another name by which the code of Chinghiz Khân was known according to Ibn Arabshah, was Tora ChinghizKhánia. This word torah was also used by various anthors in an extended sense for any law or ordinance." Schmidt would write it Törö, and explains it as meaning government, administration, but this is clearly
Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi, pp. 124-130.
i. e. Great Law; Quatrèmere, Rashidu'd-din, p. dai, note.
• i. e. Turkish. • Von Hammer, Gesch. der Gold. Horde, p. 631.
• Id. p. 630. 1. Journ. Asiat. 5th Ser. XVI. p. 307. 1 ie the Mongols. 1 Von Hammer, op. cit. p. 183 and notes 2 and 3. 13 Id. p. 630.
Quatrèmere, op. cit. clxv. &o.
Id.
