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CHINGHIZ KHAN AND HIS ANCESTORS.
JULY, 1882.]
been first elected to the post in a general kuriltai or assembly of the princes, generals, etc. who should elect to the post the wisest and most prudent member of the family. If a ruler was deposed he was to be confined with all his relatives and people in a fortress where they were to be supplied with all they needed, but no one was to have any communication with them. The empire was to be deemed hereditary, and when the Khakan died the heads of the seven principal tribes were to repair in white robes as a sign of mourning to the house of the chief minister. After the customary prayer the new Khakan was to be summoned and placed on a piece of black felt in the midst of the house, and was to be then told to raise his head and adore the sun, the eternal being, of which he himself was the shadow. That he should reign in accordance with the divine will, so that he might be yet more exalted in the next world than in this, while if he behaved ill he might be reduced to the possession of the piece of felt he then sat apon. After the installation the assistants were to put away their mourning and to put on red robes. Each one was to have an aigrette in his cap, and the chief magistrate was to put the crown on his head and on that of his wife, who was to have honours paid to her as he himself had. After this the various grandees, etc. etc., were to approach and prostrate themselves three times, and kiss his feet, and to give him presents, consisting of nine objects of each kind." Von Hammer divides the contents of the Yasa under four heads:-I. Laws involving the penalty of death. II. Laws relating to war and the mode of carrying it on. III. Laws relating to the family and household management. IV. Laws inculcating certain virtues. V. Laws about various forbidden things.
I. The penalty of death was inflicted for-1, adultery (in which a man caught flagrante delicto might be at once put to death); 2, sodomy; 3, robbery; 4, manslaughter, in which the penalty of blood could be commuted for a money payment, which according to the Shajrat ul atrak and Mirkhavend was 40 golden balishes in the case of a Mongol who was killed,
10.e. in the Eastern sense where a man's brothers succeed in turn to one another, and it is not till they are all exhausted that his sons claim the throne.
20 Langles, op. cit., pp. 206 and 207. 16. 6. strategy.
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while a Chinese was only valued at the same price as a donkey; 5, false witness; 6, sorcery; 7, harbouring or giving food or drink to a runaway-slave or not returning him to his master when met with; 8, failing to pick up and restore to a companion in arms in battle any weapon or other thing he might have lost; 9, losing or squandering for the third time the capital entrusted to any one; 10, interfering in a struggle between two champions or wrestlers to help either of them; 11, desertion or mutiny; 12 and 13, micturating into live ashes or into water; 14, killing animals in the Mussalman fashion by cutting their throats instead of in the prescribed way by laying them on their backs, tying their legs together, slitting open their bellies, and then tearing out or squeezing their hearts till they died. Pallas tells us this custom still prevails with the Kalmuks who attribute its introduction to Chinghiz Khân. Those guilty of offences punished by death were conducted veiled before the Khâns and in cases of State criminals their whole families were extirpated.
II. The regulations relating to war and the means for carrying it on fell into several heads as-the mode of carrying onwar;" disciplineand tactics; training by means of hunting; the facilitating of the rapid conveyance of intelligence by means of the State post, etc. War was to be prosecuted without any consideration or regard for the property or life of the enemy. As Abulghazi tells us the army was divided into bodies of 10,000 men," each commanded by a tuman aghassi." These divisions were again divided into regiments of 1,000 men, each commanded by hezarehs or Minc-bashis," these into companies of 100 commanded by Sadès or Yuz-bashis, 25 these into sections of 50 commanded by penjès or ittik bashis, and these into sections of 10 men commanded by Dèhès or On bashis, i. e. decurions. It was forbidden to attach any of these subordinate sections to any other than its own division. Any officer thus migrating to another section.or one receiving him was to be put to death, while each officer with his men was only to receive from his immediate superior the commands of their tumanbashi. The greatest atten
20
22. e. tumans.
23 He was also styled a temnik.
3. e. millenarians.
25 Centurions.
36 Leaders of fifty men.
