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OCTOBER, 1882.]
CHINGHIZ KHAN AND HIS ANCESTORS.
CHINGHIZ KHAN AND HIS ANCESTORS. BY HENRY H. HOWORTH, F.S.A. (Continued from p. 196.)
XVII.
We will now resume our narrative of Chinghiz Khan's more martial doings. In part IX. of these papers I described the death of Buirukh Khân of the Naimans as having taken place near lake Kizilbash in the year 1202. This is the story as told in the Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi. The Yuan-shi with which Rashidu'd-din and other authorities agree make him survive till 1206, which is more probable, and tell us how Chinghiz marched against him and his Naimans after the holding of the famous Kuriltai whose administrative and legislative acts I have described. He is called Bu-lu-yu in the Manchu translation of the Yuan-shi and Polo by Mr. Douglas; De Mailla calls him Pu-lu-yuhan. Hyacinthe has followed Kienlung's sophisticated text and corrupted the name into Boro. He was surprised, we are told, while hunting in the mountains Oluda, a name corrupted in Kienlung's text into Urtu-ola, and was captured and doubtless put to death, although this is not expressly stated. His nephew Kiu-chu-lei, i.e. Kushluk, who is called his son in the Yuan-shilei-pen, who was with him, was elected their chief by the Naimans. He fled with Tokhtu, the leader of the Merkit, to the Irtish." The Huang-yuan calls Buirukh Bei lu, and tells us he was captured near the mountain Uluta, and on the river Sokhe"-Rashidu'd-dîn says on the river Suja near the Ulugh-tagh mountain. He says that Buirakh was hunting there when Chinghiz ordered one of the famous hunts to be held in the neighbourhood. Buirukh and his party were enclosed by the hunters. He was killed with his followers while his family, herds and wealth fell into the Mongols' hands. Abulghâzi says Buirukh was hunting the kik or wild hind when captured. Klaproth identifies the mountains mentioned in these notices with the Altai. D'Ohsson urges that the name still survives exactly as recorded by Rashidu'd-din in the Ulugh-Tagh or Great
Douglas, p. 54; Hyacinthe, p. 36; Klaproth, Journ. Asiat. ser, 1 tome II, p. 199; DeMailla, tome IX, p. 41; Gaubil, p. 12.
Klaproth, loc cit. Hyacinthe and Douglas, id. Op cit., p. 180.
In which a cordon of men enclosed a great space and
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Mountain which is a continuation of the little Altai, west of lake Balkhash. This is however quite an impossible locality. It was not until some years after this that Chinghiz Khan's generals found their way so far west as the Ulugh-Tagh range, and the locality where Bairukh was defeated was doubtless in some place not far from the Kizilbash lake, a view which is amply confirmed by the fact that his nephew Kushluk and Toktu, the leader of the Merkits who were with him, fled after the battle to the Irtish; which is an immense distance from the Ulugh-Tagh, but only separated from the basin of the Kizilbash lake by a short distance.
In the autumn of 1207 Chinghiz Khân had a second campaign in Si Hia or Tangut, the excuse for which was, that the King of Hia had failed to pay the promised tribute. In the Yuan-shi we are told he captured a stronghold whose name is written Hwunlo-hai by Douglas. De Mailla calls it Oualuhai. The Huang-yuan Olokhai. Hyacinthe following Kienlung's text of the Yuan-shi calls it Ui-ra-ka. On this occasion, as on many others, the editors of that text seem to have been right, for Rashidu'd-dîn expressly calls the place Erika. The other forms of the name are probably Chinese corruptions due to the difficulty of representing the letter r in Chinese. Now in the vocabulary attached to Hyacinthe's work we are told Ui-ra-ka meant in the language of Tangut "the passage through the wall," from Ui in the midst of, ra wall, and ku passage." Wu-la-hai, according to Pauthier's orthography I-la-hai, is mentioned in Chinese geographical works as one of the seven lu or circumscriptions forming the later Government of Kansuh, which corresponded to the kingdom of Tangut. The name is also written U-lianghai, and when the town is again mentioned in the Yuan-shi, namely, in 1209 it is expressly called "the Wuleanghai pass through the wall,"
gradually drew towards the centre.
Erdmann, p. 310.
Op cit., p. 92.
Hyacinthe, pp. 40 and 379; D'Ohsson, p. 106 note. Pauthier's Marco Polo, pp. 206 and 207, notes. Douglas, p. 58.
