It Soon Showed Me That Though The
Town May Have Suffered Considerably, As Local Tradition Asserts, When
Chingiz Khan With
His Mongol army first invaded and conquered Kansu from
this side about 1226 A.D., yet it continued to be
Inhabited down to Marco
Polo's time, and partially at least for more than a century later. This
was probably the case even longer with the agricultural settlement for
which it had served as a local centre, and of which we traced extensive
remains in the desert to the east and north-east. But the town itself must
have seen its most flourishing times under Tangut or Hsi-hsia rule from
the beginning of the eleventh century down to the Mongol conquest.
"It was from this period, when Tibetan influence from the south seems to
have made itself strongly felt throughout Kansu, that most of the Buddhist
shrines and memorial Stupas dated, which filled a great portion of the
ruined town and were conspicuous also outside it. In one of the latter
Colonel Kozloff had made his notable find of Buddhist texts and paintings.
But a systematic search of this and other ruins soon showed that the
archaeological riches of the site were by no means exhausted. By a careful
clearing of the debris which covered the bases of Stupas and the interior
of temple cellas we brought to light abundant remains of Buddhist
manuscripts and block prints, both in Tibetan and the as yet very
imperfectly known old Tangut language, as well as plenty of interesting
relievos in stucco or terra-cotta and frescoes. The very extensive refuse
heaps of the town yielded up a large number of miscellaneous records on
paper in the Chinese, Tangut, and Uigur scripts, together with many
remains of fine glazed pottery, and of household utensils. Finds of
Hsi-hsia coins, ornaments in stone and metal, etc., were also abundant,
particularly on wind-eroded ground.
"There was much to support the belief that the final abandonment of the
settlement was brought about by difficulties of irrigation." (A Third
Journey of Exploration in Central Asia, 1913-16, Geog. Jour.,
Aug.-Sept., 1916, pp. 38-39.)
M. Ivanov (Isviestia Petrograd Academy, 1909) thinks that the ruined
city of Kara Khoto, a part at the Mongol period of the Yi-tsi-nai circuit,
could be its capital, and was at the time of the Si Hia and the beginning
of the Mongols, the town of Hei shui. It also confirms my views.
Kozlov found (1908) in a stupa not far from Kara Khoto a large number of
Si Hia books, which he carried back to Petrograd, where they were studied
by Prof. A. IVANOV, Zur Kenntniss der Hsi-hsia Sprache (Bul. Ac. Sc.
Pet., 1909, pp. 1221-1233). See The Si-hia Language, by B. LAUFER
(T'oung Pao, March, 1916, pp. 1-126).
XLVI., p. 226. "Originally the Tartars dwelt in the north on the borders
of Chorcha."
Prof. Pelliot calls my attention that Ramusio's text, f. 13 v, has:
"Essi habitauano nelle parti di Tramontana, cioe in Giorza, e Bargu,
doue sono molte pianure grandi ..."
XLVI., p. 230.
TATAR.
"Mr. Rockhill is quite correct in his Turkish and Chinese dates for the
first use of the word Tatar, but it seems very likely that the much
older eponymous word T'atun refers to the same people. The Toba History
says that in A.D. 258 the chieftain of that Tartar Tribe (not yet arrived
at imperial dignity) at a public durbar read a homily to various chiefs,
pointing out to them the mistake made by the Hiung-nu (Early Turks) and
'T'a-tun fellows' (Early Mongols) in raiding his frontiers. If we go back
still further, we find the After Han History speaking of the 'Middle
T'atun'; and a scholion tells us not to pronounce the final 'n.' If we
pursue our inquiry yet further back, we find that T'ah-tun was
originally the name of a Sien-pi or Wu-hwan (apparently Mongol) Prince,
who tried to secure the shen-yue ship for himself, and that it gradually
became (1) a title, (2) and the name of a tribal division (see also the
Wei Chi and the Early Han History). Both Sien-pi and Wu-hwan are
the names of mountain haunts, and at this very day part of the Russian
Liao-tung railway is styled the 'Sien-pi railway' by the native Chinese
newspapers." (E.H. PARKER, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p.
141.)
Page 231, note 3. Instead of Yuche, read Juche.
XLVI., p. 232.
KARACATHAYANS.
"There seems to be no doubt that Kerman in South Persia is the city to
which the Kara-Cathayan refugee fled from China in 1124; for Major Sykes,
in his recent excellent work on Persia, actually mentions [p. 194] the
Kuba Sabz, or 'Green Dome,' as having been (until destroyed in 1886 by an
earthquake) the most conspicuous building, and as having also been the
tomb of the Kara-Khitai Dynasty. The late Dr. Bretschneider (N. China B.
R. As. Soc. Journal, Vol. X., p. 101) had imagined the Kara-Cathayan
capital to be Kermine, lying between Samarcand and Bokhara (see Asiatic
Quart. Rev. for Dec., 1900, 'The Cathayans'). Colonel Yule does not
appear to be quite correct when he states (p. 232) that 'the Gurkhan
himself is not described to have extended his conquests into Persia,' for
the Chinese history of the Cathayan or Liao Dynasties distinctly states
that at Samarcand, where the Cathayan remained for ninety days, the 'King
of the Mohammedans' brought tribute to the emigrant, who then went West
as far as K'i-r-man, where he was proclaimed Emperor by his officers.
This was on the fifth day of the second moon in 1124, in the thirty-eighth
year of his age, and he then assumed the title of Koh-r-han" (E.H.
Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, pp. 134-5.)
XLVI., p. 236.
KERAITS.
"In his note to Vol.
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