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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
330 158. CINGHIS
to the « white-powdered skin » (ß► A po i& p'i), it refers merely to the « white-tanned skin » of which the boots, the outer warm boots and the belt-depending bowl used for the mortuary costume of the defunct Emperor were made.
THE TOMB OF CHINGHIZ-KHAN. — Opinions concerning the place where Chinghiz-khan was buried are no less divergent than those about the dates of his birth and death.
GAUBIL (p. 54) and MAILLA (Ix, 128) state that Chinghiz was buried « in the cave (« caverne ») of Kinien », and this has been repeated by CORDIER (Hist. gén. de la Chine, II, 223); it is doubly
misleading. The actual text (YS, I, 9 b) says that Chinghiz was buried at the a r Ch'i-lien-
ku. Although the second character is often now read nien (Popov too, 313, transcribes « Cinyan » –= Ch'i-nien), it occurs in mediaeval transcriptions only with its correct reading lien; as to ku, it is not a « cave », but a « valley [in the mountain] », in principle, a dry one, as opposed to )I ch'uan, a weiiwatered « valley ». All the Emperors of the Yüan dynasty, except Mongka, are expressly stated in the YS, and before it in the Cho-kêng lu (I, 11-14), to have been buried in the Ch'i-lien-ku. Even for the last Emperor, who was expelled from China in 1368, and who, according to the YS, died in 1370 at Ying-ch'ang-fu (see « Barscol »), we are told (YS, 47, 6 a) that « his coffin was taken north to be buried ». In several cases (YS, 26, 8 a; 28, 7 a; 31, 4 b; 36, 4 a; 37, 2 b), the mention of the burial at the Ch'i-lien-ku is followed by the words
ß ts'ung chu-ti ling, « after the funerary mounds of the [other] Emperors ». This would seem to imply that tumuli were erected over the tombs; but it is probable that Chinese writers here used merely the ordinary term for a Chinese Imperial tomb, without any reference to its nature.
Where did the Ch'i-lien-ku or Ch'i-lien Valley lie? The Yiian-shih lei-pien alone (I, 10 a), we do not know on what evidence, says that it lay « north of the Desert ». As to the name, if Ch'i-lien be a transcription, the possible originals would be *Kilän, *Kiläl, *Kirän, *Kiräl (the other «K'i-lien» mentioned in Y, I, 248, is irj5 i Ch'i-lien, and, as PALLADIUS says, lay in quite a different region; on the confusion made at a late date between the two, cf. infra, p. 361-362). PALLADIUS suggested that Ch'i-Tien was an abbreviated transcription of the name of the Kerulen (cf. Y, I, 248; Ch, I, 195), and this opinion has been expressed independently, and with greater confidence, by YANAI
(p. 751) and in it 4 Shên Ts'êng-chih's notes on the Chinese version of « Sanang Setsen »
(IA It; ig {ft Pi Mêng-ku yüan-liu chien-chêng, 4, 7 a). I felt inclined to adopt the same
view in TP, 1935, 167. But, after reconsidering the case, I have come to a different conclusion. The name of the Kerulen is now pronounced JIerüiün in Mongolian, and the modern
Chinese transcription is 1 ,lac f K'a-lu-lun or, more correctly, fgt K'o-lu-lun. In the
Mongol period, despite Rubrouck's « Kerule » in « Onankerule » ( Onon and Kerulen; Wy, 208 [where, and also on p. 29, « Orkhon » is a slip for « Onon »], 243, 268), the name was Kälürän, attested by both the Secret History and Rasidu-'d-Din; « Kulurum » is still found in WITSEN'S Nord-en Oost-Tartarye (1705 ed., 279). In Chinese, the river is designated either by the regular
transcriptions of Kälürän, ( y; Ch'ieh-lü-lien, Ch'ieh-iü-lien, ( E Ch'ieh-lü-lien,
Ch'ieh-lu-lien (ch. WANG Hui-tsua, 49, 2 a), As A Hsi-lu-lien (cf. WANG Kuo-wei's
edition of Ch'iu Ch'u-chi's Hsi-yu chi, 2, 13 a-b; Br, I, 54), or they render a name of unknown
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