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0233 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 233 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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126. CATAI   217

as the Liao, which was destroyed by the Jucen or Chin (see « Ciorcia ») in 1125, but it had in the meantime provided the name under which North China came to be designated during the Middle Ages by the nations of Central and Western Asia whose intercourse with China was carried on by land.

That name had of course been preceded by others. The earliest designation by which China was known in Central Asia was the one which we still use, and which is derived from the Chinese state of Ch'in (see « Cin »). This was replaced in the 5th-6th cents. by that of Tabyaê, Taßyac. The latter name most probably renders the original form of the name of the Altaic tribe which founded first the '(-e Tai kingdom in the northern part of Shan-hsi (c. A. D. 315), and afterwards the dynasty of the Northern Wei (386-556); the native name of the Wei nation occurs in

Chinese texts in the metathetic transcription fE   T'o-pa (*T'âk-b'uât; cf. TP, 1912, 732;
1936, 366). Theophylactus Simocatta (vii, 9, 6-9) gives Tauyâat (for *Tau)/zcs); China is called Tabyac in the Turkish runic inscriptions of the Orkhon (8th cent.), and Tavyac in Uighur texts from Turfan (cf. BANG and VON GABAIN, Analyt. Index, in SPA W, 1931, 502). For Kasyari, in 1076, Tavyac is the designation of South China, under Sung rule, while North China is Hïtai, 1. e. Cathay (BROCKELMANN, 250; BARTHOLD, 12 Vorlesungen, 97-98). At the same time, the old name of in _- ein, « China », had been taken over by the Qarâkhânids of western Chinese Turkestan, and that entitled them to be referred to as khans of Tavyac in the Qutac'yu-bilig, which was completed in 1069 (cf. RADLOV, III, 952; BARTHOLD, loc. cit. 98). Ch'iu Ch'ang-ch'un, who travelled in Central Asia in 1221-1224, still heard the people of Ili call the Chinese

f)t :!   T'ao-hua-shih, i. e. *Tôyas (for *Tôyac; cf. Br, I, 71). A Uighur Tao-wa-
ch'ih Sa-ii, son of Qitai Sail, and brother of Uiyur Sall and Aryun Sali, was probably a *Dôwac Sali == Tôyâc Sali (T'u Chi, 154, 24 a-b). In mediaeval Arabic and Persian works, the name occurs as Tamyaj and Tôyac (cf. Oh, i, 203; Y', I, 33, 256). When Clavijo says that the Cayatai people call the Emperor of China « Tangus, which means Pig Emperor », I agree with YULE, ( Y1, 1, 33, 174, 264) in his suspicion that, despite the fanciful translation, the word has nothing to do with Turk. tonguz, « pig », but is a misreading for *Taugas == Tôyac. The name no longer survives as an ethnic name, but survives, in my opinion, as the name of the red Prunus known in Turki as tôyac, which would indicate that the fruit originally came from China (the word is not in RADLOV's dictionary, but it is given in SHAW, Vocabulary, 219, and I have often heard it at Kâsyar).

KLAPROTH adduced a text according to which the Ch'i-tan would seem to have been already known in A. D. 233-239 (cf. HOWORTH, in JRAS, 1881, 128-130). But this is only due to a misleading note of the 13th cent. commentary on the Tzii-chih t'ung-chien, s. a. 405, 12th month (114, 19 b). There is no authority for a direct connection between the chieftain K'o-pi-nêng killed c. 235 and the future Ch'i-tan tribes (cf. San-kuo chih, Wei chih, 30, 3 b-4 b). According to the Pei shih (94, 8 b; cf. also Liao shih, 63, 1 b) the Ch'i-tan were soundly beaten by g`'~.

Mu-jung Huang; this can only be an abnormal spelling for the name of -T   t Mu-jung
Huang (-j- 348; cf. GILES, Biogr. Dict. No. 1544), a chieftain of Hsien-pei origin who had established an independent Court of his own. But, although Mu-jung Huang led a campaign against the K'u-mo-hi (Wei shu, 100, 5 a), who were closely connected with the Ch'i-tan, no mention of