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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
158. CINGHIS 343
(Hist. de Gentchiscan, 54) that the tomb of their great ancestor was at the «Han mountain », i. e., according to GAUBIL, lat. 470 54' and long. 90 3' (west of Peking; cf. also GAUBIL'S ms. notes quoted by QUATREMÈRE, 119). This is the «Han alin» («Han Mountain ») of D'ANVILLE'S Map
(« Tartarie chinoise», 7th sheet), the ff Han-shan («Han Mountain ») or Llan-ûia of the Chinese
maps, facing Ulan-bâtor (Urga), just south of the eastern end of the southern bend of the Tûla (cf. also TIMKOVSKI, Voyage à Pékin, I, 119; Ii, 426 sq.). I think that some misinterpretation of this location south of the Tûla is responsible for the mention found in D'ANVILLE («Tartarie chinoise », 4th sheet) that the Imperial tombs of the Mongol dynasty are supposed to be in the mountains south-west of the lake into which the Ongin flows; the same indication is found in the «Carte générale de la Tartarie chinoise» in DU HALDE, t. Iv, coupled with a wrong location of Qara-Qorum on the southern bank of the Ongin, near the lake. Whatever the truth may be, it is a fact that the Pu-êrh-han-shan (= Burgan-gaidun) of the Chinese abridged version of the Secret History has been identified with the Ijan-ûia «south of the Tûla» by the author of the Mêng-ku yu-mu chi (Popov, 347-348). Since Ilan-ûia means «Mountain of the Khan », such an identification appeared convincing to most scholars, e. g. DE GUIGNES (Hist. gén. des Huns, III, 74), D'OHSSON (Oh, I, 384), QUATREMÈRE (Hist. des Mongols, 120), YULE (Y, I, 247), HOWORTH (I, 107) and BLOCHET (II, 336). It is, however, clearly untenable. A tomb cannot at the same time be at the source of the Onon as well as on the left bank of the Tûia, opposite Ulan-bâtor. The Uan-ûia is a sacred mountain, a qoriq, that of Uiân-bâtor, but there is not the slightest ground, either in ancient texts or in modern tradition, to locate the tomb of Chinghiz-khan in that region.
After Chinghiz-khan's death, moreover, his four main ordos were probably installed at a place not far from his tomb, and, although Rubrouck never visited them, he knew that they were in the region of the «Onan Kerule», i. e. of the Onon and the Kerulen (Pry, 208, 268). It must have been there that T'ai-tsung went in 1232 and Mongka in 1257 when they visited the hsing-kung (= ordo) of T'ai-tsu (= Chinghiz-khan); there too that Yäsün Tamar (T'ai-ting) published his edict of amnesty in 1323 (cf. supra).
But Rasidu-'d-Din's texts were not familiar even to modern Chinese scholars, and there is now a tradition among the Mongols that Chinghiz-khan's tomb still exists in the region of the Ordos. The Tx'û yiian (s. v. Ch'i-lien-ku) has no hesitation in stating that the Ch'i-lien-ku is on the north side of the Altan Mountain, north-west of the Huang-ho, in the central banner of the right wing of the Ordos, and that the tomb of Chinghiz-khan is there. A protracted controversy over this ques-
tion between T'u Chi and 4R 411 CHANG Hsiang-wên was published in the geographical collection
Ti-hsüeh ts'ung-shu and in the geographical review Ti-hsüeh tsa-chih of 1921 (cf. the list of the papers in the bibliographical appendix of YANAI, Nos. 418-425). I have had no access to the original papers, but T'u Chi's views are summed up in his book. Moreover, most of his arguments have been translated by CHARIGNON (Ch. I, 197-208), unfortunately with many mistakes, beginning
with one which makes him call his author X «Wou Tsin», since he mistook his native place
Wu-chin for his name.
The starting-point of the controversy was of course the modern tradition of the Ordos, for which certain Chinese authors thought they found confirmation in «Sanang Setsen». According to the Mongol chronicler, after the death of Chinghiz which he places at Dörmägäi (= Ling-chou),
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