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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
346 158. CINGHIS
side of the Altai Mountain and on the sunny side of the Qadai Mountain ». «Yäkä-ütäk (or ötäk)» is unknown. CHARIGNON'S «Ta-o-e8-k'o », «Great 0-t'ê-k'o» (Ch, I, 201), is merely taken from the Chinese version of «Sanang Setsen» (PoPov's «Da-Otok» p. 313, is equally misleading). On
the other hand, there is an gij Ç j 0-t'u-k'o (or 0-t'u-[A] k'o) Mountain, * Ötük > * Ötök, the
«Oudouc Alin» of D'ANVILLE'S map, the «Êtuk» of PoPov, 352, north of the Tûla and opposite the flan-ûla (it is the pseudo-«Gontou» of Ch, I, 200); but it is not known as «* Yäkä Ötük», and there is nothing to show that «Sanang Setsen», whose family connections were in the Ordos region, ever thought or even knew of it (in the present state of our knowledge, it would be arbitrary to try to connect the name of the *Ötiik Mountain with that of the sacred Ötükän Mountain of the ancient Turks, on which cf. TP, 1929, 212-219). In view of the «Yäkä-undui» of the Altan tobei, I suspect that both its form and that in «Sanang Setsen» are corrupt for * Yäkä-ündür, «Great Height», «Great Hill». In other words, it would be merely another form of the Buda-ündür of
e. another name of the Burgan-galdun. As the Altan tob5i shows, the tradition of the burial at the Burqan-qaldun, attested at an early date by Rasidu-'d-Din, survived in Mongolia. The same was expressed by texts speaking of the *Yäkä-ündür, but the author of the Altan tobëi, who had the name in a corrupt form, did not recognize it, and was erroneously led to believe that it represented a different tradition.
That the *Yäkä-ündür is identical with the Burgan-qaldun would seem also to be shown by its location north of the Altai and south of the Käntäi. The name of the Altai had in Mongol popular usage a wider range of application than in our nomenclature. Although, strictly speaking, the Altai lay in western Mongolia, both Polo and the Mongol chroniclers agree in mentioning it in connection with the tomb of Chinghiz-khan. It seems to have been a vague designation of the range of mountains which extended south of the la and the Kerulen and which, like the mountains north of Peking, were and are sometimes still known as the Hinggan Mountains (the JRR
Hsing-an of the Chinese; see «Altai »). The Chinese translation of «Sanang Setsen» (4, 8 b) gives here the same reading .fti : jj -(4 A-lo-t'ai, Altai, as in SCHMIDT'S text. It would be arbitrary to
change it to Avj A-to-t'an, Altan, as is done by T'u Chi (3, 33 b), in order to connect it the
more easily with the 1: 4$ An-t'an-po-tu-han of YS, 149, 1 b (this is repeated in Ch, I,
204); the latter name probably renders *Altan-botugan (= *Altan-botuyan), «Golden-Young Camel», and has nothing to do with the name of the Altai Mountains. On the other hand, the Käntäi Mountains are the mountains from the southern slopes of which the Tûla takes its rise; the sources of the Onon and the Kerulen are in the mountains to the east of the Käntäi Range. I do not know the origin of the name, nor can I trace it back farther than the 17th cent. KowA-
LEWSKI reads the name «Gentei-ban », but all the Chinese transcriptions suppose an initial k-. The Chinese geographers of the Manchu dynasty distinguish a «Small Käntäi», ,J. * ! Hsiao K'ênt'ê, to the north-west of the sources of the Kerulen and the Onon, from the Käntäi Range more to the south-east. According to the Mêng-ku yu-mu chi (7, 22 a; this passage has been omitted by
PoPov, 347), the native name of the «Small Käntäi» is 1., J go '1* A-chi-ko K'en-tê; this
name, written roJ A-chi-ko K'o-yin-t'ê in the Wu-ch'ang map, is the «Agigue
Kentei» of D'ANVILLE. But it cannot be a «native », i. e. Mongolian name, since acige, «small», is not Mongolian, but Manchu. In any case, it is the «Small Käntäi» which is the highest range,
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