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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

254. IACI   745

(cf. Secret History, § 239; « Sanang Setsen» [SCHMIDT, 75, 155] ; Altan Tobc'i [GoMSOEV, 133] ; and GRUM-GRIMAÏLO, Zapadnaya Mongoliya i Uryankhaïskii krat, III, 295). One might think of the lineage of Badai and Kisjik (< Qisiiy), the two Kerait shepherds whose advice saved Chinghizkhan when he waged war with Ong-khan and whose descendants had a particular privilege of drink; this is the only sensible suggestion in the extraordinary jumble of wrong forms and misstatements heaped up by CHARIGNON (Ch, I, 224-225, 264-265). But « Horiat » (or « Boriat ») is far from *Carait (Käräit, Kerait).

254. IACI

The name is Yaci, written mil_ Yaci in Rasidu-'d-Din (Bl, II, 494),, Ya-ch'ih (a) (and,

with a wrong reading, 4 4 Hsia-ch'ih), 111,4   Ya-ch'ih (b) and la   Ya-ch'ih (c) in Chinese.
This town was certainly either the present Yün-nan-fu, or a town quite near to it and also on the banks of the lake. But here the difficulties begin.

YULE was, as far as I can remember, the first to identify Yaci with Yün-nan-fu, and this has

been accepted for many years; it implied that Yaci was the same as #.ff   Chih-tung, founded in

764 or 765 by the Nan-chao prince Fêng-chia-i, renamed ,5   Shan-shan in the 9th cent., and

according to Chinese tradition, identical with the present Yün-nan-fu. It seemed to be corroborated by Rasidu-'d-Din, who, like Polo, says that Yaêi is the capital of the Qara-Jang province. In 1904, CHAVANNES remarked (TP, 1904, 471-472; 1905, 4) that during his campaign in Yün-nan, Uriyangqadai arrived first at Shan-shan, and later on took Yaci, so that the two towns must be different. CHAVANNES proposed then to leave Yaci at Yün-nan-fu, and to place Chih-tung, alias Shan-shan, at P'ing-ting-hsiang, in the northern part of the chou of K'un-yang. Although I was then unable to offer any solution, I showed immediately (BEFEO, iv, 1098) that CHAVANNES'S hypothesis could not be accepted at its face value. CORDIER, unaware of the problem raised by CHAVANNES, said independently (Y', ni, 127) that the present Yün-nan-fu was built in 1382, and that the Shan-shan of the Nan-chao kingdom lay to the south-east of it.

Only a provisional solution can be proposed, as the texts have not been thoroughly collected and discussed. The only mention of Ya-ch'ih b which has been quoted from the pên-chi by WANG Hui-tsu2, 49, 4 a-b, is the one of YS, 8, 2 b, when, in 1273, a grant of money was made to Sayyid Ajall who was sent to govern the barbarians (Man) of Qara-Jang, Yaêi (Ya-ch'ih b), ( itkör (wrongly united by WANG Hui-tsu with the preceding name; see « Cogacin » and « Caragian »), Chin-ch'ih (see « Çardandan ») and Cayàn-fang; the only mention WANG Hui-tsu gives of Ya-ch'ih a is from