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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

294. NAMGHIN   789

Nayan revolted between May 14 and June 12, 1287 (« 1288 » in B1, 445, is wrong). Qubilai left Shang-tu on the 24th or 25th of June, the main battle took place about the 16th of July; Nayan was taken prisoner and executed. The fighting went on against his associates, and Qubilai returned to Shang-tu on the 15th of September 1287. Place-names are given in the accounts, but none of the identifications proposed by T'u Chi can be accepted; nor is there anything safe in CHARIGNON'S lengthy argument (Ch, II, 6-24). Contrary to a surmise of Y, I, 339, n. 2, there is nothing in the Chinese sources to support a statement of Gaubil's about each horseman having a foot-soldier on the crupper, and this must be taken from Marco Polo himself; but I note that Rasidu-'d-Din (Oh, II, 460; BI, II, 534) mentions that Qubilai, old and gouty, travelled in a litter carried on the

back of an elephant. The fabrication of the first « elephant-litters » (A   hsiang-chiao), evidently
for Imperial use, is noted in the Annals towards the end of 1280 (YS, 11, 3 b); the making of another « elephant-litter » (A V hsiang-lien) is noted under 1325 in YS, 29, 8 a.

The Chinese texts do not state expressly that Nayan was a Christian, but two indications go far to wards confirming Polo's text (cf. TP, 1914, p. 635-636). POZDNEEV discovered and published (Mongoliya i Mongoly, St. Petersb., 1898, II, 324-330) an inscription which is extant in a grotto

near the ancient town fl   Ying-ch'ang of the Yüan period (see « Barscol ») and which comme-
morates an incident in Qubilai's campaign of 1287; the inscription was erected in 1325 (« 1287 » in Mo, 135, is a slip, either MOULE's or mine). We read in the inscription that « Nayan had then

abandoned the true law of Buddha » ( 14 75 II pift ft   7-J;), and I concur with POZDNÉEV
in seeing in that sentence a confirmation of Nayan's Christian faith. Moreover, in the Cho-kêng lu of 1366 (2, 17), it is said that the remnants of Nayan's partisans had been banished to Ting-hai (Chusan Islands) ; in 1314-1320, they applied to the governor of the province, saying that they could not stand the climate and asking to be sent back to their native place. But the governor replied : « You are seeking for a place where man dies no more; there it behoves to send you. » That ironical answer also seems to me to bear evidence to Nayan's people being largely Christians. As most of them were probably not Mongols, at least not Mongols from Mongolia, we ought perhaps to take into account here the traditions about Christians living in Eastern Mongolia and Western Manchuria about 1100 (cf. TP, 1914, 630; Mo, 235).

294. NAMGHIN

KLAPROTH had seen here f ? ÿ, Nan-ching (pronounced in Mongol times *Nam-king, and sounding almost *Nam-ging to foreign ears), that is to say K'ai-fêng, the « Southern Capital » (nan-ching) of the Chin dynasty, which fell in 1234. Since PAUTHIER (Pa, 469470), most editors 12