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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CHAP. XLVI. p. 23o.   TATAR.

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" There was much to support the belief that the final abandon-

ment of the settlement was brought about by difficulties of

irrigation." (A Third Journey of Exploration in Central Asia,

1913-16, Geog. Jour., Aug.-Sept., 1916, pp. 38-39.)

M. Ivanov (Isviestia Petrograd Academy, 1909) thinks that

the ruined city of Kara Khoto, a part at the Mongol period of

the Yi-tsi-nai circuit, could be its capital, and was at the time of

the Si Hia and the beginning of the Mongols, the town of Hei

shui. It also confirms my views.

Kozlov found (1908) in a stupa not far from Kara Khoto a

large number of Si Hia books, which he carried back to Petrograd,

where they were studied by Prof. A. IvANOV, Zur Kenntniss der

Hsi-hsia Sprache (Bul. Ac. Sc. Pet., 1909, pp. 1221-I233). See

The Si-hia Language, by B. LAUFER (T'oung Pao, March, 1916,

pp. t-126).

XLVI., p. 226. " Originally the Tartars dwelt in the north on the

borders of Chorcha."

Prof. Pelliot calls my attention that Ramusio's text, f. 13 y,

has : " Essi habitauano nelle parti di Tramontana, cioe in Giorza,

e Bargu, doue sono molte pianure grandi . . ."

XLVI., p. 23o.

TATAR.

" Mr. Rockhill is quite correct in his Turkish and Chinese

dates for the first use of the word Tatar, but it seems very likely

that the much older eponymous word T'atun refers to the same

people. The Toba History says that in A.D. 258 the chieftain

of that Tartar Tribe (not yet arrived at imperial dignity) at a

public durbar read a homily to various chiefs, pointing out to

them the mistake made by the Hiung-nu (Early Turks) and ` T'a-

tun fellows ' (Early Mongols) in raiding his frontiers. If we go

back still further, we find the After Han History speaking of the

Middle T'atun ' ; and a scholion tells us not to pronounce the

final ` n.' If we pursue our inquiry yet further back, we find

that T'ah-tun was originally the name of a Sien-pi or Wu-hwan

(apparently Mongol) Prince, who tried to secure the shenyü

ship for himself, and that it gradually became (I) a title, (2) and

the name of a tribal division (see also the Wei Chi and the Early

Han History). Both Sien-pi and Wu-hwan are the names of

mountain haunts, and at this very day part of the Russian Liao-

tung railway is styled the ` Sien-pi railway ' by the native

Chinese newspapers." (E. H. PARKER, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan.,

1904, p. 141.)

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