National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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V.B.   During the next fifty years the States of Bukhara and Samarcand were contest-

ed by Gorkhan of the Uighûr country on the east, and Khwarizmshah of the Khiva on the west.

Khwarizm or Khiva was given in fief by Malik Shah Saljuk to his General, Nushtakin Garcha, who was succeeded in 491 H.=1097 A.D. by his son, Muhammad Kutubuddin. He ruled thirty years, and assumed the title of Khwahrizm Shah, and in 521 H.=1127 A.D. was succeeded by his son Atsiz. He rebelled against Sultan Sanjar, and in the anarchy thus proiuced Gorkhan seized Mawaranahar, and made the Khwarizm Shah tributary as stated above. Atsiz died at Kochan or Khaboshan in 551 H.=1156 A.D., and his son, Arslan Khan, who succeeded, continued the tribute to Gorkhan. He died in 560 H.=1164 A.D.

The succession was now contested between Takish, the eldest son, and Sultan-

takin, the younger nominated one. Civil war continued for ten years, when by the aid of Gorkhan, on the promise of continued tribute, Takish was established on the throne of Khwahrizm. He died on the 10th Ramazcin 596 H.=1199 A.D., and left an empire nearly equal to that of the Samani and Salj iki to his son, Muhammad

Kutubuddin Khwahrizm Shah. He continued the tribute to Gorkhan, and with the

aid of the Uighûr defeated Shahabuddin, King of Ghor, and on his death annexed Ghor, Herat, and Sistan in 612 H.=1205 A.D. He next subdued Iran, and in 616 H.=1209 A.D., proud in the consciousness of his strength, refused the tribute to Gorkhan, and invaded Bukhara. He defeated the Uighûr army and captured Atrar, whence he returned to Khwahrizm.

On this Gorkhan, now ninety-two years of age, at once took the field, recovered

Atrar and other places, and set seige to Samarcand. Meanwhile Kutubuddin Khwahrizmshah hurried back, and a fight ensued with the Uighûr army at Banakat, in 620 H.=1213 A.D., but the action was indecisive and both armies retired. In this battle Gorkhan was opposed by Koshluk Khan, the son of Taping Khan, Nayman, who now turned traitor to his patron and benefactor, and revolted against him.

R.S.   This Koshluk, chief of the Nâyman tribe of Christians, was a Budhist, but his

wife was a Christian. He had been forced to flee from Beshbaligh by the hostility of Chang£z, and coming to the westward found an asylum with Gorkhan, who received him well, and attached him to himself as an ally, and strengthened the connection by giving him his daughter in marriage. When Khwahrizmshah, elated by his successes in Irac, refused the tribute to Gorkhan and invaded Bukhara, he entered into a plot with Koshluk to divide the Uighûr empire by a simultaneous attack from the east and west. The agreement come to was that if Khwahrizm Shah were first successful, he should have the country up to Ka.shghar and Khutan, but that if Koshluk first succeeded, he should take the country up to Banakat on the Syhon or .Taxartes river as his share.

Khwahrizm Shah, from his vicinity, was first in the field, and took the country

up to Atrar, as before mentioned. And he now recovered the place after the battle at Banakat, from which Gorkhan retreated in disorderly haste to his capital, where, on arrival, he found the gates closed against him. He beseiged Balasaghûn for sixteen days, and, then taking it, gave the city up to plunder and massacre for three days, during which, it is said, forty-seven thousand souls perished.

Koshluk following up now appeared on the scene of riot and bloodshed. He soon

routed the demoralized army, and captured Gorkhan, whom he consigned to an honorable captivity, in which he died two years later aged ninety-five. He next attacked Almaligh (Almabaligh), and killed its ruler, and then for successive years campaigned Kashghar and Khutan, and spread devastation and famine over the land. He was a Budhist, and his wife a Christian, and each proselytized to his or her own creed, and everywhere persecuted the Muhammadan. At Khutan, an ancient and most flourishing seat of the creed of his adoption, Koshluk took an ample revenge upon the hostile creed for the destruction its professors had wrought upon the temples and monasteries of the place, and requited the massacres and persecutions of their monks and priests at the hands of Yûsuf Kadir and his Arab allies by like reprisals. He assembled three