[347] The name of this famous conqueror has been spelled in many different ways,—e.g., Genghiz (De Guignes), Gengis (Voltaire, in his tragedy of that name), Zingis (Gibbon), Tchinguiz (d’Ohsson), etc. We have adopted the one which most nearly approaches the Turkish and Persian pronunciation of the name. For authorities we would refer the reader to Sir H. Howorth’s History of the Mongols, part i. (1876); R. K. Douglas, Life of Jinghiz Khān (1877); an article by same author in the Encyclopædia Britannica; Erdmann’s Temudschin der Unerschütterliche (1862); and d’Ohsson and De Guignes (vol. iv.). The principal original sources for the history of Chingiz Khān are: (1) the Chinese account of a contemporary named Men-Hun, which has been translated into Russian by Professor Vassilief, and published in his History and Antiquities of the Eastern Part of Central Asia (see Transactions of Oriental Section of the Russian Archæological Society, vol. iv.); and (2) the Tabakāt-i-Nāsiri of Juzjānī, translated by Major Raverty. This important work comprises a collection of the accounts of Chingiz Khān written by his Mohammedan contemporaries. Other Chinese and Persian sources might be mentioned, but the above are the most important.
One very important authority for the Mongol period is the compilation, from Chinese sources, by Father Hyacinth, entitled History of the first four Khāns of the House of Chingiz, St. Petersburg, 1829. This Russian work is comparatively little known outside Russia. Both Erdmann and d’Ohsson often lay it under contribution. It may be added that Sir Henry Howorth, in his first volume on the Mongols (published in 1876), gives a complete bibliography of all the available sources for the history of Chingiz and his successors.
[348] M. Barthold, of the St. Petersburg University, has devoted much time to the study of the Mongol period in Central Asia, the fruits of which he has not yet published on an extended scale, though some shorter articles of great value have appeared in Baron Rosen’s Zapiski. The expeditions of Chingiz Khān and Tamerlane were admirably treated by M. M. I. Ivanin in a work published after his death, entitled On the Military Art and Conquests of the Mongol-Tatars under Chingiz Khān and Tamerlane, St. Petersburg.
[349] Since the discovery and decipherment of the Orkon inscriptions it may be regarded as certain that the form Khitan, or Kidan, is but the Chinese transcription of the word Kitai, which is the name of a people, most probably of Manchurian origin, who, as is well known, ruled over Northern China during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries. It was borrowed by some of the tribes inhabiting those parts. Cf. note on p. 106 of vol. x. of Baron Rosen’s Zapiski, article by M. Barthold.
[350] Precisely the same thing occurred in the case of the Yué-Chi and the Kushans.
[351] This admirable summary is taken from S. Lane-Poole’s Catalogue of Oriental Coins in the British Museum, vol. vi. (also reprinted in his Mohammedan Dynasties, pp. 201, 202). It is a condensation of what may be read in great detail in Howorth’s Mongols, vol. i. pp. 27–50. Cf. also De Guignes, vol. iv. p. 1 et seq.; and d’Ohsson, vol. i. chaps. i. and ii.
[352] For information with regard to this name, cf. d’Ohsson, op. cit. vol. i. pp 36, 37, note.
[353] Thus according to the Chinese authorities. The Mohammedan historians give the date of his birth as A.H. 550 (1155).
[354] The above remarks on the Mongols have been translated from an article in Russian by M. Barthold in Baron Rosen’s Zapiski, vol. x. (St. Petersburg, 1897) pp. 107–8.
[355] Rashīd ud-Dīn, Jāmi`-ut-Tawārikh, Berezine’s ed. i. 89.