HKB
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 shen-yü ship for himself, and that it gradually became (1) 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.)
Page 231, note 3. Instead of Yuché, read Juché.
XLVI., p. 232.
KARACATHAYANS.
“There seems to be no doubt that Kerman in South Persia is the city to which the Kara-Cathayan refugee fled from China in 1124; for Major Sykes, in his recent excellent work on Persia, actually mentions [p. 194] the Kuba Sabz, or ‘Green Dome,’ as having been (until destroyed in 1886 by an earthquake) the most conspicuous building, and as having also been the tomb of the Kara-Khitai Dynasty. The late Dr. Bretschneider (N. China B. R. As. Soc. Journal, Vol. X., p. 101) had imagined the Kara-Cathayan capital to be Kerminé, lying between Samarcand and Bokhara (see Asiatic Quart. Rev. for Dec., 1900, ‘The Cathayans’). Colonel Yule does not appear to be quite correct when he states (p. 232) that ‘the Gurkhan himself is not described to have extended his conquests into Persia,’ for the Chinese history of the Cathayan or Liao Dynasties distinctly states that at Samarcand, where the Cathayan remained for ninety days, the ‘King of the Mohammedans’ brought tribute to the emigrant, who then went West as far as K’i-r-man, where he was proclaimed Emperor by his officers. This was on the fifth day of the second moon in 1124, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and he then assumed the title of Koh-r-han” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, pp. 134–5.)
XLVI., p. 236.
KERAITS.
“In his note to Vol. I., p. 236, M. Cordier [read Mr. Rockhill], who seems to have been misled by d’Avezac, confuses the Ch’ih-lêh or T’ieh-lêh (who have been clearly proved to be identical with the Tölös of the Turkish inscriptions) with the much later K’êh-lieh or Keraits of Mongol history; at no period of Chinese history were the Ch’ih-lêh called, as he supposes, K’i-lê, and therefore the Ch’ih-lêh of the third century cannot possibly be identified with the K’ê-lieh of the thirteenth. Besides, the ‘value’ of lêh is ‘luck,’ whilst the ‘value’ of lieh is ‘leet,’ if we use English sounds as equivalents to illustrate Chinese etymology. It is remarkable that the Kin (Nüchen) Dynasty in its Annals leaves no mention whatever of the Kerait tribe, or of any tribe having an approximate name, although the Yüan Shï states that the Princes of that tribe used to hold a Nüchen patent. A solution of this unexplained fact may yet turn up.” (E. H. PARKER, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan. 1904, p. 139.)
Page 236, note [11]. Instead of Tura, read Tula. (PELLIOT.)
LI., pp. 245, 248.