Nassir-uddin Mahmud of the Turki House of Iltitmish;[5] but, though both
Sind and Bengal acknowledged his supremacy, no part of Peninsular India
had yet been invaded, and throughout the long period of our Traveller’s
residence in the East the Kings of Delhi had their hands too full,
owing to the incessant incursions of the Mongols across the Indus, to
venture on extensive campaigning in the south. Hence the Dravidian
Kingdoms of Southern India were as yet untouched by foreign conquest,
and the accumulated gold of ages lay in their temples and treasuries,
an easy prey for the coming invader.
In the Indo-Chinese Peninsula and the Eastern Islands a variety of
kingdoms and dynasties were expanding and contracting, of which we
have at best but dim and shifting glimpses. That they were advanced
in wealth and art, far beyond what the present state of those
regions would suggest, is attested by vast and magnificent remains of
Architecture, nearly all dating, so far as dates can be ascertained,
from the 12th to the 14th centuries (that epoch during which an
architectural afflatus seems to have descended on the human race),
and which are found at intervals over both the Indo-Chinese continent
and the Islands, as at Pagán in Burma, at Ayuthia in Siam, at Angkor
in Kamboja, at Borobodor and Brambánan in Java. All these remains are
deeply marked by Hindu influence, and, at the same time, by strong
peculiarities, both generic and individual.
[Illustration: Autograph of Hayton, King of Armenia, _circa_ A.D. 1243.
“... =e por so qui cestes lettres soient fermes e establis ci avuns
escrit l’escrit de notre main vermoil e sayelé de notre ceau
pendant=....”]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Heyd, _Le Colonie Commerciali degli Italiani_, etc., passim.
[2] We endeavour to preserve throughout the book the distinction
that was made in the age of the Mongol Empire between _Khán_ and
_Ḳaán_ (خان and قآان, as written by Arabic and Persian authors).
The former may be rendered _Lord_, and was applied generally to
Tartar chiefs whether sovereign or not; it has since become in
Persia, and especially in Afghanistan, a sort of “Esq.,” and in
India is now a common affix in the names of (Musulman) Hindustanis
of all classes; in Turkey alone it has been reserved for the
Sultan. _Ḳaán_, again, appears to be a form of _Kháḳán_, the
Χαγάνος of the Byzantine historians, and was the peculiar title
of the supreme sovereign of the Mongols; the Mongol princes of
Persia, Chaghatai, etc., were entitled only to the former affix
(Khán), though _Ḳaán_ and _Ḳhaḳán_ are sometimes applied to them
in adulation. Polo always writes _Kaan_ as applied to the Great
Khan, and does not, I think, use _Khan_ in any form, styling the
subordinate princes by their name only, as _Argon_, _Alau_, etc.
_Ilkhan_ was a special title assumed by Huláku and his successors
in Persia; it is said to be compounded from a word _Il_, signifying
tribe or nation. The relation between _Khán_ and _Khaḳán_ seems to
be probably that the latter signifies “_Khán of Kháns_,” Lord of
Lords. Chinghiz, it is said, did not take the higher title; it was
first assumed by his son Okkodai. But there are doubts about this.
(See _Quatremère’s Rashid_, pp. 10 _seqq._ and _Pavet de
Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental._) The tendency of swelling titles
is always to degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new
form, _Khán-khánán_, was devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied
to one of the high officers of state.
[Mr. Rockhill writes (_Rubruck_, p. 108, note): “The title _Khan_,
though of very great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after
A.D. 560, at which time the use of the word _Khatun_ came in use
for the wives of the Khan, who himself was termed _Ilkhan_. The
older title of _Shan-yü_ did not, however, completely disappear
among them, for Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the
Ghuz Turks, or Turkomans, still bore the title of _Jenuyeh_, which
Sir Henry Rawlinson (_Proc. R. G. S._, v. 15) takes to be the same
word as that transcribed _Shan-yü_ by the Chinese (see _Ch’ien
Han shu_, Bk. 94, and _Chou shu_, Bk. 50, 2). Although the word
_Khakhan_ occurs in Menander’s account of the embassy of Zemarchus,
the earliest mention I have found of it in a Western writer is in
the _Chronicon_ of Albericus Trium Fontium, where (571), under
the year 1239, he uses it in the form _Cacanus_”—Cf. _Terrien de
Lacouperie, Khan, Khakan, and other Tartar Titles_. Lond., Dec.
1888.—H. C.]
[3] “China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it.”—_P.
Parrenin_ in _Lett. Édif._ XXIV. 58.
[4] _E.g._ the Russians still call it Khitai. The pair of names,
_Khitai_ and _Machin_, or Cathay and China, is analogous to the
other pair, _Seres_ and _Sinae_. _Seres_ was the name of the great
nation in the far East as known by land, _Sinae_ as known by sea;
and they were often supposed to be diverse, just as Cathay and
China were afterwards.
[5] There has been much doubt about the true form of this name.
_Iltitmish_ is that sanctioned by Mr. Blochmann (see _Proc. As.
Soc. Bengal_, 1870, p. 181).
III. THE POLO FAMILY. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS
DOWN TO THEIR FINAL RETURN FROM THE EAST.
[Sidenote: Alleged origin of the Polos.]