Friar Odoric, Travelling From Peking Towards Shensi, About 1326-1327, Also
Visits The Country Of Prester John, And Gives To Its Chief City The Name
Of Tozan, In Which Perhaps We May Trace Tathung.
He speaks as if the
family still existed in authority.
King George appears again in Marco's own book (Bk. IV. ch. ii.) as one of
Kublai's generals against Kaidu, in a battle fought near Karakorum.
(Journ. As. IX. 299 seqq.; D'Ohsson, I. 123; Huc's Tartary, etc.
I. 55 seqq.; Koeppen, II. 381; Erdmann's Temudschin; Gerbillon in
Astley, IV. 670; Cathay, pp. 146 and 199 seqq.)
NOTE 2. - Such a compact is related to have existed reciprocally between
the family of Chinghiz and that of the chief of the Kungurats; but I have
not found it alleged of the Kerait family except by Friar Odoric. We find,
however, many princesses of this family married into that of Chinghiz.
Thus three nieces of Aung Khan became wives respectively of Chinghiz
himself and of his sons Juji and Tului; she who was the wife of the
latter, Serkukteni Bigi, being the mother of Mangu, Hulaku, and Kublai.
Dukuz Khatun, the Christian wife of Hulaku, was a grand-daughter of Aung
Khan.
The name George, of Prester John's representative, may have been
actually Jirjis, Yurji, or some such Oriental form of Georgius. But it is
possible that the title was really Gurgan, "Son-in-Law," a title of
honour conferred on those who married into the imperial blood, and that
this title may have led to the statements of Marco and Odoric about the
nuptial privileges of the family. Gurgan in this sense was one of the
titles borne by Timur.[1]
[The following note by the Archimandrite Palladius (Eluc. 21-23) throws
a great light on the relations between the families of Chinghiz Khan and
of Prester John.
"T'ien-te Kiun was bounded on the north by the Yn-shan Mountains, in and
beyond which was settled the Sha-t'o Tu-K'iu tribe, i.e. Tu-K'iu of the
sandy desert. The K'itans, when they conquered the northern borders of
China, brought also under their rule the dispersed family of these Tu-
K'iu. With the accession of the Kin, a Wang Ku [Ongot] family made its
appearance as the ruling family of those tribes; it issued from those Sha-
t'o Tu-K'iu, who once reigned in the north of China as the How T'ang
Dynasty (923-936 A.D.). It split into two branches, the Wang-Ku of the Yn-
shan, and the Wang-Ku of the Lin-t'ao (west of Kan-su). The Kin removed
the latter branch to Liao-tung (in Manchuria). The Yn-shan Wang-Ku guarded
the northern borders of China belonging to the Kin, and watched their
herds. When the Kin, as a protection against the inroads of the tribes of
the desert, erected a rampart, or new wall, from the boundary of the
Tangut Kingdom down to Manchuria, they intrusted the defence of the
principal places of the Yn-shan portion of the wall to the Wang-Ku, and
transferred there also the Liao-tung Wang-Ku. At the time Chingiz Khan
became powerful, the chief of the Wang-Ku of the Yn-shan was Alahush; and
at the head of the Liao-tung Wang-Ku stood Pa-sao-ma-ie-li. Alahush
proved a traitor to the Kin, and passed over to Chinghiz Khan; for this he
was murdered by the malcontents of his family, perhaps by Pa-sao-ma-ie-li,
who remained true to the Kin. Later on, Chingiz Khan married one of his
daughters to the son of Alahush, by name Po-yao-ho, who, however, had no
children by her. He had three sons by a concubine, the eldest of whom,
Kiun-pu-hwa, was married to Kuyuk Khan's daughter. Kiun-pu-hwa's son, Ko-
li-ki-sze, had two wives, both of imperial blood. During a campaign
against Haidu, he was made prisoner in 1298, and murdered. His title and
dignities passed over in A.D. 1310 to his son Chuan. Nothing is known of
Alahush's later descendants; they probably became entirely Chinese, like
their relatives of the Liao-tung branch.
"The Wang-Ku princes were thus de jure the sons-in-law of the Mongol
Khans, and they had, moreover, the hereditary title of Kao-t'ang princes
(Kao-t'ang wang); it is very possible that they had their residence in
ancient T'ien-te Kiun (although no mention is made of it in history), just
as at present the Tumot princes reside in Kuku-hoton.
"The consonance of the names of Wang-Khan and Wang-Ku (Ung-Khan and Ongu)
led to the confusion regarding the tribes and persons, which at Marco
Polo's time seems to have been general among the Europeans in China; Marco
Polo and Johannes de Monte Corvino transfer the title of Prester John from
Wang-Khan, already perished at that time, to the distinguished family of
Wang-Ku. Their Georgius is undoubtedly Ko-li-ki-sze, Alahush's
great-grandson. That his name is a Christian one is confirmed by other
testimonies; thus in the Asu (Azes) regiment of the Khan's guards was
Ko-li-ki-sze, alias Kow-r-ki (d. 1311), and his son Ti-mi-ti-r. There is
no doubt that one of them was Georgius, and the other Demetrius. Further,
in the description of Chin-Kiang in the time of the Yuen, mention is made
of Ko-li-ki-sze Ye-li-ko-wen, i.e. Ko-li-ki-sze, the Christian, and of his
son Lu-ho (Luke).
"Ko-li-ki-sze of Wang-ku is much praised in history for his valour and his
love for Confucian doctrine; he had in consequence of a special favour of
the Khan two Mongol princesses for wives at the same time (which is rather
difficult to conciliate with his being a Christian). The time of his death
is correctly indicated in a letter of Joannes de M. Corvino of the year
1305:
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