On The Other Hand, He Points Out That The Story Has A Strong Resemblance To
A Real Event Which Occurred In Central Asia In The Beginning Of Polo's
Century.
The Persian historians of the Mongols relate that when Chinghiz defeated
and slew Taiyang Khan, the king of the
Naimans, Kushluk, the son of
Taiyang, fled to the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai and received both his
protection and the hand of his daughter (see i. 237); but afterwards rose
against his benefactor and usurped his throne. "In the Liao history I
read," Mr. Wylie says, "that Chih-lu-ku, the last monarch of the Karakhitai
line, ascended the throne in 1168, and in the 34th year of his reign, when
out hunting one day in autumn, Kushluk, who had 8000 troops in ambush, made
him prisoner, seized his throne and adopted the customs of the Liao, while
he conferred on Chih-lu-ku the honourable title of Tai-shang-hwang 'the
old emperor.'"[2]
It is this Kushluk, to whom Rubruquis assigns the role of King (or Prester)
John, the subject of so many wonderful stories. And Mr. Wylie points out
that not only was his father Taiyang Khan, according to the Chinese
histories, a much more important prince than Aung Khan or Wang Khan the
Kerait, but his name Tai-Yang-Khan is precisely "Great King John" as near
as John (or Yohana) can be expressed in Chinese. He thinks therefore that
Taiyang and his son Kushluk, the Naimans, and not Aung Khan and his
descendants, the Keraits, were the parties to whom the character of Prester
John properly belonged, and that it was probably this story of Kushluk's
capture of the Karakhitai monarch (Roi de Fer) which got converted into
the form in which he relates it of the Roi d'Or.
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