Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
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103--112.) In the great invasion of Europe (A.D. 1238) they seem to have
led the vanguard; and the similitude of the name of Tartarei,
recommended that of Tartars to the Latins, (Matt. Paris, p. 398, &c.)
- Note
- This relationship, according to M. Klaproth, is fabulous, and
invented by the Mahometan writers, who, from religious zeal, endeavored
to connect the traditions of the nomads of Central Asia with those of
the Old Testament, as preserved in the Koran. There is no trace of it in
the Chinese writers. Tabl. de l'Asie, p. 156. -- M.]
The code of laws which Zingis dictated to his subjects was adapted to
the preservation of a domestic peace, and the exercise of foreign
hostility. The punishment of death was inflicted on the crimes of
adultery, murder, perjury, and the capital thefts of a horse or ox; and
the fiercest of men were mild and just in their intercourse with each
other. The future election of the great khan was vested in the princes
of his family and the heads of the tribes; and the regulations of the
chase were essential to the pleasures and plenty of a Tartar camp. The
victorious nation was held sacred from all servile labors, which were
abandoned to slaves and strangers; and every labor was servile except
the profession of arms. The service and discipline of the troops, who
were armed with bows, cimeters, and iron maces, and divided by hundreds,
thousands, and ten thousands, were the institutions of a veteran
commander. Each officer and soldier was made responsible, under pain of
death, for the safety and honor of his companions; and the spirit of
conquest breathed in the law, that peace should never be granted unless
to a vanquished and suppliant enemy. But it is the religion of Zingis
that best deserves our wonder and applause. ^* The Catholic inquisitors
of Europe, who defended nonsense by cruelty, might have been confounded
by the example of a Barbarian, who anticipated the lessons of
philosophy, ^6 and established by his laws a system of pure theism and
perfect toleration. His first and only article of faith was the
existence of one God, the Author of all good; who fills by his presence
the heavens and earth, which he has created by his power. The Tartars
and Moguls were addicted to the idols of their peculiar tribes; and many
of them had been converted by the foreign missionaries to the religions
of Moses, of Mahomet, and of Christ. These various systems in freedom
and concord were taught and practised within the precincts of the same
camp; and the Bonze, the Imam, the Rabbi, the Nestorian, and the Latin
priest, enjoyed the same honorable exemption from service and tribute:
in the mosque of Bochara, the insolent victor might trample the Koran
under his horse's feet, but the calm legislator respected the prophets
and pontiffs of the most hostile sects. The reason of Zingis was not
informed by books: the khan could neither read nor write; and, except
the tribe of the Igours, the greatest part of the Moguls and Tartars
were as illiterate as their sovereign. ^* The memory of their exploits
was preserved by tradition: sixty-eight years after the death of Zingis,
these traditions were collected and transcribed; ^7 the brevity of their
domestic annals may be supplied by the Chinese, ^8 Persians, ^9
Armenians, ^10 Syrians, ^11 Arabians, ^12 Greeks, ^13 Russians, ^14
Poles, ^15 Hungarians, ^16 and Latins; ^17 and each nation will deserve
credit in the relation of their own disasters and defeats. ^18
[Footnote *: Before his armies entered Thibet, he sent an embassy to
Bogdosottnam-Dsimmo, a Lama high priest, with a letter to this effect:
"I have chosen thee as high priest for myself and my empire. Repair then
to me, and promote the present and future happiness of man: I will be
thy supporter and protector: let us establish a system of religion, and
unite it with the monarchy," &c. The high priest accepted the
invitation; and the Mongol history literally terms this step the period
of the first respect for religion; because the monarch, by his public
profession, made it the religion of the state. Klaproth. "Travels in
Caucasus," ch. 7, Eng. Trans. p. 92. Neither Dshingis nor his son and
successor Oegodah had, on account of their continual wars, much leisure
for the propagation of the religion of the Lama. By religion they
understand a distinct, independent, sacred moral code, which has but one
origin, one source, and one object. This notion they universally
propagate, and even believe that the brutes, and all created beings,
have a religion adapted to their sphere of action. The different forms
of the various religions they ascribe to the difference of individuals,
nations, and legislators. Never do you hear of their inveighing against
any creed, even against the obviously absurd Schaman paganism, or of
their persecuting others on that account. They themselves, on the other
hand, endure every hardship, and even persecutions, with perfect
resignation, and indulgently excuse the follies of others, nay, consider
them as a motive for increased ardor in prayer, ch. ix. p. 109. -- M.]
[Footnote 6: A singular conformity may be found between the religious
laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke, (Constitutions of Carolina, in his
works, vol. iv. p. 535, 4to. edition, 1777.)]
[Footnote *: See the notice on Tha-tha-toung-o, the Ouogour minister of
Tchingis, in Abel Remusat's 2d series of Recherch. Asiat. vol. ii. p.
-
He taught the son of Tchingis to write: "He was the instructor of
the Moguls in writing, of which they were before ignorant;" and hence
the application of the Ouigour characters to the Mogul language cannot
be placed earlier than the year 1204 or 1205, nor so late as the time of
Pà-sse-pa, who lived under Khubilai. A new alphabet, approaching to that
of Thibet, was introduced under Khubilai. -- M.]
[Footnote 7: In the year 1294, by the command of Cazan, khan of Persia,
the fourth in descent from Zingis. From these traditions, his vizier
Fadlallah composed a Mogul history in the Persian language, which has
been used by Petit de la Croix, (Hist. de Genghizcan, p. 537--539.) The
Histoire Généalogique des Tatars (à Leyde, 1726, in 12mo., 2 tomes)
was
translated by the Swedish prisoners in Siberia from the Mogul MS. of
Abulgasi Bahadur Khan, a descendant of Zingis, who reigned over the
Usbeks of Charasm, or Carizme, (A.D. 1644--1663.) He is of most value
and credit for the names, pedigrees, and manners of his nation. Of his
nine parts, the ist descends from Adam to Mogul Khan; the iid, from
Mogul to Zingis; the iiid is the life of Zingis; the ivth, vth, vith,
and viith, the general history of his four sons and their posterity; the
viiith and ixth, the particular history of the descendants of Sheibani
Khan, who reigned in Maurenahar and Charasm.]
[Footnote 8: Histoire de Gentchiscan, et de toute la Dinastie des
Mongous ses Successeurs, Conquerans de la Chine; tirée de l'Histoire de
la Chine par le R. P. Gaubil, de la Société de Jesus, Missionaire à
Peking; à Paris, 1739, in 4to. This translation is stamped with the
Chinese character of domestic accuracy and foreign ignorance.]
[Footnote 9: See the Histoire du Grand Genghizcan, premier Empereur des
Moguls et Tartares, par M. Petit de la Croix, à Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a
work of ten years' labor, chiefly drawn from the Persian writers, among
whom Nisavi, the secretary of Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and
prejudices of a contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of
the originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of Genghizcan,
Mohammed, Gelaleddin, &c., in the Bibliothèque Orientale of D'Herbelot.
- Note
- The preface to the Hist. des Mongols, (Paris, 1824) gives a
catalogue of the Arabic and Persian authorities. -- M.]
[Footnote 10: Haithonus, or Aithonus, an Armenian prince, and afterwards
a monk of Premontré, (Fabric, Bibliot. Lat. Medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 34,)
dictated in the French language, his book de Tartaris, his old
fellow-soldiers. It was immediately translated into Latin, and is
inserted in the Novus Orbis of Simon Grynæus, (Basil, 1555, in folio.) *
- Note
- * A précis at the end of the new edition of Le Beau, Hist. des
Empereurs, vol. xvii., by M. Brosset, gives large extracts from the
accounts of the Armenian historians relating to the Mogul conquests. --
[Footnote 11: Zingis Khan, and his first successors, occupy the
conclusion of the ixth Dynasty of Abulpharagius, (vers. Pocock, Oxon.
1663, in 4to.;) and his xth Dynasty is that of the Moguls of Persia.
Assemannus (Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii.) has extracted some facts from his
Syriac writings, and the lives of the Jacobite maphrians, or primates of
the East.]
[Footnote 12: Among the Arabians, in language and religion, we may
distinguish Abulfeda, sultan of Hamah in Syria, who fought in person,
under the Mamaluke standard, against the Moguls.]
[Footnote 13: Nicephorus Gregoras (l. ii. c. 5, 6) has felt the
necessity of connecting the Scythian and Byzantine histories. He
describes with truth and elegance the settlement and manners of the
Moguls of Persia, but he is ignorant of their origin, and corrupts the
names of Zingis and his sons.]
[Footnote 14: M. Levesque (Histoire de Russie, tom. ii.) has described
the conquest of Russia by the Tartars, from the patriarch Nicon, and the
old chronicles.]
[Footnote 15: For Poland, I am content with the Sarmatia Asiatica et
Europæa of Matthew à Michou, or De Michoviâ, a canon and physician of
Cracow, (A.D. 1506,) inserted in the Novus Orbis of Grynæus. Fabric
Bibliot. Latin. Mediæ et Infimæ Ætatis, tom. v. p. 56.]
[Footnote 16: I should quote Thuroczius, the oldest general historian
(pars ii. c. 74, p. 150) in the 1st volume of the Scriptores Rerum
Hungaricarum, did not the same volume contain the original narrative of
a contemporary, an eye-witness, and a sufferer, (M. Rogerii, Hungari,
Varadiensis Capituli Canonici, Carmen miserabile, seu Historia super
Destructione Regni Hungariæ Temporibus Belæ IV. Regis per Tartaros
facta, p. 292--321;) the best picture that I have ever seen of all the
circumstances of a Barbaric invasion.]
[Footnote 17: Matthew Paris has represented, from authentic documents,
the danger and distress of Europe, (consult the word Tartari in his
copious Index.) From motives of zeal and curiosity, the court of the
great khan in the xiiith century was visited by two friars, John de
Plano Carpini, and William Rubruquis, and by Marco Polo, a Venetian
gentleman. The Latin relations of the two former are inserted in the 1st
volume of Hackluyt; the Italian original or version of the third
(Fabric. Bibliot. Latin. Medii Ævi, tom. ii. p. 198, tom. v. p. 25) may
be found in the second tome of Ramusio.]
[Footnote 18: In his great History of the Huns, M. de Guignes has most
amply treated of Zingis Khan and his successors. See tom. iii. l.
xv.--xix., and in the collateral articles of the Seljukians of Roum,
tom. ii. l. xi., the Carizmians, l. xiv., and the Mamalukes, tom. iv. l.
xxi.; consult likewise the tables of the 1st volume. He is ever learned
and accurate; yet I am only indebted to him for a general view, and some
passages of Abulfeda, which are still latent in the Arabic text. *
- Note
- * To this catalogue of the historians of the Moguls may be added
D'Ohson, Histoire des Mongols; Histoire des Mongols, (from Arabic and
Persian authorities,) Paris, 1824. Schmidt, Geschichte der Ost Mongolen,
St. Petersburgh, 1829. This curious work, by Ssanang Ssetsen
Chungtaidschi, published in the original Mongol, was written after the
- conversion of the nation to Buddhism
- it is enriched with very valuable
notes by the editor and translator; but, unfortunately, is very barren
of information about the European and even the western Asiatic conquests
of the Mongols. -- M.]
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