[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Kashmir](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir) › [Tārīkh-i Rashīdī](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi) › [The Tarikh-i-Rashidi (Elias, Ross)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross) › 7.1 # The Rashīdī History 7.1 The Tarikh-i-Rashidi (Elias, Ross) 7.1 - **Language:** English ### [7.1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.1) His eye might there command wherever stood City of old or modern fame, the seat Of mightiest Empire, from the destined walls Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can, And Samarchand by Oxus, Temur's throne, To Paquin of Sinæan Kings; and thence To Agra and Lahor of great Mogul —Paradise Lost, Bk. XI. The area over which Mirza Haidar's history extends is a wide one. Expressed in the geographical terms of our times, it may be said to deal with Western Turkistan, Bokhara, Farghána, the Russian province of Semirechensk (or the seven rivers), the Chinese province of Ili (or Zungaria), Eastern Turkistan, Tibet, Ladak, Baltistan, Gilgit and the neighbouring states, Chitral, Wakhán, Badakhshan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Northern India; while references are frequently made to countries lying even beyond these regions. But it is a history, especially, of the eastern branch of the Chaghatais—i.e., the Moghuls proper—and, therefore, the chief scene of action lies in and immediately around their home-land. The situation and extent of this region are not difficult to describe, but it is far from easy to give a name to it as a whole. Its limits were not very clearly defined at any period, and were seldom the same for twenty years at a time, while even the names of "Jatah" and "Moghulistan," by which a portion of it was known, are now not only obsolete, but have hitherto been subject to some doubt regarding the exact locality to which they were applied. ### [7.1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.2) Moreover, there was at no time any one name in use, which served to designate the entire Khanate. Mirza Haidar usually speaks of 'Moghulistan' and 'Kashghar,' but it is not always clear whether, by 'Kashghar,' he means only the city and district of that name, or the entire province of Alti-Shahr—the Six Cities of Eastern Turkistan—a region which, he tells us more than once, was, when combined with Farghana, termed Mangalai Suyah or "Facing the Sun." This territory would almost exactly correspond to the provinces of Farghana and the Chinese Turkistan of modern times, less the districts of Karashahr, Turfan and Hami in the extreme east; or, in other words, to Farghana and Alti-Shahr. But even if we were to give the entire country the double name of "Moghulistan and Mangalai Suyah," there would still remain some difficulties of definition. At first sight it would appear that the author describes the limits very exactly; but this is not quite the case, and for two reasons. In the first place, he sets forth the provinces that composed it on several occasions, but does not always make them the same: the other is that, in common with all Asiatics who attempt to describe an area, he names a district or a geographical feature as a boundary, but does not mention whether it should be included or excluded—whether the limiting district, range or lake lay beyond or within the area he is describing. ### [7.1.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.3) In addition to these uncertainties there is also the inconsistency that Farghana, as a whole, was seldom included within the actual possessions of the Khans of Moghulistan. They always regarded it as theirs by right, but they rarely held more than a few positions, or districts, within its limits, and even these they were usually unable to keep for any length of time. Practically, therefore, Farghana can scarcely be held to have formed a part of their dominions, although it may have been comprised in the geographical term "Mangalai Suyah." With this reservation, however, and in order to show what the author describes, it would seem as well that Farghana should be included nominally with Moghulistan and Alti-Shahr; so that, after making due allowance for the fluctuations that occurred at different periods, the following may be regarded (as nearly as possible) as a statement of the extent of the dominions of the Moghul Khans, from about the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth. There was no central division, but the province of Moghulistan proper—or Jatah, as it was also called during the early part of that period—being a "steppe" or pastoral country, and the homeland of the dominant tribe, was therefore the principal division. ### [7.1.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.4) Its western boundary marched with the province of Shash, the modern Tashkand, which seems to have contained the whole of the lowlands of the valley of the Sir, from a little above Khojand to about the Arys tributary, and included such towns as Shahrukhia, Tashkand and Sairam. Immediately to the east of this level agricultural stretch, rise the hills which separate it from the valley of the Upper Talas, and it was this line of hills, or uplands, which seems to have stood usually, and in a general way, for the boundary of the Moghuls. To the north of Shash lay the province of Turkistan, with the Karatau hills between it and the Lower Talas, and here again the hills appear to have been the western limit of the nomad tribes. Turning towards the north-west, a line drawn from the Karatau to the southern extremity of Lake Balkash, and continued again from its other extremity to the Tarbagatai mountains, may be taken roughly to have been the frontier in that direction. We hear, at any rate, of no transactions of the Moghuls, as a tribe, anywhere to the north-west of the Balkash; nor do we trace them anywhere to the north of the Imil river, which is fed from the Tarbagatai mountains, except when flying before Timur's avenging army in 1389 and 1390, they crossed the range into the valley of the Irtish. But this was an occasion when danger led them to seek refuge beyond the bounds of their own country. ### [7.1.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.5) From the Tarbagatai range, the limiting line would probably bend south-eastward to some point at the northern foot of the Tian Shan, near the present Urumtsi; but this is somewhat uncertain. All that is clear is that the tract now known as "Zungaria" (or the land of the Zungar, or Jungar, Kalmaks) formed a part of the Moghul dominion, but how far precisely, "Zungaria" extended towards the east, there is nothing to show. Probably it included Lakes Ebi Nor and Ayar Nor, and had for its central feature the upper course of the Ili river. On the south, the main range of the Tian Shan, as far west as about the head of the Narin river, divided Moghulistan from Kuchar, Aksu, etc., while westward, again, the water-parting ranges between the Narin and Lake Issigh-Kul, continued up to the heads of the Talas, would seem, approximately, to have been the line of separation from Kashghar and Farghana. ### [7.1.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.6) The boundaries of Alti-Shahr were better defined by natural features than Moghulistan. It may be said, generally, to have embraced the whole of the system of the Tarim, together with some of the upper waters of the Sir. On the north it marched with the southern limit of Moghulistan, as described above. On the east it included the town and district of Kuchar (which was usually a dependency of Aksu), and probably the region of Lake Lob; while it excluded Karashahr—then known as Chalish—and all to the east of it, which constituted, as we shall see, a province that bore the ancient name of 'Uighuristan.' On the south, along the whole length of the country, the mountains forming the scarp of the Tibetan highlands—the Kuen-lun and the Altyn Tagh—shut it off from all beyond. Towards the west the Pamirs, generally speaking, constituted its extreme limit, till these abut northward on the southern confines of the valley of the river Sir; for these uplands, then as now, seem to have divided the Kashghar district from Farghana. What the precise limits in the Pamir region were, there is nothing to indicate, but in speaking of Sarigh-Kul, Mirza Haidar implies that that district, at least, lay within the province of Alti-Shahr, and for a time also, we find Wakhan and Shighnan described as territory dependent on Kashghar, though this was not usually the case. ### [7.1.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.7) But if these were approximately and usually the limits, it does not follow that they were, on the one hand, never overstepped, or on the other, that the area they included was always held intact. As a matter of fact, they varied considerably from time to time. Before the rise of Timur, for instance, invasions, by the Moghuls, of Shash, Turkistan and even Mavara-un-Nahr were of common occurrence, while at times in their later history, they extended their sway over districts in the east which did not properly belong to Alti-Shahr. In the same way, when the affairs of their neighbours were in the hands of strong rulers, portions of Moghulistan were cut off for a time, and numbers of the inhabitants seem to have had no scruple in joining the service of the successful conqueror of the time being. ### [7.1.8](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1.8) The section known as Moghulistan differed widely, in most respects, from its companion province on the south. It was a land of mountains, streams and lakes, of upland pastures and steppes, of wooded valleys and even forests; for while it lay north of the regions which can only become productive if reached by the monsoon from the southern seas, or if irrigated by the art of its inhabitants, it was yet far enough from the blighting snows and sunless days of Siberia, to be in most parts clothed with natural verdure of some kind. Its altitudes were moderate, and its climate, therefore, as Mirza Haidar describes it, cool and invigorating, though to Europeans, accustomed to live within the modifying influence of the sea, it would appear to be subject to extremes of temperature. Deserts in the proper sense of the word — sandy or stony wastes, with little or no vegetation or water — nowhere existed, except on the extreme north-western confines, and wherever the word 'desert' occurs in the text, when referring to Moghulistan, it is because the author has used the Persian or Turki equivalent, though the real meaning would be 'the open country,' or the 'country devoid of towns and cultivation' — the 'steppe' — a feature which no English word will describe. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.kashmir.tarikh-i-rashidi~en-ross.7.1) · Pramāṇa