The Nāṣirī Generations 256.5
Tabakat-i-Nasiri 256.5
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256.5.1
Abu-l-Fida says Bilasa-ghun is near Farab or Utrar—a totally different place from Far-yab in the territory of Balkh, but Abu-l-Fida blunders often. The authors quoted in Astley say the correct name is Yalasa-ghun, or "Good Town," not Bilasa-ghun, and that B and Y in the Arabic are easy to mistake. This is true, but the mistake here is their own. Bilasa-ghun is also said to be "still in existence [its ruins?] in Little Bukharia—Kichik Bukhara, or the western part of the Kashghar territory, as at present constituted—near the borders of the Greater Bukharia and the country of the Kalimaks, and one of the principal entrances on that side into Great Bukharia." Others again say that it was near Kashghar, as Darwesh Ahmad, quoted by Prof. Grigorieff, also says, and some, more to the N., near Utrar or Farab, in Turkistan. Others again seem to consider that the town which appears in some maps as "Turkistan"—a very unusual, and I think impossible name for either a town or city, but not for a country—is no other than Bilasa-ghun, but this cannot be right. I shall have something to say about this town of "Turkistan" farther on. Some call the former place "Turan which gives name to the country." That portion of the Great Desert of Kobi, or Shamo, W. of the Kara Muran several occasions, they had made captive and carried off Musalmans from those tracts.
256.5.2
The territory of Kashghar is bounded N. by the mountains of Mughalistan [the Ulugh-Tagh of the Turks—See note on the Turks, p. 875, and Thianshan of the maps], out of which several rivers flow. Its W. boundary is also a range of mountains which shoot out from the mountains of Mughalistan towards the S.—Bilaur [also written Billaur] Tagh—the name of which range does not require “to be abolished,” since it has been known from the time of ’Abd-ullah-i-Khurdadbih down to Khush-hal, Khatak, Afghan, and to modern times——and from these also issue rivers which flow from W. to E.; and the whole of the country of Kashghar and Khutan lies at the skirts of these two ranges of mountains. The E. and S. boundary is a great sahra or steppe—a plain, not naturally a desert—which is wholly jungle and wilderness, and hillocks of moving sand. In ancient times there were several cities in this tract, the names of three of which are Katak or Katuk——and Lob-Kasal——probably Lob-Katal, between Turfan and Khutan; but they have been all buried in the sands. There was another called Fulad-Sum——but its fate is not recorded. It was a well-known place in the Chingiz Khan’s time.
256.5.3
YARKAND, in former times, was a great city, but it had greatly decayed, and was becoming desolate, when Mirza Abu-Bikr made it his capital. It soon after had 12,000 gardens in and around the city, which was surrounded by a wall thirty cubits high. The people of this part of the territory are [when the author wrote] divided into four classes, the Tuman, cultivators or peasantry, the Kufshin, or soldiery, the I-makhs, or nomads, and the officials. Khutan was one of the most celebrated of cities and territories, “but of that rose, naught but the thorn remains at present.” ’Abu-l-Fida says it was a city of the I-ghurs. In former times, before the desert just mentioned approached so near it, Chin could be reached in fourteen days, the whole way was inhabited and cultivated, and one or two persons could pass to and fro with safety, without being obliged to join kafilahs, but now [when the author wrote], on account of the Kalimaks—Europeanized “Kalmuks”—the route is closed, and that which is now followed is 100 stages. Vast quantities of yashab or yashm, also called bejadah—jade or jasper—is found in the rivers of Kashghar and Khutan, and in those territories also the camel of the desert, which may be tamed, and the kutas, katas, or gao-kattas [the Bos Grunniens].
256.5.4
The territory of Kashghar [Little Bukharia] appears the same precisely as that called MANGALAI-SUYAH——which signifies “towards or facing the sun—sunny-side”——the boundaries of which are thus given. “On the N. Issigh-Kol, S. Jirjan——and Sarigh-i-Uighur——E. Kosan——and Tarbokor or Tarbogor——W. Sam-ghar——and Jagashman or Jatshman——This tract contains several cities, the greatest of which are Kashghar and Khutan, Uz-gand, Akhsikat or Akhsisak, Andigan, At-pashi, Ak-su, and Kosan.” This may be considered the territory peculiar to the Afrasiyabi Maliks before they again obtained possession of Samrkand and Bukhara on the downfall of the Samanis. An account of Kashghar and other places on the Sihun, written by me some twenty years since, will be found in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society for 1857. At that period a Chinese Jan-Jang or Governor General resided at Kourah near Ilih. I now return to the history of the Gur Khans. who used not to submit to them, all the rest of the Maliks of the confines had become subject to that race. On two
256.5.5
In 534 H. [A.D. 1137, but the Jami’-ut-Tawarikh, contrary to several others, says in 536 H.], his troops defeated Sultan Sanjar on the frontiers of Samrkand, as already recorded at page 154; but, since that was written by me, I have elsewhere found some further particulars respecting that defeat which clear up so completely a most obscure passage in our author’s account there given, that I must relate them here. The identical passage in our author referred to is as follows. “After a great part of his [Sanjar’s] reign had elapsed, a body of people from Kara-Khitae, from Tamghaj [see Afrasiyabi Malik, No. XXI.], and the dependencies of Chin, entered the confines of Kara-kuram of Turkistan, and solicited Sultan Sanjar to assign them grazing lands; and, with the Sultan’s permission, they took up their quarters on those confines, in Bilasa-ghun, Kabalik [Kailak — is the correct name], and Almalik, and made those parts their grazing grounds.”
256.5.6
In an article by Mr. H. H. Howorth, entitled “The Northern Frontagers of China: The Kara Khitai,” in the Journal Ro. As. Soc. for April, 1876, p. 271, the above passage from this Translation is quoted, and its writer adds, referring to our author, “The latter author is mistaken in supposing that Turkistan was then subject to Sanjar,” &c. Now, considering that Mr. Howorth is wholly dependent on foreign translations for his information on these matters, such a statement on his part, to say the least of it, is presumptuous. I need scarcely mention to those who can read the eastern Historians for themselves, that every author who has written on the subject in the Persian language agrees with our author, even the “great Raschid” himself, respecting Sultan Sanjar’s suzerainty over the parts in question, as well as to his father’s and grandfather’s suzerainty likewise. “When their progeny became very numerous, during the Sultan’s reign, they rebelled against his authority, and fought a battle against him. Taniko of Taraz, at the nomination of Sunkam and I-ma, was at the head of the Khita-is. The Sultan’s forces, from a long period of inaction, and enervated by protracted ease and luxury, were unable to cope with or stand before the enemy, and were overthrown; ... he [the Sultan] concluded a peace with them, and the pasture-lands of Turkistan and Bilasa-ghun, along with the cities and towns included in those frontier tracts, were left in the hands of the Khita-i invaders.”
256.5.7
The particulars I refer to, tending to throw light on the above, are, that, when Sultan Sanjar proceeded to Samrkand and dethroned Muhammad [No. XVIII. of the Afrasiyabis], a part of the Kara-Khita-is had a yūrat or camping ground in that part — on the frontier — the tracts assigned them by the Sultan in former years, for our author is, by no means, mistaken, as the author of ‘Mongols Proper’ imagines, in stating that Sanjar’s authority extended as far as the confines of Turkistan, for his being at Samrkand, on this occasion, proves it, and, moreover, as mentioned at page 133, the Maliks of Turkistan, and the Afrasiyabi Amirs submitted to the authority of Alb-Arsalan, Sanjar’s grandfather. Some of the Sultan’s Amirs persuaded him that this was a good opportunity for seizing their flocks and herds, and driving out altogether these Kara-Khita-is, whom they accused of contumacy. They implored the Sultan’s mercy, and offered, through those Amirs, to present 5000 horses, 5000 camels, and 50,000 sheep, as a propitiatory offering to him to allow them to remain where they were.
256.5.8
This was approved of by the Sultan, but, in the meantime, the chiefs of the tribes of those Kara-Khita-is or three occasions, the forces of the sovereigns of Ghur, the [Sunkam and I-ma apparently] fled to the urdu of the Gur Khan, whose power was a drag upon the Sultans of Turkistan [the Afrasiyabi Maliks], and represented to him that the Sultan of Khurasan had become enfeebled by the infirmities of age, and that the affairs of that country had fallen into the hands of slaves and boys, and urged the Gur Khan to wrest Mawara-un-Nahr and Khurasan out of their hands. He accordingly put his forces in motion, and Sultan Sanjar and his troops, despising them, moved to encounter them without concert or precaution, or caring for immensely superior numbers, thinking to overthrow them easily. Sanjar’s troops however, who were but few in comparison with the enemy, were soon completely surrounded by the Kara-Khita-is, and Sultan Sanjar had to attempt to cut his way out with a body of 300 men. He succeeded, but he came out with only ten or fifteen remaining. In this affair 30,000 Musalmans were slain, and Taj-ud-Din Abu-l-Fath, Malik of Sijistan and Nimroz, who, with the centre, maintained his ground to the last [see page 188] was taken prisoner. The rest agrees with what our author has already stated under Sanjar’s reign.