The Successors of Genghis Khan - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
"Because of the many tents, and men, and pavilions there remained no level
place on the plain."31
When the Khanate was settled upon him, just as his father Qa'an had
upheld iheyasa of his grandfather and [had] not admitted any change or
alteration of his statutes, [so] he too kept the yasas and statutes of his
own father immune from the contingencies of redundance and deficiency
and secure from the corruption of change. And he commanded that
every yarligh that had been adorned with the august al-tamgha of Ogetei
Qa'an should be signed again without reference to his own august counsel.
Guyiik had by nature a weak constitution, and most of the time he
was not free from some kind of illness. Nevertheless, he was, on most
days, engaged from morning till evening and from dawn to dusk
with the quaffing of cups of wine and the contemplation of perifaced,
sweet-limbed maidens. These habits had the effect of aggravating
his malady, but he would not abandon them.
A number of Christians, such as Qadaq, who was his atabeg, and
Chinqai, who was his minister, had been in attendance on him since
the days of his childhood; and physicians also of that religion were in
attendance on him. His nature had therefore been impressed therewith,
and that picture was left on the page of his bosom "like a picture carved
on stone." He went to great lengths in honoring Christians and priests,
and when this was noised abroad, priests and monks set their faces
toward his Court from all the ends of the world. He was naturally
prone to denounce the faith of Muhammad (God bless him and give him
peace!). At the time of his reign he was in a melancholic frame of
mind and had no inclination for conversation. He had therefore
entrusted all the tying and untying and binding and loosing of affairs
to Qadaq and Chingqai and made them entirely responsible for good
and ill, weal and woe. The cause of the Christians flourished therefore
during his reign, and no Muslim dared to raise his voice to them.
In munificence he exceeded all bounds, wishing his fame to surpass
his father's, but he was not granted the time.