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

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
When Mongke Qa'an was laying siege to the aforesaid fortress, the
summer having come on and the heat being intense, the climate of the
region gave rise to an epidemic of dysentery, and cholera too attacked
the troops, so that many of them died. To ward off the cholera the
World Emperor began to drink wine and persisted in doing so. All of a
sudden he was seized with an indisposition, his illness122 came to a
crisis, and in the moghayil123 corresponding to Muharram of the year
655 [January, 1257] he passed away beneath that ill-fated fortress.
He was fifty-two years of age, and this year was the seventh from his
accession to the throne of the Empire.124
Upon the occurrence of [Mongke Qa'an's] death, Asutai Oghul
left Qundaqai Noyan in charge of the army, and, taking his father's
coffin, brought it to the ordos. They mourned for him in the four ordos:
on the first day in the ordo of Qutuqtai Khatun, on the second day in the
or do of Qptai125 Khatun, on the third day in the ordo of Chabui Khatun,126
who had accompanied him on that campaign, and on the fourth
day in the ordo of Kisa Khatun.127 Each day they placed the coffin
on a throne in a [different] ordo and lamented over him with the
greatest possible fervor. Then they buried him in Bulqan-Qaldun,128
which they call Yeke-Qpruq,129 alongside Chingiz-Khan and Tolui
122 According to some reports, he died of an arrow-wound. See Franke, IV, p.
324, V, pp. 170-71.
123 Year of the Snake: Mo. moghai, "snake." In point of fact his death occurred 2
years later, on the 11 th August, 1259. Cf. above, p. 224 and note 95.
124 Born on the loth January, 1209, he was in his fifty-first year at the time of his
death. If one reckons his reign from the ceremony of 1249 (see above, p. 224, note 96),
1257 was the eighth year; so too there were eight years between his enthronement in
1251 and the actual date of his death in 1259.
125 Rubruck's Cota, Mongke's second wife, an "idol follower" (Rockhill, p. 190),
whom the friar visited on her sick bed and who taught him a little Mongol (Rockhill,
PP- I92-94)-
126 The chief wife of Qubilai. See below, p. 241.
127 Presumably one of Mongke's wives; she is not mentioned elsewhere.
128 For the normal Burqan-Qaldun, "Buddha Mountain" (cf. its other name
Buda-Ondiir, "Buddha Height," below, pp. 310 and 314) or, according to Rintchen,
"Willow God, Holy Willow." The most recent support for its identification with
Kentei Qan in the Great Kentei range in northeastern Mongolia comes from Professor
Johannes Schubert. See Polo I, pp. 339—47, Schubert, pp. 72 and 95 ff., and Poppe
'956, pp. 33-35-
129 The "Great Inviolable Sanctuary." On this secret cemetery of the Mongol
Great Khans, see Polo I, pp. 335 ff. On T. qoruq, "inviolable sanctuary, taboo," see
Doerfer, III, No 1462 (pp. 444-50).
228