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

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
hold the Divan. And it is the custom for there to be a minister, who has
charge of the gates: the memorials141 that are received are taken to
that minister and he makes inquiries about them. The name of this
Divan is lais.142 And when the inquiries are finished the facts of the
case are written down and the report sent, along with the memorial,
to the Divan called lusa,143 which is higher than the other Divan.
From thence it is sent to a third Divan, which they call chubivan,144
and then to a fourth Divan, the name of which is tunjinvan,1** and
matters relating to yams and couriers are under the charge of that
Divan. It is taken from thence to a fifth Divan, which they call
zhushitai146 and which deals with military affairs. Then it is taken to
the sixth Divan, the name of which is sanvisha.147 All ambassadors,
merchants, and travelers are there, and yarlighs and paizas are the
concern of that Divan. This office belongs exclusively to the Emir
Dashman. And after it has been taken to all these Divans it is then
taken to the Great Divan, which they call shing, and inquiries are
made there. They take the fingerprints of the persons that are questioned.
And the meaning of fingerprint is as follows. It has been discovered
and confirmed by experience that the finger joints of all
people are different. And so whenever they take a deposition from anyone,
they place the paper between his fingers and on the back of the
document mark the place where his finger joints touched, so that
should he at some time deny his statement they can confront him with
control of each hsing-cheng soon came to be themselves named shlng colloquially, and
this is the origin of the modern use of sheng in the sense of 'province.'" See Polo II,
pp. 727-28.
141 Such seems to be the natural translation of a word (bularghui, or the like) which
in other contexts means "lost property." See Iranica, pp. 82-84, Doerfer, I, No. 93
(pp. 213-15).
142 LYS. Blochet reads LYSH, in which he sees li-ssti "chambre qui s'occupe des
fonctionnaires civils " or " chambre des rites."
143 LWSH. Blochet reads LWSH, which he thinks may represent lu-ssu, "la
chambre qui s'occupe des voies et communications."
144 Ch'u-miyuan. This was the central organization for military affairs. See Doerfer,
III, No. 1060 (pp. 45-46).
145 Explained by Blochet as probably the t'ung-chlngyuan, which directed the post.
146 The yil-shih t'ai, the function of which was to sort out good and bad officials.
See Doerfer, III, No. 1202 (p. 216).
147 The hsuan-wei ssl, which was concerned with the care of the military, particularly
in the frontier areas. See Franke, IV, p. 561.
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