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

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
kept him occupied in his presence, and Mubarak-Shah fetched a
pair of caskets from his house. They were opened, and in them were
fine pearls and matchless jewelry. The Qa'an showed them to Senge and
said: "How is it that thou hast so many pearls and, when I asked thee
for two or three, thou didst not give them to me?" Senge was filled
with shame and said: "The aforementioned Tazik dignitaries gave
them to me." (These were each of them the governor of a special
province.) "Why," asked the Qa'an, "did they not bring pearls
and jewelry for me also? Thou bringest coarse and bad fabrics for me
and takest money and matchless necklaces for thyself." Senge replied:
" It was they who gave them. Let the Qa'an issue a yarligh that I am
to give them back." His words being rude and impolite, the Qa'an
ordered him to be seized and filth to be placed in his mouth; and he and
such of the Tazik emirs as were present were put to death. As for the
others, who were in Manzi, he sent to have them arrested. And when
Baha al-Din Qunduzi, Malik Nasir al-Din Kashghari, 'Umar Qirqizi,
and Shadi Zo-Cheng were brought, he ordered them also to be executed.
Then he said: "I obtained Baha al-Din Qunduzi from his father."
He shouted at him, struck him on the face several times with his own
hand, and then had him placed in a cangue and thrown down a well.
Of Nasir al-Din he said: "I summoned him from Kashghar. Give him
back his property." Having been pardoned, he had no sooner mounted
horse than a number of people joined him on horseback, for he was a
generous and bountiful man and had many friends. On his way he
came upon the Emir Kerei Ba'urchi, who, because of his age, was
traveling in a wagon. Malik Nasir al-Din could not see him because
of the crowd of people and so did not greet him or pay him any attention.
He was offended, and Pahlavan, the malik of Badakhshan, who
had once come to those parts, said to him: "This is Malik Nasir al-Din,
who was going to be put to death, and now his head is filled with all
this pride and arrogance and he is accompanied by all these horsemen.
And every year he sends more than a thousand tinges217 for Qaidu's
army." Being offended with him, Kerei made a charge against him
when he came to the Qa'an, and a yarligh was issued for him to be
217 On the tenge, a small silver coin which formed the main currency of the Mongol
world from the end of the 14th to the beginning of the 16th century, see Doerfer,
II, No. 946 (pp. 587-92).
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