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

BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY OF OGETEI QA AN
and upon alighting ordered Danishmand Hajib to buy jujubes from
that shop with a balish. [Hajib] went and brought a dish of jujubes,
having paid a quarter of the balish, which was double the price.
When he brought them, Qa'an said: "One balish is a very small
price for so many jujubes." Danishmand Hajib produced the rest of the
balish and said: "What I paid was more than ten times the price."
Qa'an upbraided him and said: "When in all his life has he had a
customer like us?" And he commanded the man to be given the whole
of the balish and ten balish more.
[xxvi] He gave a poor man 100 balish. The officials said: "Surely
Qa'an must think that 100 balish are 100 dirhems." They scattered this
quantity where he would pass by. He asked: "What is this?" They
replied that it was the balish that were to be given to the poor man.
" It is a miserably small amount," he said. " Give him twice as much."
[xxvii] A certain person had made a deal for 100 balish with his
emirs and treasurers. He gave orders for the balish to be paid him in
cash. The next day a poor man was standing at the door of Qarshi.385
Thinking that this person was the merchant he asked: "Why have you
not yet paid him his due?" At once 100 balish were brought to the
poor man and he was told: "This is the price of your goods." "I
have sold no goods," said the poor man. The attendants returned and
reported that this was not the man. " Since you have taken the balish
out of the treasury," said Qa'an, "you cannot take them back again.
It is this man's good fortune. Give it all to him."
[xxviii] One day he saw an Indian woman with a child on her
back. He ordered her to be given 5 balish. The official kept back one
balish and gave her only four. She pleaded with him and Qa'an asked,
"What was the woman saying?" He was told that she was a woman
with a family and was uttering a prayer. "She has a family?" asked
Qa'an. "Yes," they said. He went into the treasury, called the woman
and told her to take as many garments of every kind as she could lift.
She took as many nasij^6 garments as might be the capital of a wealthy
man.
[xxix] One day a falconer brought a falcon, of which he said that it
was sick and that its medicine was the flesh of fowls. Qa'an ordered
him to be given a balish to buy some fowls with. The treasurer gave
385 See above, p. 62. 386 See Glossary.
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