2 TWO EARLY SOURCES FOR MONG OL HISTORY.

apparently remained in manuscript and formed part of the

palace archives, called in the Yuan chi, or official history
of the dynasty, Tobchiyan. I
shall take the liberty of
bringing before the Society the admirable description of
the work given by Palladius in his translation. It is first
referred to after the expulsion of the Mongols from China
in a work entitled Hung wu shi lu, i.e. “Detailed record
of the reign of Hung wu.” In the notice of the fifteenth
year of Hung wu (i.e. 1382), in that work we read, “In this
year it was ordered that a compilation of a comparative
vocabulary of Chinese and Mongol words should be made.

its
The Yuan dynasty not having had originally letters of
own for its official and public acts, used those Kao chang

of
the Uighurs), and formed out them the Mongol
of

of
(i.e.
letters. Lately the Emperor ordered

of
member the Han

a
lin (i.e. Academy), Jan-yoãn-tsin, secretary,
of

the and the

Masha ikhe, translate Mongol words into Chinese. Thus
to

the words connected with astronomy, geography, and the

life, such clothes, food, etc., were translated.
of

as

accessories
They afterwards

pi
transcription
of

made the Yuan chao shi

a

(i.e., characters), adapted

to
into letters Chinese and their tones it it
and pronunciation. When this was complete, was ordered
printed and published (id. 4). What was really done
be
of is to

explained other references, contained description

in

in
a

the Imperial
Library, and was this. The work was
it

originally written the Mongol language and Uighur

in

in

characters. The Mongol words were syllable by syllable

transliterated into Chinese characters. Lastly, translation
a

Mongol Chinese,
of

this transliterated text was made into

so

the original
in

of

that there were fact three texts the work:

I.

Mongol; II, the transliterated Mongol, called Tonic

it by

Palla
dius; and III. the Chinese translation. Although not
as is

the above extract that the translation, well

of as
in

stated the
by

transliteration, was made the Commission Hung wu,

Palladius says this must have been so, since contains several
it

names which existed only that time. The tonic text has
at
no

title;
pi

shi has been given

of

that Yuan chao the

to
by

translation the translators. The original document was