Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/92

 Rh the antiquities of that part of the Khanate which, he says, was formerly known as 'Kara Khitai.'

In attempting to make clear the condition of Moghulistan and the neighbouring regions of Central Asia, perhaps the chief perplexity is experienced in unravelling the nomenclature of places and people. The names of countries and towns not only changed with time, but different nations applied, frequently, a different designation to one and the same place. Thus, names often arose at a certain period, were employed by writers for a time, and again fell out of use. The Mongols, for instance, during their ascendency, gave names of their own to many places which, after the decline of their power, became obsolete. In the same way, the conquests of Timur seem to have given birth to names that are peculiar to that period alone, and were perhaps only in vogue among those connected with the conqueror's court or his armies. This circumstance, in addition to the habit of applying nicknames to tribes and nations, may account for many of the difficulties that surround the identification of names mentioned by various authors, and should act as a warning, in the case of the tribes, not to attach too readily a racial significance to every name that is met with.

To the Chaghatais of Mávará-un-Nahr and the west, Moghulistan was known, in the 13th and 14th centuries, by the name of Jatah, and though this was only a term of depreciation, or a nickname (as will be explained below), it is employed in the gravest way by several Persian authors of the Timuri period, whose works have become standards of historical reference. What is perhaps more curious to remark is, that the name of Bishbálik, which so often occurs in mediæval histories and travels, and in the Chinese historical annals, is that by which the Chinese knew the Khanate of Moghulistan, during the earlier part of the period over which Mirza Haidar's history extends. This name had originally no connection with the Moghuls or their dominion, but was a survival from the days when the region had belonged to the Uighurs. Properly it was the name of a city only, which had been built by the Uighurs, and, having become their capital, had lent its name to the whole kingdom. The meaning, in Turki, is 'Five Cities,' and seems, possibly, to have indicated the capital of the five divisions, or provinces, into which the country of the Uighurs, at that time, (about the middle of the ninth century) was divided; or otherwise, it may have meant that the tribe was divided into five