style="font-size:15px;"> Gumilev, Imaginary Kingdom p. 143. On the other hand, it has been argued strongly that the Merkit raid is not historical but a folkloric trope, a perennial motif in epic poetry about the theft of women, whether of Europa by Zeus, Helen by Paris or the Princess Sita’s seizure in the Hindu epic Ramayana. The raid is one of the prime exhibits in H. Okada, ‘The Secret History of the Mongols, a Pseudo-historical Novel, Journal of Asian and African Studies 5 (1972) pp. 61–67 (at р. 63). But the theory is unconvincing if only because it makes Chagatai’s later violent hostility to Jochi on the grounds of his illegitimacy impossible to fathom.
213
Togan, Flexibility p. 73; Pelliot & Hambis, Campagnes pp. 250, 401.
214
Mostaert, Sur quelques passages p. 32.
215
Pelliot & Hambis, Campagnes pp. 279–281; Rachewiltz, Commentary p. 421.
216
SHC pp. 38–39.
217
SHO pp. 91–92; SHR p. 41; Rachewiltz, Commentary p. 428.
218
SHC pp. 43–47. As Ratchnevsky tersely comments: ‘Rashid’s version is implausible’ (Genghis Khan p. 35).
219
SHC pp. 39–42.
220
RT i p. 107.
221
RT i pp. 107–108.
222
Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan p. 36.
223
SHO pp. 85–87; SHR рр. 35–36.
224
SHO pp. 87–90; SHR pp. 37–39; Rachewiltz, Commentary p. 417.
225
Rachewiltz, Commentary p. 435.
226
SHC pp. 52–53; SHO pp. 95–96; SHR pp. 44–45; SHW p. 262.
227
V V Bartold, ‘Chingis-Khan,’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam (1st ed., repr. 1968 v pp. 615–628 (at p. 617)); Vladimirtsov, Le regime social pp. 107–108; Vladimirtsov, Genghis Khan p. 130.
228
Grousset, Conqueror of the World p. 67.
229
SHO pp. 96–97; SHR pp. 44–46.
230
Vladimirtsov, Le regime social pp. 105–107.
231
As Rachewiltz sagely remarks, ‘If neither Temujin nor his wife could understand Jamuga’s poetic riddle, what hope have we, who are so far removed from that culture, to understand what was the real meaning of those words?’ (Rachewiltz, Commentary p. 442).
232
Owen Lattimore, ‘Chingis Khan and the Mongol Conquests,’ Scientific American 209 (1963) pp. 55–68 (at p. 62); Lattimore, ‘Honor and Loyalty: the case of Temujin and Jamukha,’ in Clark & Draghi, Aspects pp. 127–138 (at p. 133).
233
Grousset, Empire pp. 201–202; Gumilev, Imaginary Kingdom pp. 143–145.
234
The numbers mentioned in the Secret History are unreliable for a number of reasons: 1) the author embellished with poetic licence and routinely inflated the size of armies; 2) the author anachronistically projected back into the twelfth century names, titles, technologies and modalities that belonged to an era fifty years in the future; 3) numbers in Mongol histories have a mystical or symbolic significance and therefore cannot be taken seriously for historical research. See Larry Moses, ‘Legends by Numbers: the symbolism of numbers in the Secret History of the Mongols,’ Asian Folklore Studies 55 (1996) pp. 73–97 and Moses, ‘Triplicated Triplets: the Number Nine in the Secret History of the Mongols,’ Asian Folklore Studies 45 (1986) pp. 287–294.
235
For exhaustive detail on the Thirteen see Pelliot & Hambis, Campagnes pp. 35–37, 53–135. See also Louis Ligeti, ‘Une ancienne interpolation dans I’Altan Tobci,’ Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 26 (1972) pp. 1–10.
