Editorial contextStrahlenberg offers one example of how getting a name right can clear up history: the famous 'great priest John'. He says this priest, who sits between India and China in the land of Tangut, is the one Kalmyks and Mongols call Dalai Lama, with the added title 'Jegan', meaning holy. On the next page he claims the thirteenth-century friar envoys Carpini and Rubruck turned that title into the Christian name John, which is why the king of Portugal later sought Prester John in India and then in Abyssinia.
of the so-called great Priest John; he who has his seat between India and China in the land of Tangut … is called Dalai Lama by all Kalmyks, Mongols and … from which it is now clearly to be seen that this name came from the Indians as well as from the Kalmyks and Mongols
Working translation
Original wording
von dem sogenannten großen Priester Johann; dieser, welcher seinen Sitz zwischen Indien und China im Lande Tan-guht … hat, wird von allen Kalimucken, Mungalen und … Dalai Lama genannt … woraus nun klärlich zu ersehen, daß dieser Nahme sowol von den Indianern, als auch von den Kalmücken und Mungalen hergekommen
Philipp Johann von Strahlenberg (Vorbericht, Stockholm 1726)
About Kalmyks and Mongols; medieval European envoys
Keep in mind
The OCR of this copy is badly garbled Fraktur; the quote has been restored letter by letter from the damaged text, so check the scan. The Jegan/Johannes derivation is Strahlenberg's own theory.
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Editorial contextAvril takes up the medieval legend of Prester John, the Christian king of the East. Following Marco Polo, he places John's kingdom in Tenduc or Tangut, between China and Mughal India, and a page earlier concludes that the Dalai Lama must be the real 'Prester John', a line of Christian rulers turned idolaters.
For the Kingdom of Tenduc, or as others read it, Tanchut, this Kingdom, I say, where Marcus Paulus places Preste-John, is still in being, if we may believe those who have travell'd through it, and lies between China and the Empire of the Great Mogul.
Gog and Magog beyond the mountains, fires in the night
Editorial contextThis page is not by Nieuhof but from Athanasius Kircher's China Illustrata, bound into Ogilby's English volume. Kircher quotes an Arabic geographer on the cities of Gog and Magog beyond an unclimbable snowy mountain: people who climb it rarely return, and those who do report many fires at night. Kircher then fits this to the Great Cham's empire and Prester John.
On the other side of the Mountain are many Cities of Jagog and Magog. And it often happened, that the Inhabitants of this Region, out of a certain curiosity, ascend some part of it … but many never return … some that have return'd safe, relate, that in the Region on the other side of the Mountain in the night season, are many fires
an Arabic geographer as quoted by Athanasius Kircher (appendix in Ogilby's 1669 volume, not by Nieuhof)
Editorial contextPassing through the half-deserted city of Ning-Hia, Huc gives its history: a prince 'of Tartar race' from Tou-Pa founded a small state near the Yellow River in the tenth century with Ning-Hia as its capital (the Tangut Xi Xia kingdom). It flourished for two centuries until 1227, when it was ruined by Genghis Khan. Here 'Tartar' covers the Tanguts too.
In the tenth century, a prince of Tartar race, a native of Tou-Pa, … having induced a few hordes to follow him, came, and formed, despite the Chinese, a small state not far from the banks of the Yellow River. He chose for his capital, Hia-Tcheou, which afterwards came to be called Ning-Hia. … in 1227, it was involved in the common ruin, by the victories of Tchinggiskhan
Évariste Huc (translated by William Hazlitt, 1852)
Editorial contextWhen Chinggis fell from his horse on his last campaign against the Tangut kingdom, a commander advised going home to recover, arguing that the Tanguts, unlike steppe people, were tied to their pounded-earth towns and fixed camps and would still be there later. Chinggis refused to withdraw. The passage shows how the Mongols saw walled towns: as something that cannot run away.
The Tang’ut people Are ones who have towns with pounded-earth walls, Are ones who live in permanent camps. They won’t leave, carrying off their towns with pounded-earth walls; They won’t leave, abandoning their permanent camps. Let us withdraw.
Anonymous author of the Secret History, words given to Tolun Cerbi (translated by Igor de Rachewiltz, 2015)
