Dozens of fortified towns, yet the people live in felt tents
Editorial contextBecause the land bordered the Turks, its people took up Turkish ways and were raided by them. They scattered, held dozens of strong walled towns each under its own chief, and lived in domed felt tents, moving about. Towns and tents side by side, in the same breath. Beal's English of this passage runs across pages 290 to 291.
[They took on] their [the Turks'] customs, and were also raided by them, and so defended their own borders. Therefore the people of this country are scattered in different districts, in several tens of strong walled towns, each with its own chief. They live in domed felt tents and move about from place to place.
Working translation
Original wording
其俗又見侵掠自守其境故此國人流離異域數十堅城各别立主穹廬毳帳遷徙往來
About People of Himatala, neighbours of the Turks
The Horse Lord's people live in felt domes
Editorial contextThe preface divides the known world among four 'lords': elephants in the south, treasure in the west, men (China) in the east, and horses in the cold north. The northern horse peoples are fierce, live in felt tents and domed yurts, and move 'like birds' after their herds. It is a learned Buddhist scheme rather than an eyewitness scene, but it is a compact Chinese picture of steppe housing.
In the north is the Horse Lord, whose land is bitterly cold and suited to horses... The ways of the Horse Lord's people: fierce by nature, hardened to killing; they live in felt tents and domed yurts, dwelling like birds and following their herds.
Working translation
Original wording
北馬主寒勁宜馬…馬主之俗天資獷暴情忍殺戮毳帳穹廬鳥居逐牧
About Northern nomads (the 'Horse Lord' peoples, in practice the Turks)
Keep in mind
A cosmological scheme from Buddhist and Chinese learning, not a description of one place.
The Turkish khan's tame deer at the Thousand Springs
Editorial contextThe meadows of the Thousand Springs were where the khan of the Western Turks came every summer to escape the heat. Herds of deer there wore bells and rings and were so tame they barely ran from people, because the khan loved them and decreed death without pardon for anyone who killed one. Xuanzang passed this way on his outward journey.
The khan of the Turks comes here every year to escape the summer heat. There are herds of deer, many decorated with bells and rings, so tame with people that they hardly startle and run. The khan loves them and has ordered his followers that anyone who dares to kill one will be executed without pardon, so these deer live out their natural lives.
Working translation
Original wording
突厥可汗每来避暑中有羣鹿多飾鈴鐶馴狎於人不甚驚走可汗愛賞下命羣屬敢加殺害有誅無赦故此羣鹿得終其夀
About Western Turks and their khan
Dressed like the Turks, crowned with a wooden horn
Editorial contextIn Himatala, near Badakhshan, people behaved and dressed like the Turks, in wool, skin and felt. Married women wore a wooden horn about three feet long on the head, with two branches standing for the husband's father and mother; when one parent-in-law died a branch was removed, and when both were dead the horn was given up.
In respect of their modes of behaviour and forms of etiquette, their clothes of wool, and skin, and felt, they are like the Turks. Their wives wear upon their head-dress a wooden horn about three feet or so in length. It has two branches (a double branch) in front, which signify father and mother of the husband.
About People of Himatala, living like the Turks
'Hu': the Chinese word the translator turns into Uighurs or Tartars
Editorial contextThe royal family of Tashkurgan in the Pamirs looked Chinese but dressed like the 'Hu'. Hu was a broad Chinese word for foreigners of the west and north. Beal adds '(Uighurs)' here, and in his index he lists 'Tartar (Hu) pilgrims', so the English 'Tartar' in this book is often the translator's choice for a Chinese catch-all word, not Xuanzang's.
The members of the royal family in appearance resemble the people of the Middle Country (China). They wear on their heads a square cap, and their clothes are like those of the Hu people (Uighurs).
About Hu (western and northern foreigners), glossed by Beal as Uighurs
Keep in mind
The bracketed identification is the translator's, not the pilgrim's.
A Turkish prince speared in a dream for raiding a monastery
Editorial contextThe New Monastery at Balkh was so rich that rulers coveted it. A son of the Turkish Yabghu khan (named on the previous page) led his whole horde to plunder it and camped nearby. That night he dreamed that the guardian god Vaisravana drove a long halberd through his chest; he woke in pain, sent for the monks to beg forgiveness, and died before the messenger returned.
[He gathered] his tribes and led his troops to fall on the monastery by surprise, meaning to seize its treasures. He camped in the open not far from here. That night he dreamed he saw the god Vaisravana, who said: 'What power have you, that you dare to destroy this monastery?' and drove a long halberd through him from chest to back. The khan woke in terror, with a pain in his heart.
Working translation
Original wording
其部落率其戎旅奄襲伽藍欲圖珍寳去此不逺屯軍野次其夜夢見毗沙門天曰汝有何力敢壊伽藍因以長㦸貫徹胷背可汗驚寤便苦心痛
About Western Turks (son of the Yabghu khan)
Keep in mind
A monastery's protective legend, told to discourage raiders.
Sacred rats that gnawed a Xiongnu army's harness
Editorial contextWest of Khotan stood mounds made by rats 'as big as hedgehogs', with gold and silver fur. Long ago, the story went, a Xiongnu army camped there; the king of Khotan prayed to the rats, and in the morning the raiders found every strap, bowstring and fastening gnawed through. Khotan built the rats a temple, and travellers still got down from their carts to bow as they passed.
The Hiung-nu, hearing their approach, were overcome by fear. They hastened to harness their horses and equip their chariots, but they found that the leather of their armour, and their horses' gear, and their bow strings, and all the fastenings of their clothes, had been gnawed by the rats.
About Xiongnu (Hiung-nu), ancient steppe raiders
Keep in mind
Xuanzang introduces it as 'the common story' he heard. Beal notes a parallel in Herodotus (mice gnawing an Assyrian army's bowstrings).
A city buried overnight by a rain of sand and earth
Editorial contextEast of Khotan Xuanzang heard of Ho-lo-lo-kia, a rich city that mistreated a holy man and was buried when 'it rained sand and earth' for a night. One man escaped by a tunnel. The town was now a great sand mound; kings who came to dig for its treasure were driven off by sudden winds and darkness. Beal's note points to other sand-buried towns reported by nineteenth-century travellers in the region.
The town of Ho-lo-lo-kia is now a great sand mound. The kings of the neighbouring countries and persons in power from distant spots have many times wished to excavate the mound and take away the precious things buried there; but as soon as they have arrived at the borders of the place, a furious wind has sprung up
About People of Ho-lo-lo-kia (Khotan region)
Keep in mind
A moral legend about punishment for disrespecting a Buddhist saint. It has nothing to do with Tartars; the region is the one 19th-century English writers called 'High Tartary'.