Note 105 — Chapter IV · GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, ÍLÍ, AND TIBET.

Abulgasi-Bayadur-chan (Histoire Genéalogique des Tatars, traduite du Manuscript Tartare; Leyde: 1726), gives another derivation for these two names. “Alänzä-chan eut deux fils jumeaux l’un appelle Tatar and l’autre Mogull ou pour bien dire Mung’l, entre les quels il partagea ses Estates lorsqu’il se vit sur la fin de sa vie.” It is the first prince, he adds, from whom came the name Tartar—not from a river called Tata, as some have stated—while of the second: “Le terme Mung’l a esté changé par une corruption generale en Mogull; Mung veut dire triste ou un homme triste, et parceque ce prince estoit naturellement d’une humeur fort triste, il porta ce nom dans la verité”—(pp. 27-29). But Visdelon (D’Herbelot, ed. 1778, Tome IV., p. 327) shows more acquaintance with their history in producing proofs that the name Tatar was applied in the eighth century by the Chinese to certain tribes living north of the Ín shan, Ala shan, and River Liau. In the dissensions following upon the ruin of the Tang dynasty, some of them migrated eastwards beyond the Songari, and there in time rallied to subdue the northern provinces, under the name of Nu-chih. These are the ancestors of the Manchus. Another fraction went north to the marshy banks of Lakes Hurun and Puyur, where they received the name of Moungul Tahtsz’, i.e., Marsh Tatars. This tribe and name it was that the warlike Genghis afterwards made conspicuous. The sound Mogul used in India is a dialectal variation.