Note 2 — EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I.

We endeavour to preserve throughout the book the distinction that was made in the age of the Mongol Empire between

Khán

and

Ḳaán

(

خان

and

قآان

, as written by Arabic and Persian authors). The former may be rendered

Lord

, and was applied generally to Tartar chiefs whether sovereign or not; it has since become in Persia, and especially in Afghanistan, a sort of “Esq.,” and in India is now a common affix in the names of (Musulman) Hindustanis of all classes; in Turkey alone it has been reserved for the Sultan.

Ḳaán

, again, appears to be a form of

Kháḳán

, the

Χαγάνος

of the Byzantine historians, and was the peculiar title of the supreme sovereign of the Mongols; the Mongol princes of Persia, Chaghatai, etc., were entitled only to the former affix (Khán), though

Ḳaán

and

Ḳhaḳán

are sometimes applied to them in adulation. Polo always writes

Kaan

as applied to the Great Khan, and does not, I think, use

Khan

in any form, styling the subordinate princes by their name only, as

Argon

,

Alau

, etc.

Ilkhan

was a special title assumed by Huláku and his successors in Persia; it is said to be compounded from a word

Il

, signifying tribe or nation. The relation between

Khán

and

Khaḳán

seems to be probably that the latter signifies “

Khán of Kháns

,” Lord of Lords. Chinghiz, it is said, did not take the higher title; it was first assumed by his son Okkodai. But there are doubts about this. (See

Quatremère’s Rashid

, pp. 10

seqq.

and

Pavet de Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental.

) The tendency of swelling titles is always to degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new form,

Khán-khánán

, was devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied to one of the high officers of state.

[Mr. Rockhill writes (Rubruck, p. 108, note): “The title Khan, though of very great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after A.D. 560, at which time the use of the word Khatun came in use for the wives of the Khan, who himself was termed Ilkhan. The older title of Shan-yü did not, however, completely disappear among them, for Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the Ghuz Turks, or Turkomans, still bore the title of Jenuyeh, which Sir Henry Rawlinson (Proc. R. G. S., v. 15) takes to be the same word as that transcribed Shan-yü by the Chinese (see Ch’ien Han shu, Bk. 94, and Chou shu, Bk. 50, 2). Although the word Khakhan occurs in Menander’s account of the embassy of Zemarchus, the earliest mention I have found of it in a Western writer is in the Chronicon of Albericus Trium Fontium, where (571), under the year 1239, he uses it in the form Cacanus”—Cf. Terrien de Lacouperie, Khan, Khakan, and other Tartar Titles. Lond., Dec. 1888.—H. C.]