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Document Details : Title: Mūjah and Mānk Subtitle: Variants of the Pre-Imperial Mongol Ethnonym in the Akhbār al-Ṣīn wa al-Hind and Parallel Texts Author(s): SHIMUNEK, Andrew , BECKWITH, Christopher I. Journal: Journal Asiatique Volume: 311 Issue: 1 Date: 2023 Pages: 15-28 DOI: 10.2143/JA.311.1.3292220 Abstract : The pre-imperial Mongol ethnic group has previously been identified in Chinese sources dating to as early as the Tang dynasty. Their name is supported by additional transcriptions in other Chinese sources, while medieval Latin, Persian, Byzantine Greek, Georgian, Armenian, Syriac, Jurchen, Mongol, and Catalan sources attest later reflexes of it. However, previous scholarship has overlooked a Classical Arabic transcription of the Mongol ethnonym, al-Mūga, usually read al-Mūjah, in the 9th century (CE) anonymous Book One of the 10th century travel account Akhbār al-Ṣīn wa al-Hind ‘Accounts of China and India’ of al-Sīrāfī, and a parallel text in the 10th century Murūj al-dhahab ‘Prairies of Gold’ of al-Mas'ūdī. An 11th or 12th century parallel text by al-Marwazī provides a transcription of another early variant of the pre-imperial Mongol ethnonym, al-Mānk. This paper discusses these early Arabic descriptions of the pre-imperial Mongols, their transcriptions of the ethnonym, and other early transcriptions of names of the Mongols. |
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