Kököchin, also Kökejin, Kūkājīn, Cocacin or Cozotine, was a 13th-century Mongol princess from the Yuan dynasty in China, belonging to the Mongol tribe of the Bayaut. In 1291, she was betrothed to the Ilkhanate khan Arghun by the Mongol Great KhanKublai, but married his son Ghazan when Arghun died by the time she had arrived in Persia in 1293. The account of the travel of the princess to Persia was given by Marco Polo.
Name
Note that, among the various English translations of Polo's book, there are at least ten spellings for this woman's name. Absent various accented characters here, the names include Cocachin, Cocacin, Cozotine, Kogatin, Kokachin, Kokechin, Kokejin, Kokochin, Kukachin, and Kukajin.
Background
Following the loss of Arghun's favourite wife Bolgana, Arghun sent a request to his grand-uncle Kublai Khan to send him a relative of his dead wife, saying that only one of her kinswomen should succeed her. Kublai chose the 17-year-old Kököchin. "Kökö" may mean "blue" or "dark" as in complexion, and "chin" or "jin" a suffix used for the name of a person, and the name "Kököchin" may therefore be translated as "The Dark Complected". Kublai, from his capital of Khanbaliq entrusted Marco Polo with his last duty, to escort princess Kökechin to Arghun along with three envoys, Oulatai, Apusca and Coja. The party travelled by sea, departing from the southern port city of Quanzhou in the spring of 1291. There were 14 big ships in all, and each had 4 masts and 12 sails. They set out from Quanzhou, sailing to Sumatra where they were delayed for five months due to weather, and then to Persia, via Sri Lanka and India. They arrived around 1293. Arghun had died in the meantime however, and Kököchin married Arghun's son Ghazan and became his principal wife. She died in June 1296.
Accounts
There are three sources for the account of the mission to Persia – a passage in the ChineseworkYongle Encyclopedia, the Persian Jami' al-tawarikh written by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, with the most detailed description given by Marco Polo: The account of the marriage was confirmed by the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in his Jami' al-tawarikh where she was named Kūkājīn.
