Nayan (Mongol Prince) 'Prince of Kwang-ning'. In addition, Nayan was also the foremost leader of the Eastern "ulus"es (tribal groupings and districts ruled by Mongol appanage princes) dominated by the descendants of the brothers of Genghis Khan. Whatever the precise extent of Nayan's appanage, he certainly held sufficient lands within and around Manchuria to give him a power-base from which to launch a rebellion against his kinsman Kublai Khan. Nayan is represented as embodying a traditional Mongol reaction against the increasing sinicisation shown by Kublai Khan and his administration. Nayan adhered to the ancestral nomadic values of the Mongols and was dismayed at
Mongol invasions of Tibet provinces. The Mongols granted the Sakya lama a degree political authority, but retained control over the administration and military of the region. As efforts to rule both territories while preserving Mongol identity, Kublai Khan prohibited Mongols from marrying Chinese, but left both the Chinese and Tibetan legal and administrative systems intact. Though most government institutions established by Kublai Khan in his court resembled the ones in earlier Chinese dynasties, Tibet never adopted the imperial examinations or Neo-Confucian policies. Buddhist monks from Tibet were popular and well respected in Mongol-ruled Iran (the Ilkhanate), Mongolia, China (the Yuan) and Central Asia (the