JAHBALLĀHĀ III. – Nestorian katholikos from 1281 to 1317, a Mongol, born at Kuoseng in 1244. He lived as a monk in a monastery near Beijing. He went to Western Asia on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was elected katholikos of the Nestorian Church in order to please the Mongol rulers, with whom he subsequently maintained good relations. He sent to Rome his former teacher Rabban Saumā, who arrived there in 1287. J. maintained good relations with the Latin missionaries.
BIBL.: J. A. Chabot, L'histoire du patriarche Mar. J. III et du moine Rabban Saumā (translated from Syriac), in Revue de l'Orient latin, 1 (1893), p. 573 ff.; 2 (1894), pp. 82–86; E. A. Budge Wallis, The monks of Kābāh khān, emperor of China, Londra 1928. Guglielmo de Vries