The Secret History of the Mongols: the Life and Times of Chinggis Khan
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THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MONGOLS OF ALL TIMES, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CHINGGIS KHAN TRANSLATED, ANNOTATED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY Urgunge Onon LONDON AND NEW YORK First Published in 2001 by RoutledgeCurzon Press 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2001 Urgunge Onon All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-98876-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-7007-1335-2 (Print Edition) CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE 39 CHAPTER TWO 63 CHAPTER THREE 85 CHAPTER FOUR 109 CHAPTER FIVE 127 CHAPTER SIX 145 CHAPTER SEVEN 165 CHAPTER EIGHT 181 CHAPTER NINE 201 CHAPTER TEN 217 CHAPTER ELEVEN 233 CHAPTER TWELVE 257 APPENDIX 281 BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 INDEX 293 vi INTRODUCTION The East has known only three great men. Sakyamuni was born a prince around 500 BC in what is now Nepal. Distressed by human suffering, he left his family, achieved enlightenment through meditation, and became the Buddha. According to his teachings, life is painful, the origin of pain is desire, the end of pain can be achieved by ending desire, and the way to this is through right living. This philosophy of ‘cause and effect’ spread northwards into Tibet, where it absorbed the popular Bon religion and changed greatly in nature. The resulting synthesis, known as Lamaism, can be criticised as passive and fatalistic. Lamaism became popular among the Mongols1 during the reign of Qubilai Qahan (1215–1294). Confucius was born at around the same time as the Buddha, into China’s lower aristocracy. Confucius wanted to restore China to a golden age of peace. He also said that ‘the universe belongs to the public’, but although he emphasised the need for ethical conduct, he believed implicitly in a society shaped by the hereditary right of aristocrats. He helped to endow Chinese with the idea that China lay at the centre of the universe; and he persuaded ordinary Chinese to confine their loyalties to their family 1 The word ‘Mongol’ was used as a tribal name until 1206, when Temüjin (Chinggis Qahan) was elevated to Great Qahan. The name then became synonymous with the state until 1271, when the Great Qahan Qubilai introduced the name Yuan Dynasty. Since then, ‘Mongol’ has been used as a general name for the Mongol people. 2 THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS and the emperor. Confucianism spread to the countries of the East that practised settled agriculture, but not to nomadic countries like Mongolia. Temüjin, the personal name of Chinggis Qahan, was born on the sixteenth day of the fourth lunar month in the year 1162 into the family of a tribal leader. Some historians, for example the Persian Rashid al-Din (1247– 1318), who was of Jewish origin, say that Chinggis was born earlier, in 1155, the Year of the Pig. Neither Jews nor Muslims (nor, for that matter, Mongols) like pigs, and many Persians deeply hated the Mongols, who set up a dynasty (the Il-Qahan, which ran from 1265 to 1335), in their country. So it was probably with some satisfaction that Rashid al-Din determined 1155 as the year of birth of the Mongol world-conqueror. Chinggis did, however, die in a Pig Year, 1227. Mongol society developed in three stages. It rose on the basis of a hunting economy in the forest regions to the north of the Mongol heartland. During this period was created the title mergen, meaning ‘a good hunter’ or ‘an intelligent person’. When the Mongols emerged from the forests, they created a new title, ba’atur, or ‘hero’, which shows that the distinct Mongol tribes of the day were at war with one another and were probably engaged in a nomadic way of life. Around the eighth century, two new titles appeared: noyan, meaning ‘lord’, and qan, usually transcribed in English as ‘khan’. In the sixth century, Turkic nomadic tribes, later known as Orkhon Turkish, moved into the territory of present-day Mongolia and ruled the area until the middle of the seventh century, when they were replaced by the Uighurs (who stayed until the eighth and ninth centuries). By the tenth century, the Liao Dynasty (also known as Kitan) was established in the eastern part of the region, present-day Manchuria. The Kitan were in power from 916 to 1119, when they, in turn, were replaced by another nomadic people, the Jin Dynasty, also known as Altan Ulus (1115– 1234). INTRODUCTION 3 The Mongols were a small nomadic tribe in the area of Ergön2 and kölen Na’ur.3 This mongol tribe moved to the Kelüren,4 Onon, and Tula5 districts around the years following 970,6 and was one of the many tribal peoples shifting about nomadically during this period. The people of the felt walled tents were the Tatars, the Onggirads, the Kereyids, the Naimans, the Tayichi’uds, and the Merkids. All these groups spoke a language akin to that of the Mongols, but they were only included in the category of Mongols after they had been conquered by, or pledged alliance to, the Mongol tribe. Chinggis Qahan’s ancestors belonged to the Kiyad group of the Borjigin clan of the Mongol tribe. Tribal feuds and struggles for power continued for many generations among the tribes, while foreign enemies such as the Liao Dynasty and the Jin ruled them from the east. The Tangqut nation (1002–1227) to the south and the Uighurs to the west were awaiting their turn to attack. By the twelfth century, however, the nations surrounding the area of present-day Mongolia were growing weaker; this was especially so of the Jin Dynasty, which was at war with the Song Dynasty of southern China. At the same time the Mongols, along with the other nomadic tribes, were becoming stronger economically through their vast herds of livestock. To enjoy this new prosperity, they sought to put an end to tribal warfare and to live in peace with one another, and at the same time to present a united front to external enemies. Chinggis Qahan, born in 1162, fulfilled a need for his people. The many tribes were strong, but lacked a leader to weld them into one. 2 The Ergüne River. 3 Khölön Buyur Lake. 4 Kherlen. 5 Tu’ula. 6 For this date, see Hua-sai and Dugarjab 1984, p. 271, n. 3. 4 THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS Temüjin was first elevated as Chinggis Qahan by his tribe, in 1189, and confirmed as such by all the Mongols in 1206, at a great gathering of Mongol nobles and high- ranking commanders of the Mongol cavalry on the Kelüren River. This gathering marked the unification of the Mongol tribes and the birth of the Mongol military machine, and was the first step towards the creation of a new order on the steppe. Before Chinggis Qahan, the Mongols lacked a sense of their identity as a people. Chinggis’ historic role was to endow them with such a sense. His strong identification with his ancestral homelands, almost akin to modern nationalism, is well illustrated by the following incident. He sent a message to three of his followers who had left him to join one of his Mongol rivals. He told them that they were now on their own, but that they should never let anyone other than a Mongol set up camp at the source of the three rivers, the Kelüren, the Tu’ula, and the Onon. The Mongol tribes professed an ancestral Shamanism; their great deity was the sky, which they worshipped together with the spirits inhabiting the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the water, the trees, and all natural things. As Shamanists, they had no church, nor had they a need for one, since worship was often a matter of immediate communication between the individual and the world of nature; the intermediacy of Shaman priests was an option that Chinggis himself often preferred not to use. For Shamanists, the soul is linked directly to Heaven and the individual is therefore the centre of his own universe. Heaven is nothing more nor less than the consciousness of each one of us. Heaven is our guide; under it we are born free and equal. Chinggis Qahan was never influenced by the passive philosophy of Buddhism or the rigid doctrines of Confucianism, which reduced the universe to the family or the state. The universe to which Chinggis and the Mongols owed allegiance was bound by neither kin nor place. That is why just two million Mongols, with 129,000 cavalrymen, could establish the largest land empire in world history. INTRODUCTION 5 The other great peoples of Asia—for example, the Indians and the Chinese—were never able to match this achievement. The reason for this failure lies in the Indian and Chinese view of the world, which was more trammelled and restricted than that of the Mongols, who, at the time, lacked even a word for ‘country’.