Genghis Khan: Legend And History Mongolian
Mongol epics were partly sung, partly recited and partly related in prose, the singer accompanying himself on a horse-headed fiddle. The sung parts had a more strictly poetical form and metre than the recited parts, but even the latter were regulated by rules of parallelism, so that lines repeat one another with only a few regular changes of word. For example, in the epic called 'Three-year-old Bullock Red Hero':
Although it was intended to catch him with a pole-lasso,
he was not caught,
Although it was intended to catch him with clever tricks,
he was not caught.
This kind of repetition occurs in all Mongolian legends of the epic genre. When the reciter reaches the word gene (it is said), the listeners take part by saying in unison, Dzaa! (Yes! Agreed!).
Another important series of Mongolian legends concern historical figures, glorious princes (khans) and emperors (khagans), wise lamas and powerful living Buddhas (khutukhtus). The most widespread are legends about Ghenghis Khan, the great military leader of the early Mongols at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Here is one such legend from western Mongolia:
Some say that Genghis-Khan was a god (burkhan), and some that he was a prince. They say he was a son of the sky, who came down to earth and lay under a tree. Near this tree there was another, and both trees leaned together and joined at the top. From one of the branches sap dripped out and fell into the mouth of the child, and this is what kept him alive. At this time the Khan of the Dzhungars (west Mongols) died with no heir. The officials gathered together to choose a Khan but they could not come to any agreement, because everyone wished to become Khan. Therefore they decided to choose a Khan from outside their own circle and they chose this child.
There is clear influence here of the Buddhist practice of choosing holders of religious office by magical signs ascribed to a child, which has the advantage of averting the emergence of powerful hereditary dynasties, since each child is chosen from different, 'magically' determined surroundings. In fact, of course, Mongolian history was not like this. Genghis Khan came from famous lineage, the Borzhigid, and his descendants, 'the Golden Clan', became the aristocratic ruler of Mongolia.
The legend shows how mixed up history becomes when each group adapts it to its own purposes. Genghis Khan was never 'chosen' by the western Mongols. He conquered them. And, in fact, the group of western Mongols mentioned in the legend, the Dzhungars, did not come into existence under this name until several centuries after Genghis' death. But every Mongol group likes to link its history to the famous Emperor in one way or another. The Khori Buryat Mongols, for example, trace their descent from Genghis Khan's daughter.
In many legends Genghis acquires the characteristics of a god and a creator. Like Geser, he is supposed in some versions to be the son of Khormusta-tengri, a sky-god whose name goes back to ancient Persian mythology. In some versions Genghis himself is a cosmological creator:
Shingit-khan (Genghis Khan) had four sons. The oldest was the Dalai-lama, the second was Amy-gylyn-khan, the third was Talden-khan. They had in their kingdom all the dead who had been criminals or thieves. The fourth son was Tsagan-khan. The eternal snow on the peak of Mount Munko-sagan is the spittle of Genghis which he spat when he was smoking his pipe; the ashes from his pipe formed the bare rocky peak of Mount Bayan-ula. the hill called Yangit, lying to the east of Munko-sagan, is the button from the hat which Shingit-khan left there.
In many parts of Mongolia there was a religious cult of Genghis Khan. Even in the present century the cult was important enough in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia for the Chinese goverment to go some way towards supporting it in order not to offend Mongolian nationalist feelings. A cult-centre, a kind of mausoleum, was built in the steppes, containing battle-standards, tents and other objects supposed to have belonged to the famous hero. The pro-Soviet goverment of the Mongolian People's Republic took the opposite attitude. They proclaimed Genghis to have been a purely destructive tyrant, and projected issue of stamps to commemorate the great leader was forbidden in 1962.
Legends Of The World
Edited by
Richard Cavendish
ISBN 1-56619-462-8
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