By Ron Rodriguez Once established, the Mongol Empire under Chinggis Khan, Ogodei Khan, and Mongke illustrated its willingness to a...
By Ron Rodriguez
Once established, the Mongol Empire under Chinggis
Khan, Ogodei Khan, and Mongke illustrated its willingness to accept the
practice of other religions and in some cases even accepted the religion for
themselves. To understand this, we can rely on the ideas seen in The Secret
History of the Mongols(1) and themes in the European travelers. John of Plano
Carpini and William of Rubruck can be relied upon to provide well adequate
information to believe that the Mongols had religious beliefs and practices.(2)
However, Mongol religious beliefs centered upon their moral and social
viewpoints. These beliefs are the foundation of their shamanistic religion. The
Mongols religion was exclusive to their tribal heritage. In addition, they
firmly believed that they had “access to, and influence in, the world of good
and evil spirits.”(3) Therefore, their shamanistic religion is not conducive to
being a widespread religion like Christianity or Islam. Consequently, the
Mongols had to either take a policy of least resistance and adopt a religion
and practices or stay isolated. The Mongols realized that their tribal heritage
did not provide the administrative experience to rule a state. As a result, “it
was not long before they took the line of least resistance and adopted, in the
various parts of their empire, a more developed religion learned from their
conquered subjects.”(4) The Mongols purpose was to use religion as a syncretic
tool to reach their goals in any specific region. Therefore, the policy on religion
became a linchpin to the success and later failure of the Mongol Empire.
The Mongols made the decision to adopt or adapt to the
religious beliefs of regions they conquered because it was influential in
creating and managing a state. However, every other nation, during this period,
favored a policy that accepted one religion over another, creating an alliance
between church and state. Consequently, how did Chinggis Khan and his immediate
successors manage to create a state, with all the institutions and bureaucracy
needed to run an empire, out of a tribal heritage? What resources did they draw
upon? How did this influence their policy toward religion and the state? How
does a policy on religion change with the breakup of the Mongol Empire?
From the beginning of the Mongol empire, under Genghis
Khan until two or three generations after his death, many Mongol rulers chose
not to institute a state religion. Rather the Mongol rulers chose to embrace
peoples of many different religions and ethnicities into their empire, upon an
equal playing field with each other. However, the Mongols did not consider
conquered peoples on the same level as themselves. The Mongols did not impose a
state religion on the regions they conquered because they were a coalition of Asiatic
and Turkish tribes that consisted of multiple ethnicities and religions – hence
the linchpin underlining their classification as shamans. The Mongols
understood that to adopt or adapt to the conquered religion would be easier and
more effective than attempt to implement their belief system in any specific
region.(5)
Genghis Khan understood that the Mongols had vastly
different religious and cultural traditions than the conquered peoples, which
resulted in a need to find a common place to start. Furthermore, he understood
that the conversion(6) of “pre-modern peoples to adopt or adapt foreign
cultural traditions for political, social, or economic purposes.”(7) He
understood that the acceptance of cultural traditions sometimes attracts
individuals to foreign cultural traditions or gain political or military
support to an expanding cultural tradition. However, he needed a syncretic
course of action encircling the three modes of cross-cultural conversion and
syncretism that were rarely effective alone yet were highly effective when
incorporated in unison.(8) This process is vital to the state building since
this approach intertwines numerous aspects between two vastly different
societies’ cultural differences.
The Mongols were a small group of loosely connected
nomadic tribes while the regions they conquered were established states.
Therefore, the Mongol culture was vastly different in 1206 as Chinggis Khan and
immediate successors conquered numerous regions that included the Ukraine,
Russia, Iraq, Iran, China, Korea, Vietnam and many places in-between. The
Mongols lack of administrative skills was a common trait among conquerors, but
they became historically unique as they approach the process of state building
in a syncretic method. However, David Ringrose in
The Mongols lack of administrative skills was a common
trait among conquerors, but they became historically unique as they approach
the process of state building in a syncretic method. However, David Ringrose in
Expansion and Global Interaction, 1200-1700(9) clearly synthesizes the
significance of the Mongols role in the development of the political, cultural,
religious, and economic development. In addition, the historian Thomas Allsen
provides an in-depth overarching foundation of Mongol state building. His
linchpin work, Mongol Imperialism, clearly explains the foundation of state
building by outlining “The Politics of Centralization,” “The Tools of
Centralization,” “Population Registration,” “Taxation,” and “Recruitment of
Manpower.”(10) It provides the reader with an excellent in-depth and
synthesized source on Mongol history. In addition, the work by David Morgan,
The Mongols, is an excellent introductory study that is a critical evaluation
of other historian’s hypotheses. Ultimately, these discussions provide an
excellent examination of Mongol history but cannot be the backbone of this
papers research.
Therefore, it became important to devote time to
understanding the vast array of primary sources concerning Mongol history.
Unfortunately, the process begins with the realization that there are not many
Mongolian written sources. Nevertheless, the most prominent of the available
Mongolian sources is The Secret History of the Mongols, which is surrounded by
uncertainties concerning the language it was originally written in.
Nonetheless, this source is critical because “[i]nternal evidence suggests that
[the purpose of] the book was to serve as the official account of the origins
of the ruling clan of the Mongols, the life of the clan’s late leader, Chinggis
Khan, and the reign of Chinggis son and successor, Ogodei Khan.”(11) Access to
the Secret History was initially available to only the family of Chinggis Khan.
Thus, the family controlled source resulted in the Secret History containing
portions that are limited or unblemished narratives of the Mongols because it
was the family’s private history written by an unknown scribe. The
uncertainties bring skepticism to this history, but it contains invaluable
information.
The Secret History is slanted in the favor of the
Mongol elite but it contains invaluable accounts that other sources gloss over
or do not touch on at all. Therefore, it is an excellent source to obtain thee
viewpoint of Mongol history from the elite’s perspective. In addition, it
provides a starting point of Mongol history that is useful when delving into
other sources. For example, Mission to Asia(12) includes the narratives and
letters of the Franciscan missionaries in Mongolia and China in the thirteenth
and fourteenth century but it contains gaps in vital aspects. Therefore, the
reader will find the Secret History useful in enabling a deeper understanding
of Mongol history. As a result, it is necessary to know the scholarly Mongol
historians.
It is necessary to recognize the prominent Mongol
historians in order to understand the scope of their history. The significant
historians that are vital to this subject are David R. Ringrose, Jerry H.
Bentley, David Morgan, and Thomas T Allsen. There works provide the necessary
background information and the ability to fill in the gaps of information that
the primary sources do not provide or are not fully illustrated. Although
secondary sources provide vital and useful information, their use it limited in
supporting the evidence obtained through primary sources. There are numerous
primary sources available but this paper only focuses on three. The first
amongst these primary sources is The Secret History of the Mongols.
Modern scholars believed that Genghis Khan dictated
parts of this history to a scribe, which no one knows who it was. In addition,
the large portion of The Secret History was written within several decades of
Genghis Khans death. The original text of the Secret History is arguably the
oldest textual history written in the Mongolian language. This copy of The
Secret History is not another English translation of the original source.
Rather this version is an adaptation of Francis Woodman Cleaves translation in
order to provide a more accessible text to all readers. It provides the history
of the origins of Genghis Khan and the Mongols in a clear and concise fashion.
This source is relevant to this research because it provides a solid foundation
and background on the thoughts of the Mongols particularly of Genghis Khan. The
second source used in this paper is Mission to Asia by Christopher Dawson.
John of Plano Carpini wrote Mission to Asia throughout
his missionary journey through Asia. The editor Christopher Dawson has enabled
modern historians to take advantage of this compiled source. This is because
historians are able to compare this source to others that contain the regions
consensus opinions amongst the world religious figures. The overarching content
of this source illustrates the Franciscan missionaries in Mongolia and china in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This becomes useful because it
provides specific information on the Mongols and their interaction with the
people of China. The final primary source that this paper relies on is the
starting point of Russian history: The Chronicle of Novgorod.
The Chronicle of Novgorod is a textual history and is
the starting point of Russian history. This source provides an excellent first
hand account of Russian history that includes the earliest point of Russian
history. Its overarching purpose provides the history of the Russians,
particularly their relationship with others. In addition, for the purpose of
this paper, the most vital aspect is the discussions on the relationship
between the Mongols and Russians. This is an important aspect because it helps
illustrate the Mongols approach to foreign cultures. In addition, their shifts
in policy toward religion and how that affected the Russian people.
This theospian analaysis on Mongols has been first published at RonRodriguez.org / RonRodriguez.org
by Ron Rodriguez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License.
Endnotes:
1 Anonymous, The Secret History of the Mongols.
Adapted by Paul Khan (Boston: Cheng & Tsui Company, 1998).
2 Cf. David Morgan, The Mongols (New Jersey: Blackwell
Publishing, 2003), 40 – 41; Khan, The Secret History of the Mongol, xx.
3 Oxford University Press, The New Oxford American
Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University, 2010).
4 Morgan, The Mongols, 41.
5 Jerry H. Bentley, Old World Encounters (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1993), 7.
6 “[T]he term conversion rarely refers to an
individual’s spiritual or psychological experience but, rather, to the broader
process that resulted in the transformation of whole societies. Ibid., 9.
7 Ibid., 7.
8 Ibid., 17.
9 David R. Ringrose, Expansion and Global Interaction,
1200-1700 (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 2001).
10 Morgan, The Mongols, v – vi.
11 Anonymous, Secret History, ix.
12 Christopher Dawson, Mission to Asia (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1955).
13 Robert Mitchell and Nevill Forbes, eds., The
Chronicle of Novgorod 1076-1471 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1918).
