Download PDF | Sagang Sechen - The Precious Summary_ A History of the Mongols from Chinggis Khan to the Qing Dynasty-Columbia University Press (2023).
373 Pages
Introduction
The Mongols are famous on account of Chinggis Khan and the empire they built and ruled in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Moreover, as much recent research has revealed, the Mongols were not simply a marauding horde that destroyed surrounding civilizations; rather, the Mongols and their empire created institutions, trading networks, economic systems, and intellectual and technological exchanges that would come to shape and define the early modern world.! In short, the Mongols are crucial to our understanding of world history.
Yet, what became of the Mongols after the glories of the empire? This history is less well known, and is often presented as one of general collapse. In 1368 the Mongols lost China to Zhu Yuanzhang and his Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Forced to flee back to the steppe, they supposedly devolved into endless civil wars and Buddhist obscurantism before being conquered by the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911). In other words, the postempire Mongols experienced centuries of upheaval and discord that in many tellings was only overcome by the nationalist and communist revolutions of the early twentieth century. Only then could the Mongols finally throw off the imperial yoke, secure their independence, and start modernizing and developing into a respected nation-state on the world stage.? While such an account does have some truth to it, like all histories, it also leaves many details on the cutting-room floor. So, what did happen to the Mongols in the postimperial period?
This is the history that Sagang Sechen relates in the Precious Summary, a work second in importance only to the famous Secret History of the Mongols. Yet unlike the mid-thirteenth-century Secret History, Sagang Sechen’s history was written in 1662, shortly after the Mongols’ submission to the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1912). His main focus is thus less on the glories of Chinggis Khan and the Mongol empire and more on the often overlooked three-hundred-year period from the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China (1272-1368) through the Mongol-Oirat wars and the revival of Mongol power during the reign of Dayan Khan in the sixteenth century. Indeed, to appreciate Sagang Sechen’s telling of this important history it is valuable to recall what happened in Inner Asia from the late fourteenth century to the founding of the Qing dynasty in the early seventeenth century.
THE RETURN TO THE STEPPE
Shortly after defeating his rivals Khubilai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty and began building the imperial capital of Daidu (present-day Beijing). In 1279 he defeated the Song dynasty in the south and thereby consolidated Mongol rule of China. After his death in 1294, however, the Yuan dynasty was beset by political feuds and weak rulers that all came to a head during the reign of Toghan Temiir (1320-1370). Not only was his regime beset by political and ideological feuds; the dynasty as a whole was also challenged by massive environmental problems, including famines resulting from the flooding of the Yellow River and outbreaks of disease that killed enormous numbers of the population in the 1350s. These disasters gravely affected the economy, and the government tried to solve the problem by printing money, which drove up inflation and only made the situation worse. The inevitable response to this perfect storm of political paralysis, environmental disaster, and economic collapse was revolution, and as was often the case in China, it was framed in apocalyptic religious terms. Fired up with Buddhist messianic visions, groups like the Red Turbans rose up against the Yuan. Ultimately, however, they merged with other rebel movements under the able leadership of Zhu Yuanzhang, a former Buddhist monk and devotee of Maitreya, who led the revolutionaries on a northward march to expel the Mongol rulers. On September 10, 1368, they were victorious, and Zhu Yuanzhang (r. 1368-98) was declared emperor of the Ming dynasty.
Toghan Temiir and his Mongol followers fled north and founded the Northern Yuan dynasty, which continued to be recognized across Eurasia as the rightful heirs of Chinggis Khan, so much so that for several decades the surrounding peoples—from Korea to Central Asia to Yunnan—all continued to recognize the Mongol ruler as the Great Khan. They continued to pay taxes to the Mongols, accepted their seals and titles of investiture, and even used the Northern Yuan calendar as their own. On account of this power Zhu Yuanzhang recognized that outside of China proper, many people in eastern Eurasia saw him and his dynasty as illegitimate usurpers of the Mongol legacy.*
Even so, the power of the Northern Yuan was not assured, not least from the continued fighting with the Ming in the south and also from non-Chinggisid Mongols in the north, the Oirats, who had taken control over the Mongolian plateau as the Mongols became more and more embroiled in the affairs of China during the Yuan dynasty. Indeed, on account of the Oirats, when the Mongols fled Beijing, they were not able to return to their homeland. Instead they established themselves in the area between the Great Wall and the Gobi Desert, what is now known as Inner Mongolia in the People’s Republic of China. Moreover, two years after his people arrived as refugees in this environmentally and politically marginal buffer zone, the last Yuan emperor, Toghan Temiir, died of dysentery.
While Toghan Temiir’s death may symbolize well the waning fortunes of the Mongols in the post-Yuan period, they were far from powerless. In addition to being recognized as the rightful heirs of Chinggis Khan by the surrounding peoples, they had economic power due to their control of the trade in Central Asian horses, which were essential for both the Ming military and its larger economy. Without them the Ming would quite literally have ground to a halt, since Chinese soil lacks selenium, a vital mineral for the raising of strong horses.* The volume of this trade was immense: annually the Ming bought nearly two million horses from the Mongols.° Of course, for the Ming court it was intolerable that their economy and national security were in the fickle hands of their enemies. At first they tried invasion and conquest, but the campaigns of both the Hongwu (r. 1368-1398) and Yongle emperors (r. 1402-1424) could not entirely break the power of the Mongols.
In response to these failures the Ming court adopted a two-pronged strategy. The first was to find another source of horses, which they did by reestablishing the tea-for-horses trading network with Tibet.® The second was to keep trading with the Mongols, but on their own terms. Their plan was to funnel all this trade through the small independent city-state of Hami in Gansu province, which in 1406 had been brought into the Ming system of frontier garrisons.’
The Mongol Khan Giilichi (r. 1402-1408), however, did not agree with these terms and poisoned the prince of Hami, who had made the deal with the Chinese. At this turn of events the Ming court was bewildered, but they still hoped to salvage the negotiations. When their envoys were executed at the command of the new Mongol ruler, Punyashri (r. 1408-1411), the Ming court finally decided to circumvent the Mongols entirely. They therefore made contact with the Mongols’ rivals, the Oirats, and not only bestowed titles and privileges upon them but also opened up direct trade relations. The immediate consequence was that any power the Mongols had over the Ming evaporated, and both their wealth and regional strength started to wane; in their place rose the Oirats. Their power would reach its apogee during the reign of Esen (d. 1455), who in 14.49 even captured the Yingzhong emperor at Tumu Fort, fifty miles northwest of Beijing, an event that profoundly rattled the Ming court but emboldened Esen.® He thus proclaimed himself khan and the rightful ruler of all the Mongols in 1453. While the Ming court hesitantly approved, the Mongols saw this action as a gross violation of the Chinggisid principle since Esen was an Oirat, and only direct descendants of Chinggis Khan could ever become a true khan and hold the Mongol throne. The Mongols therefore violently resisted, and after Esen’s death in 1455, the Oirats were weakened.
In their place rose the Mongols. Yet how they were able to rally themselves at this particular point in time is little understood. One factor in their favor was the environment. Chinese sources record that on account of poor climatic conditions north China suffered severe famine during the 1450s and ‘60s.’ The same conditions clearly must have affected both the Mongols and the Oirats. Yet since the Oirats controlled the Mongolian plateau (roughly the territory of the present-day country of Mongolia), which has far greater weather extremes than Inner Mongolia (in today’s China), it is very likely that they were much worse off during these decades than the Mongols. Moreover, being closer to China, the Mongols could not only trade with the Chinese but also, if need be, raid over the border. Regardless, it was during this time that the Mongol ruler Manduulun became khan and reigned briefly in the late 1470s. Upon his death, Bayan Mongke became khan, and upon his death in 1484, his seven-yearold son—the last remaining direct descendant of the Chinggisid line of Great Khans—was married to Manduulun Khan’s widow, which enabled him to be recognized as the rightful ruler of all the Mongols.
Once the fortunes of the Mongols began to turn under this young ruler’s direction, he became famous as Dayan Khan (r. 1480?—1517?). His meteoric rise to power began with his consolidation of the Mongols living in eastern Inner Mongolia and reorganization of them into the Three Eastern Tiimen (Chakhar, Khalkha, and Uriyangkhan). Next came his greatest military achievement, the conquest of the Mongols of Ordos, who had taken advantage of the Tumu incident to occupy the area within the great bend of the Yellow River.!° Having thus only recently moved into and taken over this territory, the Ordos Mongols did not initially want to ally themselves with Dayan Khan and violently resisted his project of unification. Ultimately, however, Dayan was victorious, and the Ordos Mongols were then organized into the Three Western Tiimen (Ordos, Tiimed, and Yiingshiyebii)."’ And it was through this organizational reformulation into the Six Tiimen under the authority of the Chinggisid ruler Dayan Khan that the Mongols were able to reassert their power against the Oirats. While military prowess, marriage alliances, and shrewd politics certainly held this new sociopolitical structure together, it was also ideologically reinforced by the concept of a return to proper Chinggisid rule and a reaffirmation of the Mongol legacy.
Over the course of the sixteenth century, however, this ideal vision of unified Mongol rule began to fray. Thus while the idea of the Mongols being ruled by the direct descendants of Dayan Khan was maintained in theory (as well evidenced in the Precious Summary), the reality is that other Dayan Khanid princes were beginning to assert their own power locally. The most notable was Altan Khan (1507-1586), who over the course of his life became the most powerful ruler among the Mongols. He pushed the recognized ruler, Daraisun (r. 1548-1557), out of his ancestral lands; defeated the Oirat and Muslim rulers of Central Asia; made a peace deal with the Ming dynasty in 1571; and in 1578 famously met the Dalai Lama and became a Buddhist.
These developments set in motion a cycle of events whereby other Mongol princes emulated Altan Khan and began to assert their own autonomy. By the time of Ligdan Khan (d. 1634)—the last recognized ruler of the Mongols—there was a civil war raging among these competing descendants of Dayan Khan. Some made alliances with the Manchus and fought against Ligdan Khan. Others, like the princes of the Khalkha, sought independence from both Ligdan Khan and the Manchus. Still others became involved in Tibet’s civil war by aligning with Buddhist orders challenging the power of the Dalai Lama and his Gelukpa government. The early decades of the seventeenth century in northeast Asia were defined by political fragmentation, economic collapse, religious feuds, and social discord. And the most common solution for the Mongol princes grappling with this chaotic situation was to seek peace and stability in the rising power of the Manchu state. Sagang Sechen, for example, advised his local ruler—Rinchen Jinong of the Ordos—to do so in 1635. The other fifty or so Dayan Khanid princes followed suit and in short order were reorganized into the Mongol nobility ruling the Forty-Nine Banners of the Qing empire’s Inner Mongolia.
MONGOL POLITICAL THEORY
Sagang Sechen wrote the Precious Summary in 1662, twenty-seven years after the Ordos Mongols had joined forces with the Manchus. Therefore, to better understand his presentation of these events—and the entire history of the Mongols—it is necessary to comprehend some of the factors shaping Mongol society at the time. The most important, as noted above, was the Chinggisid legacy, which defined political legitimacy in postMongol Eurasia from Anatolia to China and held that a ruler—especially one who took the title khan—had to be a direct descendant of Chinggis Khan. If they were not—as with the Oirats on the Mongolian steppe— they had to circumvent this genealogical problem through various strategies. One tactic was to put a weak Mongol princeling on the throne, who was simply a puppet of the Oirat leader. While this charade perpetuated the ideal of the Chinggisid principle—as is well captured in the Precious Summary—it also belied the political tensions among the Ming, the Mongols, and the Oirats that defined the first half of the fifteenth century. Those tensions came to a head when the Oirat leader Esen declared himself khan in 1453, which set in motion the scramble for Mongol political authority that was only resolved with the rise of Dayan Khan in the early sixteenth century.
Upon Dayan Khan’s death the Chinggisid legacy lived on among his direct descendants. In particular, the recognized ruler of the Mongols was his direct heir and ruled the Chakhar Tiimen, but all of his other descendants—the grandsons and great-grandsons— over time came to be the recognized nobility that governed distinctive territories known as otog. Across the Six Tiimen there were about fifty of these entities, which functioned as fiefs or appanages, each a defined territory and people assigned to the hereditary jurisdiction of a particular nobleman and his descendants. The otog and the nobility were the basic building blocks of Mongol society at this time; however, by the beginning of the seventeenth century “the number of descendants of Dayan Khan vastly exceeded the number of otogs.”!”
While the otog and the numerous descendants of Dayan Khan controlling them were a recent development, this expansion of Chinggisid rulers and its inherent devolution of power was premised on the second major factor of Mongol political life: the theory of ulus and téré. The term ulus means “community” and tord means “state,” and these two concepts defined Mongol communal conceptualizations and notions of political authority in the post-Yuan period. Within this system, the community, or ulus, was understood as a particular group of people with a recognized ruler inhabiting a natural unit of geography. The state was the governmental apparatus represented by a leader (khan, emperor, sultan) who ruled a community, or several of them, by means of a particular form of governance, or “customs of state” (toré yosun). Moreover, within this system, while states and their customs could change, so too could the imagined community of the ulus: it could expand to the larger category of the ¢tiuimen—and the Mongols as a whole—but also telescope down to the local otog depending on context.
The framework defining this conceptualization is well captured in the description of Chinggis Khan’s conquest of the Jurchen Jin dynasty found in the Precious Summary:
Thereupon nine generations ensued, and from the Wu Dog year [1058] it was one hundred and thirty-seven years to the Jia Tiger year [1194], when Chinggis Khan of the Mongols expelled and drove out the Manchu Altan Khan of China, seizing his state. And in the Jia Tiger year (1194), at the age of thirty-three, he brought under his power the fifteen provinces of China, the Red Nation of eighty Tiimen, and became famed as the Dai Ming, Blessed, Holy Chinggis Khan.
In this description, Chinggis Khan’s conquest of the Jurchen’s Jin state did not entail the destruction of China. The “Red Ulus” and its fifteen provinces survived, albeit under the Mongol state.'* Similarly, in describing the fall of the Yuan, Mongol histories of the seventeenth century present the Ming reconquest as the Chinese taking back the “Great State.”'4 Contrary to what we might imagine, the Ming conquest is presented as justified in Mongol histories, since the Mongol leaders had lost their ability to hold the state together, which is the sine qua non of any legitimate ruler. In fact, as Sagang Sechen makes clear regarding the Qing dynasty, it too was legitimate because the last Mongol ruler, Ligdan Khan (d. 1634), had also lost control of the various Mongol communities. This breakdown was only set right when the same Mongol groups and their leaders allied themselves with the Manchus, whose state could provide peace and stability.
What is important in all these cases, however, is that all of the new states—the Yuan, Ming, and Qing—did not destroy the various communities under their authority. Thus the Mongol “Great State” did not destroy “China’; it had only ruled the Chinese.’° Similarly, the Ming reconquest and the Mongol loss of the “Great State” did not entail the disappearance of the Mongols; nor did the Manchu Qing destroy the Mongols, since, according to Mongol political theory, a state could be conquered and its community or peoples subsumed under another state, but it was assumed that these variously incorporated communities—and especially their rulers—would maintain their authority and coherency.
In Mongol histories of the seventeenth century this concept of ulus and t6ré did not only refer to the Yuan, Ming, and Qing. It also referred to the Mongols themselves, especially in the wake of Dayan Khan’s restoration of Mongol power. Thus, in these works Dayan Khan is often presented as a second Chinggis Khan, since he was the leader who, after the chaos of the Mongol-Oirat wars, once again unified and reorganized the Mongols. At the same time, these works also make it clear that he did not unite the Mongols into a recognized holistic entity—“the Mongols’—as we like to think about it today. Rather, Dayan Khan brought the disparate and pre-existing Mongol communities into his new state and reorganized them into the Six Tiimen.
This conception undergirds all the seventeenth-century Mongol histories, including the Precious Summary.© By referring to the Mongol communities as the “Six Great Ulus” or the interchangable “Six Tiimen,” these histories argue that Dayan Khan succeeded in securing their acquiescence precisely because he was understood to be the one who could restore order among the divided groups. Moreover, he was a direct descendant of Chinggis Khan and thus fulfilled the mandate of the Mongol legacy. This was precisely why the nobility of the disparate Mongol communities recognized the legitimate right of Dayan Khan’s state to restore order and rule over them. The leaders of the Three Western Tiimen, for example, came to Dayan Khan and requested that he send one of his sons to rule over them as jinong, or viceroy. In doing so, they ceded some of their own authority to Dayan Khan and agreed to pay taxes to the new state. In return they were recognized as the local representatives of this new regime. At the same time, of course, it was readily understood that the new Dayan Khanid state would not dismantle these communities under its control.
Nevertheless, according to the theory of ulus and toré, if the state were to fall apart, these separate communities would again be able to go their own way. In particular, the descendants of Dayan Khan who ruled their own recognized appanages could begin to assert their independence. This was possible because each group was ruled by a descendant of Dayan Khan, who could thus claim legitimacy not only within the political model of udus-tord but also in relation to the Chinggisid legacy. As legitimate heirs of Chinggis Khan, they all could assert control of their inherited territory and its people.
The most successful of these independent-minded Mongol noblemen was Altan Khan. He was the second son of Dayan Khan’s third son, and thus on account of the Chinggisid principle of primogeniture he had no legitimate claim to the Mongol throne. He was simply the lord of his recognized appanage: the Timed in Ordos. But he was also an astute military and political leader and quickly became the most powerful ruler on the steppe. He even threatened the Ming dynasty. In 1550 Altan Khan launched an audacious attack on China, and by September he had burned down the suburbs of Beijing and forced the Ming court to capitulate to his demands, which included the normalization of relations and the opening of border markets.
These markets were a success, and Altan Khan turned his attention to further securing his position on the Mongolian plateau. In 1558 he marched through Ningxia and Gansu, then turned north into presentday Xinjiang. There he first established relations with the Muslim rulers of Turfan and Hami. Then he campaigned against the Oirats in the Ili Valley and western Mongolia, which eventually resulted in the two sides establishing marriage relations and the Oirat chiefs recognizing Altan as khan. The Ming court also recognized that Altan was then the most powerful ruler among the Mongols and not only gave him an illustrious title but also signed a peace accord with him in 1571.
Even so, Altan Khan could never claim to rule the Mongols. That privilege was reserved for Dayan Khan’s direct heirs, who ruled over the Chakhar Tiimen. Altan Khan could only claim to be the ruler of his hereditary appanage of the Tiimed, which was legitimate according to the theory of ulus and tord. But rather than abiding by this traditional model of Mongol rule that would have hobbled his larger vision, Altan Khan turned to another form of political legitimacy: Buddhism.
In particular, he drew upon the history of Khubilai Khan, who by being initiated into tantric Buddhist practice by the Tibetan Pakpa Lama had made Buddhism an important element of Mongol political ideology. This theory of rule drew upon the Buddhist political theory of “Two Realms,” the religious and the political, represented by a ruler and a Buddhist leader who in a symbiotic relationship oversee the proper functioning of a Buddhist state.’” It was this model of religiopolitical rule that Altan Khan invoked when he met with the Third Dalai Lama in 1578. Altan Khan therefore not only amplified his legitimacy among the reigning Dayan Khanid nobility but also revived the very idea of Buddhist rule in Mongolia. Thus, Buddhism became another facet of Mongol political theory above and beyond the Chinggisid legacy and the ulus-tord model. By having a Tibetan Buddhist lama recognize his political authority, Altan Khan overcame his inferior position within the post-Dayan Khanid political order. He not only put an end to the Chinggisid principle of one Mongol ruler enshrined by his grandfather Dayan Khan but also made it possible for any other descendant of Dayan Khan to do the same. By allying themselves with a Tibetan lama, they too could be recognized as the rightful ruler of their recognized territory and its people.
This development set in motion a civil war among the Mongols, and since these competing descendants of Dayan Khan allied themselves with different Tibetan Buddhist orders, they were drawn into competing sides in Tibet’s civil war. Chogtu Taiji of the Khalkha, for example, allied himself with the Karmapa and his Kagyii lineage and launched an invasion of Tibet against the Dalai Lama and his Timed allies. Amid these competing religious and political alliances—compounded by the worsening financial conditions due to trade with the Ming collapsing—the situation among the Mongols quickly spun out of control.'® In written records from the period Mongol leaders boast about killing hundreds of soldiers from other Mongol groups, and of “chopping to pieces the women and children and burning their homes and livestock.”!”
It was in this context of political fragmentation and social mayhem that the Manchus appeared, offering a solution that fit into the existing Mongol political theory. They were blessed by Heaven as Chinggis Khan had been, as evidenced by their repeated victories in battle, and ruled in accord with the theory of ulus and toré. Their powerful new state could bring peace to the fractious Mongols. The Manchus had also embraced Buddhism. Nurhaci (1559-1626), the founder of the Manchu state, had already received tantric initiation and appointed Olug Darkhan Nangso as the Buddhist lama of the Manchu realm in 1621. Nurhaci had seven large monasteries built near his residence of Hetu Ala in the 1620s.”° His successor, Hong Taiji (1592-1643), had the famous Mahakala Temple constructed in 1635; it was a paragon of the Manchu appropriation of Buddhism and the Mongol legacy. The temple was to house a copy of the Buddhist canon in Mongolian and even the remains of Ligdan Khan and his teacher, Sharba Khutugtu. Most important, it would hold the famous Mahakala statue that Khubilai Khan had given to Pakpa Lama during the Yuan dynasty, which Ligdan Khan’s family presented as tribute when they submitted to the Manchus. This statue, with its historical linkages and ritual significations, was profoundly important for the Manchu claim to be the rightful heirs of Mongol Buddhist rule; therefore, in 1643 Hong Taiji initiated an extension of this important temple complex. In 1645 the project was complete, with four temples and adjoining stupas having been built to encircle the Mahakala Temple, the imperial palace, and the Manchu capital of Mukden within a mandala.” In other words, the Mongols understood the Manchus to be Heaven-blessed Buddhist rulers who could restore peace and order through their new Qing state.
SAGANG SECHEN AND HIS WORLD
Sagang Sechen was born in 1604 into an important aristocratic family in Ordos in what is now the southwest part of Inner Mongolia.”” He was the great-grandson of Khutugtai Sechen Khung Taiji (1540-1586), who had played an important role at the court of Altan Khan and in the Buddhist conversion of the Mongols. Moreover, both his grandfather and his father had continued this family tradition and distinguished themselves in military and bureaucratic service with the subsequent rulers of Ordos. As the Precious Summary makes clear, Sagang Sechen was seen in the same light, so much so that when he was only eleven years old he was given the title of his great-grandfather: Sechen Khung Taiji (wise crown prince). Then at the age of seventeen he became a minister at the court of Boshogtu Sechen Jinong (1565-1624), the ruler of the Ordos Mongols. Upon his passing, Sagang Sechen promoted Boshogtu Sechen Jinong’s second son, Rinchen, to take his father’s throne. The relationship between these two was further solidified when Sagang Sechen helped Rinchen Jinong resist the last Mongol ruler, Ligdan Khan, who had invaded Ordos in a last-ditch effort to rally the Mongols against the Manchus.
Yet, as noted above, Ligdan’s actions only alienated the various Mongol leaders, and they instead allied themselves with the Manchus. Some of these alliances were forged already in the first decade of the seventeenth century; others came later. Rinchen Jinong, for example, and forty-eight other Mongol leaders allied with the Manchus in 1635. For his role in facilitating this Sagang Sechen was granted the title Erke Sechen Khung Taiji (beloved wise crown prince), and given the right to be the vanguard in the army and the leader of large battue hunts. After his involvement with these political developments, little is known about Sagang Sechen’s life. At some point he moved from his ancestral lands in southern Uiishin Banner to an area in its northern reaches—where he is buried—and he wrote the Precious Summary over several months in the first half of 1662.
In taking up pen and paper to write the history of the Mongols at this time, Sagang Sechen was not alone. His work was part and parcel of a literary flowering that occurred among the Mongols in the wake of the Manchu conquest. Although all of these works were similar in terms of narrative structure and thematic issues, Sagang Sechen’s volume came to be recognized as the masterpiece. Manuscript copies spread far and wide among the Mongols.”* Its importance was eventually recognized by scholars in Beijing, whereby the Qianlong emperor had a blockprint version prepared in 1777. This imperially commissioned version became in turn the basis for Chinese and Manchu translations, which only further increased the circulation and impact of the Precious Summary.”° This dynamic increased exponentially when the Precious Summary became the first Mongolian work translated into a European language in 1829.6
But before Sagang Sechen’s work became famous in eighteenthcentury Beijing—and then later in nineteenth-century Europe—it was obviously written in a very different time and place: 1662 Ordos. Indeed, we need to begin within that context in order to understand Sagang Sechen’s history and what it entails. The Precious Summary is many things: a Buddhist cosmological history of the universe and proper rule, a history of Chinggis Khan, a history of the post-Yuan Mongols, a history of China, and also a history of the Mongols’ Buddhist conversion. It is also a work trying to make sense of the new Manchu state. The Precious Summary therefore builds its narrative around the three political principles outlined above: the Chinggisid legacy, the ulus-t6rd model, and Buddhism. In particular, it fuses them by asserting that proper rule is reserved for righteous Buddhist rulers (“Holy Ones”), who are blessed by Heaven as was Chinggis Khan. In this vision of religiopolitical order, only such rulers can provide both peace and salvation.””
Thus although we do not know much about Sagang Sechen’s life, based on his presentation of East Asian history, we can readily surmise that he was a Buddhist. In fact, he was an educated Buddhist who knew Tibetan and could thus engage with issues of historiographical debate (such as the dates of the Buddha’s life) and directly cite passages from canonical Buddhist texts to bolster his argument.’ Moreover, as an educated Mongol of the seventeenth century, Sagang Sechen was familiar with the Chinese historical tradition as well.”
Yet, for writing the Precious Summary, Sagang Sechen’s most important historical sources were the corpus of Mongolian works that had developed during the tumultuous postimperial period. Although the famous thirteenth-century Secret History of the Mongols had been preserved among the Mongols, Sagang Sechen only used a very small portion of it in his presentation of Chinggis Khan’s life and rise to power.*® He drew instead upon the new legends and stories about Chinggis Khan that had developed during the upheavals of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as well as histories about the Mongol-Oirat wars, both of which were intertwined with the subsequent revival of Mongol power and the conversion of the Mongols to Buddhism.*! By stitching these disparate sources together Sagang Sechen was able to present a coherent narrative of Mongol history from the creation of the universe up to the reign of the Kangxi emperor (1654-1722).
SCHOLARSHIP AND TRANSLATION
This comprehensiveness—as well as Sagang Sechen’s literary prowess— made the Precious Summary become recognized as a masterpiece.*” Prior to the scholarly rediscovery of the Secret History of the Mongols in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Precious Summary was recognized as the premier history of the Mongols. It was a key source for Qing dynasty historians—be they Mongol, Tibetan, or Chinese—and on account of the high esteem in which they held it, for Western scholars as well. As Europeans began investigating Buddhism, the history of Asia, and the Mongols’ role in shaping it, they came to recognize the Precious Summary as an invaluable source. Sagang Sechen’s presentation of Asian, Buddhist, Tibetan, Mongol, and Chinese history would shape scholarship in the West for more than a century.*’ Indeed, the importance of the Precious Summary as a source for both understanding early modern East Asian history and the modern discipline of Asian studies cannot be underestimated.
It is for these reasons that I have prepared the following translation of the famous Urga manuscript preserved in Ulaanbaatar: to make an Asian classic available to as many readers as possible.** Of course, making a seventeenth-century Mongolian history both readable and comprehensible to twenty-first-century readers is no easy task. It involves not only the basic task of translating but also trying to explain the complicated historical context that shapes the narrative. In terms of the former, while being loyal to the text, I have also tried to provide as smooth and literary a translation as possible. Similarly, since much of the history explored in the Precious Summary may be obscure to many, I have provided extensive notes to make the work comprehensible even for the uninitiated.*° Finally, along these same lines I have divided the work into chapters and provided each with an introductory summation.*° The hope is that this readable and informative translation will inspire further thought and scholarship, just as Sagang Sechen’s original Precious Summary has done for the past three hundred and sixty years.
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