Secret History of the Mongols

The oldest surviving work in any Mongolic language is The Secret History of the Mongols. It was composed for the Mongol royal family after Genghis Khan’s death in 1227, covering his life, his conquests, and part of the rule of his successor, Ögedei Khan. The author is unknown, and the text was written in Middle Mongol using the Mongolian script. Its exact date is unclear, but the colophon states it was finished in the Year of the Mouse at Khodoe Aral on the banks of the Kherlen River, with the earliest possible year being 1228.

Content

The work opens with a semi-mythical genealogy of Genghis Khan, born Temüjin. Legend says a blue-grey wolf and a fallow doe produced the first Mongol, Batachiqan. Eleven generations later, a widow named Alan Gua, abandoned by her in-laws with her two sons Bügünütei and Belgünütei, bore three more sons after a supernatural glowing man entered through the smoke-hole of her ger. The youngest of these three divinely conceived children was Bodonchar, founder of the Borjigin clan.

Temüjin’s story begins with his father Yesügei kidnapping his mother, Hoelun. It then follows Temüjin’s early life after his birth around 1160, the hardships after his father’s murder, and the many conflicts, wars, and plots he faced before gaining the title Genghis Khan in 1206. Later parts describe the conquests of Genghis and his third son Ögedei across Eurasia, ending with Ögedei’s reflections on his successes and failures.

Value

Scholars of Mongolian history value the text for its rich information on ethnography, language, literature, and Mongol culture. Linguistically, it is unique among Mongol texts for being free of Buddhist influence that appears in later works. It is praised for its vivid, realistic depictions of daily tribal life and organization in the 12th and 13th centuries, complementing Persian and Chinese sources. Its historical accuracy is debated: some experts like René Grousset view it positively, while others like Igor de Rachewiltz see its main value in its faithful portrayal of tribal life, and Arthur Waley considered its historical worth “almost nil.” In 2004, the Mongolian government ordered a gold-plated copy placed in the rear of the Government Palace in Ulaanbaatar.

Scholarship

The colophon gives the original completion date at Khodoe Aral, but the original text has not survived. The Year of the Rat in question has been guessed as 1228, 1229, 1240, 1252, or 1264. Those favoring earlier dates argue that later events were added afterward, though some, including Atwood, contend the text was always meant to cover Ögedei’s reign.

The month of the Roebuck corresponds to the seventh lunar month, midsummer. Some scholars have suggested the original, shorter work was titled The Origin of Chinggis Khan (Chinggis Qan-u ujaɣur), matching the opening words. The common name today, The Secret History of the Mongols, comes from a late-14th-century compilation with the Chinese title Secret History of the Yuan and the Mongolian title Mongɣol-un niɣuča tobčiyan, re-transcribed from Chinese.

This title became Secret History of the Yuan Dynasty when included in the Yongle Encyclopedia. Modern definitive versions are based on Ming-era copies, but partial copies have been found in Mongolia and Tibet (Tholing Monastery). The most notable is the Altan Tobchi, an expanded Buddhist-influenced narrative written in 1651 and discovered in 1926, which contains two-thirds of the Secret History verbatim.