Mongolian literature

Mongolian literature, the written works produced in any of the Mongolian languages of present-day Mongolia; the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China; the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China; and the Russian republics of Buryatiya and Kalmykiya.

Origins through the 19th century

Written Mongolian literature emerged in the 13th century from oral traditions, and it developed under Indo-Tibetan, Turkic, and Chinese influence. The most significant work of pre-Buddhist Mongolian literature is the anonymous Mongqolun niuča tobča’an (Secret History of the Mongols), a chronicle of the deeds of the Mongol ruler Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan) and of Ögödei, his son and successor. Written in prose, it features alliterative verse, myths, legends, epic fragments, songs, eulogies, dialogues, army regulations, and proverbs. Internal evidence indicates that it was composed no earlier than 1228, the year before Ögödei’s enthronement; it may have been completed in 1252, the year after the election of Möngke, grandson of Chinggis Khan, as khagan (“great khan”). Its original Mongol script version was transcribed in Chinese characters in the late 13th century, but large portions were copied in Lubsangdandzin’s 17th-century Altan tobchi (“Golden Summary”). Likewise, the Mongol original of the history of Chinggis Khan’s campaigns was lost, but its Chinese translation survived. His sayings, which were preserved in Rashīd al-Dīn’s 14th-century universal history and, by oral transmission, in Mongol chronicles of the 17th century, also gave rise to a strong stream of moralistic literature, which soon became enriched with Indo-Tibetan elements. An example of this literature is a Mongol version, translated from Tibetan by Sonom Gara perhaps in the late 13th century, of Sa-skya Pandita’s Legs-bshad (“Aphorisms”).

Buddhist works translated mostly from Tibetan and certainly with the aid of extant Turkic versions brought new forms and subjects to Mongolian literature. The monk Chosgi Odsir added a commentary to his prose translation of a long Buddhist poem, which was printed with his benediction (in alliterative quatrains) in 1312. To his disciple Shirab Sengge belong a life of Buddha and the Altan gerel (“Golden Beam”), a sermon of Buddha. Turks transmitted to the Mongols a version of the Alexander romance, a legendary account of the life of the Macedonian king Alexander the Great. Other medieval Mongol writing includes letters sent to popes and European monarchs, imperial and Buddhist inscriptions (including one on a gate of the Great Wall of China), and fragments of the secular poetry of the Golden Horde. An inscription (1340) by a Mongol prince of Yunnan province in China is both an intimate confession about himself and a document about his donation to a Buddhist shrine. The Chinese Confucian canonical work Xiaojing (“Classic of Filial Piety”), which includes quotations from the Shijing (“Classic of Poetry”), was also translated into and printed in Mongol.

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In the 16th and 17th centuries a struggle for unity among the Mongols and efforts to renew their Buddhism revived literature. Chronicles such as Erdeni-yin tobchi (1662; “Jeweled Summary”) by Saghang Sechen, a prince, and Lubsangdandzin’s Altan tobchi united Buddhist and Chinggisid traditions. To the cult of Chinggis Khan, which kept alive his sayings as well as legends about him, also belongs Ere koyar jagal (“The Two Dappled Steeds”), an anonymous allegory about freedom and loyalty that is thought to date from the 17th century. Over the course of some 400 alliterative quatrains, Erdeni tunumal sudur (c. 1607; “Jewel Translucent Sutra”), an anonymous biography of Altan Khan, relates the story of his wars with the Ming dynasty and his alliance with the Dalai Lama. A rock inscription (1624) preserved a uniquely personal poem by the Chinggisid prince Tsogtu about his aunt, whom, the poem recounts, he misses because he is separated from her. The poem contrasts their spatial separation and their differences with their unity in compassion and suffering.

The Mongols also embraced and adapted the Tibetan epic of Gesar Khan, probably in the late 16th century. One of the orally transmitted Mongol versions of the story of Gesar Khan’s victories over various monsters (mangguses) and other enemies was the first form of the epic to be printed in Mongol, in 1716. It became a source of inspiration for several heroic epics, including the Abai Geser Khübüün of the Buryat people. (This epic, of some 20,000 verses, and other heroic Buryat songs were first recorded in the early 20th century by the scholar Tsyben Zhamtsarano.) Jangar, the national epic of the Kalmyk people, is a loose chain of heroic songs that reflect the belligerent past of the western Mongols. It dates from perhaps the 16th century; a version of it was recorded and published for the first time in 1910.

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The monk Zaya Pandita Namkhaijamts (Oktorguin Dalai), an Oirat man of letters, created a new literary language rendered in a new alphabet, known today as Clear Script, which dates to 1648. The alphabet narrowed the gap between writing and speech. A long afterword in verse to his translation (1644) of the Tibetan apocryphal work Maṇi bka’-’bum shows his poetic verve. His disciple Ratnabhadra wrote a biography of him that is also an invaluable source of western Mongol history.

The full translation of the Tibetan Buddhist canon was completed in the 17th century and printed by order of the Qing (Manchu) dynasty in more than 330 volumes in the early 18th century. These and other translations refined the literary language and conveyed many elements of Indian lore. Such 18th-century writers as Mergen Gegen Lubsangdambijalsan and Chahar Gebshi Lubsangtsültim combined Tibetan and Mongolian mores in verse and prose. Rashipungsug’s Bolor erike (1774; “Crystal Garland”) and several other histories were produced under the Qing dynasty, which had begun to take control of Mongolia in the 17th century.

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The Buddhist priest and poet Rabjai (Dandzinrabjai) wrote religious and worldly songs and moralistic poems. He skillfully used folk songs as well as literary forms derived from the Mongol written tradition. He also composed a musical drama, Saran Kököge (“Moon Cuckoo”), based on the Tibetan story of a prince confined to live as a bird preaching the Buddha’s truths. A 19th-century Tumet nobleman, Wangchingbala, started Köke sudur (“The Blue Chronicle”), a historical novel that depicts the rise and fall of the Yuan (or Mongol) dynasty during the 13th and 14th centuries. Injannashi, his son, finished his father’s novel and wrote two others, all in the style of contemporary Chinese popular novels. To Köke sudur he added Tobchitu tolta (“Brief Summary”), a long essay that outlines his views on history. He also wrote numerous poems. Gularansa and Gungnechuke, his siblings, were also poets. Ishidandzinwangjil’s Altan surgal (“Golden Teaching”), an extensive guide to ethics composed in alliterative stanzas, is a late example of this poetic genre. At the turn of the 20th century, the Ordos scribe Keshigbatu composed songs and poems that deal with love and politics. He also wrote a concise history of the Mongols and a versified reader for children.