The Spring and Autumn of History
Edited by the Spring and Autumn of History
Preface
When we modern people look at Genghis Khan, we generally look at the past, count the romantic figures, and look at the present.
However, in the hearts of 3 million Mongols, Genghis Khan is a god-like existence, from the herdsmen on the steppe to the white-collar workers in the cities, whether in Inner Mongolia or overseas, the Mongols have extremely high respect for their great ancestor Genghis Khan.
So, what's going on here?
Worship Genghis Khan
Mongolian ancestor worship is rooted in shamanic beliefs. Mongolian shamanism is an inherent Mongolian religion that is directly related to the ancient Mongolian ideology, economic life, political struggles, culture and art, customs and habits.
From the point of view of folklore, Dmitriv Ze-lenin linked the development of shamanism with the change of social structure, and he proposed that shamanism is a form of religious consciousness, which was found in ancient Siberia and North Asia, which were at different stages of the disintegration of the primitive social system and the transition to a stage society.
Shamanism is a form of inheritance of the thinking of the ancestors, a reflection of the living conditions of the ancestors, and we should not simply locate it as "witchcraft" and ignore its rich connotation and broad extension.
The hunting nomads of northern China generally believed in shamanism, revered heaven and earth, and used shamans and witches as the intermediary between heaven and man.
The Mongolian people call the heavens the eternal heavens, and they can be seen in Mongolian documents and the holy decree tablets of the emperors of the Mongolian and Yuan dynasties. The Han literature of the Song Dynasty is basically consistent with this if the descriptions in the "Mengtar Records" and "Black Tartar Chronicles" are basically consistent.
Occupy a basket again, since ancient times, there are many possessions, Mongolia is accustomed to using sheep's foot bones, and the Han literature is called burning pipa. Witchcraft in battle, praying for rain, and praying for snow are often seen in Han literature since the Song Dynasty, that is, the rituals of the respondents, and the "Secret History of Mongolia" is translated as "things that can cause wind and rain." ”
Taizu and Naiman war, Ruizong and Jin Bing all used this witchcraft. (The records of the emperors and sacrificial records of the Yuan Dynasty can be described as numerous, such as rewarding witches, establishing shrines of witches, and worshipping the gods of witches, etc.)
As for the sorcerer's séance, Wu Lai gave a vivid depiction in "The Song of the Northern Sorcerer". Shamanism is a polytheistic religion that believes that all things have spirits and that the soul is immortal, worships the heavens, earth, sun, moon, water, fire, and various natural phenomena, and ramps idolatry and various natural taboos.
Tengri is the supreme deity of Mongolian shamanism. The Mongolian shamanic concept holds that Tengri determines everything in the universe.
The ancient Mongols, from the superstitious point of view of shamanism, worshipped Tengri as "Monghetengn (the eternal god of monghetengn)".
The ancient Mongolians who believed in shamanism believed that all the fates or luck of people, such as life and death, joys and sorrows, rise and fall, success or failure, were determined by Mongolia and Tengri. Mongolian shamanism holds that human beings have a soul and that the soul never dies.
On the basis of this concept, the habit of praying to the long-deceased ancestor "guardian spirit" for everything is formed. The Mongols burn tlexi (the custom of offering tribute to the graves of their ancestors) originated from this concept in shamanism.
For male and female shamans such as Bo and Wudugan, their belief in seeking protection and favor from their ancestors is mainly manifested in the following two aspects: First, the Mongolian Bo and Wudugan sacrifices and worships the spirits of Genghis Khan and the Li Erjin Golden Family as their own gods. After Genghis Khan's ascension, Mongolian shamans began to worship him as their greatest guardian spirit.
As a result, many of Bo's divine songs and poems began to praise Genghis Khan.
Shamanic worship
Shamanism worships not only Genghis Khan, but also his younger brothers and his heroes.
The figurative representation of the gods worshiped in shamanism from a utopian perspective is called Ongud. In other words, Ongud is a figurative deity of shamanism.
So, how did Ongud come about? We must give a scientific answer to this question. In ancient times, in the Horqin region, there was such an unscientific legend about the origin of Weng Gude: during the expedition of Li Shimin, Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, to conquer the Eastern Liao Kingdom, General Wang Jinhe, who was in charge of military rations, and his 10,000 soldiers fell into the East China Sea and drowned.
It is said that after Li Shimin defeated the Eastern Liao Kingdom, the 10,000 soldiers drowned in the East China Sea were named Weng Gude. There is also such a legend in the Horqin region. There are also shamanic songs and poems based on this legend. However, we must understand that this legend has nothing to do with the creation of Ongud.
The emergence of Ongud is related to totemic beliefs. In ancient times, people hunted for a living, and when they saw wild beasts and birds that were surprised, admired, frightened, or frightened, they worshipped them in the shape of wood or stone.
The artificially made shapes of the beasts and birds that were made for worship in this way should be the earliest Unggud patron saints.
After further development, on the basis of the idea that people have souls and dead souls are immortal, people began to make images of their deceased ancestors out of wood, stone or felt cloth for worship.
Every Bo and Wu Dugan has a special Weng Gude to worship at home. The image of Ongud was first made of wood, stone or felt cloth, and later in bronze or even silver.
Therefore, in the sacred song of Bo (shaman) in the Horqin region, there is a poem: "To others it seems to be bronze, to us who possess the body are gods: everyone seems to be Wengude, and to us who worship are gods".
With the development of society, the connotation of shamanism has become richer and richer, and the understanding or interpretation of Ongud has also begun to diversify. Therefore, the number of names and numbers of Wenggude is also increasing.
Shamans often divinate good fortune and evil for people, and people also divinate themselves and often ask for explanations from shamans. Genghis Khan often burned sheep stele bones for divination before setting out on expeditions.
Genghis Khan lived in a Mongolian society where people generally believed in shamanism and were dominated by primitive religious concepts. Therefore, he must say that "relying on the strength of immortal heaven", "relying on the protection of immortal heaven", "relying on heaven and earth protection", and so on, and "the theory of heavenly power" has become his fundamental belief and philosophical thought.
Genghis Khan revered shamanism and used shamans to serve him in consolidating and elevating the status of the Great Khan, and to satisfy the shamans' demands as much as possible. Shamanism considers Genghis Khan to be a man who "originated from the wise and noble Tengri" and was "born according to the will of Tengri". After Genghis Khan's death, his descendants paid homage to him based on shamanic spirituality and rituals, a custom that continues to this day.
Genghis Khan worship is a typical ancestor worship phenomenon of the Mongolian people. In a narrow sense, the worship of Genghis Khan mainly refers to the various worship concepts and sacrificial behaviors of Genghis Khan himself, and in a broad sense, it includes various worship concepts and sacrificial behaviors of Genghis Khan's wife, younger brother and direct descendants.
Genghis Khan's real name was Temujin, and in the spring of 1204, Temujin ordered his entire army to go on an expedition. As a result, the Sun Khan of the Nabarian tribe was wounded and died, and the Nabarian tribe was completely subjugated.
There was no longer a formidable opponent for Temujin on the Mongolian plateau, and his unification was successful. In the spring of 1206, Temujin held a great gathering in the "Fundamental Land" at the source of the river, and planted the banner of the Bai tribe and called it "Genghis Khan". A new nomadic regime was born, and a unified Mongolian ethnic community was gradually formed.
Genghis Khan used the thousand households as the basic military administrative unit, and most of the thousand households were composed of people from different tribes that were disrupted, thus further breaking the old clan system, making the boundaries of many tribes disappear from then on, and promoting the formation and development of the Mongolian national community.
Genghis Khan believed in shamanism since he was a child, and he often said that "relying on the power of immortality", "being blessed by immortality", "receiving the blessing of heaven", "immortality, you know", and attributed the fate, future, and success of his career, victory in war, and personal destiny and the development and prosperity of his tribe, nation, and country to the power of heaven and the protection of immortality.
Genghis Khan had great ambitions since he was a teenager, and he was a great statesman with great ambitions, great talents, and outstanding talents in many aspects.
He was able to conform to the wishes of the broad masses of the people and the trend of historical development, and "unify the numerous tribes scattered on the Mongolian Plateau and fighting with each other into a powerful Mongolian state and unite into a great Mongolian nation." On July 12, 1227, Genghis Khan died at the age of sixty-six.
epilogue
The great achievements created by Genghis Khan during his lifetime laid a solid foundation for the formation of Genghis Khan's worship later.
After the death of Genghis Khan, after hundreds of years of worship by his descendants and the national worship of the Mongolian people, he has become a recognized heroic ancestor and a veritable ancestral god of the Mongolian nation, and thus has naturally become the core force of the national identity of Mongolians around the world and the main link of unity and cohesion within the nation.
Genghis Khan Worship is a Mongolian ancestor worship custom formed since the death of Genghis Khan, and this belief and custom has continued for eight centuries. "In the Mongolian shamanic concept system, ancestor soul worship occupies an important place. The earliest people used wood, fur, felt, etc. to make simulated portraits of their ancestors, which were called "Weng Blasphemy" for worship.
During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, it was mentioned for the first time that there was a mausoleum of Genghis Khan in the territory of the Yikezhao League.
Since then, the outside world has called Genghis Khan's Eighth White House "Genghis Khan's Mausoleum".
In the late 19th century, starting in the first year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1875), some people from Western countries visited Yijin Horo and introduced the "Genghis Khan Cemetery" to the world.
Since then, at home and abroad, the eight white palaces of Genghis Khan are generally called "Genghis Khan's Mausoleum".