A comprehensive study of the origin of the Mongolian ethnic group and the imperial tombs of the Yuan Dynasty

The first and second volumes of "A Comprehensive Study of Mongolian Ethnic Origins and Yuan Dynasty Imperial Tombs" take Mongolian ethnic origin research as the theme, and compile some papers, book chapters and translations published in Chinese since the beginning of the 20th century. It mainly includes the following three aspects: first, the study of the origin of the Mongolian nationality and the formation process of the Mongolian ethnic community from the aspects of history and language, the second is the study of the legends and stories of the Mongolian origin, and the third is the study of the original Mongolian Murve-Datan.

Regarding the origin of the Mongolian ethnic group, there are mainly Eastern Hu theory, Turkic theory, Xiongnu theory, Tubo theory, Ding Ling theory and other theories. Tubo said that the more complete and first proposed was the "Outline of the Golden History of Mongolia", which was written at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the "Mongolian Origins" of the Qing Dynasty was further developed. This theory has a strong religious color, and the use of Buddhist scriptures and Tibetan mythology to attach to the origin of the Mongolian ethnic group is untrue and difficult to believe. Ding Ling's theory was put forward by the present-day Suri Badalaha, and his representative work is "A New Examination of the Origin of the Mongolian Nationality", but due to the lack of strong evidence, there are not many people who abide by it. The first three theories, which have been circulating for a long time and have a wide influence, all began in the Southern Song Dynasty, with Donghu as the earliest.

The Donghu theory originated from the connection between the Mongolian origin and the Mengwu Murwei, a descendant of the Donghu people. The earliest proposed person was Hong Hao's "Song Desert Chronicles" in the early Southern Song Dynasty, saying: "Blind bones, "Khitan Deeds" is called the Hazy Bone Country, that is, the so-called Mengwu Department in the "Book of Tang". Wei Yuan of the Qing Dynasty believed in the "New Edition of the Yuan History" that "the ancestors of the Mongols were really from Tatars", which is consistent with this. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Tu Ji's "Records of the History of the Mughal Mountains" was based on the Mughal Murwei and the Mughal Wei Mengwa, believing that "the Mughal people, the other species of the Mughal Wei, came from Donghu first". Shen Zengzhi's "Mongolian Origin Evidence" believes that Mongolian and Xianbei are almost the same from the linguistic research. Wang Guowei's "Mongolian Examination" examines the ethnic origin relationship between Mongolia and the Mongolian vultures. Ma Changshou's book "Beidi and the Xiongnu" classifies Wuhuan, Xianbei and Khitan as Mongolian language families and belongs to the descendants of the Donghu language family.

Yi Linzhen's article "The Ethnic Origins of the Mongolian Ethnic Groups in Northern China" systematically combed and analyzed the data of linguistics, anthropology, ethnology, archaeology, etc., refuted the view that the Xiongnu and the Mongols were homologous, and further proved that the core tribe that formed the Mongolian nation was the Murwei-Da Tan people, the descendants of Donghu. Lin Gan's article "A Preliminary Study of the Early History of Donghu" believes that the Mengwu Murwei belonged to the Khitan system, and the language was similar to the Khitan, and the customs and habits of clothing, braided hair and the use of "horn bows" were the same as those of Xianbei, and Xianbei and Murwei had the same area of activity, so it can be seen that Xianbei, Khitan, Murwei and Mongolia all belonged to the Donghu ethnic group. Abroad, the Japanese scholar Shiratori Kuyoshi abandoned the original Xiongnu theory and changed it to the Donghu theory.

In her book The Mongols, the Soviet scholar Viktorova argues that the new stage in the history of the ancient Mongolian nation is inseparable from the Donghu people, who can be regarded as the direct national ancestors of the late Mongols. In his article "On the Origin of the Mongolian Nation", the Mongolian scholar Sukhbaatar also concluded that the Mongolian origin is related to Donghu and Xianbei, and believes that Tuoba Xianbei should be the ancestor of the Mongols. French scholar Han Baishi and American scholar Thomas Elson also agree with Donghu's theory.

The main Turkic speakers, such as Zhao Heng's "Mongolian Tartar Records" in the Southern Song Dynasty, Hong Jun's "Yuan History Translation and Supplement" in the Qing Dynasty, Ke Shaoxian's "New Yuan History" in the Republic of China, and Bos Rasht's "Historical Collection" are all his representatives. The Collected Records details the origins and branches of the Mongol tribes before the 14th century, and classifies them as Turkic. In 1889, the Russian Yadlintsev led an expedition to discover the ancient Turkic inscriptions "Que Teqin Tablet" and "Viga Khan Tablet" in the Orkhon River Valley of Mongolia, and since then, the Turkic inscription data has become an important basis for some scholars to hold the Turkic theory. Foreign scholars Dossan and Howorth, and Chinese scholars Cen Zhongmian and Feng Jiasheng also advocate Turkic theory.

The Xiongnu theory began slightly later than the Turkic theory. In the Southern Song Dynasty Peng Daya's "Black Tartar Affair", it was recorded that "the country of the Black Tartar is called Great Mongolia", and his contemporary, Xu Ting, testified that "that is, the northern single is in the country", and the single country is the Xiongnu. Yachenf Bacchulin, the founder of Mongolian and Oriental studies in Russia, believed in his translation and publication of the "Collection of Historical Materials of Ancient Central Asian Ethnic Groups" that "Xiongnu was the ancient ethnic name of the Mongols". Shiratori Kuji once held the Xiongnu theory. Chinese scholars such as Fang Zhuangyou, Huang Wenbi, Tong Zhuchen, and Xie Zaishan also hold this view. The Xiongnu theory has a great influence on Mongolian academic circles, and Tse Dorji Surong and Na Resi Zamusu all hold this theory.

The Turkic theory and the Xiongnu theory were once popular in the international Mongolian academic circles and became the mainstream views in the study of the origin of the Mongolian people at that time. However, with the translation and introduction of Chinese historical materials reflecting the early history of Mongolia and the further enrichment of archaeological materials, after years of discussion, Donghu theory has become more and more popular. In addition, the mixed theory of Mongolian ethnic origin has increasingly become a new trend in academic research, and the basis of the mixed theory is gradually accepted to be dominated by the Eastern Hu theory. One of the first to put forward this idea was Qinggen, who, in his essay "Examination of the Mongolian Race", argued that Mongolia was a mixture of three races: the Murwei, Turkic, and Tibetan people. Zhang Zhenzhi's "Where Did the Mongolian Race Come From" believes that there were no Mongols before the Tang Dynasty, and after the Tang Dynasty, various ethnic groups outside the Sesame country interacted with each other and assimilated with each other, giving rise to the Mongol nation.

Shao Xunzheng's article "The Name and Origin of Mongolia" also argues that Mongolia is a mixed tribe of Murwei and Turkic. Sun Jinji believes that the Mongolian nation was formed by the gradual mixing and fusion of the elements of many ethnic groups that lived here on the Mongolian plateau, and that the Mongolian royal family or the so-called pure Mongolian tribes originated from the Mongol Murwei tribes, while other ordinary Mongolian tribes originated from other Murwei tribes, and later the Mongols merged into many non-Murwei tribes. Yi Hua's article "The Origin of the Mongols: An Anthropological Perspective" argues that the original Mongols, who formed the basis of the Mongol race, can be traced back to Xianbei and Donghu through the Murwei and Tatars, and generally belong to the race, while the other part of the Mongols can be traced back from the Turks to the Xiongnu and Scythians, and generally originated from the Indo-Europeans.

The major project commissioned by the National Social Science Foundation of China, "Comprehensive Research on the Origin of the Mongolian Nationality and the Imperial Tombs of the Yuan Dynasty", traces and investigates the archaeological evidence of the origin of the Mongolian people from the evolution of Xianbei-Murowei-Mongolia, which is the response and verification of the Donghu theory. From this point of view, the first volume of "A Comprehensive Study on the Origin of the Mongolian Nationality and the Imperial Tombs of the Yuan Dynasty" mainly includes the treatises of Wang Guowei, Yilinzhen, Lin Gan, Zheng Yingde, Chen Dezhi, Meng Guangyao, etc., as well as the papers of Zhang Zhenzhi, Shao Xunzheng, Sun Jinji, Yi Hua, etc., as well as some papers on the origin of the Mongolian nationality from the perspectives of linguistics, geography, and socio-historical development.

There are also some legends and stories about the origin of the Mongolian people, all of which are closely related to totem worship. Some scholars believe that the ancestors of the Mongolian nationality did not have the word "totem worship" at all, and the so-called "wolf and deer totem" is only the speculation of later generations based on some myths and legends, and is people's subjective fabrication. Some scholars believe that the Mongolian ancestors evolved from the ancient clan group, inherited the totem worship of the ancestors of the clan, such as wolves, deer, eagles, bears, swans, and trees, and are still circulated among some Mongolian tribes. The papers on this topic included in the first volume of "A Comprehensive Study on the Origin of the Mongolian Nationality and the Imperial Tombs of the Yuan Dynasty" are mainly divided into two categories: one is to explore the historical and cultural relations between Mongolia and the Turkic peoples through the worship of wolf totem, bird totem, tree totem, etc., especially the wolf totem, and point out that the common core of the totem origin legend of these two peoples lies in the shamanic concept of heavenly worship. The other is to explore the cultural similarities between the Mongols and the Manchu-Tungusic language groups through bear worship and swan fairy mythology, and the common denominator is that both emphasize the relationship between ancestors and gods, and flaunt the sacredness of the clan's origins.

The second volume of "A Comprehensive Study on the Origin of the Mongolian Nationality and the Imperial Tombs of the Yuan Dynasty" is dedicated to the study of the former Mongol Murwei-Datan. After the Xianbei people moved into the south-central region of Inner Mongolia and the interior, the Khitan and Murwei people mainly lived in the Donghu hometown during the Northern Wei Dynasty. For the Murowei family, Bo Xihe once proposed that "the original text represented by this name (Xianbei) is the same as the original text of the later translation of Murowei". There is another name for Murwei (Tatar), and the two can be exchanged and exchanged in the Han language, and can be collectively called Murwei-Da Tan people. They are the original Mongols, whose language has not yet undergone the later historical process of Turkization, and has maintained the characteristics of the language and dialects of the descendants of Donghu.

The Tang Dynasty was a period of great changes in the ethnological landscape of the Murwei-Da Tan people. The westward migration of the Uighurs and the Khitan expedition to the Outer Mongolian Plateau provided the Murwei-Datan people with the opportunity to flood into the Outer Mongolian Plateau and the south-central region of Inner Mongolia. The various tribes of the Mongolian Plateau are called obstruction in the "History of Liao", and they are also written in a bad way. This is the general name of the Khitan people for the various tribes of the Mongolian Plateau. The Jurchens followed this title, and it was used as a hindrance in the "Golden History". During the Liaojin period, the various tribes of the Mongolian Plateau were the basic members of the Mongolian nation.

Chinese and foreign historians have conducted long-term research on Murwei and Tatar. Among foreign studies, Japanese scholars have the most in-depth research. On the issue of Murowei, it is represented by Shiratori Kuyoshi and Tsuda Soyoyoshi. In 1910, Shiratori Kuji published the "Examination of the Donghu Nationality", which included a section entitled "The Examination of the Lost Wei", which mainly used the method of language phonetics, and examined the names of the tribes, geography, and official positions of the Murwei. In the same year, Tsuda Soyoshi published an article entitled "Murowei Kao", which mainly studied the geographical distribution of the Murowei tribes recorded in the Book of Wei, the Book of Sui, and the two Book of Tang, and the relationship between the Murowei tribes before and after. In 1919, Shiratori Kuji wrote another article entitled "Murwei Kao", which systematically examined the history of Murwei from the Later Wei Dynasty to the Liao Dynasty, discarding many of the ideas in the "Donghu Ethnic Examination and Losing Wei Kao" and re-proposing some views. On the issue of Tatar, the Tatar Examination of Jianuchi and the Nine Ethnic Tatars of the Tenth Century were greatly influenced.

In terms of domestic research, in the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century, there was an upsurge in the study of Murwei, Tatar, and Divination, and a number of papers were published, such as Wu Tingxie's Mur Wei Kao Lu (1922), Wang Guowei's Tatar Examination and Heichezi Mur Wei Kao (1928), Fang Zhuangyou's Mur Wei Kao (1931) and Tatar Origin Examination (1932), Feng Chengjun's Examination of the Northern Tribes of Liaojin and Jin (1939), etc. Wang Guowei's article "Tatar Examination" believes that the obstruction of the "History of Liao" and the obstruction of the "Jin History" are the Tatars called by the Tang and Song dynasties, and puts forward a hypothesis on the origin of the word "Divination": the word "Obstruction" is the inversion of the word Tatar, and then it is omitted as "Divination".

These views had a great influence, which not only gained more recognition, but also aroused the refutation of Xu Bingchang's "Divination and Non-Tatar Discrimination" (1930) and Wang Jingru's "On Divination and Tatar" (1932). In 1952, Cai Meibiao published the article "Tatar in Liaojin Stone Carvings", based on the Tatar texts found in the "Book of Mourning of Liao Daozong", and compared with the historical facts of the rebellion of Daozong in the "History of Liao", it proved that the "History of Liao" is the "Book of Mourning of Daozong" called Tatar. At this point, Wang Guowei's obstruction, that is, Tatar theory, was basically conclusive.

In 1957, Cen Zhongmian published the article "The Problem of Da Tan", which comprehensively discussed the meaning of the name of Da Tan, the family affiliation, the thirty surnames Da Tan, the nine surnames Da Tan, Yinshan Da Tan, Black Tatar, Bai Da Da, etc., and the historical data collection was quite detailed. Since the 70s of the 20th century, the study of Murwei, Tatar, and divination has made great progress, setting off a new upsurge in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century. The outstanding characteristics are that the number of scholars actively participating in the discussion has increased significantly, the number of papers published has increased substantially, the scope of topics has been extended, the field of vision has been broadened, the research has become more detailed and in-depth, and the use of archaeological data has been strengthened, so as to make breakthroughs in some entangled and unclear issues.

In short, through the systematic review of the research results related to Mongolian ethnic origins, we have a basic understanding of the academic development process, the progress of current research and the main problems faced, and further clarify the future research trends and development directions. From the many papers studied in the past century, the representative papers are selected and summarized in the first and second volumes of "Comprehensive Research on the Origin of Mongolian Nationality and the Imperial Tombs of the Yuan Dynasty". Although it is inevitable that there will be regrets, it is hoped that it can provide a more complete data basis for the in-depth development of this project and the continued discussion in the academic community.

This article is excerpted by Sun Li and Yan Guangyu from the "Preface" of "Comprehensive Research on the Origin of the Mongolian Nationality and the Imperial Tombs of the Yuan Dynasty (Volume I)" edited by Wang Wei and Meng Songlin. The content has been slightly abridged and adjusted.