“WORSHIPING GRACE”: THE LANGUAGE OF LOYALTY IN QING MONGOLIA 
Christopher P. Atwood
The link between the Chinese realm and the Inner Asian realm constitutes one of the most
important points in understanding the nature of the Qing imperium. Past studies have highlighted
how the institutions of rule in Mongolia, Tibet, and elsewhere in Inner Asia differed dramatically
from those in the eighteen provinces of China. Ning Chia, for example, in her study of the Lifan
Yuan or Court of Colonial Affairs, reiterated how that organization was the focus of government
institutions that were unique in Chinese governmental history. She writes, “The Li-fan Yuan could
not possibly exist if the sinocentric ‘exclusivist’ attitude had continued to dominate imperial
policy…The Li-fan Yuan was thus a specifically Manchu creation, and a Manchu contribution to
the historical development of the Chinese imperial system”.1
Institutional differences, particularly when those institutions are embedded in a thick cultural
context, may also be expected to have correlates in the more affective elements of rule. Particularly
in a system that is so profoundly centered on the person of the emperor, institutional differences
would presumably also involve difference in the presentation of the person of the emperor to
different publics among the different peoples of the empire. Here, too, previous research has
strongly emphasized how the Qing emperors adopted dramatically different personas in order to
appeal to each realm in the multinational Qing empire. Building on such materials, David
Farquhar’s classic study of the Mañjušrī incarnation idea in the image of the Qing monarchy

I would like to thank Mark Elliott and the other participants at the International Symposium on Non-Chinese Sources
for Late Imperial Chinese History at the University of California at Santa Barbara, March 18–20, 1998, György Kara,
and the anonymous three reviewers for Late Imperial China for their numerous suggestions and corrections.
1
Ning Chia, “The Li-fan Yuan in the Early Ch’ing Dynasty” (Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1992), 103104.
stressed how the Qianlong emperor and his predecessors and successors had to appeal to the
Mongols and Tibetans purely within the indigenous political practices, thus imposing a sort of
political split personality on the monarchs who had to be both Chinese Confucian and Mongolian
Buddhist at the same time.
The Manchu rulers had early decided that…their most visible religio-political image was
to be Chinese and Confucian...But the Ch’ing emperors were also the rulers of the
Mongols, who...had very different notions about the proper image for their emperors;
they expected them to be grand patrons of their religious establishments....The two
[imperial] personas were nevertheless consistently and successfully cultivated for nearly
two hundred years.2
Angela Zito, drawing heavily on Farqhuar for her assessment of the Qing rulers’ relations with the
Inner Asian peoples, states baldly that “the throne’s relations with its Mongolian and Tibetan
subjects proceeded in the idiom of Buddhist practice.” After discussing how the imperial portraits
gave a Buddhist reading of the imperial institution, she adds: “That the Chinese literati were
notoriously unwilling to do so [that is, read the portraits in a Buddhist way] was not the emperor’s
problem. He had other attitudes to model for them.”3 Evelyn Rawski in her social history of the
Qing institutions concurs: “The Qing empire was founded on multiethnic coalitions and its rulers
sought to perpetuate these alliances by addressing each of the constituent peoples that come under
Qing rule in their own cultural vocabularies….They courted the Han literati in the language of
Confucianism and cast Manchu rulers as dharmarāja in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition”. Pamela
Crossley, accepting Joseph Fletcher’s model of a distinctive Turco-Mongol kingship, goes on to
say that “But in the case of the Qing, it is clear that while the khan became an emperor, he also
remained a khan.” She writes that in the Qing empire “a single person, in a single era, embodied
David M. Farquhar, “Emperor As Bodhisattva in the Governance of the Ch’ing Empire,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic
Studies 38 (1978): 33-34.
3
Angela Zito, Of Body and Brush: Grand Sacrifice as Text/Performance in Eighteenth Century China (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1997), 23.
2
magisterial bureaucratic government, universal dominance inherited from the Mongolian greatkhans, and the sagely kingship of the Chinese community”.4
Similarly, writers on Sino-Tibetan relations during the Qing have also emphasized how the
Offering-Site and Alms-Master (often abbreviated as “Priest-Patron”) relationship governed
Tibetan ideas about the relations between the Qing emperors and the Tibetan ruling class gathered
round the Dalai Lama. This language and tradition of rule differed dramatically from that current
among the Chinese, and the difference bred differing expectations about the status of Tibet between
Chinese and Tibetans, expectations that have dogged relations between the two realms to this day.5
Certainly, the differences between Qing adaption to Inner Asian and Chinese traditions of rule
cannot be denied. Nor can it be denied that the Manchu emperors adopted distinct ruling personae
for many purposes directed towards the distinct ethno-legal communities of the Qing empire. A
song recorded among the Mongols of the Qing, for example, recorded images of the emperor as an
incarnation of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, with a unique bond to his Inner Asian people that would
seem to exclude any commonality with the Chinese imperial ideas:
Our Holy Lord, the Emperor,
Incarnation of Mañjušrī,
Deeply cherishes his
Manchu and Mongol subjects.
Manu Boγda eǰen qān
Manǰusiri-yin qubilγan .
Manǰu mongγol irgen-dēn.
Masi yeke qayirtai ❖6
The idea of a separate imperial personality directed toward the Mongols and Manchus cannot be
excluded as one facet of the Qing imperial system.
Yet other students of the period have found results which cast some doubt upon the view of the
Chinese and the Mongol, for example, realms in the Qing dynasty as hermetically sealed from each
Pamela Kyle Crossley, “The Rulerships of China,” American Historical Review 97 (1992): 1474, 1468.
see e.g. Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa, Tibet: A Political History (1967; repr., New York: Potala Publications, 1984), 71,
169–170, 246–247, 324.
6
B. Ya. Vladimirtsov, Sravnitel’naia grammatika mongol’skogo pis’mennogo iazyka i khalkhaskogo narechiia
(Comparative Grammar of the Written Mongolian Language and the Khalkha Dialect) (1929; repr., Moscow: “Nauka,”
1989), 101.
4
5
other. Jacques Legrand in his study of the Qing regulations for the Mongol region found in the
Lifan yuan zeli, and Charles R. Bawden in his study of criminal procedure in eighteenth and
nineteenth century Mongolia, have both documented how the Manchu administrators in Mongolia
drew freely upon the Chinese codes, such as those of the Board of Finance and the Board of
Punishments, to resolve disputed questions in Mongol law and administrative practice. As a result,
the seventeenth-eighteenth century legal practice of Mongolia, relying almost entirely on fines, was
essentially replaced everywhere in Mongolia by a largely Chinese-inspired practice emphasizing
detailed forensic procedure and corporal punishment.7 In a recent study, Dorothea Heuschert has
concluded that, despite the tradition of legal pluralism under the Qing, “By the nineteenth century,
the legislation for the Mongols had become so blurred by the existence of Chinese law that the
Qing emperors no longer saw the need to enact separate penal statutes for the Mongols”.8
A close examination of the language of loyalty highlights another important aspect of similarity,
indeed identity, between monarch-subject relations linking the Qing emperors and their subjects of
different nationalities. This important similarity lies in a whole complex of words and ideas bound
up with the idea of grace (Mongolian kesig, Manchu kesi, Chinese en, ze, or chong). The use of this
term expressed the sense that the foolish servants of the emperor could never do enough to earn the
imperial favor they enjoyed, and hence were always undeserving of the favor he expressed in
employing them and giving them a salary or lands. A recipient of this unmerited favor ought to
both be sensible of and acknowledge his unworthiness.
C. R. Bawden, “A Case of Murder in Eighteenth-Century Mongolia,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies 32, no. 1(1969): 86 n. 67; C. R. Bawden, “The Investigation of a Case of Attempted Murder in EighteenthCentury Mongolia,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 32, no. 2 (1969): 578 n. 24 and 580 n. 28; C.
R. Bawden, “A Joint Petition of Grievances Submitted to the Ministry of Justice of Autonomous Mongolia,” Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies 30, no. 3 (1967): 561–2 n. 38; Jacques Legrand, L’administration dans la
Domination Sino-Mandchoue en Mongolie Qalqa. (Paris: Institute des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1976), 100, 119, 127,
150, 151.
8
Dorothea Heuschert, “Legal Pluralism in the Qing Empire: Manchu Legislation for the Mongols,” International
History Review 20 no. 2 (1998): 323.
7
The wide ramifications of the idea of Imperial grace appear in the entries to the official
Pentaglot Qing Dictionary (Wuti Qing wen jian). The word kesig appears at the head of sixteen of
the entries of this Manchu-Chinese-Mongolian-Chagatay-Tibetan dictionary, intended to
standardized official usage among the empire’s five administrative languages. Of these sixteen
entries, eleven reflect the meaning of kesig as the unmerited favor of the emperor. Of these eleven,
two entries refer to grace in general (including 1016 where Mongolian kesig and Manchu kesi are
defined simply as Chinese en), three appear in names for various treasuries that issued grain and/or
money in cases of famine or imperial pleasure, one appears in the term for the office that issued
gifts to foreign tribute missions, one appears in testimonials of imperial rewards, three appear in
official titles, and one appears in the ritual, described below, of “worshiping grace”.9
These rhetorical themes of imperial grace, self-abnegation, and striving were deeply embedded
in late imperial state ritual. When officials received appointment, they prepared an incense table,
prostrated themselves in the direction of the emperor, and protesting their own unworthiness
praised and glorified the benevolence of the emperor. This ritual acknowledgment received its own
entry in the official Pentaglot Qing Dictionary; in Chinese it was xie’en (thanking grace), but in
Manchu and Mongolian kesi de hengkilembi and kesig-tür mörgümüi (worshiping grace),
respectively.10 A memorial describing this ritualized devotion would be forwarded to the court. A
Manchu-language example of such a memorial runs as follows:
9
Tamura Jitsuzo, Shunju Imanishi, and Hisashi Sato, eds., Gotai Shimbun kan yakukai (Pentaglot Qing Dictionary with
Translation and Notes) (Kyoto: Institute for Inland Asian Studies, Kyoto University, 1966), §§1016, 1580, 17697,
10683, 10716, 17527, 2200, 977, 978, 984, 2151. The Chinese equivalent in these terms is generally en or ze. Four
other instances of the word kesig (Manchu kesi) refer to its meaning as good fortune (Chinese zaohua, §§5320, 5319,
15749, 657), while one refers to kesig as sacrificial meat (§2409). These other uses will be briefly considered later.
Most of the references in Kowalewski 1849 are similar. See kesig-i sakiqu ǰanggi, kesig sangna gsan gaǰar, kesig
simedbe, kesig-i tarqa gaqu, kesig-i tarqa gaqu ǰarlig, kesig-tür mörgükü, and kesig kürtekü, with references under
kesig. J. É. Kowalewski, Dictionnaire Mongol-Russe-Français (1849; repr., New York: Paragon Books, 1964), vol. 3,
2459-2460.
10
Tamura, Imanishi, and Sato, eds., Gotai Shimbun, §2151, in the section on rituals, yosulal-un quriyangγui.
Your servant Ai kneeling down respectfully memorializes in order to prostrate to the
Heavenly Grace (of the Emperor).... An imperial decree...was received in which it was
stated: ‘Ai be appointed to the post of Assistant Military Governor of Tarbagatai and
Colonel of the Chinese Plain Blue Banner…’ This has been respectfully obeyed. Your
servant Ai, looking up in praise, immediately arranged the incense table and, looking in
the direction of the Golden palace of the Emperor, prostrated to the Imperial Grace. I
bowed deeply and thought that (I, Your) slave Ai am an inept Manchu slave of the lowest
rank. Your Majesty, bestowing his enlightened and ponderous grace, appointed me as
Assistant Agent in Kashgar. From the time I arrived, as I was unable to accomplish any
feat of distinction, night and day I was in constant fear. Now his Majesty, bestowing once
more his vast favor, has appointed (me, Your) Servant as Assistant Military Governor in
Tarbagatai and Colonel. Truly this favor is so unhoped for, and deeply precious, that (I)
did not even dare to dream about it. Your Servant is thoroughly grateful. I am even more
afraid lest I shall not be competent for this post....After I arrive there, in every matter I
shall strive, to the best of my abilities, to act properly and according to reason, in order to
fulfill both complex and straightforward (tasks)......11
Both the sentiments and the verbal formulas are heavily stereotyped. As shall be seen in later
examples, the Qing emperor’s favor is always “thick” and “heavy,” and the Imperial grace must
always be returned by “accomplishing feats of distinction” and “striving to the best of my abilities”
The Language of Loyalty in Qing Inner Asia
The Manchu language of the last cited memorial and the Manchu ethnicity of the official
involved (Ai was only the first syllable of the full name Aixing’a/ Aisingga), show that this
ensemble of rhetorical tropes, and the affections which they structure, crossed over into at least
some of the Inner Asian peoples of the Qing empire. The early Qing sponsorship of Manchu
translations of the Three Kingdoms, and the imperial patronage of the cult of Guan Di, the hero
who most perfectly exemplified this loyalty, indicates that this particular conception of the bond of
11
Nicola di Cosmo, Reports from the Northwest: A Selection of Manchu Memorials from Kashgar (1806–1807). Papers
on Inner Asia, no. 25 (Bloomington: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1993), 43–44, cf. 90–93.
loyalty between monarch and minister was one of the themes in Chinese culture which the Manchu
court and banner aristocracy assimilated earliest and most fully.12
Yet the Manchus are well known (indeed “notorious” might be a better word among Inner
Asianists) as the most sinicized people of Inner Asia. Manchu officials rubbed shoulders with their
Han Chinese counterparts and it would hardly be possible or appropriate for the two to entertain
dramatically different ideas of the relation between lord and subject. Was the Manchu court able to
inculcate this particular understanding of the good minister’s relations to his monarch even among
the Inner Asian peoples beyond the Great Wall? Was there a common understanding on what
bound them to the emperor’s service between the officials in China proper and those in at least part
of the Qing empire’s Inner Asian realms?
Mongolian documents of the Qing dynasty written by the Mongolian officials and nobility of the
Qing empire repeatedly invoke the themes of imperial grace, self-abasement, and repayment by
striving identical to those found in the memorial quoted above.13 Yet how seriously are we to take
these assertions? Are they simply translated formulas, mouthed by Mongolian officials but without
any surrounding cultural context to give them significance? Apparently not. A wide variety of
Martin Gimm, “The Manchu Translations of Chinese Novels and Short Storiesù—An Attempt at an Inventory,” in
Literary Migrations: Traditional Chinese Fiction in Asia (17–20th Centuries), ed. Claudine Salmon (Beijing:
International Culture Publishing Corporation, 1987), 143–208. Prasenjit Duara, “Superscribing Symbols: The Myth of
Guandi, Chinese God of War,” Journal of Asian Studies 47 (1988): 778–795. In Mongolia, Guan Di was identified with
Geser. There were six known state temples of Geser (i.e. Guan Di) in Khalkha and Oirad Mongolia: one each in Sang
Beise-yin Khüriye (modern Choibalsang), Da Khüriye (Ulaanbaatar—the temple is now the Religious, or Buddhist,
High School), Kiakhta (Sükhbaatar), Zaya-yin Khüriye (Tsetserleg), Uliastai, and Khowd. B. Rinchén, Mongol Ard
Ulsyn ugsaatny sudlal khelnii shinjleliin atlas (Ethnographic and Linguistic Atlas of the Mongolian Republic)
(Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing House, 1979), pl. 44. Except for Sang Beise-yin Khüriye and Zaya-yin Khüriye, all were
seats of Manchu ambans.
13
In the survey that follows, to avoid being drawn off into an endless search of vaguely similar ideas (the theme of
loyalty as repayment of debt, and of kindness of parents deserving repayment is indeed virtually universal in some
form), I have limited myself to instances where the following sorts of phrases occur or are clearly being alluded to:
kündü/ǰuǰagan kesig kürte-: receiving the heavy or broad grace of the emperor, when the kesig involved is the provision
by the emperor of either a salary, of a commission, or a pardon. kičiye-, gabiy-a bayiγul-, küčün γarγa-, “to be diligent,
to achieve, to strive,” when used as the proper response to kesig. Finally some sense of unworthiness, and particularly
of fear lest one fail, and/or shedding of blood as either the ultimate repayment or the consequence of being unable to
repay mark the most characteristic of such texts.
12
conceits and ideas, found in many works, some translated from Chinese, some native Mongolian,
and some Indo-Tibetan, gave the Mongols a thick cultural context for these assertions.
Further evidence from Mongolian literary and folkloric materials shows that such formulas and
the affections of loyalty they expressed were also widespread in moral-didactic works written by
Mongols, as well as in indigenous Mongolian political ritual. These themes can be found as a motif
in the conversations of Western travelers with Mongols in the nineteenth century, and can be traced
in Inner Mongolia into the 1920s and in attenuated form even in didactic tracts written in the same
period under the new Mongolian People’s Republic. Furthermore, in Mongolia, as in China, the
rhetoric of repayment of the grace of the emperor derived power from a similar theme of repaying
the kindness of parents, a motif also found in moralistic and ritual literature, often of Tibetan
Buddhist origin. This motif functioned, in Mongolia as in China, to align loyalty to the throne with
gratitude to one’s parents.
To this extent, then, the Mongolian evidence casts doubt on the assertion that the association of
loyalty with filiality constituted a primarily Han Chinese interpretation of loyalty. Relying heavily
on Pamela Crossley’s research, Norman Kutcher has recently stressed the difference between
Chinese and Manchu ideas of loyalty, writing that the Qianlong emperor
had the Manchu model of absolute loyalty in which the Manchu ruler was tied to Manchu
follower via the relationship of master and slave....Qianlong also had before him the Han
Chinese model of loyalty which was based on the Confucian notion that the loyalty of the
minister to the emperor originated in, and was essentially identical to, a son’s devotion to
his father.14
Looked at from the Mongolian context, this separation of the master-slave relation from the fatherson [à la master-slave] relation simply does not work; filiality was quite as important to the
Mongolian language of loyalty as it was to the Han language.
Norman Kutcher, “The Death of the Xiaoxian Empress: Bureaucratic Betrayals and the Crises of Eighteenth Century
Chinese Rule,” Journal of Asian Studies 56 (1997): 722-3.
14
At the same time, however, the evidence also suggests that important areas of Mongolian
religious and moral literature did not use this set of language in its classic form. Somewhat similar
(although by no means identical) motifs connected with the word kesig can be found in Mongolian
prayers to Heaven, and in the Chinggis Khan cult. Yet they do not seem to have any connection
with political loyalty to living rulers. While filiality in general is a vital theme in Tibetan-rite
Buddhist didactic literature, as a specific and coherent set of rhetorical tropes linked to political
rulers the motifs in question are rare or absent in moral literature written by Mongols in Tibetan, or
by Mongol clerics whose works show a deep involvement in sectarian Buddhist practice. Nor,
despite the identification of Geser with Guan Di, does it appear in prayers associated with the Geser
cult.
Thus the conception of the emperor-minister relationship as paralleling the parent-child
relationship in showing enormous, unrequitable grace on the one hand, and guilt and striving on the
other, played a large and growing role in Mongolian life, both political and domestic, from the
eighteenth century on. Specific formulations of these relations, closely similar to those found in
official documents and Chinese vernacular fiction, became increasingly common in Mongolian
moral and ritual literature from the eighteenth century on. The spread of these motifs involved the
spread of a certain type of loyalty to the emperor that fed off feelings both of filial devotion to
parents and religious veneration of Chinggis Khan and Eternal Heaven. The whole complex was
sufficiently rooted in Mongolian life to persist past the fall of the Qing empire and mold social and
political rhetoric into the 1920s, and to leave traces in the leader cult at least as late as 1945.
The Language of Loyalty in Official Documents
Qing documents from Mongolia contain numerous examples of the language here described.
The documents I have surveyed come from Khalkha Mongolia, and range in date from the 1730s to
1911. I now cite some examples of this language. In suppressing the rebellion of Chinggünjab
against Qing control in 1756, the Qianlong Emperor issued a general appeal to the Khalkhas. He
began by stating that “The Khalkhas at large have from age to age been enjoying the favours of the
state”.15 This conceit that the Qing emperor had for generations been granting his favor
(kesig/khishig) to the Mongols was maintained in all the documentary proceedings connected with
the rebellion. In a memorial to the emperor, the loyalist Khalkha general Tsenggünjab
acknowledged that “Our Khalkhas have for generations been the old slaves of the imperial house
receiving its generous favors”.16 The same general, in his report on an interrogation of prisoners
from Chinggünjab’s rag-tag rebel forces, reports himself as using the same language towards his
captives. Tsenggünjab opened his interrogation by asking a rebel, “Why did the bandit
Chinggünjab offend against the emperor’s favor?”.17
As one might expect in the records of a rebellion, pardons from the rigors of imperial justice
called forth streams of the rhetoric of grace, as the Mongols extolled the unmerited favor of the
emperor. The emperor asked the second Jebdzundamba Khutugtu to transmit an Imperial rescript
pardoning Khalkha soldiers who had abandoned their posts: “You are to proclaim to your subjects
at large: ‘The Emperor, conferring a great favor, has pardoned the fault of all those who have
C. R. Bawden, “Some Documents Concerning the Rebellion of 1756 in Outer Mongolia,” Bulletin of the Institute of
China Border Area Studies 1 (1970): 6. The original (in Cyrillic transcription) runs as follows: Khamag khalkhchuudad
tsöm üye uliran uls töriin khishgiig edlesen khün bolood. Ö. Chimid, Chinghnjawaar udirduulsan Ar Mongol dakhi
tusgaar togtnolyn temtsel (1756–1758) (The Struggle for Independence in Northern Mongolia Led by Chingünjaw,
1756–1758) (Ulaabaatar: Academy of Sciences Press, 1963), 52. In all of these documents published in Cyrillic I have
followed the (idiosyncratic) capitalization and honorific indenting of the transcriptions.
16
Bawden, “Some Documents Concerning the Rebellion of 1756,” 20. Bidnii khalkhchuud üye uliran uls geriin khünd
khishgiig khüleesen khuuchin boolchuud. Chimid, Chinghnjawaar udirduulsan, 57.
17
Bawden, “Some Documents Concerning the Rebellion of 1756,” 16. Khulgai Chingünjaw yamar uchir eznii
khishgiig zörtsöj yawaw? Chimid, Chinghnjawaar udirduulsan, 63.
15
deserted their watch-posts and relay-stations’”.18 As one might expect, an order that the watchposts and guard duties be diligently manned follows this proclamation of grace. General
Tsenggünjab confessed the guilt of the Khalkhas as a whole, and the favor shown them by the
emperor: “The fact that the Emperor has not prosecuted them, saying that they were stirred to
action by the statements recklessly fabricated by Chinggünjab is truly an extremely marvellous
favour conferred outside the law, in that he pardons the stupid Mongol slaves”.19
Receipt of salaries, titles, and land was, when officially mentioned, also ascribed to the grace of
the Holy Lord. Salaries and special monetary payments are described in a petition of 1839 written
by the people against the extortionate demands of the banner officials. Protesting against being
forced to pay for New Year’s costumes and hats for the banner officials, they write “We heard that
there are certain Graces specially awarded by the Holy Lord reimbursing the princes, dukes, and
noblemen for their hats and other articles while serving in the New Years rotation, so we find
absolutely no need for us commoners to pay, and so we have made a complaint”.20
Promotions were, as the Manchu memorial cited above indicate, attributed not to the merit of the
official concerned but to the Imperial grace overlooking faults. The General Tsenggünjab, reporting
on the career of two Mongol nobles who had defected to the rebel Chinggünjab, wrote: “Going
against the Buuchin Ölets, [Damiran] performed no special service, and, receiving the excessive
Bawden, “Some Documents Concerning the Rebellion of 1756,” 10. Tanai dood ulsad odoo Bogd ezen ikhed khishig
khürteej tani kharuul örtöög orkhiod irsen yalyg tsöm uuchlan khetrüülew....gej niiteer ukhuulan zarlaad. Chimid,
Chinghnjawaar udirduulsan, 55.
19
Bawden, “Some Documents Concerning the Rebellion of 1756,” 12. Bogd ezen tedniig tsöm khulgai Chingünjawyn
demii zokhioson ügend khödlöw gej ogt es nyagtalsan n0magadaar munkhag mongolyn boolchuudyg awran örshööj,
khuuliar gaduur khürteesen tuiliin gaikhamshigtai khishig. Chimid, Chinghnjawaar udirduulsan, 86.
20
Ts. Nasanbaljir and Sh. Natsagdorj, Ardyn zargyn bichig (Legal Petitions of the People) (Ulaanbaatar: Academy of
Sciences Press, 1966), 64. Original (in Cyrillic transcription): shinelekhiin jasaany wan gün taij naryn malgainy züild
taaruulan ögökh
Bogd eznii tusgai shagnakh khürteekh zereg zergiin Khishig bui gej sonsson bögööd,
ard bidnees tölüülekh yawdlyg olj ügüi tul gomdono. For the items in this document collection, cf. the rather inexact
translations in Š. Rasidondug and Veronika Veit, trans., Petitions of Grievances Submitted by the People (Wiesbaden:
Otto Harrassowitz, 1975), 58.
18
favor of the Emperor, was then raised to the rank of güng. The banner-prince Tsevegjav has from
time to time received the most weighty favors”.21 This attribution of worthiness to rule only by the
grace of the monarch applied both to the banner ruler and to his subordinate officials: “Our Jasag
and the ministers have received the grace of the Holy Lord, and officials all have the task to
administer everything in a whole banner and be responsible for deciding the various cases, and to
decide all cases within that task”.22
The provision of land to each of the Mongolian banners was also a result of unmerited Imperial
favor: “The Holy Lord had over-abounding mercy, and established the frontiers for the territory of
the banner rulers”.23 Thus when there is a border dispute, “Is it not a case directly connected to the
grace of the state?”.24 It is for this reason that when the Tüshiyetü Khan thought his banner had had
its border infringed upon by a neighboring banner, then “The Khan and the ministers, because it is
almost to the point where we cannot reverently return the heavy grace mercifully manifested by the
Holy Lord,” had to report to the emperor.25 This grace extended to the ordinary Mongolian
pastoralists, both gentry (taiji) and commoners, who in virtue of having used the land, and marked
it with owoos (border cairns), had received the “grace of the state”.26
Bawden, “Some Documents Concerning the Rebellion of 1756,” 12. Buuchny ard orokhod ogt öörchlön zütgesen
gazargüi bögööd ezen kheterkhii khishig khürteej darui gün örgömjlöw. Zasag Tsewegjaw uye uliran ulsyn khishgiig
khüleesen nĭmash khünd. Chimid, Chinghnjawaar udirduulsan, 86.
22
Nasanbaljir and Natsagdorj, Ardyn zargyn, 69. Manai kharĭ yaat zasag, tuslagch tüshmed
Bogd eznii khishgiig khürteej, negen khoshuug yörönkhiilön zakhirch eldew khergiig daaj shiitgekh tushaal,
tushaalyn dotorkhi khergiig tushaaltan bügdeer shiidgeltei aj. Cf. Rasidondug and Veit, trans., Petitions of Grievances,
63.
23
Tse. Sharkhüü, Khuwisgalyn ömnökh Mongol dakhi gazryn khariltsaa (Land Relations in Mongolia Before the
Revolution) (Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing House, 1975), 120. Original (in Cyrillic transcription): Bogd eznii
kheterkhii örshööj olon zasgiin nutgiig khuwaaj zakh khelkhee baiguulj....
24
Ibid., 58. Ene bol darui
ulsyn khishigt kholbogdokh khereg mön bolai.
25
Ibid., 72. Khan tuslagch tüshmed bid
Bogd eznii ildün örshöösön khünd khishgiig süslen chadakhgüid khürekh met tuld...The word
transcribed here as ildün I take to be the modal converb of ilde-, “to be extremely clear or manifest.” The proper
Cyrillic transcription would be ilden.
26
Ibid., 60. Ulsyn khishigt olon taij ard...
21
Even the Jebdzundamba Khutugtu, the most revered Buddhist figure in the Khalkha lands and
the center of Khalkha’s special identity, received Imperial grace. In this context at least, the
hierarchical relationship of grace-granter and unworthy recipient tied the Khutugtu to the Emperor,
while the more equal one of offering-site and alms-master tied him only to his fellow Khalkha, the
Setsen Khan. The Jebdzundamba Khutugtu in 1756 wrote to the Setsen Khan, Manibadar:
Now, through the power of good mutual relations we [the Khutugtu and the Khan] have
from of old been born and met each other as lama and patron. In my opinion the Emperor
took pity upon us and succoured us Khalkhas when we were cast into confusion by
Galdan Boshgot [sic], and has from age to age conferred various weighty favors. Up to
now these have been unlimited, but the fact that taijis and troops stationed at the watchposts and relay-stations and likewise such high personages as the Zasagt Khan Baldir,
appointed to administer affairs, have deserted, unmindful of the marvellous favors of the
Emperor, is extremely improper.27
Nor was this reverence of the Jebdzundamba Khutugtu to the Emperor restricted to periods of
extraordinary crisis, when extreme displays of devotion might be expected. Routine legal
documents on disputes over the status of the Khutugtu’s lay disciples also speak of the supreme
Khalkha cleric as receiving the grace of the emperor. One such document from 1808 reads “As I
recall, our Jebdzundamba Khutugtu has received the weighty grace of the Holy Lord from long ago
and has become the lama worshiped by all four leagues of Khalkha”.28
How seriously are we to take this bureaucratic machinery of amazing grace? It would obviously
be absurd to assume that in all, or even in most, cases it corresponded to a spontaneous gushing
forth of loyalty in the author as he set pen to paper. We cannot even assume that it always
Bawden, “Some Documents Concerning the Rebellion of 1756,” 10. Odoo bid sain barildalgaany khücheer ertnees
naash töröl törsön lam öglögiin ezen bolon uchiraldsan tul bi khyanan sanawal manai khalkh naryg Galdan boshgotod
bushnuulagdsanyg Bogd ezen eneren örshööj khümüüjüülen üye uliran zereg zergeer khünd khishig khürtüülsen nĭ;
odoo khürtel tsaglashgüi baital demii aldarshsan ügend orj eznii gaikhamshigt khishgiig martaj kharuul örtöönd suusa[n]
taij, tsereg jich khereg shiitgej suusan Zasagt Khan Baldiryn zergiin ikheekhen uls khoish kharĭj irsen nĭ zuid ikhed es
zokhijee. Chimid, Chinghnjawaar udirduulsan, 55-56.
28
Sharkhüü, Khuwisgalyn ömnökh, 99. Baitsaawaas manai Jébzundamba khutagt bolbol khezeenees
Bogd ezen khünd khishig khürteej khalkhyn dörwön aimgiin bügdeer takhiglakh lam bolson...A similar phrase from the
same letter is in Sharkhüü, Khuwisgalyn ömnökh, 100. Another letter, written in 1859 by the Shangdzodba or Treasurer
of the Great Disciples administration, contains virtually identical phrases. See Sharkhüü, Khuwisgalyn ömnökh, 111,
112.
27
corresponded to a general disposition of loyalty to the Qing on the part of the writers. Common
sense suggests that in the case of a general like Tsenggünjab, whose family’s rock-steady loyalty to
the Qing throne in face of many troubles became one of the foundations of the Manchu sway in
Khalkha Mongolia,29 this language is more likely to correspond to real sentiments than it is in the
case of commoners petitioning against an abusive noble, or that of the second Jebdzundamba
Khutugtu (1724–1757), whose disaffection from the Qing court was widely rumored.30 But in any
case, these formulas were required at the appropriate places in official documentation. Their use
tells us what ritual sentiments the Qing administration in Mongolia expected of its Mongolian
subjects, but gives no clue as to whether or in what degree the Mongolian subjects had internalized
these sentiments.
The Language of Loyalty in Non-Administrative Writings of the Nobility
More significant, therefore, are appearances of this language of grace in non-administrative
contexts. Here we can compare examples of various genres, some with and some without this
language of grace, and attempt to come to a more exact idea of the degree to which it went beyond
merely cliché and became a living sentiment among the Mongolian subjects of the empire. This
survey can begin with one of the semi-official testaments which ruling princes wrote to govern the
affairs of their banner. In these documents, which were not registered with the imperial authorities,
the nobility spoke to their subjects, particularly ministers and high lamas, on the best practices of
the domain to be followed in state and church. In some, such as the famous To Wang tüünii surgaal
(To Wang and His Instructions), we do not find any language of Imperial grace and repayment. In
Veronika Veit, “The Qalqa Mongolian Military Governors of Uliyasutai in the 18th Century,” in Proceedings of the
International Conference on China Border Area Studies, ed. En-shean Lin (Taipei: National Chengchi University,
1984), 635–637. Legrand, L’administration dans la Domination, 91, 99, 167.
30
C. R Bawden, “The Mongol Rebellion of 1756–1757,” Journal of Asian History 2 (1968): 220– 24.
29
others, such as the 1885 testament of the Khalkha ruler of Setsen Khan aimag, the author expressed
repeatedly the belief that the continuation of his line in office since the first submission of the
Khalkha resulted from the receipt of Imperial grace:
From the time of my great-grandfather Grand-Duke Dari-Ildeng Jinong...in
generation after generation, through my grandfather the grand-duke, down to my
Father, the grand duke, we have all reverently received the
Grace of the
Holy Lord and obeyed with care and respect the established laws and
Decrees and the
Supreme instructions repeatedly bestowed upon us, and so have comprehensively
administered and lovingly educated the banners and sumus.31
It should be noted that in this manuscript not only are the words “Holy Lord,” “grace,” and
“supreme” all started on a new line and elevated, but the word “father” as well is also started on a
new line and, although indented, not elevated. Here we see, as might be expected in a more private
document of this sort, a similar reverence to the author’s father, who also is treated as a figure of
similar, though lesser, veneration with the emperor.
Mongolian chronicles of the eighteenth century do not generally contain any great use of these
motifs of loyalty to the Qing imperial house. A dramatic exceptions is Lomi’s (c.1670?–1740)
“History of the Mongolian Borjigid Lineage” (Mongγol-un Borǰigid oboγun teüke), written in 1735.
Lomi’s history stands out both in tone and historiographical attitude from other chronicles. This
Š. Načuγdorǰi, Qariyatu qosiγun-u dotor-a daγaǰu yabuγulur-a toγtaγan tusiyaγsan uqaγulqu bičig-ün eke (Original
Manuscript of the Instructions Decreed for Observation Within This Banner), Monumenta Historica vol. 2, fasc. 5
(Ulaanbaatar: Academic Press of the Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Higher Education, 1960), 9. Yeke ebüge
beyise Dari Ildeng ǰinong-ača ekilen üy-e üy-e-yin ebüge beyise-ner-i daraγalan
ečige beyise tan-u kürcü iretel-e čöm
Boγda eǰen-ü
kisig-i süsülen kürteǰü. toγtaγaγsan caγaǰa sakilγ-a qauli yosu. udaγ-a udaγ-a-yin baγulγaγsan
degedü surγaqu ǰarlig-i kiciyenggüilen kündüdken daγaǰu qosigu sumu-yi quriyamǰilan ǰakirču kümüǰigülün
toqoruγuǰu. I have imitated roughly the indentation in the original. On p. 21, the nobleman likewise attributes his
succession to the rank of grand-duke to unmerited Imperial favor.
31
distinctiveness may well stem from Lomi’s ethno-legal status: while a Mongol of the ruling
Borjigid line, and very much identifying himself with the Mongols of the plateau, he was a member
of the internal garrison banners, eventually rising to Lieutenant-General of the Mongolian Bordered
White Banners.32 Lomi’s chronicle, written as a testament and a family history for his children and
grandchildren, earnestly insisted on the centrality of Imperial grace to the Mongolian nation. After
enumerating the great number of Mongolian noblemen, he states,
Fortunately, they have all been born to strive with care and veneration to fulfill their posts,
and to receive with effort the Holy One’s overflowing grace, so that they rejoice with
such great peace and happiness, and live happily with joy under the bright heaven and the
shining moon. Aya, it is the best! Although from the time of our Mongolian greatgrandfathers and grandfathers until now there has been both success and decline, by
holding to the mean and guarding our sincerity, we have been able to make endeavors
diligently in whatever position we have been employed in, and by charging forward, have
unhesitatingly done heroic deeds in war, and recorded achievements. For this reason we
have been able up until now to receive the weighty grace in generation after generation
and worshiping the grace of the Holy Ones, have respectfully given and unworthily
received princesses and young ladies, and become Imperial marriage partners.
Succeeding to high rank for generations we have fulfilled the task of fences and
defenders of the empire. To all be living in this most bright shining world and forever be
receiving the grace of the Holy Lord, who could deny that it is the great good fortune of
our Mongolian Borjigid lineage?33
In the conclusion to the preface, Lomi explained his own work to be in essence a record of the
benefits received by his descendants from both their family and their sovereign. “Should
Naγusayinküü and Ardaǰab, “Uduridqal” (Introduction) in Lomi, Mongγol­un Borǰigid oboγ-un teüke (History of
Mongolia’s Borjigid Clan), ed. Naγusayinküü and Ardaǰab (Höhhot: Inner Mongolia People’s Press, 1989), 15–16.
33
Lomi, Mongγol­un Borǰigid oboγ-un teüke, 68-69. ǰabsiyan-dur čöm kiciyenggüi bisireltei-ber tuiyal-i güicedken
küčün ögčü ǰidkün boγda-yin bilqaγsan kešig-i küliyegsen učirtu. teyimü učir činggel-iyer ǰirγaǰu. gegegen tngri saraγul
saran door-a činggeldün amiduraba . «Ay-a! Mön erkim bolai!» .. Man-u Mongγol-un qolonča ebüge-eče edüge-dür
kürtel-e kedüi dabšiǰu baγuraγsan anu adali ügei bolbaču kemǰiye-tü surtal-i erkimlen siluγun nomqon-i sakiǰu . basa
kičiyen aliba ǰaruγsan gaǰardur sükürkilen . uruγsi šinggun čerig dayin-dur batu sedkil-iyer baγaturlan yabuǰu γabiy-a
ǰidkül bayiγulǰu čidǰauqui .. teyimü-yin tula edüge boltal-a basakü olǰu . üy-e üy-e-yin ǰuǰaγan kešig-i küliyen . olan
boγdas-nar-un kešig-yi šitübe . kündüde güngǰu . gege ögčü γutuγaǰu ulus-un uruγ bolba .. üy-e ularin kergim
ǰalγamǰilaγad ömögci qalqabči-yin tusiyal-dur kürbe .. bügüdeger erkim gegegen yirtinčü-dü amiduran (aǰu törön)
egüride boγda eǰen kešig-yi küliyegsen anu .. man-u Borǰigid oboγ-un yeke ǰabsiyan busu kememü? Punctuation (apart
from the single and double dots) has been added by the editors and words in parentheses mark variant readings in other
manuscripts. The term gege is Manchu, meaning “young lady”. Jerry Norman, A Concise Manchu-English Lexicon
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978), s.v. gege. The use of the term γuta γaǰu, “to disgrace,” “to dishonor,”
for the Mongols’ receipt of imperial princesses and maidens is used to indicate the Mongols’ unworthiness of such
favor. See the similar use in the Three Kingdoms quotation in n. 59.
32
descendants, children, and grandchildren wish to know about their origins in previous generations,
and come to clearly understand it when they open this record and read it, let them remember how
long and far the family customs have stood, worship the deep and wide grace of the Holy Lord, and
strive to be honest and pious”.34
In his colophon, he adduced the actual dangers from which he thought the Qing monarchs had
saved the Mongols and again exhorted his children to remember this blessing and repay it with
virtue:
In conclusion, that our Mongolia rose again after having almost fallen and was reborn
again after having nearly been cut off, is well and truly all the grace of the Holy Lord. It
is also Supreme Heaven secretly assisting, and in recompense to the achievements and
wisdom of the early ancestors, joining its forces to that. Had it not been so, it has been
almost one hundred years from Ligden Khutugtu Khan’s rebellion, to year ten of Nairaltu
Töb [1735], and amongst the many aimags the strong would have oppressed the weak,
flesh and blood would be killing each other, and sufferings would have become
unbearable. Recalling the weighty kindness repeatedly broadcast with pity and mercy
from the time of Emperor Taizong to Emperor Shengzu, it is truly deep. Therefore, when
children and grandchildren carefully read these three volumes, they should distinguish
clearly trunks from leaves. And should they moreover recall in perpetuity the weighty
grace of the Emperors, guard their own station, pity their subject peoples, and live
rejoicing in peace and tranquility, will it not be their merit forever?35
Certainly Lomi is atypical of Mongolian historians both in the extremes of his devotion to the
imperial grace and in the degree to which Chinggis Khan is ignored as the distributer of grace to the
Lomi, Mongγol­un Borǰigid oboγ-un teüke, 70. Qoyiči köbegüd ačinar urida üy-e-yin uγ eki-yi medesügei kemebesü .
ene dangsa-yi negeǰü üǰegsen­dür todorqai-bar olǰu <4v> medebesü bolqu böged gün yosu qola udaqu-yi sanaǰu Bogda
Eǰen-ü gün ǰuǰagan kešig-i sitüǰü . Šidurγu elberiltei bolqu-yi ] kičiy-e! This passage is found only in one manuscript of
the work; the bracket here marks the end of the section found in that manuscript.
35
Lomi, Mongγol­un Borǰigid oboγ-un teüke, 378-379. Bodobasu man-u mongγol ulus . unaqu šiqaǰu dakiǰu
manduγsan . tasuraqu kürüγed dakiǰu törögsen anu ünen-iyer čöm Boγda Eǰen-u γayiqamsiγ-tu kesig mön .. basa
degedü tngri dotoγadu tusalan . urida-yin ebüged-ün γabiy-a erdem-dür qariγulǰu neiylegülkü anu boli .. eyimü ügei
bolbasu Lingdan (Ligden) Qutuγtu Qaγan-u samaγun-ača qoyisi . nayiraltu töb-ün arban on kürtel-e ene qoγorondu
ǰaγun ǰil šiqaǰuqui .. olan ayimaγ-un dotoγadu . čigiraγ anu baγurai-yi darulan . yasu miq-a qarilčan alaldun (alaldun) .
yekel-e ǰobaγuri-yin tuyil-dur kürügsen .. 20v Taiyiǰüng qaγan-ača Šengǰu qaγan nigülesün öröšiyen dakiǰu tügegsen
kündü ačiyi sanabasu üneger gün . teyimü-yin tula köbegün ačinar ene γurban debter bičig-yi kinan üǰebesü . salaγan
nabči-yi todorqai medekü-ber ülü baram qüwangdi-nar-un kündü kešig-i egüride sanau . öber öberün keb-yi sakiǰu .
Albatu ayimaγ-yi örösiyen . engke amur-iyar ǰirγaǰu aǰu töröbesü egüride buyan bišiu! Bawden, “Some Documents
Concerning the Rebellion of 1756 in Outer Mongolia,” 6.
34
Mongolian nobility and people; here the heavenly reward for the great Khan’s achievements and
wisdom merely assists the Imperial grace.
One other eighteenth century chronicler, the Jarud Banner lama Dharma (fl. 1739–1758), who
also used this language of grace, is closer to the eighteenth-century Mongolian mainstream in
attributing grace both to the Holy Chinggis and to the Holy Lords in Beijing in roughly equal
measure, tilting if at all towards Chinggis. In his “Golden Wheel with a Thousand Spokes” (Altan
kürdün minggan kegesütü, 1739), Dharma concludes his genealogy of the descendants of the nine
sons of Dayun Khaan with the following verses:
All those who from Batu-Möngke Dayun Khân’s
Nine sons have been confirmed as chiefs
Over the nomadic folk of six tümens west and east,
Are descendants of Lord Chinggis and equally
Rejoice greatly in the grace of the Great Qing empire.
Growing and flourishing by merit from a single man
Happy in the peace under the Lord’s wonderful and weighty grace
Ruling as one over the folk in the land
Both sovereigns and commoners have become the best of all.
How wonderful the powerful grace of the man
To those who over five centuries have ruled their folk,
Since their birth in the supreme golden clan
Of Chinggis Khan, born by the protection of Heaven.36
On the descendants of Chinggis Khan’s brothers, many of whom also achieved office as banner
rulers under the Qing, Dharma writes:
Branching from the powerful golden clan of Heaven
The seed and line of these four junior brethren
Dahrm-a [sic], Altan kürdün mingγan kegesütü (The Golden Wheel with a Thousand Spokes), ed. Čoyiǰi (1739;
Höhhot: Inner Mongolian People’s Press, 1987), 239-240. Batu Möngke Dayun Qan-u yisün köbegün-eče/Baraγun
ǰegün ǰirγuγan tümen negekü [or negükü] ulus-tur/Batulan daruγlaγsan bui bükü Činggis eǰen-ü üre/Ba bürin Dayičing
ulus-un eǰen-ü kesig-tür yekede ǰirγabai ../Γaγča kümün-eče buyan-iyar delgeren ösüged/Γayiqamsiγ-tu eǰen-ü kündü
kesig-tür amur-iyar ǰirγan/Γaǰar-taki ulus-iyan tobčilan ačilaǰu/Qamuγ-ača öbedegsi bolbai qan qaračus anu ../Tngri-yin
ibegel-iyer törögsen-eče Činggis Qan-u/Degedü altan uruγ-tur törögsen-eče inaγsi/Tabun ǰaγun ilegüü on boltala ulusiyan eǰelegsen/Daki kümün-u erketü kesig yagutai gayiqamsiγ a! Material in square brackets indicates varying
manuscript readings.
36
Receiving of the great and weighty grace of the Imperial Lord
Have now been set to pacify their folk and to rejoice.37
Yet even Dharma’s rather moderate use of this grace theme was atypical of Mongolian
chroniclers. While the overall sentiment of thankful remembrance is by no means absent, the
specific language and tropes used to express it differs significantly in most Mongolian chronicles. It
is significant that Dharma was also exceptional among eighteenth century Mongolian historians
both in being clearly able to read Chinese and in using, for example, the Chinese-language Yuan
dynastic titles for the Mongolian emperors. As it had developed by the seventeenth century, the
Mongolian chronicle tradition honored Chinggis Khan, not the Qing Emperor, as the prime
beneficent force in the current good fortune of the Mongolian nobility; thus Injannashi records this
as the accepted position on why the Mongolian nobility still held office in his preface to his 1871
Khökhe sudur or “Blue Chronicle”.38 Indeed those that were written after the fall of Ligden Khaan
and the rise of the Qing in Mongolia tended to pass over in silence these catastrophic events. A
survey of the three pre-eighteenth century Mongolian historical works with complete concordances,
the “Secret History of the Mongols” (Mongγol-un niγuča tobčiyan, c. 1240), subsequently
incorporated into Lubsangdandzin’s “Golden Chronicle” (Altan tobči, 1635), the “Precious
Chronicle” (Erdeni-yin tobči) of Sagang Sechen (1662), and the 1607 biography of Altan Khan, all
reveal no instances of comparable uses of the language of grace, guilt, and striving. Nor do they
show any identification of loyalty to emperors with loyalty to parents.39 These major seventeenth-
Dahrm-a [sic], Altan kürdün mingγan kegesütü, 314. Erketü tngri-yin altan uruγ-ača saluγsan/edeger dörben degüüyin üre ündüsen bükün/Eǰen qan [or qaγan]-u kündü yeke kesig-tur kürtǰeü/Eng ulus-iyan amurǰiγul-un ǰirγaγ ulbai
38
John Gombojab Hangin, Köke Sudur (The Blue Chronicle): A Study of the First Mongolian Historical Novel.
(Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1973), 65-68.
39
See Igor de Rachewiltz, Index to the Secret History of the Mongols (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1972), s.v.
kesig; Saγang Sečen, The Erdeni-yin Tobči (Precious Summary), A Mongolian Chronicle of 1662, vol. 2, Word-Index.
Edited by Igor de Rachewiltz and John Krueger (Canberra: Australian National University, 1991), s.v. kisig; Johan
Elverskog, “Buddhism, History & Power: The Jewel Translucent Sutra and the Formation of Mongol Identity” (Ph.D.
diss., Indiana University, 2000), concordance, s.v. kesig. All but one uses of the term kesig in the Secret History refer to
the guard of Chinggis Khan. The other usage (Secret History §70, line 1510 in the de Rachewiltz concordance) is that
37
century works established a strong tradition that governed most historical writing for many
centuries until much later. Rashipungsug, a later chronicler, seems to report the consensus of his
contemporary historians when in his 1775 chronicle, “The Crystal Rosary” (Bolor Erike), he writes:
In my, Rashipungsug’s, opinion, when some say that the descendants of the sons younger
brothers, and princesses of the holy Chinggis Khan have became rulers of the Mongolian
multitudes and have been entitled as taijis [nobility] and tabunangs [noble-affines], and
as guests of the Great Qing empire have been granted titles and tasks of their own with a
most desirable situation; under examination it is truly the wondrous genius and might and
the power of the good merit of Holy Chinggis Khan, and in addition their worship of the
weighty, supportive, and merciful supreme grace of the Holy Chinggis, the Lord
(Rasipungsug 1985: 939).40
(The writer goes on to accuse the Mongols of betraying that grace in allowing marriages within the
exogamous Chinggisid clan, a charge which the chronicler deflects with citations of precedents
from both ancient Indian and Chinese royal genealogies.) Rashipunsug elsewhere lists Dharma’s
Golden Wheel with a Thousand Spokes as a source, and it is quite likely in reference to Dharma’s
poem cited above that Rashipungsug makes his statement that “some say.” If so, it is characteristic
of Rashipungsug that he prefers to play up the grace of Chinggis Khan alone, neatly fusing
for the meat of ancestral sacrifices, whose consumption brings the ancestral grace in contact with the participant. This
usage will be considered below. In the “Precious Chronicle,” the word kesig/kisig appears seven times (I exclude from
this count the four appearances of the tribal name “Kesigten”). Five refer to kisig (or buyan kisig) as good fortune either
granted by heaven to Chinggis Khan (33r08, 38r05), or else good fortune secured by honoring the Buddhist religion, or
destroyed by despising it (9r25, 9v08, 82v18). One refers to kisig as a share of meat (75v17), while the other is used as
an idiom, “luckily” (kisig-iyer—99v16). Nowhere is kisig seen as an imperial gift and nowhere is receipt of it
associated with either self-abnegation or responsive striving.
40
Rasipungsuγ, Bolor Erike (Crystal Rosary) (1775. Höhhot: Inner Mongolia People’s Press, 1985), 939. Rasipungsuγ
bi sanabasu ǰarim-ud ögülerün . Boγda Činggis Qaγan-u köbegün degüü-ner kiged günǰgü-yin ür-e anu Mongγol
toγatan-u noyad bolǰu tayiǰi tabunang kemen ergügdün . basa (ekü) [enekü] yeke Čing ulus-tur ǰočid bolǰu tus tus-taγan
kergem tusiyal čola-tan bolon masi küsegdekü metü boloγsan egüni üǰrebesü üneger Boγda Činggis-un γayiqamsigtu
sür sülde kiged sayin buyan-u küčün ba basa ber Boγda Činggis Eǰed-ün degedü örösiyenggüi tedkümǰitü kündü kesigtür sitügsen aǰuγu .. The word in parentheses is as found in the manuscript, with the editor’s correction in square
brackets. The final eǰed is only an honorific plural, on which see Antoine Mostaert, “L‘ouverture du sceau’ et les
addresses chez les Ordos.” Monumenta Serica 1 (1935/6): 334, n. 12, with another example in Henry Serruys, “Two
Didactic Poems from Ordos,” Zentralasiatische Studien 6 (1972): 577 (address xlv). While Antoine Mostaert is correct
that Rashipungsug fundamentally agreed with Dharma on the fortunate situation of the Mongols, and in particular the
Borjigids, under Qing rule, he does not seem to have realized that Rashipungsug here is stating the view of another, not
his own. Antoine Mostaert, “Introduction.” in Bolor Erike: Mongolian Chronicle, by Rasipungsuγ, edited by Antoine
Mostaert, vol. 1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959), 32.
traditional Mongolian praises (genius and might, sür sülde), Buddhist concepts (the power of good
merit), and the Sino-Manchu language of loyalty.
The Language of Loyalty in Popular Contexts
So far all the cited authors have been either high officials themselves or else clearly writing for
an audience among the Mongolian nobility. Even the lama Dharma, for example, declared a special
interest in the genealogies of nobility in Aukhan and Jarud Right Banner, that seems to indicate
close personal ties, and quite likely a noble origin within perhaps the Jarud family line. 41 The few
commoners’ legal petitions cited previously were written according to the required formats and
supply in themselves little information on the degree to which the forms were internalized. Did this
language have any resonance beyond this numerically limited, if socially and culturally powerful,
stratum? In fact, by the early twentieth century, we can trace this language of loyalty in a wide
variety of non-aristocratic contexts. In didactic poetry it appears in the works of both
Ishidandzanwangjil (an incarnate lama) and Kheshigbatu (a lay petty official). After a first chapter
on the worthiness of the Buddhist Dharma, Ishidandzanwangjil (1854–1907) extolls the Emperor in
Beijing and exhorts his audience to recognize his grace:
The Lord of all, Mañjuśrī Holy Emperor,
To nurse his thousand thousand slaves
Composes statutes, even, firm, and sharp, and strong:
How wondrous is His kindness to be broadcast universally!
As monarchs made to rule each league and banner
Rewarded and raised up by weighty grace and strict
For this immense kindness that grants you force
If you should strive sincerely, it is piety with accomplishment.42
Čoyiǰi, “‘Altan kürdün mingγan kegesütü’-yin uduridqal ögülel” (Introductory Essay on “The Golden Wheel with a
Thousand Spokes”), in Altan kürdün mingγan kegesütü (The Golden Wheel with a Thousand Spokes), by Dahrm-a [sic],
edited by Čoyiǰi (1739. Höhhot: Inner Mongolian People’s Press, 1987), 36–37.
42
Sayinǰirgal and Šaraldai, ed., Isidanjanwangǰil-un silüg-üd (Poems of Ishidandzanwangjil) (Beijing: Nationalities
Publishing House, 1984), 24. Tügemel-ün Eǰen Boγda Manǰusiri Qaγan ber/Tümen tümen boγol-iyan asaraqui-yin
tulada/Tübsin batu qurča čingγ-a qauli yosu-yi ǰokiyan/Tügegeǰü tarqaγaγn ači masi γayiqamsiγ .. Čiγulγan ba
41
The poet denounces the nobility for returning the grace of the Imperial state with abuse and
exploitation of their subjects:
While still the way of honoring humble slaves is great
How shameful that the great ones’ nursing care is small.
While still the Monarch’s grace is flowing out,
How shameful that they strive always to exploit.43
Ishidanzanwangjil’s firm insistence on repaying the kindness of parents also stands out in this long
didactic work. While the grace (kesig) of the emperor for which the subject strives and the kindness
(ači) of parents which the child repays (qariγulqu) are generally kept separate, there is clear
“leakage” of language from one context to the other. In the following stanza, Ishidandzanwangjil
continues his denunciation of unfiliality. While parents will pay any money to secure a good lama
when their children are sick when parents are old and sick, children suddenly become believers in
ineluctable fate and begrudge the money needed to invite a lama:
And when the loving parents pass away, they try to save
On funerary merit works, none beyond the simplest rites,
To these, like pretas, with no thought to recompense kindness
Buddha and heaven never shall confirm their gracious blessing!44
The lay poet Kheshigbatu (1849–1917) makes very similar points in his “Newly Composed Poetic
Classic,” which covers ground similar to that of Ishidandzanwangjil’s didactic poem. Touching on
the rise of the Manchu emperors, Kheshigbatu explicitly compares their grace to parental kindness:
The merciful and righteous grace of the Lord Emperor’s state and realm
Is like the nourishing kindness of parents who did give you birth.
qosiγun-i nigen-iyer eǰelen/Čingda kündü kesig-iyer örnigülün sangnaǰu/Čidal küčü olγoγsan tümen yeke ači-dur/Čing
ünen ǰidkübesü γabiyatai elberil
43
Sayinǰirgal and Šaraldai, ed., Isidanǰanwangǰil-un silüg-üd, 29. Egel boγol kündülekü-yin yosu yeke bayital-a/Erkim
yekes asaraqui-yin ǰirum baγ-a γutumsi /Eǰen törö-yin kesig-iyer delgereǰü bayital-a/Egüride mölǰiküi-yi kičiyegči
γutumsiγ
44
Sayinǰirgal and Šaraldai, ed., Isidanǰanwangǰil-un silüg-üd, 38. Ačitan anu ükükül-e buyan nom-un ǰüil-üd-i/Arbilaǰu
qaramlaǰu yosu-yin tedüi oroluγad/Ači küčün qariγulqu sedkil ügei bered-tür/Ariγun kesig toγtaγaqu burqan tngri ügei
ba!
So those who walk accomplishing their filial and pious intentions
Are best of all, for so the many men of wisdom preached.45
The political rituals of the Mongolian plateau also enacted before mass audiences this
conception of state grace, both of the emperor in Beijing and of the local ruler. A ritual handbook
copied in Üüshin banner by Antoine Mostaert records the words written for the khonjin or “master
of ceremonies” at various political ritual occasions, such as the opening of the seal after new year,
the return of the banner ruler from his regular audience in Beijing, a military review, and so forth.
The manual contains several examples of the grace and kindness language, although many uses of
these are not exactly the same as found in the Sino-Manchu tradition, and recall the earlier different
usages stemming from clan sacrifices and preserved in the Chinggis Khan cult.
In these political speeches we find the most typical use of the grace theme on the occasion of the
return of the banner ruler from his audience in Beijing. The speech runs:
You have had an audience with Your Emperor, an incarnation of Mañjuśrī, who resides
in the great capital city constructed in imitation of the Circle and Square [i.e., mandala] of
the leader Vairocana; by imperial command you have obtained important and great favors.
As a present for your peaceful return in good health from the travels of a long journey,
we meet (you) to offer our brandy with the qualities of a rašāyana and give this speech.46
“Favors” or “grace” (kesig) here is simply a circumlocution for the confirmation of the banner
ruler’s title, as is proved by the example of another model speech, which is verbally identical to the
one above, except that for bošu γ-tu kündü yeke kesig-yi olǰu kürteged [“By imperial command you
have obtained important and great favors”] it has bošu γ-tu kündü yeke kergim-yi olǰu kürteged
[“By (imperial) command you have received a great and important (new) rank”].47 Elsewhere kesig
in the form we are exploring, i.e. combined with the verb kürtege- and not referring to physical
Č Qasbiligtü, comp., Kesigbatu-yin silüg-üd (Poems of Keshigbatu), ed. Qa Dambiǰalsan (Beijing: Nationalities
Publishing House, 1986), 299. Eǰen qaγan-u ulus törö-yin örösiyel ǰirum-un kesig-i/Ečige eke törögülün teǰigegsen ači
adaliqan/ elberikü sanaγ-a-ban güičedkeǰü yabuγčid ber/ Erkim tuyil kemen (basa) olan merged nomlabai .. Again the
word in parentheses represents an alternate reading found in one text. Cf. Serruys, “Two Didactic Poems from Ordos,”
446, 454.
46
Henry Serruys, “A Genre of Oral Literature in Mongolia: The Addresses,” Monumenta Serica 31 (1977): 568, 596.
47
Ibid., 565, 592.
45
offerings, occurs three times with reference to Chinggis Khan as Lord, and once for the
grandparents in a princely wedding.48
A similar usage appears in an address of the people to the ruling nobleman, on some unspecified
occasion of overcoming difficulties. The address reads in part:
Unexpectedly in your mercy you save from various difficulties your myriads of people,
and let them hold onto peace, justice, and happiness. Although we are unable to return the
important great merciful favor (thus) granted, we fervently present the offering of our
sincere and true devotion together with a pure white qadaγ, possession of the Tengris, and
deliver this speech.49
With the phrase “to return the important great merciful favor (thus) granted” (Mongolian,
qayirlaγsan kündü yeke örösiyeltü ači-yi qariγulqu) the phraseology of recompensing the kindness
of parents and that of striving in response to grace are applied in mixed form to the banner ruler.
Kesig evidently had a supernatural and sovereign connotation (in earlier Mongolian usage it was
used for the blessings of either Heaven, or the ancestors, or, after his decease, of Chinggis Khan)
that was inappropriate for the local banner ruler. Hence his goodness to the people is kindness (ači),
not grace (kesig), and the associated verb action is to “return” (qariγulqu), not to “reverence” or
“prostrate before.” Yet the same emotional response of felt unworthiness and a response of
devotion (symbolized by the offering) closely links this usage to those reviewed in connection with
the Emperor. The use of adjectives great (yeke), weighty (kündü), and compassionate (örösiyeltü)
all recall similar usages in the imperial vocabulary. Elsewhere the kindness (ači or ačilal) of the
ruler is extolled three times with the adjective great (yeke) or weighty (kündü), and the people
48
Ibid., 577–578, 611–612. The second example, in text 46, is definitely unusual in seeming to use kesig for the
benevolence received from (living) parents. As the occasion is a princely wedding, and since all weddings in Mongolia
were seen as re-enactments of the earliest charter Chinggisid marriage, the four grandparents here are most likely not
the actual parents of the bride and groom but the ancestors of the two lineages represented in the wedding—thus
perhaps Yesügei Ba’atur and his queen Lady Hö’elün as parents of Temüǰin-Chinggis and Dei Sechen and his wife as
parents of Börte.
49
Ibid., 569, 598–599.
respond to it with worship (sitüǰü) and reverence (süsüleǰü).50 Clearly, then, with the exception of
the substitution of the parental ači for the imperial and sovereign kesig, the same language of
loyalty expressed towards the Emperor in Beijing could be and was used for the banner ruler.
A final indication of the importance and wide influence of this particular language of loyalty
among the Mongols of the late Qing can be found in the account of at least one traveler to
Mongolia. On Joseph Gabet and Evariste-Régis Huc’s journey through Inner Mongolia, they noted
a conversation with two Chakhar bannermen, who boasted of their exploits in the South, during the
Opium War against the British. As they explained, first the Chinese were sent, and then the Solons,
but finally the Emperor had to call upon the Chakhars:
‘Then the Emperor sent us his sacred order....Women and children wept, but we
addressed to them the words of reason. ‘Here,’ said we, ‘for six generations have we
received the benefits of the Sacred Master, and he has asked from us nothing in return.
Now that he has need of us can we hold back? He has given to us this fine region of
Tchakhar to be a pasture-land for our cattle, and at the same time a barrier for him against
the Khalkhas. But now since it is from the South the rebels came, we must march to the
South.’Was not reason in our mouths, Sirs . . .?’51
Despite the absence of a Mongolian original, it would not be difficult to back-translate this speech
into the original Mongolian, so closely does it follow the stereotypical formulas of loyalty recorded
in the original documents cited at length above. The same language is also alluded to in the
missionaries’ observation that
All the Tartar [that is Mongolian] princes are pensioned by the Emperor; the sum allotted
to them is a small matter but it effects a considerable political result. The Tartar princes,
in receiving their pay, consider themselves the slaves, or at least, as the servants of him
who pays them; and concede, in consequence, to the Emperor the right of requiring their
submission and obedience.52
50
Ibid., 570, 572, 576, 600, 601, 610.
Evariste-Régis Huc and Joseph Gabet, Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844–1846, trans. William Hazlitt (1851;
Repr., two volumes in one. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1987), vol. I, 43–44.
52
Ibid., vol. I, 294.
51
This particular observation was occasioned by a description, given to Gabet and Huc by the
administrator (tusalaγči tayiǰi) of the Alashan banner, of imperial audiences in Beijing. While the
observation is a general conclusion, it is most likely based in part upon that conversation, and
although the language here is not so carefully reproduced as in the previous conversation and
obviously distorted by the missionaries’ own, quite different, perspective on legitimate loyalty, we
can see again how any form of payment from the Emperor is seen as kesig or grace, and thus entails
the duty of repayment.
The same authors record, however, that the Khalkhas they met had no such strong loyalty to the
Manchu throne. Rather, they found, “There is not a Khalkha Tartar who does not glory in the title
of the Holy One’s Disciple. Wherever you meet a man from the district of the Great Kouren [Da
Khüriye or Urga], and ask him who he is, his proud reply is always this: Koure-Bokte-Ain Chabi
[Khüree Bogdyn shawĭ], ‘I am a disciple of the Holy Kouren’”.53 The categorical nature of this
statement perhaps casts doubt on how much the Khalkha masses truly believed that the
Jebdzundamba Khutugtu himself was a humble recipient of imperial grace.
The evidence on sentiments of loyalty to the Qing among the Khalkha is, however, by no means
unequivocal. One poor banner’s misfortunes were popularly attributed in Khalkha to the founding
noble’s once secretly aiming an arrow at the emperor.54 Antoine Mostaert records a comic story
current among the Ordos Mongols. A Khalkha watches an opera in Beijing and sees a man kill the
emperor. Not understanding that it is only an opera, and outraged by this regicide, which he
considers to be equivalent to parricide, the loyal Khalkha bumpkin shoots the actor dead and is
dragged into court. When the emperor hears of the case, he releases the Khalkha and praises his
Ibid., vol. I, 109-110. The translation is more likely, “I am a disciple of the Holy One of Khüriye.” The Khutugtu’s
lay disciples (yeke šabi) were distinguished from the rest of the Khalkha as the “inner disciples” (doto γadu šabi/dotood
shawĭ). C. R. Bawden, trans., Tales of an Old Lama, Buddhica Britannica Seria Continua, vol. 8 (Tring: Institute of
Buddhist Studies, 1997), 34, 111.
54
Bawden, trans., Tales of an Old Lama, 17, 94.
53
spirit of loyalty.55 To the Ordos Mongols, the Khalkha preserved the unsophisticated Mongolian
manners that were both slightly ridiculous, yet also admirable. Nor does Khalkha disaffection from
the Qing monarchy in itself indicate that the language we have been examining had no influence on
how loyalty was conceived by the Khalkha. The events after the restoration of Mongolian
independence in 1911 suggest that a considerable degree of internalization of what the good
emperor meant to his subjects had occurred, even if they considered the Emperor in Beijing no
longer such a good ruler.
In fact, even before the fall of the Qing, the language of grace, officially reserved for the
emperor, was being informally appropriated to describe the kindness of the Jebzundamba
Khurtugtu to his Khalkha disciples. In common speech, the lamas of Da Khüriye (Urga) referred to
having the favor of the Holy One by the same phrase, Bogdyn khishig khürtekh, that was used of
the emperor in Beijing.56 On a higher level, the Gobi Khalkha poet Dandzanrabjai’s (1803–1856)
song, “Grace of the Holy One,” begins:
The grace of the Holy One is water
Blessed, beautiful holy water.
To sit down thoughtfully and feast
Is like the taste of sugar-cane.
Bogdyn khishig rashaan bii
Boditoi saikhan rashaan bii.
Bolgoon suuj nairlamaanĭ
Buramny amtand adil
The grace of the Lord is water
Ezdiin khishig rashaan bii
Healing, beautiful holy water.
Emtei saikhan rashaan bii
To sit down as friends and feast
Ewlen suuj nairlamaanĭ
Does away with obstructions of strife. Ewdrekhiin barchid ügüi l.
To master by heart the ways
Of the wise and learned is hard.
55
Tsetsed mergediin yosyg
Tseejlen surakh nĭ berkhtei bii.
Antoine Mostaert, comp., Textes Oraux Ordos (Beiping: Cura Universitatis catholicae Pekini, 1937), 124-125;
Antoine Mostaert, trans., Folklore Ordos (Beiping: Catholic University, 1947), 178-179; cf. the Mongolian-script
edition in A. Mostyért, comp., Arǰi Borǰi qagan, transcr., Sonom (Beijing: Nationalities Publishing House, 1989), 253254.
56
Bawden, trans., Tales of an Old Lama, 26, 103; the usage on pp. 25 and 101, is from after the 1911 Restoration and
cannot be used as evidence of pre-1911 usage.
Once the thing has been achieved
It is not the way to forget.
Tseejlen sursny khoino
Martakhyn yosond ügüi.57
The “Holy One” (Bogd) could be the emperor, but here is rather the Jebdzundamba Khutugtu,
visualized of as the singer’s own lama, as in a preceding song, “The Holy Lama,” in the same
mansucript and set to the same tune. The “Lord” (Ezed) here is quite ambiguous; it could be
Chinggis Khan or the Manchu emperor addressed with an honorific plural, or else a literal plural
for the protector deities defending the disciple’s path. Here many elements in this language of
loyalty clearly reflect that directed in political contexts towards the Qing emperor, but they have
been redeployed in a specifically Buddhist manner.
After the restoration of Mongolian independence in 1911, the new theocratic government
preserved most of the terminology and ritual of the Qing government, making only relatively small
changes. New titles such as “Vajradhara” (Mongolian waǰradara or ochirdar), “Vajra-holder”
(supreme title of a Buddhist’s initiating lineage lama), and Šasin Törö-yi qooslan bariγči (“Dual
ruler of church and state”) were added to the sovereign’s titles, and boγol (“slave”) as the
officials’self-designation when speaking to the emperor was expanded to šabi boγol (slave disciple),
thus acknowledging the religious basis of the new monarchy. Certain phrases recalling the existing
language of devotion to lamas, such as nigülesün örösiyekü (to have pity and mercy) and tuil-un
taγalal-du (in his extreme good pleasure), seem to have increased in frequency, although both are
attested in Qing imperial usage.58
Yet the basic form of Qing titulary language remained, and it is thus not surprising to find the
official promotion and pardon of crimes that inaugurated the new regime in Mongolia referred to as
57
Noyon Khutagt D. Rawjaa, Zokhiolyn emkhtgel (Collected Works), ed. D. Tsagaan (Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing
House, 1962), 169.
58
Nasanbaljir and Natsagdorj, Ardyn zargyn, 131, 178, 192; A. Ochir and G. Pürwee, comp., Mongolyn ard tümnii
1911 ony ündesnii erkh chölöö, tusgaar togtnolyn tölöö temtsel: barimt bichgiin emkhtgel (1900– 1914) (The
Mongolian People’s Struggle for National Liberation and Independence in 1911: Collected Documents, 1900–1914)
(Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing House, 1982), 128.
kesig tarqaγaqu (distributing grace).59 The following phrase, from an official document of 1918,
would not have been at all out of place in the Qing: “I, Namsraijab, ruling taiji of first rank,
diligently following the Supreme decree, received the grace of the Holy Lord, prostrated myself to
the Heavenly grace, returned to my territory and took up the seal of rule.60 Nor would the
succeeding statement that, in relieving the oppression of the Emperor’s slaves, this official was
“striving to recompense the universal grace”.61
The revolution of 1921, however, did abolish explicit use of the language of imperial grace. An
otherwise profoundly Confucian didactic work printed in Ulaanbaatar in 1926, by Chuluuny BatOchir (1874-?), a civil official who had served in both the theocratic and in the new revolutionary
regime,62 speaks of the wages (tsalin, from Chinese qianliang) of the soldiery and the pensions
(pünlüü, from Chinese fenglu) of the civil officials without ever speaking of imperial grace. Yet
many clear traces of the old system remained. Sons ought to repay (achilj) their parents, and respect
their brothers, he writes.63 The view that all salaries and even the possession of land itself are an
expression of the grace of the state, akin to the kindness of parents, is implicit in the following
summary in the last chapter of the work:
59
A. Ochir, Z. Lonjid, and Ts. Törbat, eds., Zarligaar togtooson Mongol Ulsyn shastiryn khuraangui (Summary
Treatise of the State of Mongolia Issued by Decree) (1919; Repr., Ulaanbaatar: Institute of History, State Public
Library, 1997), vol. I, 7, 11, 12, etc., etc.; Ochir and Pürwee, comp., Mongolyn ard tümnii, 128; Qing example in
Sharkhüü, Khuwisgalyn ömnökh Mongol, 47-49.
60
Nasanbaljir and Natsagdorj, Ardyn zargyn, 174.
Zasag tergüün zereg taij Namsraijaw bi
Deediin zarligiig khicheengüilen dagaj
Bogd eznii khishgiig khürtej
Tengeriin khishigt mörgööd uul nutagt butsaj, zasgiin tamga khergiig khüleen awch... Cf. Rasidondug and Veit,
trans., Petitions of Grievances, 159.
61
Nasanbaljir and Natsagdorj, Ardyn zargyn, 178; cf. ibid., 186, 191; Ochir and Pürwee, comp., Mongolyn ard tümnii,
158. Tügeemel khishigt khariulan zütgej... Cf. Rasidondug and Veit, trans., Petitions of Grievances, 163.
62
Ts. Damdinsüren, Namtryn khuudsaas (namtar, dursamj, temdeglel, turshlaga) (From the Pages of a Biography:
Biography, Memoirs, Notes, and Experiences) (Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing House, 1990), 71-73.
63
Chuluuny Bat-Ochir, ‘Mandakh narny tuya’ khemeekh surgaal (The Instruction Entitled ‘Rays of the Rising Sun’),
transcr. A. Shagdar and B. Osor (1926; Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo Publishing House, 1992), 26. Original (in Cyrillic
transcription): Khöwgüüd etseg ekh achilj, akh düü naryg khündel.
Any person’s three elements in life are: parents who give birth, the teacher who instructs,
and the state treasury which provides. Without parents there is no birth, without
instruction there is no understanding, and without provision there is no maturation, and
these are the same as life.64
The author drew out the implication of a state salary demanding steady effort in terms which
recalled the old vocabulary, although lacking its personal focus: “Since he has already accepted the
realm’s salary, a person who has become an official must not only not seek his own ease and be
lazy or sloppy, he should also consider himself as a person bought for a proper price in order to
strive for the state”.65
Perhaps one of the final expressions of this language of loyalty in Mongolia came in a poem
penned in 1945, dedicated by the Üjümüchin Mongols, newly immigrated into Mongolia, to the
Mongolian leader, Marshal Choibalsang. Certain passages seemed to dimly echo the Manchu
language of loyalty although heavily laden with the terminology of the new order:
Famous hero of the Khalkhas
To you our loving father
This joy of our devoted hearts
We send to you in return.66
An oral benediction (yörööl) recorded in the Gobi-Altai spoke of the “famous General Sükhebaatur
and the loving (ačitu) Marshal Choibalsang,” acribing to the Marshal terms used traditionally for
one’s own parents or lama, and occasionally for the emperor.67 While crude in comparison to the
Bat-Ochir, ‘Mandakh narny tuya’, 32. Aliwaa khünii gurwan züil amĭdral nĭ etseg ekh törüülmüi, bagsh surgamui,
ulsyn san tejeemüi gejee. Etseg ekhgüi bögöös törökhgüi, surgakhgüi bögöös ukhakhgüi, tejeekhgüi bögöös
khümüüjikhgüi bögööd amĭdrakh nĭ negen adil bolai.
65
Ibid., 9.
66
National Archives of Mongolia, Fond No. 11, towɩyoog No. 1, xatgalmjiin negch No. 1011. Title: “1945 ond nüüdlen
irj 1946 ond Mongolyn khar yaat bolj Choibalsan aimagt zakhiragdsan Kherlenbayan sumyn Amgalan naryn 53
khünees nam zasgiin udirdagchdad irüülen bayaryn ilerkhiilelt” (1946; Typewritten on onion skin paper). Qalq-a-yin
aldartu baγatur/Qalamǰitu ečege tan-a-daγan/Qalaγun sedkil-ün-ben bayar-yi/Qariγu bolγan kürgey-e . . Mongolian
archives were investigated in dissertation research supported in part by a grant from the International Research &
Exchanges Board (IREX), with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States
Information Agency, and the U.S. Department of State, which administers the Russian, Eurasian, and East European
Research Program (Title VIII).
67
Mongolian original: Aldart Janjin Sükhbaatar/Achit Maarshal Choibalsan. Recorded from a benediction of the yurt
(geriin yörööl) by György Kara, in Gobi-Altai, 1957. I would like to thank György Kara for giving me this reference.
64
old vocabulary, and particularly in the blatant fusion (rather than mere analogy) of paternal and
imperial kindness, the loyalty of the state is still being construed in terms of returning a parent-like
care.6838
Grace (Kesig) Outside the Manchu-Qing Context
The history of the use of the word kesig makes it clear that its use in imperial rhetoric is of Qing
date only, and entered Mongolia with its accompanying formulas as calque translations from SinoManchu usage. While Yuan dynasty inscriptions do use a language of loyalty in many ways clearly
similar to that of the Qing, they do not make use of the term kesig. The Yuan dynasty expressions
of the language of loyalty seem to have fallen into oblivion, like much else, in the centuries
between 1368 and 1636. As has been mentioned, Mongolian chronicles of the seventeenth century,
like the Secret History of the thirteenth century, show no trace of the rhetorical complex associated
here with kesig. Concordances of preclassical epigraphical material also show no trace of any use
of the word kesig, except in the sense of the imperial guard.69 Thus the use of the word kesig was a
Qing innovation in the imperial rhetoric.
How was kesig used in Qing times outside of its imperial context? It is rare, although not
entirely absent, in Buddhist didactic works written in the Indo-Tibetan style. Dandzanrabjai’s
classic sermon poem, “The Kite” (šaγasun sibaγu), for example, does not contain any use of the
term kesig, or of repaying favor or kindness. In nineteenth and twentieth-century Mongolian texts,
the major semantic domain for kesig, apart from the language of imperial loyalty, was in lay
68
Of course, when reduced to this level of generality, parallels can be found in widely different areas. Moldavian
Magyars resettled in Hungary during World War II addressed themselves in thanks to the regent Admiral Horthy as
“our loving father.” I would like to again thank György Kara for this reference.
69
Louis Ligeti, Monuments Préclassiques, vol. 1, XIIIe et XIVe siècle. Indices Verborum Linguae Mongolicae
Monumentis, vol. 1 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1970), s.v. kesig; on kesig as imperial guard, see Louis Ligeti, “Le
Sacrifice Offert aux Ancêtres dans l’Historie Secrète,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 27 (1973):
150-151.
prayers, where kesig appears quite often as the gift or good fortune desired by the worshiper. It is
often qualified by the particular form of benefit or favor that is desired, for example, ed bara γan-u
kesig or edeyin kisiq (favor of goods), or xurim tu kešiq (favor of dining).70 In other times a more
general buyan kesig, or “merit favor” is desired.71 Nowhere, even in the prayers to Geser who was
identified by the state cult with Guan Di, do we find even the remotest reflection of the Qing
rhetoric of weighty and merciful grace being given to unworthy subjects who must strive
unceasingly to repay it.72
As used in prayers, then, kesig comes to mean a certain benefit or good thing, when seen as the
result of the favor of heaven. It is from this sort of usage that kesig comes to mean simple good
fortune, as in the idiom kesig-iyer, “fortunately.” Sagang Sechen, in the colophon to his “Precious
Chronicle,” writes self-deprecatingly of his authorial activity: “Speaking this sort of words I have
found by luck (kesig-iyer), I have put together a little bit like this”.73 This usage also finds
reflection in the Pentaglot Qing Dictionary. In four out of the sixteen references to kesig, either
alone or in combination, the dictionary defines the word in terms of fortune, seen as an allotment
from heaven. One reference is to kesig by itself (defined in Chinese as zaohua), while others refer
to kesigtei (possessing good fortune), kesig-tü gaǰar (defined in Chinese as fengshui), and kesigtei
bilǰuuqai (an auspicious bird).74 The two general entries are found in the chapter on “Prosperity and
Blessings” (buyan irögel-ün ǰüil).75 While on the one hand kesig is given evenly, so that Eternal
70
Walther Heissig, Mongolische volkreligiöse and folkloristische Texte (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1966), 150, 156,
and 58, in prayers to Geser Khan, the Altai Mountain, and Eternal Heaven respectively.
71
Ibid., 61 and 152, prayers to Eternal Heaven and to Chinggis Khan, respectively.
72
See the prayers to Geser in ibid., 140–150.
73
Saγang Sečen, Erdeni-yin tobči (Jewel Chronicle). Monumenta Historica, vol. 1, fasc. 1. (1662; Ulaanbaatar:
Historical Institute of the Committee of Sciences of Mongolia, 1958/1961), 334 [99v16]—pagination erroneously given
as 234 in original. Kesig-iyer oldaγsan üges-ün tedüi-ken-i eyin .. /keleleǰü öčügüken quriyan bičibei ene metü❖One
manuscript has Geser-iyer for kesig-iyer, which is obviously a simple error.
74
Tamura, Imanishi, and Sato, eds, Gotai Shimbun, 5320, 5319, 15749, and 659 respectively.
75
See also the entry for kesig-i eǰelegci, “rulers over favor,” found in Kowalewski, Dictionnaire, s.v. kesig (III, 2459),
an idiom designating the the stars in the constellation Orion, seen as giving good fortune.
Heaven is addressed as “incomparable giver of the great level grace,” yet at the same time the
White Old Man says, “I decide whether a person’s life is long or short,/It is I who will give the
favor of wealth and poverty”.76
In a pattern that will be repeated when I examine the Chinese language of loyalty with regard to
the grace of Heaven and Earth and the grace of the imperial state in the Outlaws of the Marsh, the
heavenly grace as seen in the prayers is expressed only through providential protection, while the
imperial grace as seen in the official and didactic literature is both personal and retributive,
demanding a response not only of gratitude, but of self-abnegation and guilt for falling short. The
Qing-era Mongolian prayers to heaven, to Geser, and so on show the same difference when
compared to the official rhetoric directed toward the throne in Beijing. Heaven is faced with serene
gratitude and hope of benefit, but the emperor with fear and trembling.
Given this very different usage, how was kesig used in Mongolian before its semantic space
becomes at least partly occupied by the calque-translated Manchu usage? Ironically, the term for
kesig in Manchu, kesi, is actually a relatively recent loan word from Mongolian to Manchu; the -g
was dropped to fit Manchu phonotactics which do not allow a final consonant except for -m, -n, or
–ng.77 The word, loaned into Manchu sometime between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, was
then returned to Mongolian with interest as a key word in the imperial rhetoric. This return had
certainly begun by at least 1640, the year of an imperially-commissioned tri-lingual Sino-ManchuMongolian text in which the phraseology of Imperial grace appears: “Boγda Qaγan...at the moment
when he had but granted to the wangs as well as to the tüsimed who had followed—all—his gifts
Heissig, Mongolische volkreligiöse, 61, 132, 134. Originals read, Teqši yeke kešig-yin/Tengsel ügei ögüqči and Bi
kümün-ü nasun uqur urtu-yi medemüi./Bayan ügegü kesig-yi bi öggümüi, respectively.
77
William Rozycki, Mongol Elements in Manchu (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1994), 139, s.v. kesi.
76
and bounty...”.78 As the translator, Francis W. Cleaves, notes that what in the Secret History
language would have been öglige soyurqal (gifts and grants) was now öglige kesig (gifts and
bounty [or grace]), thus marking the beginning of the ultimately complete replacement of the
purely Mongolian soyurqal by Manchu-Mongolian kesig as the term for imperial favor.79
Despite being originally a Mongolian loan, kesig did not occupy a large place in pre-Qing
Mongolian rhetoric, and none at all in the language of political loyalty. If we set aside the special
designation of kesig and its derivatives to refer to the guard of Chinggis Khan, the word appears in
the thirteenth-century Secret History only once, as a circumlocution for the sacrificial offering in a
burnt offering given by the Borjigid clan to the ancestors. When she is excluded from the sacrifice,
Mother Hö’elün complains, “Why leave ye [me] behind from the part of offerings to the ancestors,
from the remainder of the meat for sacrifice, and from the meat offered [itself]?”80 The term yekesün kesig is glossed in the interlinear Chinese translation as dade meide fenzi (share of all the great
ones), while the other parallel phrases, bile’ür and sarqud, are glossed as yu zuo (excess sacrificial
meat) and zuo (sacrificial meat), respectively. At present only one of these terms, sarqud, is used in
the cult of Chinggis Khan today, where it means not meat, but liquor.
In his discussion of this passage, however, Fr. Antoine Mostaert notes that kesig is also used in
modern Ordos Mongolian in usages such as γal-un kesig, where it designates the excess meat of a
fire offering given to the assistants, and in modern Tu where p’urɢa-ni k’eseɢ means “part which
Francis Woodman Cleaves, “The Mongolian Text of the Trilingual Inscription of 1640, Part I,” Mongolian Studies
18 (1995): 24, 43 [line 8]. Boγda Qaγan...wang kiged. daγaγsan tüsimed bügüde-dür : öglige kesig-iyen soyurqaǰu el-e.
A closely similar passage appears on pp. 26 and 46 (line 18): “Boγda Qaγan was but granting his bounty and gifts,”
Mongolian: Boγda Qaγan örösiyen kesig öglige-ben soyurqaǰu el-e.
79
Francis Woodman Cleaves, “The Mongolian Text of the Trilingual Inscription of 1640 (Part II: Notes to the
Translation),” Mongolian Studies 19 (1996): 19 [n.137].
80
Francis Woodman Cleaves, The Secret History of the Mongols (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982),
19 [70]. Yekes-ün kesig-ece bile’ür-ece sarqud-aca yekin qojida’ulumui ta. de Rachewiltz, Index to the Secret History,
27. The text in Lubsangdanjin’s Altan Tobci of 1635 is almost identical: yekes-ün kesig bilegür sarqud-ača yakin
qoǰidaγulumui ta .. Erten-ü qad-un ündüsülegsen törö yosun-u ǰokiyal tobčilan quriyaγsan Altan Tobči kemekü orosibai
(The Golden Chronicle Summarizing the Deeds of State Established by the Ancient Sovereigns) (1635; repr.,
Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing House, 1990), 15.
78
one receives of an animal dedicated to the gods”.81 The Pentaglot Qing Dictionary, gives one
example of this usage in its entry kesig miq-a, defined by Manchu kesi yali, and Chinese zuorou
(sacrificial meat).82 This is the sole example in the Dictionary of the third broad class of meanings
of kesig, i.e. “meat or offering,” along with “imperial grace” and “good fortune.” In an Ordos text
on the worship of Chinggis Khan, Khubilai Khan is said to establish rules for the sacrifices, for
their officers, and for “the rules determining the distribution of the shares of sacrificial meat
(kesig)”.83 A similar usage occurs in Sagang Sechen’s “Precious Chronicle,” in a passage where
Khutugtai Sechen Khung Taiji is explaining why he will no longer eat horse meat. “Once when I
was playing chess next to my mother, as I sat down to eat my share (kesig), the horse’s nape that
my mother had given me, the knife in my hand flew up and then spun back and came down before
my knees”.84 An angry face on the knife berates Khutugtai Sechen for eating horse flesh, and he
abjures it thereafter. While the sacrificial context is not directly stated, the eating of horsemeat and
the distribution by his mother implies that the meal was no ordinary occasion, and receiving a share
marked membership in the family.
This usage has no direct political implication, except insofar as the shares are distributed at
ritual political occasions. In the Ordos addresses for political occasions described above, for
example, we find the binome kesig qurim or qurim kesig, used to designate the sharing in the food
and drink of the banquet. An address to the banner ruler on occasion of the feast at the opening of
the seals reads: “[You] provide, first to your various intelligent ministers, and then to your very
Antoine Mostaert, “Sur quleques passages de l’Histoire Secrète des Mongols,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 13
(1950): 305-306.
82
Tamura, Imanishi, and Sato, eds., Gotai Shimbun, §2409; cf. Ligeti, “Le Sacrifice Offert aux Ancêtres,” 145–167,
esp. 160.
83
Mostaert, “L‘ouverture du sceau’,” 330.
84
Saγang Sečen, The Erdeni-yin Tobči, 246 [75v17–20]. Bi urida eke-yügen dergede šitaračaǰü naγadun büküi-dür ..
eke minu kesig-iyen morin-u dalang öggügsen-i ideǰü saγun atala . γar-daki kituγ-a minu degegsi esürün oduγad .. minu
ebüdüg-ün emüne erginen metü dooraγsi baγuǰu ireged .
81
numerous myriads (of subjects) an abundant banquet”.85 As we have seen, in the Qing the banner
ruler’s favor could not be termed kesig. Here, in the binome qurim kesig, however, it reflects a
different and older strand of usage where kesig is any ritual or sacrificial food, participation in
which confirms membership in the community.
There is a close parallelism in the way in which the basic signification of “divine grace or favor”
comes to designate the particular material object in which this favor of the divine figure is
expressed, first in both pre-classical (pre-1700) Mongolian usage and then in Qing usage.86 It
clearly marks the difference between the two conceptions of grace, however, that in the older preManchu language kesig came to designate a share of sacrificial food, while in the Qing usage it
designated an official rank and salary.87
The Chinese Context of the Language of Loyalty
The search for the origins in Mongolia of the Qing dynasty rhetorical complex associated with
the term kesig thus leads away from Mongolia and into Manchu and Chinese rhetoric expressing
the same idea. The formulas of “great and weighty grace” which one must “sincerely strive to
requite” obviously stemmed from Qing dynasty imperial usage. Yet were there other conduits for
this rhetorical complex to reach Mongolia? How typical indeed is this complex of those aspects of
Chinese culture, both popular and official, which reached Mongolia?
Serruys, “A Genre of Oral Literature,” 562, 587 [address 9]. ...eldeb uqaγatu tüsimel ekilen./eng olan tümen
degen/elbeg kesig qurim-iyan tügegen kürteǰü... Other examples of this usage can be found in ibid., 562, 587 (address
8), 566, 594 (address 18), 568, 597 (address 25), 567, 598 (address 27), 574, 604 (address 38). In view of the
comparison of this “feast favor” (qurim kesig) to Lake Anavatapta or to a timely rain (čaγ-un qura), the specific
manifestation of grace here seems to be the liquor involved. The likely shift in meaning of sarqud from “sacrificial
meat” to “sacrificial liquor” indicates a parallel development.
86
On the importance of distinguishing between signification and designation in studying semantic evolution, see Emile
Benveniste, Indo-European Language and Society, trans. Elizabeth Palmer (Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami
Press, 1973), 11, 89.
87
A phrase from the “Sea of Stories” (Üliger-ün dalai), ülegsen kesig-ečegen nadur öggünem “they give us what is left
of the alms” as registered in Kowalewski, Dictionnaire, s.v. kesig (III, 2459), is an example of kesig as alms. Here the
term has acquired yet another specific designation according to a third religious system, that of Buddhism.
85
This theme, in general of returning the kindness shown by others and in particularly in the form of
the unrequitable debt of a liege to his sovereign, can indeed be illustrated by numerous examples
from Chinese belle-lettres and moral works. In 1957 Lien-sheng Yang published an essay on “The
Concept of Pao as a Basis for Social Relations in China,” which identified making a return (bao)
for past favors (en) as a key to Chinese social life. While concentrating upon this idea of “return” as
between equals, Professor Yang also noted how the same idea regulated relations between fathers
and children, ancestors and descendants, and between Heaven and men.88 Although he did not
elaborate, the idea of recompensing the favor of superiors forms a vital thread in the Chinese
language of loyalty, whether it be in children repaying the favor that their parents showed them in
nurturing them, in ministers and soldiers repaying the favor of their monarch or commander for
employing them, or in the monarch repaying the favor of Heaven for having given him the mandate.
A further development of this motif noted by Yang is the tendency of such hierarchically
dispensed favor to create, at least in the language used to express it, a sense of bottomless
obligation on the part of the recipient. Upon receiving such favor or grace, the decent man feels an
overwhelming sense of unworthiness and a desire to repay this gift in the only way possible, that is
by a life-long devotion. As noted by Yang, “In the Chinese ethical code, a master [i.e. teacher] is
one of the five most respectable persons, the other four being Heaven, Earth, one’s lord, and one’s
parents. To the five, one is obliged to be respectful and grateful, because one owes them so much
that it is beyond one’s power to return it”.89
One might have expected the Classic of Filial Piety to be of great importance in the
transmission of this language, as it had been translated into Mongolian since the Yuan dynasty and
Lien-sheng Yang, “The Concept of Pao as a Basis for Social Relations in China,” in Chinese Thought and
Institutions, ed. John K. Fairbank (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 302– 303.
89
Ibid., 303-304.
88
exists in many versions.90 Yet it is important to emphasize that neither the Chinese nor the
Mongolian translation uses this same language of loyalty. The very words of Chinese en and (in the
Mongolian translation) kesig in the sense of “grace” are simply absent, and nowhere are subjects
called upon to strive sincerely for their sovereign, being ready at all times to die for him. Striving
for the family is seen more as an immutable order, and not a repayment of kindness or grace. The
classic adopts an optimistic attitude towards filial duty— it is possible and normal to fulfill ones
duties to parents—that discourages the extreme language of giving one’s life to repay favor. The
same can also be said of the Four Books, whose translation into Mongolian was also sponsored by
the Qing court. Clearly the translation of the Confucian classics could not have had a direct role in
transmitting this rhetorical complex, since it is simply not there.
A more likely suspect emerges in the late imperial text of elementary moral instruction, the
Kangxi Emperor’s “Holy Instruction,” the Shengyu guangxun, or Boγda-yin Surγal in Mongolian
translation. A primer of the imperial ideology of the Qing dynasty, this text was widely used in a
trilingual Chinese-Manchu-Mongolian format (editions of 1724 and 1874 are found in collections)
to teach literacy in Mongolian. As such it is found in the catalogues of a wide variety of Mongolian
collections.91 Given this wide distribution and its use in early education, this work surely played a
role in dissemination of this language of loyalty among a broader stratum of Mongols. The rules for
the banner of Prince Pürbüǰab in 1885, for example, specially commanded that one copy each be
Naiman muǰi oron-u Mongγol kele bičig-ün aǰil-un qamǰilčaqu duγuyilang-un alban ger, ed., Bükü ulus-un Mongγol
qaγučin nom-un γarčig (National Bibliography of Old Mongolian Books) (Höhhot: Inner Mongolia People’s Press,
1979), 2–3, notes eight copies.
91
A. G. Sazykin, Katalog mongolskikh rukopiseï i ksillografov Instituta Vostokovedeniia Akademii Nauk SSSR
(Catalogue of the Mongolian Manuscripts and Xylographs in the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of
Sciences of the USSR) (Moscow: “Nauka,” 1988), 235–236 [four copies]; Naiman muǰi oron-u Mongγol kele bičig-ün
aǰil-un qamǰilčaqu duγuyilang-un alban ger, ed., Bükü ulus-un Mongγol, 8–9 [twenty-five copies]; Henry Serruys, “A
Catalogue of Mongolian Manuscripts from Ordos,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 95 (1975): 197 [four
copies, all incomplete]; Nicholas Poppe, Leon Hurvitz, and Hidehiro Okada, Catalogue of the Manchu-Mongol Section
of the Toyo Bunko (Tokyo and Seattle: Toyo Bunko and University of Washington Press, 1964), 169 [three copies];
Walther Heissig, Mongolische Handschriften, Blockdrucke, Landkarten (Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner, 1961), 281–283
[four copies].
90
copied and deposited in the yamen and in the chief banner temple to act as a check on the growing
laxity in morals. He also prescribed the reading of this work, together with old histories, as a way
of building the character of the populace.92 In a pattern that will be repeated with Chinese novels,
an early period of dissemination in the late sixteenth-early eighteenth century is followed by a
second jump in dissemination in the last three decades of the nineteenth century.
A problem with seeing the “Holy Instruction” as central to the transmission of the rhetoric of
grace is that, while the specific language of imperial grace appears explicitly several times, there is
no direct presentation of the expected response of self-abnegation and striving.93 It is likely,
however, that in the course of instruction the teacher would make efforts to apply the work to the
students’ life and moral attitudes, and thus inculcate the particular view of the moral life as a
response to the grace of superiors of whom the Emperor was the chief.
In the search for a popular vehicle for the transmission of the grace-complex, I thus believe that
the most important single vehicle was the widespread popularity of Chinese novels. Vernacular
Chinese fiction is the only genre of literature that 1) possessed in rich form the grace-complex we
have been discussing, and 2) was widely distributed among the Mongols. To demonstrate the first
assertion, I will only cite only a few of the many examples which could be taken from the Outlaws
of the Marsh, Three Kingdoms, Stories Old and New, and other works. Since my principal topic is
the Mongolian language of loyalty, I have chosen Chinese literary works which were widely
transmitted in Mongolian translation, and of which a Mongolian translation is available to me. It
Načuγdorǰi, Qariyatu qosiγun-u dotor-a daγaǰu, 27, 69.
I have not had access to the full bilingual (or trilingual) version of this work. Alexei Pozdneyev, in his Chrestomathy
has published the first two chapters of the work, which contain no specific references to imperial grace or repayment.
A. Pozdneev, Mongol’skaia Khrestomatiia dlia pervonachal’nago prepodavaniia (Mongolian Chrestomathy for
Beginning Instruction) (St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1900), 287-292. The classical Chinese original
and Wang Youpu’s colloquial rendering both contain several examples of the language at issue, although not always in
the same place. See F.W. Baller, trans., The Sacred Edict, with a Translation of the Colloquial Rendering (1924; repr.,
Orono, Maine: National Poetry Foundation, 1979), colloquial version, 150 (xiv.2), 155 (xiv, 7), 172 (xvi, 4); classical
original, 182 (preface), 196 (viii), 201 (xi), and 207 (xiv).
92
93
should also be noted that what I am establishing here is the specific rhetorical formulas that make
up the distinctive language of loyalty at work also in official contexts; it is not my purpose to deny
that the deployment of this rhetoric in the works, when read more ironically, often undercuts the
very values of heroism that such rhetoric would seem to extol.
The Outlaws of the Marsh, given its theme of an outlaw band, supplies many rich examples of
gratitude for kindnesses done by equals. Thus when Song Jiang helps the unjustly accused Chao
Gai to escape the law, he sends him back 100 ounces of gold saying: “There is no way we can
repay you for your great benevolence (zhi xiang xiong zhang da’en wuke baoda), but I have been
sent with a letter and a hundred ounces of gold as a token of our thanks to you and Constable Zhu
Tong.” When Song Jiang demurs and refuses to accept the gold, the emissary repeats, “‘We shall
never be able to repay you, brother, for your enormous kindness (gege da’en wuke baoda)’”94
When Song Jiang promises to help a street broth-vendor buy a coffin, the vendor responds with a
stereotypical phrase: “You’ve always been so good to me, benefactor [enzhu, lit., “favor-master”],
and now you give me money for a coffin. There is no way I can thank you in this life, but in my
next incarnation I’ll serve you as a donkey or a horse”95
Shi Nai’an and Luo Guanzhong, Outlaws of the Marsh, trans., Sidney Shapiro (Beijing: Foreign Language Press,
1980), I, 315–6 [chapter 20]; Shi Nai’an, Diwu caizi shu Shui hu zhuan (The Fifth Masterwork, The Water Margin), ed.
Jin Shengtan. Guben xiaoshuo jicheng, ser. 4, no. 51 (1644; repr., Shanghai: Shanghai Traditional Binding Book Press,
1990), II, 1073, 1076 [chapter 19; juan 24, 27r, 28v]. Mongolian translations: «erkin aq-a-yin yeke ači-yi sanaǰu
erke’ügei qariγulsuγai kemen tuqayilan Liu Tang nadur nigen bitümǰi bičig . ǰaγun lang alta . tusiyaǰu . aq-a ta bolon J̌u
Tüng . Léi Héng qoyar dütéü-dür tal-a bolγan ilegebe . . .» and «erkin aq-a-yin yeke ači-yi qariγulsuγai kemen...», in Ši
Nai An and Lüwé Γuwan J̌üng, Süi Qu-yin üliger (The Shuihu Story), trans., Šüi Qu orčiγulqu duγuyilang (1976; repr.,
Höhhot: Inner Mongolia People’s Press, 1993), I, 456, 457 (chapter 20). All Mongolian versions circulated in the Qing
were based on Jin Shengtan’s seventy-chapter version. The modern Mongolian translation, the only one to which I have
access, is a contemporary (1976) translation, based on the 100-chapter version. I have thus cited only passages found in
the Jin Shengtan edition in order to avoid any possible reference to passages not found in Qing Mongolian translations.
The greater conservatism of the 1976 translation of the first seventy chapters compared to that of the latter thirty
chapters indicates that the modern translators did preserve something of the language of the Qing translations in those
chapters where they were available.
95
Shi and Luo, Outlaws of the Marsh, I, 326 [chapter 21]; Shi, Diwu caizi shu, II, 1114–5 [chapter 20; juan 25, 17v–
18r]. Mongolian translation: «öglige-yin eǰen ebügen namayi egüri qaraγalǰaqu-yin deger-e basa absa šangnasuγai
kemekü tula yeke ači-yi ene töröl-degen qariγulaǰu ese čidabaču ergikü töröl-degen külüg-ün činu kötöči bolǰu kündü
ači-yi činu qariγulsuγai». Ši and Lüwé, Süi Qu-yin üliger, I, 472.
94
The “Journey of the Corpse,” a tale from the Ming collection, Stories Old and New, translated
into Mongolian in 1816, shows the lengths to which the loyalty of repaying favor can go. An
official, Guo Zhongxiang, is sent on an expedition to the southwest, and there he is captured by the
barbarians. Before setting off, however, he had replied favorably to the petition of a young man
from his home district, Wu Bao’an, who was seeking office. When Wu Bao’an hears that his patron
has been captured, he sells all his meager property, impoverishes his family, and exhausts his
strength to ransom Guo Zhongxiang. The ransom accomplished, the two are appointed as officials,
but Wu dies in office and his family is too poor to properly inter his remains. Guo Zhongxiang then
finds Wu’s son, Tianyou, and with him carries Wu Bao’an’s remains on foot back to his own house,
building a tomb for Bao’an, installing him as his own ancestor, and treating Tianyou as his own
elder son.
Both the plot and the explicit language of the protagonists revolve around the principle of
“repaying kindness.” In his first approach to Guo Zhongxiang, Wu Bao’an concluded: “Only
remember this man from your own native place, grant me some small salary, and let me render you
service ‘as a humble groom,’ or fill some lowly office in your camp; and I shall never forget your
boundless favor (qiushan zhi da’en)”96 Even after Guo Zhongxiang had finally buried Wu Bao’an
and married his son Tianyou, “thoughts of Pao-an never left him” and he memorialized to the
throne, asking that Tianyou be appointed in his place: “Your servant has heard that where there is
96
Cyril Birch, trans., Stories From a Ming Collection (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 131–132. Baoweng Laoren, Jin
gu qi guan (Strange Stories Old and New), ed. Xiaohua Zhuren, Guben xiaoshuo jichen, ser. 3, no. 4 (1633–1644;
Shanghai: Shanghai Traditional Binding Book Press, 1990), II, 414 [juan 11, 2v]. Mongolian translation: Öčüken
bi/Tuqayilan kičiyeǰü suruγsan erdem/Tedüyiken nige bui bolbaču erdemten-ü/Tasiγur-i bariγad emegel-i/Toqoqui-yi
kereglebesü darui/Töb bolqu metü tula kičiyenggüilen/ Tuqayilaǰu γuyuqu anu . erten-ü/Merged-i daγuriyan bolki Buu
An-i/Toγoγan keregseǰü sidar aγči/ Dergede-ben tataǰu čerig-ün/Γaǰar abačibasu γayiqamsiγ yeke/Tedkümǰi kesig bolon
U Buu An-u/Tabatai-a küsel asida qanumui. Erte edügeki-yin γayiqamsiγ sayiqan üǰegdel kemekü sudur (Strange and
Wonderful Things Old and New), Corpus Scriptorum Mongolorum, vol. 11 (Ulaanbaatar: Institute of Language and
Literature of the Academy of Sciences and Higher Education), 1959, I, 114-115. The common use of qafan for
“official” in the translation suggests that the Mongolian version was done from a Manchu translation, not directly from
the Chinese.
good it should be encouraged, and the whole nation holds this as a canon; where there is kindness it
should be repaid, and even the lowest observe this (you en bi chou zhe, yi pi fu zhi yi)....Before I
had made recompense for this great deed of mercy (da’en wei bao), of a sudden my benefactor died.
And now your servant has been honored with the red sash of rank.... I submit that the post at
present filled by your servant be granted to Wu T’ien-yu, that...your servant have the opportunity to
repay the kindness done to him (xia chen chou en zhi yi)”.97
Such favors from equals, however, should not act in such a way as to negate the longlasting,
permanent favor of the legitimate lord, although the subversion of public loyalty by private ties is a
vital theme of the Three Kingdoms. When contrasted to those of a man’s true lord, the favors
granted by others should properly be seen as limited and repayable. In Three Kingdoms, Zhuge
Liang, the strategist, refuses to give the warrior Guan Di a post in fighting Cao Cao. When
challenged, Zhuge Liang explains: “Once Cao Cao treated you most generously (shen hou), and
you are bound somehow to repay him (you yi bao zhi).” To this Guan Di replies: “True, Cao Cao
treated me well. But did I not repay him when I beheaded Yuan Shao’s general...?”98 It is notable in
this passage that Temgetü, the 1928 Mongolian translator, renders Cao Cao’s favor to Lord Guan
as ači (kindness), a term that was in the Qing used for non-Imperial favors, and not as kesig (grace),
97
Birch, trans., Stories, 147–148; Baoweng Laoren, Jin gu qi guan, II, 434–435 (juan 11, 12v–13r). Mongolian
translation: U Buu An-u ači yerü martaǰu ülü bolqu-yin tula...Tüsimel bi sonosbasu buyantu arad büküi ündusüyi/Tüsiǰü batu bolγaqu anu ulus törö-yin qauli . ačitu/Tusatu qayir-a büküi örösiyeltü kümün-ü tusa-yi
qariγulun/Tümente kičiyekü inu yerü-yin kümün-ü ǰirum yosu bolai...ene metü yeke ači-yi/Edüge öčüken ču qariγulqu
ǰab boloγadui....Čuqum kü bükü ulus törö-dür sidurγu-bar küčün ǰidkükü/Tüsimel bolǰu bolqu kümün tuladakin dabtan
kičiyenggüilen mörgüǰü
Tngri-yin gegegen-ü qayirlaγsan nam kündü kesig-i tüsimel bi/ Ayumsiγ ügei U Tiyan Iu-dur silǰigülün ögküi-e
kemen ayiladqamui./Ayul ügei nigen-dür tüsimel bi ačitu örösiyeltü kümün-ü ači öčüken qariγulbai kemeǰü bolumui...
Erte edügeki-yin γayiqamsiγ, I, 121­122. “Heavenly” tngri is elevated in the Mongolian translation.
98
Luo Guanzhong, Three Kingdoms: An Historical Novel, trans., Moss Roberts (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1991), 377 [chapter 49]; Luo Guanzhong, Diyi caizi shu (The First Masterwork), ed. Mao Zonggang (1644; repr.,
n.d.), vol. 9, juan 25, 8v–9r. Mongolian translation: Urida Cuu Cuu čimayi kündülegsen inu yekel-e ǰuǰaγan tula či
yaγakibaču ači qariγulqu bui ǰ-e.... tere tuqai Cuu Cuu üneger namayi kündüde kündülegsen bolbaču . bi nigente Yan
Liyang...alan...tegün-ü ači-dur qariγulγusan bülüge . . Lüwé Γuwan J̌üng, Γurban ulus-un üliger, trans. Temgetü (1959;
repr., Höhhot: Inner Mongolia People’s Press, 1993), II, 909-910. This translation is a revised reprinting of the 1928
translation by Temgetü.
the proper term for favor extended by the legitimate monarch. In any case, proper distinction of
greater from lesser duties was an essential distinction for those who would exercise true loyalty,
although both Three Kingdoms, and Outlaws of the Marsh cast profound doubt on the possibility of
realizing this harmonization of different loyalties.99
In the passage from the “Journey of the Corpse” cited above, the Inner Asian translation
heightens the distinction between the sovereign grace of the monarch and the favor of a friend. The
passages accurately translated from the Chinese by Cyril Birch as “And now your servant has been
honored with the red sash of rank...I submit that the post at present filled by your servant be granted
to Wu T’ien-yu (chen ji zhan zhu fu...gu yi chenguan rang zhi Tianyou)” were merged in the
versified Mongolian translation to read: “Indeed as one who has become an official striving loyally
for the whole state, I diligently bow down again and again, and dare to request that the great and
tranquil grace bestowed by the Heavenly Majesty be transferred to Tianyou.” The Mongolian
translator, possibly following a Manchu intermediary, pads the translation with official Qing
formulae of loyalty. “Heavenly Majesty” (tngri-yin gegegen) is elevated above the ordinary line,
following official form, but without any basis in the Chinese original. The Mongolian version thus
highlights how loyalty to friends is valuable precisely because it serves the state.
The regular favors extended by an established superior were often conceived of as the gift of
either food or honor. An example of the first form, favor as material keep, is found in aphoristic
form in Three Kingdoms. When Xu Sheng berates the faint-hearted soldiers of the Southland, he
enunciates it as an obvious truth: “The lord feeds you; you serve the lord (shi jun zhi lu zhong jun
Andrew H. Plaks, The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu ta ch’i-shu (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1987), 487–490.
99
zhi shi). What are the frightened looks for?”100 This same identification of the lord’s salary with the
duty of repayment is found in a poetic couplet:
The liege man for his keep must study to requite
wei chen shi lu dang si bao
His liege with perfect duty at this liege’s day of fate101
shi zhu lin wei he jin zhong102
This quotation emphasizes how the liege, having accepted (lit., “eaten”) his pünglü (Chinese lu) or
official salary, must not avoid danger.103
In other passages the favor to be requited is the trust and honor which the lord places in his man.
When Zhao Zilong rescues Liu Bei’s son through the most hair-raising dangers, Liu Bei throws
aside his son and cries out “For a suckling like you [i.e. Liu Bei’s son] I risked losing a great
commander!” To this display of Liu Bei’s utmost regard for him, Zhao Zilong responds thus: “Zhao
Zilong swept the child off the ground and prostrated himself, saying through his tears, ‘If I cut my
heart out here, I could not repay your kindness to me (bu neng bao ye)’”104 In Outlaws of the Marsh,
the famous hero Wu Song, before becoming an outlaw, expresses the same idea to his patron:
“Your Excellency raised me in rank (xiao ren de meng’en xiang taiju). I can’t refuse. If you give
me this task, of course I’ll go”.105
Such debts of food and honor created particularly deep bonds when owed to the ruling monarch,
whom one’s own ancestors had served and whose dynastic title of ownership extended even to the
Luo, Three Kingdoms, 520 [chapter 68]; Luo, Diyi caizi shu, vol. 12, juan 34, 13r. Mongolian translation: Eǰen-ü
fünglü-yi ideged, eǰen-ü kereg-tür sidurγu güičedkekü-dür yaγun-dur ayumui. Lüwé, Γurban ulus-un üliger, III, 1248.
101
Luo, Three Kingdoms, 832 [chapter 107].
102
Luo, Diyi caizi shu, vol. 19, juan 49, 6r.
103
Mongolian translation: Tüsimel boluγad pünglü-yi idebesü qariγulqu-yi bodoqu keregtei/Eǰen-i
üilečileged tügsigüri-dür tulbasu sidurγu-yi güičedkebesü ǰokimui. Lüwé, Γurban ulus-un üliger, IV, 1956.
104
Luo, Three Kingdoms, 322 [chapter 42]; Luo, Diyi caizi shu, vol. 8, juan 20, 14r. Mongolian translation: Činu ene
nilq-a köbegün-ü tula arai ese minu nigen yeke J̌angǰun-i qokiraγulqu-dur kürügülbe kemegsen-dür . J̌uu Yün . yaγaran
gaǰar door-a-ača A Déü-yi teberin abču ukilan mörgüǰü ögülerün . J̌uu Yün minu bey-e kedüi elige tariki-yi γaǰar-tur
sibebečü . qariγulun ülü čidamui kemeǰüküi .. Lüwé, Γurban ulus-un üliger, II, 775-776.
105
Shi and Luo, Outlaws of the Marsh, I, 372 [chapter 24]; Shi, Diwu caizi shu, III, p. 1273 [chapter 23; juan 28, 22r].
Mongolian translation: «Öuken kümün bi gegen noyan-u ači-bar debsigsen tula yambar ayumsiγ ügei marγun
töbegsiyemüi ǰabsiyan-a ǰaruqu tula darui ečisugei . . . ». Ši and Lüwé, Süi Qu-yin üliger, I, 544.
100
mountains and rivers of the land.106 When Liu Bei promoted himself as King of Hanzhong, he
expressed his trepidation in a memorial to the Han emperor:
Having received the bounteous favor of the Han (shou guo hou en), I was authorized to
govern an important region. But my efforts bore no fruit. My rewards having exceeded
my merits, it is hardly fitting for me now to add to my status....I think of both my
station—titles high and favor rich (wei gao chong hou) and of duty (fu si bao xiao)—
deeply conscious of a grave task. I breathe in trepidation, alert and fearful as if at a
precipice, and dare do no less than give my all in complete sincerity.107
In theory this sovereign grace (Chinese en, translated into Mongolian during the Qing as kesig
when referring to the emperor) should abrogate the obligations of children to repay the kindness of
parents (in Chinese also en, but Mongolian ači) only in exceptional circumstances, although the
Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh again suggest the limitations of such neat hierarchies of
loyalty.108
A passage with a particularly full ensemble of these themes of reception of favor, shame, selfabasement, and determination to repay that benefit even (almost preferably) at the cost of death,
occurs in the story of Pang De, employed by Cao Cao. Pang De is to be sent against troops
commanded by his former lord, and Cao’s generals doubt Pang’s loyalty. Calling in Pang De, Cao
asks him to hand in his seal of office: “Astonished, Pang De said, ‘This is the day before I will
show Your Highness what I can do. Why are you unwilling to use me now?’” Cao explains that
while he himself is convinced of Pang De’s loyalty, the soldiers might doubt and lose heart. “At
these words Pang De removed his cap and knocked his head on the ground until blood covered his
106
See, for example, the arguments of Zhuge Liang and Zhuge Jin in Luo, Three Kingdoms, 331-2 [chapter 43] and
629-620 [chapter 82], respectively. For the Mongolian translation, see Lüwé, Γurban ulus-un üliger, II, 797-9, and III,
1478-1479.
107
Luo, Three Kingdoms, 557 [chapter 73]; Luo, Diyi caizi shu, vol. 13, juan 37, 4r. Mongolian translation: Ulus-un
ǰuǰaγan kesig-i kürteged . nigen ǰobkis-i eǰeleǰü küčün γarγan tusa kigsen ügei . yal-a oluγsan atal-a . erkin saγurin-i
γutuγaǰu saγubasu ǰokiqu ügei . maγusiyaqu üile olan bolǰuqui .....Degegsi qandun sanabasu kergim čola . saγurin-u
öndör . qaγan-u kesig masi ǰuǰaγan tula . qariγulqu-yi sedkil-dür aquγulǰu . meküin bodobasu . tusiyal anu ünenči
kündü-dür siǰiginen emiyeǰü ǰoγsoqu ügei büged aγulan ǰaba-dur kürügsen metü tula yambar ayumsiγ ügei küčün
güičedken... Lüwé, Γurban ulus-un üliger, III, 1337-1338.
108
Cf. Plaks, The Four Masterworks, 329, 352–3, 489–490.
face. ‘I surrendered to Your Highness in Hanzhong; and I have never forgotten your generous favor
(hou en) which my life’s blood could not repay (bu neng bu bao). Why does your highness doubt
me?’” Pang De explains why he has no loyalty to his former commander, and Cao helps him to his
feet and says: “‘I have always believed in your loyalty and honor. What I said just now was simply
to quiet the minds of others. Strive and accomplish (nu li jian gong)! If you are true to me so will I
be to you.” Pang De returns home, hosts his friends to a banquet and brings out a coffin. When the
guests recoil from the inauspicious omen, Pang says: “Honored by the generous favor of the king of
Wei (wu shou Wei Wang zhong en), to whom my very life is sworn (shi yi si bao), I go today to Fan
to fight Lord Guan to the finish. If he does not die today at my hands then I will die at his”.109
Passages expressing a similar loyalty, and using many of the same stereotyped phrases, may be
found in the Outlaws of the Marsh. When Lu the Magnate is received into the mountain fortress
after Song Jiang sent his men to rescue him, he bows to Song Jiang, and says:
Lu bowed. “Thanks to the brother’s prestigious power and the virtue of his chieftains,
with united hearts and strength you have saved my humble self. I could never adequately
express my gratitude (nan yi baoda), though I scattered my innards on the ground.”. . .
Song wanted Lu to take over as leader. The Magnate was astonished. “How could a man
like me command the mountain fortress?” he said. “Let me be your groom, brother, an
ordinary soldier, to return your kindness in saving my life (baoda jiu ming zhi en). That
would be my greatest pleasure”110
109
Luo, Three Kingdoms, 563–564 [chapter 74]; Luo, Diyi caizi shu, vol. 13, juan 37, 11r. Mongolian translation: Pang
Dé yekel-e kelmeǰü ögülerün. Bi imaγta yeke wang-dur küčün γarγan qariγulsuγai kemetel-e. yaγun učir kereglekü ügei
boloγsan aǰi.... Pang Dé sonosuγad malaγ-a-ban abuγad. mörgülkilen niγur dügüreng čisun orosqaǰu ögülerün. Bi. Qan
J̌üng-eče yeke wang-dur daγaγsan qoyin-a. örgülǰǰi ǰuǰaγan kesig-yi sanaǰu elige tariki-yi γaǰar-tur ilibečü ači-dur
kürügülün čidaqu ügei atal-a. yeke wang yaγun-du Pang Déǰseiglemüi....Bi uγ-ača činu sidurγu ǰirum-tai-yi medemüi.
Urida-yin üge bolbasu tusqayilan olan-u sedkil-i tübsidkekü-yin učir bolai.. Čiküčün γarγaǰu γabiy-a bayiγul. či namayi
ütegerekü ügei bolbasu. bi basaču čimayi ese ütegeremüi kemebe....Bi. Wéi wang-un kündü kesig-i kürtegsen tula
amalduǰu ükün qariγulumui.. Edüge Pan Čéng-dür odču Γuwan oboγtu-luγ-a tasulun bayilduqui-dur. bi kerber tegün-i
alaǰu čidaqu ügei bolbasu. bi erke ügei tegün-dür alaγdamüi. Lüwé, Γurban ulus-un üliger, III, 1351-2.
110
Shi and Luo, Outlaws of the Marsh, II, 1077 [chapter 67]; Shi, Diwu caizi shu, VI, 3680–1 [chapter 66; juan 71, 4v–
5r]. Mongolian translation: Lu J̌iyün I tal-a ögčü ögülerün: «Edüge mergen aq-a-yin bars-un sür-tür sitüǰü aγulan čayǰayin olan dai wang-nar-un erdem-dür nayidaǰu nigen sedkil neyite-yin küčün-iyer dooradu kümün-i tengküregülün
aburγsan-a kedüi elige sösö-yi köser-e deger-e bildabaču yeke ači-yi qariγulaqui-a berke» kemeged...Süng J̌iyang ber
Lu Yuwanwai-yi čayiǰa-yin eǰen bolγasuγai kemeküi-dür Lu J̌iyün I meküin yosulaǰu eyin ögülerün: «J̌iyün I minu beye yambar ǰerge-yin kümün kemen ayumsiγ ügei čayiǰa-yin eǰen saγumui. Aq-a-yin emün-e döröge darun tasiγur ergükü
The same themes are found here as in the Pang De passage, with small differences due to the
greater equality in status between Lu and Song compared to Pang and Cao. Lu will “scatter [his]
innards on the ground” and find “greatest pleasure” in serving as a groom (i.e. a servant), while
Pang is “splitting the liver and gall,”111 expending “utmost strength,” and being willing to “die in
the attempt.” Finally all these protestations of guilt and undying effort are accompanied by a koutou
(to the would-be emperor Cao), or a bow (to the chieftain Song), the visible expression of the
inward sentiment of receiving grace or kindness.
Responding to grace, as Yang pointed out, also governed men’s relations to Heaven and Earth.
Thus Heaven and the emperor both acted as benefactors or grace-masters (enzhu), and received a
similar reverence. A passage in the Outlaws of the Marsh displays this congruence of imperial and
heavenly grace. In it, Song Jiang, who remains loyal to the Song dynasty despite being driven into
outlawry, proposes a great service to the spirits of Heaven and Earth to give thanks for the success
of the band:
On each of the occasions we led troops down the mountain we always returned intact.
This is because Heaven defended us (shangtian huyou). It was not due to the talent of any
man. Whenever one of us was captured by the enemy, whether imprisoned or wounded,
he always came back safely....I’m thinking of holding a great mass to thank the spirits of
Heaven and Earth for their protective benevolence (baoda Tian Di shenming jiangyou zhi
en). We should pray first that they continue to preserve our health and security. Second
that the emperor will pardon (jiang’en) our terrible crimes and allow us to serve the
country loyally to the death (jin zhong bao guo, si er hou yi).112
öčüken kötöči bolǰu ami aburaγsan ači-yi qariγulabasu üneger tümen ǰabsiyan bolai!» Ši and Lüwé, Süi Qu-yin üliger,
III, 1626.
111
The “splitting the liver and gall” in Roberts’ translation of Three Kingdoms and “scatter [his] innards on the ground”
in Shapiro’s Outlaws of the Marsh are the same four character phrase in the original (gan nao tu di, lit. “smear one’s
liver and brains on the ground”). The same phrase is also found in the exclamation of ZhaoYun quoted above, that he
could not repay Liu Bei if he “cut [his] heart out here.”
112
Shi and Luo, Outlaws of the Marsh, III, 1135 [chapter 71]; Shi, Diwu caizi shu, VI, 3857–8 [chapter 70; juan 75,
3r–v]. Mongolian translation: čerig abču bayilduγsan büri esereg bülüge . Ene inu degedü tngri-yin ibegel bolai .
kümün-ü γabiy-a busu .. kedüi-ber dayisun-dur gindan-dur qoriγdaγsan buyu bey-e-dür sirq-a oloγsan udaγ-a bayibaču
čöm γai ügei .....Edüge bi degedü tngri-dür takil tabiγ ergüǰü tngri sakiγulsun-u ibegel soyurqal-dur qariγulsuγai
kememüi: nigen-dür bolbasu aq-a degüü olan-u bey-e sekil-i amuγulang bolγaqu tuqai ǰalbarin daγadqasuγai .. qoyartur bolbasu qaγan törö-yin örösiyel kesig-i kürteǰü . tngri-yi sögerügülegsen yeke yal-a-ača keltürin . ulus ger-tegen
Here Song responds (bao) to both Heaven and Earth and to the emperor (guo), but the quality of
two graces differs. Song feels a much greater sense of unworthiness before the emperor as
compared to Heaven and Earth. While the grace (en) of Heaven and Earth expresses itself as
providential care, imperial grace is found in pardon from deserved execution. Heaven and Earth
have neither the same punitive role as the emperor, nor demand contrition to the same degree.
Expressing this feeling of capital guilt is the offer to die willingly in service of the state.
Having thus provided a rich ensemble of grace-rhetoric employed in a wide variety of contexts,
how widely distributed were these novels in Mongolia? No translations of either historical novels
or of the novels of swordsmen which contained the most classic expression of the themes of grace
and loyalty seem to have been block-printed before the 1925 lithograph of the Romance of the
Three Kingdoms. Manuscript circulation, however, seems to have become widespread in the
nineteenth century, and included not just translations, but original works based loosely on the
Chinese originals.113 As for the Outlaws of the Marsh, the first translation seems to have been in the
first half of the nineteenth century, with a further translation in 1909.114
Mongolian translations were not the only written literary vehicle for transmission of Chinese
vernacular literature. The Three Kingdoms was translated into Manchu by 1632, and block-printed
sidurγu-ban güičedkeǰü . en-e bey-e-ben ečüstel-e eǰen törö-dür küčün ǰidkükü erkim ǰabsiyan olsuγai .. Ši and Lüwé,
Süi Qu-yin üliger, III, 1712-3.
113
For examples of the Three Kingdoms, see Sazykin, Katalog mongolskikh, I, 103, Naiman muǰi oron-u Mongγol kele
bičig-ün aǰil-un qamǰilčaqu duγuyilang-un alban ger, ed., Bükü ulus-un Mongγol, 269-270, J̌addungba/Jadamba,
Naimduγar J̌ibjundamba-yin mongγol bičimel nom-un čuγlaγ ulγ-a (Book and Manuscript Collection of the Eighth
Jibdzundamba) (Ulaanbaatar: Academic Press of the Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Higher Education,
1959), 26, Jadamba, Ulsyn niitiin nomyn sangiin bichmel uran zokhiolyn nomyn garchig (Catalogue of Literary
Manuscripts in the State Public Library) (Ulaanbaatar: Academic Press of the Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of
Higher Education, 1960), 38-40, and Serruys, “A Catalogue of Mongolian Manuscripts,” 202. The Shui hu seems much
less widely distributed: see Naiman muǰi oron-u Mongγol kele bičig-ün aǰil-un qamǰilčaqu duγuyilang-un alban ger, ed.,
Bükü ulus-un Mongγol, 285, J̌addungba/Jadamba, Naimduγar J̌ibjundamba-yin, 42-43, and Jadamba, Ulsyn niitiin
nomyn, 100-101, 111. Stories Old and New is found in many copies: Naiman muǰi oron-u Mongγol kele bičig-ün aǰilun qamǰilčaqu duγuyilang-un alban ger, ed., Bükü ulus-un Mongγol, 242, refers to six manuscript copies and six copies
of the Chakhar block-print.
114
Boris Riftin, “Mongolian Translations of Old Chinese Novels and Storiesù— A Tentative Bibliographic Survey,”
translated by Jeanne Kelly, in Literary Migrations: Traditional Chinese Fiction in Asia (17th-20th Centuries), ed.
Claudine Salmon (Beijing: International Culture Publishing Corporation, 1987), 220–231, 237–240.
and distributed with official patronage by 1650. Knowledge of the Manchu language was virtually
universal among the nobility and high officialdom of Mongolia, both Inner and Outer. Editions of
the Manchu Three Kingdoms are held in both libraries and private collections in Mongolia.115
Particularly before the nineteenth century, Manchu-language Chinese fiction among the Mongolian
elite may well have been the principal vehicle for the transmission of the Qing imperial language of
loyalty.
In assessing the influence of Chinese novels after 1870 or so, however, it is impossible to stop
only with the written translations, whether printed or in manuscript. By the last decades of the
nineteenth century, the spread of Chinese novels in Mongolia was accelerated by the development
of the genre bensen üliger, or “chapter stories”.116 In these oral narratives, based on works like
Three Kingdoms and Outlaws of the Marsh, one would assume that the themes of loyalty and
repaying the grace of one’s lord would occupy a prominent position. Unfortunately, Mongolists
have published the texts of only a few selections from these oral versions of Chinese romances.
These few selections, both sung by the Inner Mongolian Jarud singer Pajai, include excerpts from
the opening, from a brief episodic transition text, and from a combat passage in the Three
Kingdoms, and the full recitation corresponding to the famous twenty-third chapter of the Outlaws,
where Wu Song kills a tiger barehanded.117
None contain in full form, in the corresponding Chinese passages, any of the language in which
we are interested. Yet as Walther Heissig has noted, Pajai’s version of Wu Song killing the tiger
completely eliminates the related theme of Wu Song’s desire to become blood brother of Song
Gimm, “The Manchu Translations,” 171 [two copies of the 1650 Palace edition], 172 [one manuscript in private
hands].
116
Walther Heissig, “New Mongolian Minstrel Poems,” Orientalia Romana 44 (1972): 1–70.
117
G. Kara, Chants d’un Barde mongole (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1970), 80–83, 139–142; Č. Damdinsürüng,
Mongγol uran ǰokiyal-un degeǰi ǰagun bilig orosibai (The Hundred Best Works of Mongolian Literature) (1959; rev.
repr., Höhhot: Inner Mongolia People’s Press, 1979), IV, 1591–1695.
115
Jiang.118 Nor does the largely eastern distribution of these bengsen üliger stories—Eastern Inner
Mongolia, Chakhar, Darigangga, Da Khüriye (Urga), and the Solons—account for the importance
of the rhetoric of loyalty in Ordos didactic poets, for example. It seems unlikely then, that oral
versions of Chinese novels played the major role in retailing this language of loyalty.
In summary, the propagation of the image of loyalty extolled in the Three Kingdoms and other
works of Chinese literature does seem to have played the major role in giving the Manchus a broad
cultural context for imperial dominion over the Mongols. In some ways, the argument I am
advancing here is similar to that advanced by an anonymous Chinese commentator on the Three
Kingdoms during the late Qing. This commentator claimed that the Peach-Garden oath which Guan
Di and Zhang Fei swore with Liu Bei formed the model for the Mongols’ relation with the Manchu
Qing dynasty. Hông Taiji, the first Qing emperor to rule all of Inner Mongolia, gave the Lord Guan
high titles and thus ensured the loyalty of the Mongols who reverenced Lord Guan
(i.e. Geser) above all.119 The specific claims about Guan Di cannot be accepted; among the
Mongols the “superscription” of Guan Di over Geser remained very lightly drawn, and there is no
evidence that a reverence for the specific example of Lord Guan/Geser played any role in
Mongolian loyalty to the Qing dynasty. Yet the larger point about the impact of the Three
Kingdoms on Mongolian political ideas seems to have a significant amount of truth to it.
Yet this assertion of the influence of Chinese novels in Mongolia does not mean that the possibly
naive readings of the works in question discussed here would exclude or invalidate a more complex
Heissig, “New Mongolian Minstrel Poems,” 62–3. In some of the examples recorded after 1949, the works of the
minstrels reflect the Chinese Communist hostility to the imperial system, and thus the surviving examples, all post1949, may play down the theme of loyalty more than did those of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nor can it be
assumed that the revolution of 1911–2 had no effect on the minstrels. Andrei Rudnev’s songs and narratives collected
from eastern Inner Mongolia between 1900 and 1905 contains several songs with strongly loyalist themes A. D.
Rudnev, Materialy po govoram vostochnoï Mongolii (Materials on the Dialect of East Mongolia) (St. Petersburg: V. F.
Kirshbaum, 1911), 9-10, 34-35, 46 and, to this extent, I may be underestimating the significance of minstrelsy in
spreading the theme of imperial grace.
119
Moss Roberts, “Afterword,” in Three Kingdoms: An Historical Novel, by Luo Guanzhong, trans. Moss Roberts
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 970.
118
and ironic reading of the same works. The presence of this same language in the Outlaws of the
Marsh, which had been repeatedly banned by the imperial authorities for twisting the rhetoric of
loyalty to subversive ends, certainly shows the possibility of quite different readings, ones which
have also been powerfully advanced for the Three Kingdoms.120 My argument is not that the novels
compelled a loyalist reading, only that, in point of fact, that seems to have been the reading that had
the most influence in Mongolia. As the anonymous commentator’s assertion of how the novel
bound the Mongols to the court and the very fact of the imperial patronage of the Three Kingdoms
indicates, such perhaps naively didactic readings were widespread among the Chinese and Manchu
readers of the Qing.
Conclusion
As the above review has made clear, when the Manchus adopted kesi and the Mongols kesig to
designate the favor of the emperor, they were giving a clearly sacred status to him. Confirmation of
such a status can be seen in the use of honorific elevations of the names in Manchu documents.
Even for Mongolian writers strongly committed to honoring Buddhism, such elevation of the
Buddha himself only equaled but never exceeded that given to the emperor. Thus Pürbüǰab’s
testament of 1885 specially elevated the proper nouns “the Late Incarnation” (degereki-yin gegegen,
i.e. the First Jebdzundamba Khutugtu), “the Holy Lord” (boγda eǰen, i.e. the Emperor), “Chinggis
Khan,” “Buddha,” and “the Holy Instruction” (Boγda-yin surgal) as well as words such as
“supreme” (degedü, when referring to the emperor), “grace” (kisig), “ancestors” (degedüs), the
“state” (ulus törö), and the (imperial) “extreme good pleasure” (tuil-un taγalal-dur). An indentation
with a new line is used for the author’s own father, “the grand duke” (ečige beyise).121 Thus we see
120
121
Plaks, The Four Masterworks, 279–495.
Načuγdorǰi, Qariyatu qosiγun-u dotor-a daγaǰu, 8–9, 27, 11, 18, 21.
that the extremes of authority in the state, religion, and the family were all treated analogously as
literally elevated above the common rank. The only major non-congruence between the three was
the definitely lower status of the family, as compared to the state or the religion.
The not uncommon, although definitely non-standard, use of the parental ači (kindness) to
describe the imperial benevolence, the mixing of the parental ači with the imperial adjectival and
verbal forms for the banner ruler in political rituals, and, of course, the explicit doctrine taught in
many didactic sources (the “Holy Instruction” above all) all show clearly that, while the imperial
grace stood supreme over parental kindness, the two were still intimately connected in Qing ideas
of loyalty. Thus it is not surprising that the terminology of one complex leaked into the other.
A song for feasting, recorded in or around 1905 from Dörbed banner in eastern Inner Mongolia,
expresses the singer’s pride in the feast, to which he associates the glory and bounty of his
superiors in state, religion, and family, who all have been splendid and giving:122
His horse with a blazed forehead
Is certainly the steed of Heaven
Is not the Lord General our lord
No other than Mañjuśrī incarnate?
mängnää xäĺǰin mör-iin
magat tengriin xu̇lu̇g bii;
manii daasan ǰanǰun noyn
Mänjšriin xöwĺgaan eer-ii-yuu.
Is not the horse of his when ridden
No other than the game of the hills?
Is not the lady of his, predestined,
No other than the shimmer of water?
unaad-axsan mör-iin
uulnää gu̇rgees eer-ii-yuu;
ušraad-axsan xatan-iin
usnää märlǰuur eer-ii-yuu.
Is not the horse of his when saddled
No other than the game of the steppe?
Is not the Lord General to come
No other than his blessed incarnation?
xu̇lgleed-u̇xsn mör-iin
xeeriin gu̇rgees eer-ii-yuu;
xööno daxsn ǰanǰun noyn
xöwlgaan xutgt-iin eer-ii-yuu.
I have transcribed Rudnev’s Cyrillic transcription into a Latin one, making various emendations suggested by
György Kara. The first line of the seventh stanza is very difficult; I have translated according to Professor Kara’s
conjectural emendation of burmiin širgeen J̌assan-yaan. I would like to thank him for pointing this passage out to me,
and his detailed type-written comments in a personal communication of June 18, 1998. The Lord General (noyn ǰan ǰun)
is the banner ruler perhaps as concurrent league captain-general, and the use of term “Mañjuśrī incarnate”for him,
instead of for the emperor, is surprising.
122
On a yellow cliff’s sunny slope
Is a jewel of yellow amber;
Given by the Yellow Faith
The teacher is a jewel for us.
šar xadnää enggirtu̇u̇
šar xubiin erden bii;
šariin šaǰnää ǰaagaad u̇xsn
baxši mandaan erdem bii.
On a green cliff’s sunny slope
There is a green turquoise jewel;
Given by the Yellow Faith
The teacher is a jewel for us.
nogoon xadnää enggirtu̇u̇
nogoon oyuu erden bii;
nomuun šaǰnää ǰaagaad u̇xsn
baxši mandaan erdem bii.
On a white cliff’s sunny slope
There is a white jade jewel;
Who raised us with her white milk
The mother is a jewel for us.
šagaan xadnää enggirtuu
šagaaan xasiin erden bii;
šagaan su̇u̇geen xu̇xu̇u̇lu̇gsen
meeme(e) mandaan erden bii.
The table set with brown sugar
Is handed to you graybeards;
Pastries and sugar
Is distributed to you young folks.
bo miin širyen ža-šan-yan
buural tandaan bärǰiu̇u̇,
boob šixir xoyrii
du̇u̇nar tandaan tugyeeǰuu.
By the favor of our Holy Lama
Let us all rejoice together!
By the favor of our Dalai Lama
Let us all rejoice with the world!
bogod lamiĩ xaan ašaar-aa
buxeneer xamtu ǰargayaa.
dälää lamiin-xaan ašaar-aa
dayneer xamtu ǰargayaa.123
To the Mongols, at least in their reverent moods, bountiful goodness marked all the various
authorities in the world, each in his or her own way.
On the other hand, while the Chinese terminology did not distinguish imperial from paternal
favor as clearly as did the Mongolian or Manchu usage, using en for both, Chinese teachings, both
imperial and popular, distinguished the two. Thus, the clear subordination of family authority to
state authority (i.e. the father to the emperor) is also no Inner Asian innovation. The rightful
priority of loyalty over filial piety is expressed in Romance of the Three Kingdoms at the start of
chapter 37, when Shan Fu’s mother denounces him for putting filial piety above faithful execution
of duty to the true king.124 It found expression alike in the imperial law code, in which fidelity to
123
124
Rudnev, Materialy po govoram, 9–10.
Luo, Three Kingdoms, 281, 552, and 882.
the empire clearly overruled loyalty to parents.125 It is unnecessarily cynical to see, as has been
often done, the priority of loyalty over filiality evidenced in these codes as simply a triumph of
expediency over Confucian principle. As the example from the Three Kingdoms shows, this
priority was expressed dramatically by writers with no direct stake in the state apparatus.
To this degree, then, efforts to separate an Inner Asian language of loyalty, which relied on masterslave relations, and a Chinese one, which relied on modeling the emperor-minister relation on the
father-son relation, are artificial. “The parallel conception of society,” as it has recently been
called,126 in which governmental authority and paternal authority reciprocally shape and legitimate
each other was, under the Qing dynasty at least, quite as Mongolian and Manchu as it was Chinese.
This fact can be seen in the politico-legal tussles over debt payment during the Qing dynasty. In
these disputes over commoners’ repayment of personal debts contracted by their banner rulers, the
latter appealed to the principle of “the fundamental way of ruler and subject,” which in turn they
considered as obviously the same as “the way of father and son, master and slave,” under which
there is no separation of property and debts contracted by superiors are payable by the inferiors.127
Master and slave, father and son: this relationship evidently seemed more alike than dissimilar to
the subjects of Qing dynasty, making the separation of slave-based and filial-based languages of
loyalty an uncertain enterprise.
Indeed such a “parallel conception of society” is by no means confined to the Qing empire. In
various forms and with varying degrees of elaboration it can be traced in the political doctrines of
virtually all the peoples of Eurasia. Contemporary with the great Qing rulers, in Europe, John
Derk Bodde and Clarence Morris, Law in Imperial China: Exemplified by 190 Ch’ing Dynasty Cases (Translated
from the Hsing-an hui-lan) With Historical, Social, and Juridical Commentaries (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1967), 40–41.
126
Kutcher, “The Death of the Xiaoxian Empress,” 717, 720.
127
Nasanbaljir and Natsagdorj, Ardyn zargyn, 98, 125; cf. Rasidondug and Veit, trans., Petitions of Grievances, 88–89,
113.
125
Locke could not pursue his contract idea of government before he had defeated, at least to his own
satisfaction, Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarchia, which established royal legitimacy squarely on the
paternal authority over his children.128 Nor was Filmer exceptional in this identification;
contemporary Christian doctrine built the duty of obedience to all constituted authority not on any
particular political theory but upon the fifth commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” See,
for example, the answer to the question in the widely-used Westminster Larger Catechism (1648):
Q. 124. Who are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment?
A. By father and mother in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents,
but all superiors in age, and gifts; and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us
in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.129
To conclude, the Qing emperors did not always have to act as split personalities, despite the
diversity of peoples within their realm. The Qing made use of at least one language of loyalty that
proved equally at home in the “land of fish and rice” along the Yangzi and in the rolling steppes of
Khalkha Mongolia. Among Chinese, Manchus, and Mongols, they claimed and succeeded in
getting their subjects to agree, at least verbally, that their power and authority was analogous to, yet
even higher than, the power and authority of parents over children, and that any office, rank, or title
held by his subjects was granted solely as a result of the immense forgiving mercy of the Emperor.
The Qing emperor thus became the object of a reverence by his Mongolian, Manchu, and Chinese
servitors that was undeniably religious in quality. To speak then of religion in Mongolia, and the
sacredness of the emperor, is not necessarily to speak only of Buddhism and the emperor as an
incarnation of Mañjušrī. Thus his hold upon the loyalties of his Mongolian subjects, while not of
128
J. C. D. Clark, English Society 1688–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 42–92.
Westminster Confession of Faith (1648; repr., Atlanta: Committee for Christian Education and Publications, 1990),
81. On the application of this “parallel conception of society” in colonial America, and the formation of a social basis
for the opposing, Lockean view in the eighteenth century, see Mary Beth Norton, Founding Mothers and Fathers:
Gendered Power and the Forming of American Societies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).
129
course absolute, was to a large degree independent of any other competing political or religious
system of legitimation.
Glossary
bao
baoda jiu ming zhi en
baoda Tian Di shenming juanyou zhi en
bu neng bao ye
bu neng baoda
chong
chen jin zhan zhu fu …
gu yi chenguan rangzhi tianyou
dade meide fenzi
da en wei bao
en
enzhu
fenglu
fengshui
fu si bao xiao
gan nao tu di
gege da en wuke baoda
guo
hou en
jiang en
jin zhong bao guo, si er hou yi
lu
nan yi baoda
nuli jiangong
qianliang
qiushan zhi da en
shangtian huyou
shen hou
shi jun zhi lu, zhong jun zhi shi
shi yi si bao
shou guo hou en
wei chen shi lu dang si bao/
shi zhu linwei he jinzhong
wei gao chong hou
報
報答救命之恩
報答天地神明眷佑之恩
不能報也
不能報答
寵
臣今沾朱紱…顧以臣官讓之天佑
大的每的分子
大恩未報
恩
恩主
俸祿
風水
俯思報效
肝腦塗地
哥哥大恩無可報答
國
厚恩
降恩
盡忠報國，死而後已
祿
難以報答
努力建功
錢糧
丘山之大恩
上天護祐
甚厚
食君之祿，忠君之事
誓以死報
受國厚恩
為臣食祿當思報
事主臨危合盡忠
位高寵厚
wu shou Wei Wang zhong en
xia chen chou en zhi yi
xiao ren de meng en xiang taiju
xie en
you en bi chouzhe, yi pifu zhi yi
you yi bao zhi
yu zuo
zaohua
ze
zhi xiang xionzhang da en wuke baoda
zuo
zuorou
吾受魏王重恩
下臣酬恩之義
小人得蒙恩相抬舉
謝恩
有恩必酬者，亦匹夫之義
有以報之
餘胙
造化
澤
只想兄長大恩無可報答
胙
祚肉
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