The Mongols' religion is the worship of the Blue Sky (Kokotengri), of sacred mountains and of the ancestors, performed by the family and the khan with libations, sacrifices and the hanging of the belt round the neck and the hat from the hand, turning to the sun.
Burkhan Khaldun is the mountain of that worship: Temujin escaped the Merkit there about 1180 and thanked it with the belt and the hat and the libation, and ordered his descendants to do the same. Shamans (qam, bo'e) and diviners are part of the camp and help when the weather, a sickness or a war must be read; On 1 January 1200 Kokochu, later called Teb Tenggeri, is one of the seven sons of Mönglik of the Qongqotan, in Temujin's following, a young man without a title or a name for power (his rise is in the likely course). Buddhist, Christian and Muslim holy men are in contact with the Mongols through the Kereyit, the Uyghurs and the merchants, but there is no sign of their influence in Temujin's camp.
Who holds it
- Name
- Temujin (as the khan who sacrificed to the mountain after escaping the Merkit); the Uriangkhai of the forest guard it
- Title
- No priesthood; the head of each family sacrifices, and the khan leads
- Confidence
- medium
What it holds
- A sacred mountain and its forest, guarded by the Uriangkhai
- The libation and sacrifice customs of the family and the khan
How it was acquired
By tradition.
Allies and rivals
The Kereyit's Church of the East and the Naiman's mixed religion are rivals in prestige; no quarrel is recorded.
How things stand that morning
Observed in Temujin's camp as a custom; the shaman Kokochu is not yet a power.
Wealth
Offerings of mare's milk and horses; no land.
Threats
- The Merkit, who would desecrate the mountain
- A winter dzud read as a sign of Heaven's anger
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- 1206 to 1208 (one line)After the assembly of 1206 Kokochu, now called Teb Tenggeri, rises as the khan's shaman; in 1207 or 1208 he is killed after quarrelling with the khan's family.Depends on: Temujin becoming khan of all the Mongols in 1206. Stopped by: Temujin never reaching the 1206 assembly.
Places of note
- Burkhan Khaldun: The sacred mountain.
Where the sources disagree
- The assignment asks whether Teb Tenggeri's role belongs before 1206: it does not. In the Secret History he appears at the 1206 assembly and falls in 1207 or 1208.
Evidence: The Secret History is explicit on the Merkit escape and the mountain's rite; the cult itself is general.
On the map: A point, not a district.
Primary sources for Temujin's Mongols
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
- The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
- Annals of the Western Xia, Wu Guangcheng (吳廣成) (1825 to 1827, compiled from Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's year-by-year reconstruction of Tangut history from the Chinese histories, since the Xia left no surviving annals of their own in Chinese. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
- History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
- History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
- Brief Account of the Black Tatars, Peng Daya (彭大雅) with notes by Xu Ting (徐霆) (1237 (Peng Daya's text from a 1232 to 1233 embassy, Xu Ting's notes from a 1235 to 1236 embassy)). Two Song envoys' notes on the Mongols under Ogodei: the steppe, climate, herds, hunting, the ruler's tent and court, the army, taxes, trade, the postal relay, the Uyghur and Khitan clerks, and the subject peoples. Read online
Sources and studies
- The Secret History of the Mongols, transl. and commentary Igor de Rachewiltz (Brill 2004; shorter edition ed. J. C. Street, Western Washington University 2015)
- Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (2004)
- Genghis Khan (Wikipedia)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.