Other religious houses · The Kereyit of Toghrul, Ong Khan · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Uyghur remains (Orkhon)

The Uyghur khaganate (744 to 840) made Khar Balgas on the Orkhon its capital and its court religion was Manichaeism; the walls, a tower and the stumps of temples are still there in Kereyit pastures, two and a half centuries after the Kyrgyz burnt it.

By 1200 nothing of that church is alive on the Orkhon. The living Uyghur Buddhist and Manichaean communities of 1200 are in Qocho and the Tarim cities (tar sheet), whose scribes and merchants serve the steppe courts: the Uyghur and Syriac clerks at the Kereyit court (Merchants at the ordu) are their heirs. The ruin is a landmark for the Kereyit herdsmen.

Who holds it

Title
No community and no holder: a ruined city and its old temples
Since
Abandoned after the Kyrgyz sack of 840
Born
not applicable
Family
Not applicable.
Confidence
high for the history, nothing known for 1200

From general knowledge, not opened this session: the Uyghur khagan Bogu took Manichaeism as the court religion in 762 or 763, the trilingual Karabalgasun inscription of the 820s tells it, Buddhism and the Church of the East also had followers at the court, and the Yenisei Kyrgyz sacked the city in 840. The Khitan founded walled towns of their own on the steppe in the early 11th century; see Khar Balgas and Chin Tolgoi (Khitan town).

What it holds

  • Nothing: a ruin

How it was acquired

Not applicable.

Allies and rivals

None; the Kereyit graze round it.

How things stand that morning

Ruins; no priest, monk or community.

Places of note

  • Khar Balgas, the Uyghur capital in ruin: Mounded walls and a tower; the old Manichaean and Buddhist buildings are stumps.

Where the sources disagree

  • The assignment speaks of Buddhist remnants of the Uyghur khaganate. The court religion at Khar Balgas was Manichaean from 762; Buddhism was one of several faiths there. No monastery or community on the Orkhon is attested for 1200; the live Buddhist and Manichaean Uyghurs are at Qocho and in the Tarim, on the tar sheet.

Evidence: The history of the Uyghur capital is well known; for 1200 the condition (ruin, no community) is inferred from the absence of any later mention of a living church there.

On the map: A point on a ruin.

Primary sources for Kereyit

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
  • 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
  • Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand. Read online

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia, Ordu-Baliq (the Uyghur capital, the Karabalgasun inscription, the Kyrgyz sack of 840). From memory; not opened this session
  2. Yamaguchi et al., Archaeological Research of the Khitai Dynasty Balgas City Ruins on the Steppe using GIS (CIPA)
  3. Rashid al-Din, Jami al-tawarikh (Thackston translation, 1998-99), Keraites and Merkits chapters. Quoted from memory; not re-read this session

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.