Other religious houses · The Naiman of Tayang and Buyiruq · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Uyghur scribes

The Naiman court writes in the Uyghur script and keeps a seal.

Tata-tonga, an Uyghur by the Yuanshi, is the khan's tutor and keeper of the golden seal and of the revenue when Temujin takes him in 1204; he then teaches the princes to write. Whether he, or any scribe, served the Naiman on 1 January 1200 is not known; the sources do not date his office or the Naiman use of the script. The scribes' religion is not given.

The Uyghurs of Qocho were mostly Buddhists, with Manichaean and Church of the East communities beside them; Li Tang argues that many Uyghurs were Christians, a hypothesis and not a finding, and a scribe at a Christian court could be any of the three. The Uyghur and Muslim merchants who bring cloth and grain to the Naiman would be near the same clerks. The record is kept because the scribes are the Naiman court's skill, not for any estate: they hold no land, they write the letters, keep the tax in kind and use the seal.

Who holds it

Name
not known for 1200
Title
Uyghur clerks under a seal-keeper (Tata-tonga in 1204)
Since
not known
Born
not known
Family
not applicable
Confidence
low

Yuanshi biography 124 as summarised by secondary writers; not opened in the original.

Overlord

None shown.

What it holds

  • The khan's seal and the Uyghur-script records (thin)
  • A circle of clerks (no number)

Allies and rivals

Serve the Naiman khans; after 1204 they serve Temujin.

How things stand that morning

Probably in the khan's household; not pinned. Their faith is not known.

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.

  1. 1204Tata-tonga is taken with the seal; the Uyghur script is adopted for Mongol documents.Depends on: The Naiman war. Stopped by: A Naiman victory.

Places of note

  • The Naiman court (guess): Marks Tayang's guessed winter court, where the chancery would sit.

Where the sources disagree

  • The sheet assignment says 'Buddhist and Manichaean Uyghur scribes'. The sources give the scribes' nation (Uyghur), not their religion, so the three faiths are possible and none is shown.

Evidence: One Yuanshi biography and a Secret History passage, both of 1204; the Dergipark and Medievalists.net summaries are secondary.

On the map: A point at the guessed court.

Primary sources for The Naiman

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 World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208. 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. Dilber Usul, on the ethnic origin of Ta-ta Tonga (Dergipark, 2023, abstract)
  2. 'Tata-tonga, scribe of Genghis Khan, 1204' (abclegaldocs.com)
  3. Medievalists.net, 'Writing and the Mongol Empire' (2022), on Tata-tonga and the Naiman chancery
  4. Li Tang, 'Medieval sources on the Naiman Christians and on their prince Kuchlug Khan' (2009), on academia.edu

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