The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. For the years around 1200 it gives the quarrel with Jamuqa, the Tayichi'ut, the Merkit raids, Toghrul (Ong Khan) of the Kereyit as Temujin's patron, the campaigns with Toghrul against the Naiman of Buyiruq, the Tatar war, Jamuqa's election as Gur Khan (1201) and the fights at Koyiten, with the Jin appearing only as the Altan Khan to the south. Its chronology is loose (it dates by animal years and often not at all), it is partisan for Temujin's house, and the order of events before 1203 should be checked against the Shengwu qinzheng lu and Rashid al-Din, which follow the lost Altan Debter. It is the richest source for steppe custom, oath-making, kinship and the names of the clans.
About this source
- Title
- Mongqol-un niuca tobca'an; Chinese transcription Yuanchao mishi (元朝秘史)
- Author
- Anonymous
- Author's dates
- unknown; a court writer of the early Mongol empire
- Written
- 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
- Language
- Middle Mongolian, surviving in Chinese transcription with Chinese glosses and summaries
- Covers
- the Mongol origin legends to the reign of Ogodei, about 1240
- Kind
- Chronicle
The date of composition (1228, 1240 or later) is disputed. De Rachewiltz's Brill edition (2004 and 2013) and Cleaves (1982) are under copyright and not free online; the 2015 shorter version is the free text of record. The Chinese Wikisource text is the Ming transcription, not a modern Mongolian reconstruction.
Where to read it
Editions
- Yuanchao mishi (元朝秘史), the Ming Chinese transcription with glosses, 15 juan, on Chinese Wikisource
- Yuanchao mishi (元朝秘史) at the Chinese Text Project (Sibu congkan san bian text)
Translations
- I. de Rachewiltz, The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, shorter version edited by J. C. Street (Western Washington University, 2015), English, open access PDF
- I. de Rachewiltz, The Secret History of the Mongols, 3 vols with full commentary (Brill, 2004 and 2013), English (not freely online)
- F. W. Cleaves, The Secret History of the Mongols (Harvard, 1982), English (not freely online)
Read it online
About the source
Realms this source covers in 1200
- Temujin's Mongols
- The Kereyit of Toghrul, Ong Khan
- The Naiman of Tayang and Buyiruq
- The Merkit of Toqto'a Beki
- The Tayichi'ut of Tarqutai
- Jamuqa's following
- The other Mongol clans
- The Tatars
- The Onggirat
- The Ongud, wardens of the Jin march
- The Oirat of Qutuqa Beki
- The Yenisei Kyrgyz
- The Jin empire of Zhangzong
- Great Xia, the Tangut empire
- The Uyghur kingdom of Qocho and Beshbaliq
- The Qarluq and the nomads of the Ili, the Zhetysu and Dzungaria