Saghang Erke Sechen Khong Tayiji and his Erdeni-yin Tobchi in the Light of Their Relations with the Ch'ing Supremacy

Abstract

Saghang was born as a Chinggisid in the Ordos tribe in South Mongolia in 1604. He was eleven years old when he was granted the title Sechen Khong Tayiji in 1614, and admitted among the ruling class of ministers in his native tribe at his seventeen years of age in 1620. He was specifically honored by allowing to declaim the title of khan at the time of the accession of Rinchen Eyechi Dayiching in 1627. In 1628, Lingdan Khutughtu Khan of the Chakhar tribe came and attacked Rinchen Jinong, conquered his Ordos tribe and forced him to be a part of Chakhar army. Lingdan Khan died of smallpox on his way to a conquest of Tibet, and his power collapsed in 1634. Saghang Sechen Khong Tayiji led his colleagues out of other groups in confusion. Thus Rinchen Jinong came to his ancestral home of Jigi, and praised Saghang for his distinguished service by granting him the title of Erke Sechen Khong Tayiji, and the permit to advance in front of the great army in military affairs and to be in the middle of great hunt in peaceful affairs. He wrote his chronicle Erdeni-yin Tobchi in 1662 when he was fifty-nine years old. How long he lived is not known. His tomb is located north of Yeke Shiber in the territory of the Uushin Banner in the tribal domain of the Ordos in South Mongolia. One question remains; why he took trouble to write his chronicle? We will investigate the reason in the light of his time when the Mongols as a whole came under the ManchuCh'ing military power in the late seventeenth century. As a matter of my private concern, I published a complete Japanese translation with a commentary of Erdeni-yin Tobchi in 2004, which gives me a point of view not allowed other people.