20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

Ritual and state in contemporary Mongolia. The case of Chinggis Khan 559difficult to ignore its national dimension. Chinggis was still a landmark forthe Mongols as a nation, at least an emblem of Mongol identity, even in theabsence of a Mongolian political project. Actually, beyond the displayeduniversality of Buddhism and the political integration in the Manchuempire, identities were very much alive. The multinational character ofthe Manchu empire (a common feature of steppe imperial polities) helpedmaintain local identities and, in the case of the most significant groups,national identities. Consequently, while Chinggis’ descendants might haveplayed a leading role in the official ceremonies held at his sanctuary, andwhile some of the rituals might have been restricted to them only, mostof the ceremonies were attended by ordinary pilgrims bringing their ownofferings, taking part in the final sprinkling of kumys and sharing with thedescendants of Chinggis Khan the prosperity associated with performingthese ceremonies. As is clear from the descriptions and wordings ofthe ritual, from historical chronicles such as the Altan Tobci, Chinggisbecame after his death an “object of worship”, a šuteen, for the Mongoliannation, that he had (re-)founded and that he had led to the conquest of theknown world. His cult concerned of course the Chinggisid nobility thatproduced Mongolia’s big and small rulers until the 20 th century, but also itssubjects, i.e. the Mongol nation inherited from Chinggis and shared amongthemselves. As the divided Mongol rulers one after the other submittedto the Manchu power or were forcibly conquered, the state dimensionof Chinggis’ cult disappeared together with the independent Mongolianstate (tör). This does not imply that its national dimension was lost 12 . Theveneration of Chinggis khan remained a Mongolian institution in Ordos forthe Chinggisid vassals of the Manchu emperor and for their subjects; wementioned above that in Northern Mongolia, some local rulers’ standardswere still worshipped. National feeling is attested, for instance by the “BlueChronicle” (Köke sudur), a Chinggis Khan-inspired 19 th century work ofhistorical fiction authored by the southern Mongol Inzinasi; or in the 1930s,when crowds of Mongols, nobles and ordinary people alike, were postedalong the way when Chinggis’ relics (the Eight White Tents) were movedfrom his sanctuary in Ordos further west to Kumbum monastery, becauseof the Japanese threat on Inner Mongolia. The return of the relics to Ordosafter the war became a pressing demand of the Mongols, and not restrainedto the nobility: in April 1954, as notes C. Atwood (2004), the return ofthe khan’s black banner at Ezen Qoriy-a was a personal triumph for theInner Mongolian communist leader Ulaanfu.12Scharwz (2006) rightfully underlines that the two notions of state and nationare not interchangeable and that the latter was more enduring than the former.