Companion to the Study of Secularity – Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz: The “White History”

The “White History”
Religion and Secular Rule in Buddhist Mongolia
Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz

With the assertion of Buddhism as the dominant religion at the endof the 16th century, a new reflection on the relationship between the
secular and the religious commenced among the Mongols. They
adopted the Joint Twofold System of Governance formulated in
Buddhist Tibet, and adapted it to the Mongolian cultural context. Thissystem of governance is described in the work “The White History”,
written in the late 16th century, with the epistemic distinctions1 between
the religious and the secular discursively negotiated in the work.
Although the impact of these distinctions on the social differentiationsof Mongolian society during the Qing period (1644–1911) remains to
be investigated, the “White History” nonetheless provides a valuable
insight into pre-modern Mongolian notions of the distinction between
the religious and the secular.
The Rise of Tibetan Buddhism among the Mongols
Tibetan Buddhism has long played a decisive role in shaping theMongolian religious and intellectual landscape. Even in the 13th
century, during the period of the Mongol Empire,2 Tibetan Buddhism
1

2

In this article, I follow the heuristic definition of secularity given by Monika
Wohlrab-Sahr and Marian Burchardt as “the culturally and symbolically as wellas institutionally anchored forms and arrangements of differentiation between
religion and other social spheres” (Monika Wohlrab-Sahr and Marian Burchardt,“Multiple Secularities: Toward a Cultural Sociology of Secular Modernities,”
Comparative Sociology 11, no. 6 (2012): 881). Both spheres are only identified
as religious and secular as a result of their differentiation. Secularity is thus
understood as a mode of distinction between religion and other social spheres.
Chinggis Khan (ca. 1162–1227) built an empire of unprecedented size from 1206
onwards, which in 1259 extended across large parts of Eurasia, including Tibet,
European Russia, Turkey and northern and western China. In 1260, the empire
broke into four successor states, the Il-Khanate in present-day Iran, the Golden
Horde in the Caspian and Black Sea region, the Chagatai Khanate in present-day
Central Asia, and the Yuan Empire in present-day China.

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Companion to the Study of Secularity – Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz: The “White History”

Military power in the
Mongolian steppes

Legitimation ofpolitical rule throughBuddhist authority

was promoted by the Mongol rulers, and gained considerable influenceamong the elites. Although after the end of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty
in China (1368), Buddhism remained present among the Mongols,
it was not until the late 16th century that it became their dominantreligion. Its expansion was initiated by Altan Khan (1507–1582) of the
Tümed Mongols. After his attempts to establish tributary relations
with the Ming Empire failed, Altan Khan repeatedly undertook militaryraids against the Chinese over the course of nearly forty years from the1530s until the peace treaty with Ming China in 1570/71. At the sametime, he subjugated the Western Mongols in a series of campaigns. He
succeeded in becoming the politically and militarily dominant ruler inthe Mongolian steppe regions. However, his leading military position
lacked political legitimacy, as he could not claim direct genealogicaldescent from Chinggis Khan. In this context, Altan Khan and the
Tibetan Buddhist Gelukpa (dGe lugs pa)3 school joined forces. In 1578,
a meeting took place between Altan Khan and the Gelukpa hierarch
Sonam Gyatso (bSod nams rgya mtsho), in Cabciyal at Lake Kokonor.
As was customary in Inner Asian diplomatic relations of the time,they exchanged honorary titles during their meeting. Sonam Gyatso
received the title of Dalai lama, under which this incarnation lineage
was henceforth known. Indeed, the title was also retrospectively
bestowed upon his two predecessors, such that he became known as
the Third Dalai Lama. In exchange, Altan Khan obtained the title of
Qotala esrun yeke küčün-tü čakravarti nom-un qaɣan, “accomplished
Brahma, great powerful cakravartin dharmarāja”,4 legitimising his rulethrough Buddhist authority. Buddhism, with its model of the ruler asdharmarāja and cakravartin, provided an extremely powerful tool tolegitimise and authorise Altan Khan’s rulership. This may have beena strong incentive for Altan Khan to push the spread of Buddhism
among the Mongols. Subsequently, relations between the Mongol
rulers and the Tibetan (and later Mongolian) Buddhist institutions
were established according to the yon mchod relationship between asecular “donor” and a religious “donee”.5 The concept of the Two Orders
3
4
5

For better readability, Tibetan names and terms are transcribed phonetically. At
first mention, the correct Wylie-transliteration is added in brackets.
Anonymous [after 1607], Erdeni tunumal neretü sudur, fol. 30r, in Erdeni tunumal neretü
sudur orosiba, ed. Jorungɣ-a (Beijing: Ündüsüten-ü keblel-ün qoriy-a, 1984), 124.
For a detailed explanation of the yon mchod-model, see Dagmar Schwerk,“Buddhism and Politics in the Tibetan Cultural Area,” in Companion to the2
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Companion to the Study of Secularity – Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz: The “White History”

of religion and government, rendered in Tibetan as chos srid zung ’brel,
Joint Twofold System of Governance, is based on the yon mchod model.
In the longue durée, the meeting between the Mongol ruler and the
Tibetan Buddhist monk had a tremendous impact on early modern
Mongolian society. It led not only to the dominance of Buddhism in
the religious and intellectual spheres, but also to drastic social changes.
A new social class, the Buddhist monastic community, was establishedand institutionalised. The Buddhist Sangha and its monastic institutions
soon gained equal social status with the Mongol aristocracy. In theformative years of the Sangha, the sons of the nobility joined the newly
established monasteries. Furthermore, nobles selected many of theirsubjects, including prisoners of war, for monastic life. Because of its longterm impact on Mongolian society, right up to the 20th century, the 1578
meeting of Altan Khan and the Third Dalai Lama, and the subsequent
Buddhisation of Mongolian society, can be considered a critical juncture
in Mongolian history.6 At that time, the question of securing andlegitimising political power, which had always been an undercurrent in
Mongolian political culture, once again came to the fore. The Mongolianindigenous concept of the legitimation of rule was based on the one handon the mandate of Heaven Above (Mo. deger-e tngri),7 which the ruler
constantly had to confirm through his charisma and his political andmilitary success. On the other hand, since Chinggis Khan’s time it wasalso based on the principle of descent from the lineage of Chinggis Khan.
However, if the ruler, legitimised by Chinggisid lineage, proved de facto
incapable of ruling in the eyes of his subjects, he was deemed to lack

6
7

Close connections
between Mongolian
nobility and the newly
established Buddhist
SanghaTwofold indigenous
legitimation of rule:mandate of Heaven
Above and descentfrom Chinggis Khan

Study of Secularity, ed. HCAS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond
Modernities” (Leipzig University, 2019), 9–10.
Giovanni Capoccia, “Critical Junctures,” in The Oxford Handbook of Historical
Institutionalism, ed. Karl-Orfeo Fioretos, Tulia G. Falleti, and Adam D. Sheingate(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 89.
The origin of the concept of Heaven Above is still open to debate. The concept is foundin the famous Kül tegin inscription (8th century) of the Orkhon Turks of the 7th and8th centuries, in which the qut (good fortune, a kind of vitalising force) of the ruler is
bestowed by tängri. It is also reasonable to further assume that the concept was influenced
by the Chinese concept of tianming 天命, the “mandate of Heaven”, especially since theEastern Turks themselves were strongly influenced by Chinese culture. The degree of
the Chinese impact is, however, still debated, see Igor de Rachewiltz, “Some Remarks on
the Ideological Foundations of Chinggis Khan’s Empire,” Papers on Far Eastern History
7 (1973): 28–30. The nomadic cultures in the regions north and west of China did notexist in a vacuum. It is reasonable to assume that cultural ideas were transported in both
directions and that Chinese and non-Chinese cultures mutually influenced each other.

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Interdependence ofreligious and politicalorder in instructions
for rulers

Heaven’s favour and his rule lost its legitimacy. The inherent instability of
the Mongolian indigenous concept of rule was one of the reasons for therecurring crises of succession throughout Mongolian history.
At the historical crossroads of Altan Khan’s rule, the reference
problem of securing and legitimising his rule led to the formulationof a new guiding principle that developed the interdependence, but
simultaneously the autonomy, of the religious and political order.8
This guiding principle was elaborated in the treatise “White History”,
which has been widely read by the Mongols since the late 16th century.
Works which serve the purpose of instructing rulers are mainly
known from Tibet. Such instructions are classified in the category of
dampa (gdams pa) or shepa (bshad pa), “instruction, explanation”, orunder the category of zhulen (zhu lan), “question-answer”, or simply
as yig, “letters”. They serve on the one hand to explain the subtletiesof Buddhist teaching, and on the other, to advocate the realisation ofa just and good (Buddhist) government. The addressees are usuallyprinces and rulers. The earliest Tibetan texts describing and exhortinga good Buddhist government date back to the period of the Mongol
Empire and its political and military rule in Tibet in the 12th/13th
century. During the Mongolian Yuan dynasty,9 for the first time in
Mongolian history, social reality was addressed through the twofold
framework of religious and worldly rule.10 The concept of Buddhist
government, in which religion and worldly power are separated but
valued equally, was thus theoretically formulated in a political-culturalcontext of encounter and interaction. From the Tibetan perspective it
also served not least to gloss over the reality of asymmetrical power
relations, during the period of Mongol rule. It is important to note thatthe conceptual distinction neither corresponded to, nor instigated,a respective societal differentiation, even if this is almost invariably
what the later Tibetan and Mongolian historical sources would have8

A historical parallel can be found in the Japanese paradigm of the ‘interdependence’of Buddha-Dharma and ruler’s law, see Christoph Kleine, “Religion and theSecular in Premodern Japan from the Viewpoint of Systems Theory,” Journal of
Religion in Japan 2, no.1 (2013).
9 The Mongolian Yuan dynasty was founded by Chinggis Khan’s grandson Qubilai
Khan. He adopted the Chinese dynastic title “Yuan” (“origin”) for his rule in 1272
and moved the imperial capital to Beijing.
10 For an early example, dating from 1434, see Śrī bhu ti bhadra (g’yas ru stag tshaṅ pa
dPal ’byor bzaṅ po), rGya bod yig tshaṅ mkhas pa dga’ byed chen mo ’dzam gliṅ gsal ba’ime loṅ (Thim phu: Kunsang Topgyel and Mani Dorji, 1979), smad cha, fol. 16v–17v.

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us believe. The actual design of the relationship between the religious
and non-religious spheres was much more differentiated,11 and therelationship between the Sakyapa (Sa skya pa) school and the Mongol
rulers was by no means as exclusive as later sources suggest. Although
the realisation of the Two Orders during the Yuan period did notcorrespond to the social reality of the time, later Tibetan and Mongolian
historiography idealised the Yuan emperor Qubilai Khan (r. 1260–
1294) as the ideal Buddhist ruler and described his relationship with
the Sakyapa hierarch Phakpa (’Phags pa) (1235–1280) as the perfectrealisation of a yon mchod relationship.
The “White History”
The “White History” reflects the changing social and epistemic
structures of Mongolian society of the period. It aims to present a
manual of governance for the ruler of a realm in which a good life
– defined from a Buddhist perspective – is achievable. The “WhiteHistory” imagines an ideal Buddhist society in which the worldly
and religious spheres are two separate yet interrelated domains.
It transplants the Tibetan model of the Joint Twofold System ofGovernance into the social lifeworlds of 16th-century Mongolia. The
treatise proved to be immensely influential over the course of thenext three centuries.12

Conceptual distinction
between religious
and secular did notcorrespond to societal
differentiation

A Mongolian
formulation of
the Tibetan Joint
Twofold System
of GovernanceOrigin, Authorship, and Content

The origin and authorship of the “White History of the Ten
Meritorious Doctrines” (Mo. Arban buyan-tu nom-un čaɣan teüke), as
its extended title reads,13 are disputed among scholars. Some assume
that the “White History” was written in the late 13th century by noneother than the founder of the Yuan Dynasty, Qubilai Khan.14 Others
believe, however, that the work was written by the Mongol nobleman
11 A re-evaluation is provided by Adam C. Krug, “Pakpa’s Verses on Governance in
Advice to Prince Jibik Temür: A Jewel Rosary,” Cahiers d’Extreme-Asie 24 (2015).
12 As late as 1877 new manuscripts of the text were produced and distributed in Mongolia.
13 It is common in Mongolian literature that works have several titles. Thus, the“White History” is also known under the title “Short instruction to put the true
Two Orders equally and flawlessly into practice” (Mo. Ünen qoyar yosu-yi tegsideendegürel ügei yabuɣulqu-yin tobčiya).
14 Klaus Sagaster, ed. and trans., Die Weisse Geschichte (Čaɣan teüke). Eine
mongolische Quelle zur Lehre von den Beiden Ordnungen Religion und Staat inTibet und der Mongolei (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976).

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Contents of the“White History”

Qutuɣtai Sečen Qung Tayiji (1540–1586), a nephew of Altan Khan andhimself a powerful military leader, from much older textual materials.15
Based on current analysis, it is safe to say that the “White History” in its
present form is demonstrably a work from the 16th century, although it
contains much material from the 13th century.16
The treatise, as preserved in the manuscript I use,17 is divided into
three parts or chapters (Mo. bölög):
1. The regulations for the cult of Chinggis Khan (fol. 1r–2v).18 The
veneration of Chinggis Khan as the ancestral deity of the Mongols
goes back to the time of the Mongol Empire. It developed into anelaborate cult, whose regulations are described in detail. This
first part, compiled from various sources, is irrelevant to us, andI will not go into further detail here.

15 Walther Heissig, Die Familien- und Kirchengeschichtsschreibung der Mongolen. I. 16.–
18. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1959), 17–26. Tsymzhit Vanchikova
in Čaɣan teüke – “Belaja istorija” mongol’skij istoriko-pravovoj pamjatnik XIII-XVI
vv. Sostavlenie kriticheskogo teksta i perevod “Beloj istorii” P.B. Baldanzhapova,
issledovanie, redaktirovannie perevoda, sostavlenie kommentariev, podgotovka teksta“Beloj istorii” k publikatsii, perevod i kommentarij k “Shastre khana-chakravartina”
i “Shastre Orunga”, ed. Tsymzhit P. Vanchikova (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Burjatskogonauchnogo tsentra SO RAN, 2001), 7-9, discusses in detail the question of date andauthorship of the Čaɣan teüke. A total of eighteen manuscripts of the “White History”
are known today, see Borjigidai Oyunbilig, “An Explanation of Ankka and Kilbar inthe ‘White History’,” in On a Day of a Month of the Fire Bird Year: Festschrift for Peter
Schwieger on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. Jeannine Bischoff, Petra Maurer,and Charles Ramble (Lumbini: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2020), 583.
16 However, the titles and offices mentioned in the description of the ideal government
do not reflect Yuan Dynasty hierarchies, about which we are well informed fromthe Chinese annals of the Yuan dynasty, the Yuan Shi, see Paul Ratchnevsky, “ZurFrage der Datierung des Caɣan teüke,” in Olon ulsyn mongol chėl bičgijn ėrdėmtnij
anchdugaar ich chural, vol. 3, ed. Ž Coloo (Ulan-Bator: Verlag Šinžleh Uhaany
Akad. Hėvlėl, 1962), 136-45, quoted after Sagaster, Weisse Geschichte, 285.
17 The facsimile edition provided by Walther Heissig, Familien- undKirchengeschichtsschreibung, „Facsimilia“, 1–24, with the title Mongɣol ulus-un
arban buyan-tu nom-un čaɣan teüke ner-e-tü sudur orosibai (“Sūtra called white
history of the ten meritorious rules of the Mongol people”).
18 In the “White History”, the cult of Chinggis Khan in the so-called Eight White
Yurts (Mo. naiman čaɣan ger) is attributed to Qubilai Khan, while most Mongoliansources of the 17th and 18th centuries place its implementation in the period directly
after Chinggis Khan’s death. The Persian historian Rashid al-Din also mentions
the cult of the Mongolian ruling family, see Sagaster, Weisse Geschichte, 197–98.
Compare also Herbert Franke, From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor andGod: The Legitimation of the Yüan Dynasty (München, 1978), 30–31.

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2. The history and explanation of the Two Orders (Mo. qoyar
yosun) of religion (Buddhism) and government (fol. 3r–5r). Ina historical narrative, Chinggis Khan’s establishment of theMongol Empire is directly related to his adherence to the rulesof qoyar yosun, the Two Orders. This second part contains abrief explanation of the application of the principles of the Two
Orders in the two domains of religion and government.
3. The third part mainly deals with the realisation of the ‘ideal’ ruleby the Yuan emperor Qubilai Khan and the Tibetan Buddhist
monk Phakpa Lama (fol. 5v–20r). In this part, the structure of anorderly government is presented on the basis of a list of different
offices and ranks of the administration, and their respective
duties. Detailed treatment is also given to ethical principles, suchas earning money, healing and non-healing actions, Buddhist
rules of life and maxims in general, as well as punishments for
misdemeanours by monks and lay people.
The closing word is followed by a hymn to Qubilai Khan (fol.
20v–21r). The manuscript also includes a list of the offices of the
Chinggis Khan cult in the Ordos region (fol. 22r–v).19
The table of contents illustrates the hybrid character of the work,
which makes a literary-historical classification difficult. Although
the Mongolian term teüke generally refers to a work of history, thetreatise is not a historical chronicle. It has more the character of awork of state theory, but with historical interpolations.

The “White History”
as a work of state
theoryThe Two Orders according to the “White History”

In the introduction to the second part of the “White History”, the aimof the treatise is stated:
The root of the sublime teaching, the lord of the dharma, is the Lama;
The head of the state, the mighty one of the world, is the ruler.
The law (Mo. jasaɣ) of the true dharma is indissoluble like a silken knot.
The law of the strict ruler is indestructible like a golden yoke.20
19 In the cult of the Eight White Yurts (Mo. naiman čaɣan ger) Chinggis Khan isvenerated as the protector and ancestor deity of the Mongol people.
20 This comparison for the Two Orders is widespread in the Tibetan cultural area. The
law of the dharma (Tib. chos khrims) is compared with a silken knot, that of the king(Tib. rgyal po’i khrims) with a heavy golden yoke (Skt. yugaṃdhara), literally “yokebearer”, an allusion to one of the seven large mountain ranges of Buddhist cosmology,
which in concentric circles surround the mountain Sumeru, the Buddhist axis mundi.

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The following brief guide is intended to give equal and flawless effect tothese two true orders. (Fol. 3v)

The Tibetan“donor-preceptor”
relationship

The Two Orders (in Tibetan also called, among other terms, khrims
chen po gnyis, the “two great laws”) designate the “law of the dharma”(Mo. nom-un törö,) and the “law of the world” (Mo. yirtinčü-yin törö).
‘Religion’ in this context refers exclusively to Buddhism. The binary
terms nom-un törö and yirtincü-yin törö21 distinguish a sphere of the
Buddhist order and a sphere of the worldly order. The term nom thus
does not yet represent a plurality of religions, but emphasises that there
is no ‘religion’ outside the dharma. While nom in the “White History”
can have a variety of meanings depending on the context, ranging from“dharma” and “instruction” to “rule, norm”, the synonymously usedterm šasin is only found in its meaning as Buddhism and as part of theqoyar yosun, the Two Orders. Unlike nom, however, which retained
its particularistic meaning, šasin developed in the 18th century into a
comparative generic term that depicted a plurality of religions, such as
the “teaching of the shamans” or Islam.22
The representatives of the Two Orders are the lama and theruler, whose relationship to each other is characterised as “donorpreceptor” (Tib. yon mchod).23 The Tibetan copulative compoundyon mchod consists of the two terms yon bdag, literally “lord of gifts”,
and mchod gnas “subject of sacrifice”, one worthy of sacrifice. Thisritual religious relationship shapes, on the one hand, the socioreligious relationship between the Buddhist village community andits assigned monastic community. On the other hand, the conceptrefers to the personal tantric relationship between a lama and his
adept. The tantric ritual specialist is the “subject of sacrifice” in the
21 In the “White History” törö is used synonymously with yosun, denoting “order,law, rule”; compare Tatyana Skrynnikova, “Die Bedeutung des Begriffes törö inder politischen Kultur der Mongolen im 17. Jahrhundert,” Asiatische Studien/
Études Asiatiques LXIII, no. 2 (2009): 450.
22 On the development of a comparative concept of religion in 18th-century Mongolia, see
Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz, “Lamas und Schamanen: Mongolische Wissensordnungenvom frühen 17. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Debatte um aussereuropäische
Religionsbegriffe,” in Religion in Asien? Studien zur Anwendbarkeit des Religionsbegriffs,
ed. Peter Schalk et al. (Uppsala Universitet, 2013).
23 Cf. Schwerk, “Buddhism and Politics,” 7–8. For the Indian antecedents and thesemantic range of the respective Tibetan terms, see David Seyfort Ruegg, Ordre
spirituel et ordre temporel dans la pensée bouddhique de l’Inde et du Tibet. Quatre
conférences au Collège de France (Paris: Collège de France, 1995), 70-86.

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context of a tantric initiation. The “lord of gifts” is the recipient of theinitiation, the gift itself being the ritual payment for the transmissionof the initiation. The payment can be made in natural produce,money, gold or other valuables; in services, e.g. in compulsory labour,
but also in military protection or active military assistance.
In Tibet, the yon mchod model was transported to the level of thegovernment and reformulated in the concept of the “two great laws”.
Furthermore, the concept was also adopted to define the relationshipbetween two countries, e.g. Tibet and China, or Tibet and Mongolia.
Regarding its applicability in this sense, however, the concept isvalid only within a larger Buddhist framework of interpretation. The
worldly societal order is an order based on Buddhist ethical rules.
This being said, according to the “White History”, both societal
spheres, the religious and the secular, should ideally be separated fromeach other. The deliberate and clear separation of the two domains isaffirmed in statements such as “[one] shall establish the Two Orders,each for itself, without confusing them” (fol. 11v). In the “WhiteHistory”, the conceptually prescribed rigorous separation of the twodomains leads to the drawing of new boundaries in the descriptionof social realities. Thus, the seasonally defined Buddhist festive “goodtimes” (Mo. sayin čaɣ, Tib. dus bzang), in which meritorious works
are to be accomplished, are assigned to the religious sphere. The fourindigenous seasonal festivals (Mo. qurim) constitute their secularcounterpart. These four festivals consist of four offering ceremonies
closely related to pastoral economy, especially horse breeding,whose introduction is attributed to Chinggis Khan in his function asancestral deity. Contrary to other Mongolian sources, which consider
these festivals part of the religious sphere, including Buddhist andnon-Buddhist practices,24 the “White History” assigns them to thesecular domain. This conceptual ‘secularisation’, that is alien to the
Tibetan notion of chos srid zung ’brel, can be read in the sense of a‘Mongolisation’ of the Two Orders, as presented in the “White History”.

Clear separation
between religious andsecular societal spheres

Conceptual‘secularisation’ of
indigenous ritual
practices

24 Cyben Žamcarano, “Kul’t Chinggisa v Ordose. Iz puteshestvija v Juzhnuju
Mongoliju v 1910g,” Central Asiatic Journal VI (1961). Compare also Karénina
Kollmar-Paulenz, “A method that helps living beings: How the Mongols created‘shamanism’,” Mongolo-Tibetica Pragensia 12. Ethnolinguistics, Sociolinguistics,
Religion and Culture 5, no. 2 (2012).

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Interdependence ofthe religious and thesecular in the “rules of
the world”

Yet, since a good government is clearly Buddhist, i.e. based onreligion, both spheres are nevertheless closely intertwined. In the“White History”, the interdependence of the religious and the seculardomain comes to the fore in the description of the “rules of the world”(Mo. yirtinčü-yin yosun). The text enumerates four different kinds ofrulers responsible for the common good in its social and politicalaspects. The first of them is the cakravartin, the “wheel-turningking” who “is able to enforce the rules of the dharma [Mo. nomun törö], the Dhāraṇīs and Sūtras, each for itself, without merging
them.”25 Thus, the ruler of the worldly sphere is also responsible
for the religious sphere. Furthermore, the enumeration of the titlesof the officials who are in charge of the worldly domain confirms
this interdependence of the two domains. The highest government
officials are the three güüširi (fol. 9r, 12v), the “national preceptors”(Chin. guoshi). As far as I know, in the Yuan period the title guoshi
was only conferred on religious dignitaries. However, the title andoffice also have worldly implications, because the guoshi was incharge of the institutional administration of the Buddhist clergy inthe empire. The religious and the secular domains are thus conjoinedin the office of the guoshi.
In the “White History” the Two Orders are further differentiatedin the following statement:
These Two Orders are the rules of the dharma [Mo. nom], namely Dhāranīs
and Sūtras,
and the rules of the world, peace and lightness. (fol. 6v)

The “rules of the dharma”

The “rules of the dharma” (Mo. nom-un yosun)26 include the two
Buddhist paths to liberation, as expounded in Mahāyāna Buddhism,
the “Vehicle of the Mantra” (Skt. mantrayāna), and the “Vehicle of
the Sūtra” (Skt. sūtrayāna). Both vehicles or paths ultimately leadto the soteriological goal of liberation from the cycle of rebirth andattainment of Buddhahood, but they do so with different methods.
25 This passage, which is missing in the manuscript I use, is quoted from anotherversion, the Erte boɣdasun yabudal-un yamun-u čaɣan teüke kemekü yeke erketü
kölgen sudur ene bolai (“This is the great and mighty sūtra called ‘white history of
the rules of conduct of the holy ones of earlier times’ ”), fol. 7r. This manuscript
is preserved in the Gandanthegchinlin monastery in Ulaanbaatar. Vanchikova,
Čaɣan teüke contains the facsimile reproduction.
26 As mentioned before, yosun is used synonymously with törö in the “White History”.

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The Mantrayāna refers to the tantric path to salvation, whereas the
Sūtrayāna is mainly based on the sūtras, and the principles of moral
behaviour, mental concentration and wisdom taught in them.
The two “rules of government” (Mo. törö-yin yosun) are peace(Mo. engke) and lightness (Mo. kilbar),27 a figurative term for order.
The rule of peace denotes a life without external enemies, material
worries and unjust rule. These circumstances also ensure that people
can devote themselves unhindered to the practice of the dharma,
which they would not be able to do if they were exposed to war,
famine, etc. The rule of lightness is identified with Mo. amur, “peace,calmness, order”, and tübsin, which literally means “smooth, even” andin a figurative sense “peaceful, calm, consolidated, just”. In addition, it
includes happiness (Mo. jirɣalang), which is understood as a peacefullife without negative external influences. The cornerstones of a ‘good
government’, in the Mongolian Buddhist sense, are often referred toby the terms engke amuɣulang, “peace and quiet”.
These concepts of governance, which have had Buddhist
connotations since the late 16th century are much older. They date backto the 13th century and can be found in the oldest Mongolian literaryhistoriographical work, the famous Mongɣol-un niɣuča tobčiyan,“Secret History of the Mongols”, from the years 1228/1240. They
are also present in the equally famous Jasaq, the normative orders
and commandments of Chinggis Khan relating to governmental
affairs, military administration, jurisdiction, and other matters.
The latter are known to us only from Persian and Arabic sources,
and their authorship is attributed to Chinggis Khan himself, anassertion which is historically doubtful.28 The Jasaq was normatively
binding throughout the Mongol empire – it was imperative that it beobeyed. In these early Mongolian writings, we are confronted with anunderstanding of good and just government that is not so different
from later Buddhist concepts. However, it is based not on Buddhist
principles, but on the indigenous understanding of Mongol rule. This
understanding is grounded in the concept of the Eternal Blue Heaven

The “rules of government”

Indigenous roots of
Buddhist governance:
the Eternal Blue Heaven

27 Oyunbilig, “Explanation,” 586, reads gilber, carrying the meanings of “hard, solid”
and referring to “martial power”. This is not the place to discuss this reading, nor
the interpretation that follows from it, which is based on the Chinese ‘two ways ofgoverning: civilian and military’.
28 See the discussion of the different scholarly standpoints in Igor de Rachewiltz,“Some Reflections on Činggis Qan’s Jasaɣ,” East Asian History 6 (1993).

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A dynamic conceptof worldly rule

(Mo. köke möngke tngri) or Heaven Above (Mo. deger-e tngri), upon
the grace of whom (or which)29 the ruler is dependent. It manifests
itself in the personal charisma and successful governance of the ruler.
In this regard, it is incumbent upon the ruler to bring his subjects
peace (Mo. amur), calm (Mo. nuta), and order (Mo. kilbar/amur).
A just internal order proves the rule of the Khan to be legitimised
by Heaven and ultimately as Heaven’s will. This transcendently
justified empowerment of rule is also indicated by the languageof formulas used in the numerous letters from the Mongol rulers
to European kings and the Popes. The opening formula is always:“by the power of Heaven Above” (Mo. deger-e tngri-yin küčü-dür)or “by the power of Eternal Blue Heaven” (Mo. köke möngke tngriyin küčü-dür).30 The ruler must ensure that there is neither hunger
nor material need in his realm. The Mongol rulers performed thistask conscientiously, motivated by the knowledge that the charisma
bestowed upon them by Heaven was confirmed by the maintenanceof order. If the ruler could not keep this obligation, he had obviously
lost the favour of Heaven and his subjects were no longer boundby their oath of allegiance to him. This dynamic principle of rule
required considerable and sustained effort on the part of the ruler.
In his “Compendium of Chronicles” (Jami῾ al-tawarikh), the Persian
historian Rashid ad-Din (1247–1318) tells us that, during his
campaign against the Chorezm Shah, Chinggis Khan levied a charge
on the army in order to supply the Mongols who had fallen into

29 It is still open to discussion whether the Mongol concept of tngri was conceived
as an abstract principle or as a personal transcendent being. Tngri was often
identified with God or Allah of the surrounding monotheistic traditions. Thus,in the Rasulid hexaglot, a vocabulary in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenianand Mongolian from the 14th century, the Greek ho theos and the Arabic Allāhare given as equivalents to the Turkic tängri and the Mongolian tngri/tenggeri,
see Peter Golden, ed., The King’s Dictionary. The Rasulid Hexaglot: FourteenthCentury Vocabularies in Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Greek, Armenian and Mongol,trans. Louis Ligeti (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 198, 61, quoted after Christopher Atwood,“Validation by Holiness or Sovereignty: Religious Toleration as Political Theology
in the Mongol World Empire of the Thirteenth Century,” The International History
Review 26, no. 2 (2004): 252. When the Il-Khanid rulers converted to Islam, they
officially acknowledged that tngri is the god of the prophet Muhammad.
30 For example, in the seal of Güyük Khan’s letter to Pope Innozenz IV, see Louis
Ligeti, Monuments préclassiques I: XIIIe et XIVe siècles (Budapest: Akadémiai
Kiadó, 1972), 20.

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need and were left behind in Mongolia.31 Chinggis Khan’s successorÖgedei Khan in turn introduced a livestock tax, for the benefit of thepoor and needy in the empire.32 In addition, the rulers had to ensurethat their subjects always had access to sufficient pastures and water. If
these duties, which made concrete the theoretical cornerstones of justrule, were neglected, then their subjects threatened to vote with thehooves of their horses; i.e. whenever possible, they bodily withdrew
from the sphere of influence of their ruler.
Good Governance according to the “White History“

The “White History” offers an array of instructions on how to obtainand maintain social order. It mentions concrete measures to strategicallysecure the borders, fight crime, assure the well-being of livestock against
wild animals, and to secure communication, transport and trade:

Advice on how tomaintain social order

And further: Post guards at the passes of large mountains and at the mouthsof large rivers!
Put up bundles of branches to scare away the wolves! Feed dogs for the robbers!
Have ships ready to cross the sea!
Feed roosters to know the time!
[…]
Build bridges in a region full of canyons!
Strew all paths with grey pebbles!
If you do [all] that, the whole people will be calm. (fol. 15r)33

The key terms “peace”, “order”, “joy”, “happiness” and others are wellfounded in Mongolian indigenous concepts of rule (and, on theirbasis, the largest contiguous empire in history was constituted). Theirmeaning was reconfigured in the “White History”, and endowed witha Buddhist interpretation. In pre-Buddhist times, Mongolian religious
concepts and, in turn, concepts of just rule, concentrated on this-worldly
matters. To a certain extent, the use of these well-established notions

Pragmatic goalsof just rule

31 Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy (Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing, 2006), 177.
32 Erich Haenisch, Mangḥol un niuca tobca’an (Yüan-cha’o pi-shi). Die Geheime
Geschichte der Mongolen aus der chinesischen Transkription (Ausgabe Ye Têh-hui)
im mongolischen Wortlaut wiederhergestellt von E.H. Teil I: Text (Wiesbaden: Franz
Steiner Verlag, 1962), paragraph 280, 101; translation in Igor de Rachewiltz, The
Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century.
Translated with a historical and philological commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 1:216.
33 In some ways, these instructions reflect social life. It was, for example, customaryin Mongolia to strew paths with small grey stones (Sagaster, Weisse Geschichte,371), or to set up a bundle of branches near sheep pens to scare off wolves.

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Secular government
founded onreligious ethics

of pragmatic goals, to describe a Buddhist ordered state, inner security
and inner peace, ensures the continuity of the indigenous conceptof rulership. Nevertheless, important changes were introduced. The
pragmatic goals now served a higher, universal goal. The Buddhist ruler
needs to establish a government in which peace and ease (with all theconnotations explored above) are guaranteed, and in which all people
can live without endangerment by external enemies or an unjust politicalauthority. These circumstances allow his subjects optimal conditions tofollow the Buddhist path to salvation. What awaits a world in which the
Two Orders are not observed is described in the section that follows themeasures for maintaining internal order: Misfortune, suffering, material
deprivation and violence will poison society.
The secular government depends on religious guidelines, as peaceand order can only be achieved through right moral conduct, namely theobservance of the Buddhist Ten White Virtues34 (Mo. arban čaɣan buyan):
When one entrusts oneself to the virtuous ruler, the people will live in peace.
(fol. 13v)

The government can therefore only enforce the instructions foraction mandatory to obtain internal order on the basis of a generallybinding religious code of values.
Instructions for action: Buddhist ethics

Contrary to the fact that the commandment against killing is thefirst of the Ten White Virtues, a ruler in an ideal Buddhist realm
does not have to adhere to the commandment of non-violence. The
willingness to protect the Buddhist realm that provides the basis
for the path to liberation, justifies drastic means. Thus the “WhiteHistory” contains a number of passages demanding “to beat theforeign enemy with cunning and violence during wartime” and tostrengthen one’s own army with weapons (fol. 8v).
The “White History” addresses concrete social situations, andprovides instructions on how to cope with them, probably referring
to existing practices of customary law. Draconian punishments arecarried out on people who are guilty of an offence:
34 The Ten White Virtues are: (1) do not kill, (2) do not steal, (3) do not live unchastely,(4) do not lie, (5) do not speak roughly, (6) do not speak foolishly, (7) do not slander,(8) do not covet, (9) do not have bad intentions, and (10) do not have false opinions.

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If a man speaks lies, cut off his tongue!
If someone commits robbery, cut his eyes out!
If someone […]35 destroys the Great Government, take his life! (fol. 17v)

Suspension of thecommandment against
killing on behalf of the
Buddhist ruler

A wise ruler chooses his ministers and officials carefully:
If one finds and employs upright, wise people, one will realise the intentionsof the ruler and bring peace to the people. […]Bad people, even if they are appointed to high ranks, will bring suffering to
the country and destroy the works of the ruler. They will become shamelessand mean by themselves.
Therefore, one should only give titles after careful consideration and withdeep insight. (fol. 18r)

The “White History” is one of the rare texts that not only reflect the
lives of the elites, but are also concerned with ordinary people. It
provides them with instructions on how to react to bad government,
which it characterises by arbitrariness, mercilessness and wastefulness:

Markers of bad
government

From a merciless king one shall depart!
Merciless nobles [Mo. noyad] one shall leave!
[…]
One shouldn’t be too lenient with bad people! (fol. 14v)

And:
Governing princes [Mo. jasaɣ noyad] who understand nothing about government,
are more inaccessible than mountains.
[…]If the law is enforced in a way that deviates from the rules,
one cannot remain the head of the people [Mo. ulus]. (fol. 14v-15r)

A ruler has authority and legitimacy only as long as he follows the
Buddhist principles of good government. If he does not, his subjects
are free to impose the aforementioned consequences, and he himself
has to abdicate. At this point, indigenous and Buddhist notions ofworldly rule merge.
Conclusion
The Mongolian “White History” served as a government handbook
for nobles and rulers. It not only conveyed the principles of good
governance, but also envisioned the ideal order of a Buddhist realm,
35

Mo. qubiyad: the meaning of this word is not clear.

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in which a ‘religious’ and a ‘secular’ domain are clearly identified
and separated from each other. Describing in detail the offices of thereligious and secular order, these epistemic structures are groundedin social stratification. The binary code displayed in the Two Orders
advances a differentiation between religious and non-religious spheresin 16th-century Mongolia. How vital the system of the Two Orders
was considered for a functioning society is illustrated by the following
statement:
If the law of the dharma does not exist, living beings fall into hell.
If the law of the ruler does not exist, peoples and communities perish. (fol. 13r)

The religious andthe secular as two
mutually exclusive
yet complimentary
spheresIn this taxonomic order, reality is evaluated according to a binary
scheme, similar to the secular/religious divide we are familiar with.
In the Mongolian case, the religious and the secular are framed anddiscussed as two separate sovereign spheres that are not conceived
as mutually exclusive, but as complementary to each other. In
contrast to modern secularities based on a ‘horizontal’ secular/
religious divide, the binary distinction is a religious – here, Buddhist– strategy to categorise Mongolian society. It seeks, in this way, toclaim authoritative interpretative power also over those areas thatare excluded from the religious sphere and are thus positioned as
non-religious. In this sense, it is a Buddhist or religiously based
secularity, that is spelt out not only on the epistemic level, but also
on the social level. Whether the described societal differentiations
correspond to actual social realities is not important, because thisepistemic distinction does not reflect any social differentiations.
Rather, it aims at creating a Mongolian-Buddhist ideal model ofsociety. Reflecting the religious, social and economic changes ofMongolian society in the late 16th century on an epistemic level, the“White History” propagated a new model of good governance, which
was no longer based on the Heaven-mandated rule of a Chinggisid
leader, but on Buddhist rule grounded in the Ten White Virtues. On
one hand, the epistemically postulated rigorous separation between
the religious and the worldly sphere is enhanced through the detailed
description of the social order, including the different offices andinstitutions in both domains. On the other hand, both spheres are
intimately related to each other – they are even intertwined – as16
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good worldly rule is based on Buddhist ethics, and indeed amounts
to their implementation in all societal spheres. A good government
is ultimately a government that provides its subjects with ideal
conditions for achieving the Buddhist goal of salvation. These arean ordered community, material prosperity, internal order and legal
security. However, these guiding ideas of Buddhist government draw
on indigenous conceptualisations of a Heaven-mandated rule. Good
government was defined along the Buddhistically superscribedlines of Chinggis Khan’s Jasaq, which already in the 13th century
showed indications of rule of law.36 Indigenous concepts of good
government thus shaped the Mongolian adaptation of the Tibetan
Buddhist Joint Twofold System of Governance. The legacy of boththe indigenous and Buddhist conceptual distinctions of a religiously
defined secularity lives on in Article 9 of the current Mongolian
constitution, which regulates the relationship between religion andstate. It is coined in the very same terms šasin37 and törö,38 whose
genealogical trajectories can be traced back to 16th century Mongolia
and the writing of the “White History”.

36 In the Mongol Empire, the will of the ruler was considered the supreme law.
Although the ruler was the supreme judicial authority, his arbitrariness wascurbed, as court proceedings took place in public. Chinggis Khan had establishedthe office of jarɣuči, which took over the administration and jurisdiction. The
court of jarɣuči usually dealt with criminal cases and disputes that affected theinterests of the empire or the ruler. The rule of publicity could not be violated,even by the ruler himself. Arbitrary sentences were also branded as such, as
the admission of guilt by Chinggis Khan’s successor, Ögedei Khan, who had
his henchman Doholhu secretly killed, makes clear in the Secret History of theMongols (Erich Haenisch, Mangḥol un niuca tobca’an, 102; Igor de Rachewiltz, The
Secret History of the Mongols, 1: 218). In this sense, we may speak of a rule of law.
37 Compare n. 22.
38 The article reads: “The State (törö) shall respect the religion (shasin), whereas
the religion shall honor the State in Mongolia.” Mongolia’s Constitution of 1992
with Amendments through 2001, https://constituteproject.org/constitution/
Mongolia_2001.pdf?lang=en (last accessed 20.12.2020). The passage reads in
Khalkh-Mongolian: Mongol Ulsad tör n‘ shashnaa khundetgezh, shashin n’töröö deedelne.

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Quoted and Further Reading

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Atwood, Christopher P. “Validation by Holiness or Sovereignty: Religious Toleration
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de Rachewiltz, Igor. “Some Remarks on the Ideological Foundations of Chinggis
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de Rachewiltz, Igor. The Secret History of the Mongols. A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of
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Franke, Herbert. From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor and God: The
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der Wissenschaften, 1978.
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This text is part of the Companion to the Study of Secularity. The intent of theCompanion is to give scholars interested in the concept of Multiple Secularities,
who are not themselves specialists in particular (historical) regions, an insight
into different regions in which formations of secularity can be observed, as well as
into the key concepts and notions with respect to the study of secularity.
It is published by the Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies (HCAS) “Multiple
Secularities − Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities”. For as long as the HCAS
continues to exist, the Companion will be published and further expanded on the
HCAS website. Towards the end of the Multiple Secularities project, all entries will
be systematised and edited in order to transform the Companion into a complete
open access publication.
Please cite as:
Kollmar-Paulenz, Karénina. “The ‘White History’: Religion and Secular Rule in
Buddhist Mongolia.” In Companion to the Study of Secularity. Edited by HCAS
“Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities.” Leipzig University,
2021. www.multiplesecularities.de/media/css_kollmar-paulenz_whitehistory.pdf

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