Keraites
Genghisids | |||||||||||
Religion | Church of the East | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Government | Khanate | ||||||||||
Khan | |||||||||||
• 11th century | Markus Buyruk Khan | ||||||||||
• 12th century | Saryk Khan | ||||||||||
• 12th century | Kurchakus Buyruk Khan | ||||||||||
• –1203 | Toghrul Khan (last) | ||||||||||
Historical era | Middle Ages | ||||||||||
• Established | 11th century | ||||||||||
• absorbed into the Mongol Empire. | 13th century | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Today part of | Mongol and Turkic peoples |
The Keraites (also Kerait, Kereit, Khereid; Mongolian: Хэрэйд; Chinese: 克烈) were one of the five dominant Mongol or Turkic tribal confederations (khanates) in the Altai-Sayan region during the 12th century. They had converted to the Church of the East (Nestorianism) in the early 11th century and are one of the possible sources of the European Prester John legend.
Their original territory was expansive, corresponding to much of what is now
Name
In modern Mongolian, the confederation is spelled Хэрэйд, (Khereid). In English, the name is primarily adopted as Keraites, alternatively Kerait, or Kereyit, in some earlier texts also as Karait or Karaites.[7][8]
One common theory sees the name as a cognate with the Mongolian хар/khar and Turkic qarā for "black, swarthy". There have been various other Mongol and Turkic tribes with names involving the term, which are often conflated.[9]
According to the early 14th-century work
Other researchers also suggested that the Mongolian name Khereid may be an ancient totem name derived from the root Kheree (хэрээ) for "raven".[11]
History
Origins
The Keraites first entered history as the ruling faction of the Zubu, a large confederacy of tribes that dominated Mongolia during the 11th and 12th centuries and often fought with the Liao dynasty of north China, which controlled much of Mongolia at the time.
It is unclear whether the Keraites should be classified as Turkic or
The Keraites consisted of eight Mongolic tribes, including the Khereid, Jirkhin, Khonkhoid, Sukhait, Albat, Tumaut, Dunghaid, and the Khirkh.
Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318) says in the Jami' al-tawarikh (Section Three, Khereid Tribe):
At that time they had more power and strength than other tribes. The call of Jesus - peace be upon him - reached them and they entered his faith. They belong to the Mongol ethnicity. They reside along the
They are first noted in Syriac Church records which mention them being absorbed into the Church of the East around 1000 by Metropolitan Abdisho of the Merv ecclesiastical province.
Khanate
After the Zubu broke up, the Keraites retained their dominance on the steppe until they were absorbed into the Mongol Empire. At the height of its power, the Keraite Khanate was organized along the same lines as the Naimans and other powerful steppe tribes of the day. A section is dedicated to the Keraites by Rashid al-Din Hamadani (1247–1318), the official historian of the Ilkhanate, in his Jami' al-tawarikh.
The people were divided into a "central" faction and an "outer" faction. The central faction served as the khan's army and was composed of warriors from many different tribes with no loyalties to anyone but the Khan. This made the central faction more of a quasi-feudal state than a genuine tribe. The "outer" faction was composed of tribes that pledged obedience to the khan, but lived on their own tribal pastures and functioned semi-autonomously. The "capital" of the Keraite khanate was a place called Orta Balagasun, which was probably located in an old Uyghur or Khitan fortress.[citation needed]
Markus Buyruk Khan was a Keraite leader who also led the Zubu confederacy. In 1100, he was killed by the Liao. Kurchakus Buyruk Khan was a son and successor of Bayruk Markus, among whose wives was Toreqaimish Khatun, daughter of Korchi Buiruk Khan of the
After Kurchakus Buyruk Khan died, Ilma's Tatar servant Eljidai became the de facto regent. This upset
The Tatars rebelled against the Jin dynasty in 1195. The Jin commander sent an emissary to Timujin. A fight with the Tatars broke out and the Mongol alliance defeated them. In 1196, the Jin Dynasty awarded Toghrul the title of "Wang" (king). After this, Toghrul was recorded under the title "Wang Khan" (Chinese: 王汗; pinyin: Wáng Hàn). When Temüjin, later Genghis Khan, attacked Jamukha for the title of Khan, Toghrul, fearing Temüjin's growing power, plotted with Jamukha to have him assassinated.
In 1203, Temüjin defeated the Keraites, who were distracted by the collapse of their coalition. Toghrul was killed by Naiman soldiers who failed to recognize him.
Mongol Empire and dispersal
Genghis Khan married the oldest niece of Toghrul,
Rinchin protected Christians when Ghazan began to persecute them but he was executed by Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan when fighting against his custodian, Chupan of the Taichiud in 1319.
Keraites arrived in Europe with the
From the 1380s onward, Nestorian Christianity in Mongolia declined and vanished, on the one hand due to the Islamization under Timur and on the other due to the Ming conquest of Karakorum. The remnants of the Keraits by late 14th century lived along the
Nestorian Christianity
The Keraites were converted to the Church of the East, a sect of Christianity, early in the 11th century.[16][20][21] Other tribes evangelized entirely or to a great extent during the 10th and 11th centuries were the Naiman and the Ongud.
Hamadani stated that the Keraites were Christians.
The legend of Prester John, otherwise set in India or Ethiopia, was also brought in connection with the Eastern Christian rulers of the Keraites. In some versions of the legend, Prester John was explicitly identified with Toghril,[16] but Mongolian sources say nothing about his religion.[22]
Conversion account
An account of the conversion of this people is given in the 12th-century Book of the Tower (Kitab al-Majdal) by Mari ibn Suleiman, and also by 13th-century Syriac Orthodox historian Bar Hebraeus where he names them with the Syriac word ܟܹܪܝܼܬ "Keraith").[23][24]
According to these accounts, shortly before 1007, the Keraite Khan lost his way during a snowstorm while hunting in the high mountains of his land. When he had abandoned all hope, a saint,
Abdisho also related that the Khan had already "set up a pavilion to take the place of an altar, in which was a cross and a Gospel, and named it after Mar Sergius, and he tethered a mare there and he takes her milk and lays it on the Gospel and the cross, and recites over it the prayers which he has learned, and makes the sign of the cross over it, and he and his people after him take a draft from it." Yohannan replied to Abdisho telling him one priest and one deacon was to be sent with altar paraments to baptize the king and his people. Yohannan also approved the exemption of the Keraites from strict church law, stating that while they had to abstain from meat during the annual
Legacy
After the final dispersal of the remaining Keraites settling along the
The name of the
See also
References
Citations
- ^ Үндэсний Статистикийн Хороо. Хэрээд.
- ^ Үндэсний Статистикийн Хороо. Хэрэйд.
- ^ Нанзатов Б. З. Кударинские буряты в XIX веке: этнический состав и расселение // Вестник БНЦ СО РАН. — 2016. — № 4 (24). — С. 126—134.
- ^ Нанзатов Б. З., Содномпилова М. М. Селенгинские буряты в XIX в.: этнический состав и расселение (юго-западный ареал) // Вестник БНЦ СО РАН. — 2019. — № 1 (33). — С. 126—134.
- ^ Бембеев В. Ойраты. Ойрат-калмыки. Калмыки: история, культура, расселение, общественный строй до образования Калмыцкого ханства в Поволжье и Предкавказье. — Джангар, 2004. — С. 87. — 495 с.
- Encyclopedia of Islam(1913); see Dunlop (1944:277)
- ^ "History of the voyages and discoveries made in the north translated from the German of Johann Reinhold Forster and elucidated by several new and original maps" p.141-142
- ^ "A General History And Collection of Voyages And Travels, Arranged In Systematic Order: Forming A Complete History of The Origin And Progress of Navigation, Discovery, And Commerce By Sea And Land, From The Earliest ages to the present time." Robert Kerr (writer), section VIII.2.
- ^ "EAS 107, Владимирцов 324, ОСНЯ 1, 338, АПиПЯЯ 54-55, 73, 103-104, 274. Despite TMN 3, 427, Щербак 1997, 134." Tower of Babel Mongolian etymology database.
- Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, Jami' al-tawarikh cited after (in Russian) translation by L.A. Khetagurov (1952)[clarification needed] "It is said that in ancient times was the king; He had seven [eight] sons, all of them [were] swarthy. For this reason they were called Kerait. After a time, each of the branches, and the progeny of those sons got a special name and nickname. Until very recently, in Kerait was the name of one [tribal] branch, [i.e.] the sovereign one; the other sons became the servants of his brother, who was their sovereign, while they did not have sovereignty."
- ^ Хойт С.К. Кереиты в этногенезе народов Евразии: историография проблемы. Элиста, 2008. 82 с.
- ^ a b R. Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1970, p191.
- ISBN 9789231036545.
- ^ History of Mongolia (2003) Volume II
- ^ Compendium , Paris, 1866, p.362
- ^ )
- ^ Tynyshbaev (1925)
- ^ Tynyshbaev (1925)
- ^ Tynyshbaev (1925)
- ^ Hunter (1991).[page needed] Silverberg, Robert (1972). The Realm of Prester John. Doubleday. p. 12.
- ISBN 978-0-415-24397-1.
- ISBN 0816046719.
- ^ Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon ecclesiasticum (ed. and tr. J.B. Abbeloos and T.J. Lamy, vol. 3, coll. 279-81).
See Hunter (1991).[page needed] - ^ Bar Hebraeus Chron. Syr. (1286) 204/184
- ^ Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia pp. 400-401.
- ^
"The further fate of our Kerei is closely linked with the fate of Argyn, although they did not play such a large role as the Argyn. The Kerei [or at least the Achamail subgroup] participated in the campaign of Barak (1420) in Tashkent and Khujand. In 1723 the Kerei (as well as the Argyns) suffered relatively less than other peoples. In the wars of Muhammad Shaybani, there is mention of a tribe called Sakhiot, obviously the Kerei who had remained among the Uzbeks of Ferghana, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva." Tynyshbaev (1925)
- Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. XV, Fasc. 5 (2002), pp. 536–537.
- ^ Dunlop (1944:289), following Howorth, Unknown Mongolia (1913).
Sources
- Boyle, John Andrew, "The Summer and Winter Camping Grounds of the Kereit," Central Asiatic Journal 17 (1973), 108–110.
- Douglas Morton Dunlop, The Karaits of East Asia", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1944, 276–289.
- Hunter, Erica C. D. (1989). "The Conversion of the Kerait to Christianity in A.D. 1009". Zentralasiatische Studien. 22: 142–163.
- (in Russian) Khoyt, S.K., Кереиты в этногенезе народов Евразии: историография проблемы ("Keraites in the ethnogenesis of the peoples of Eurasia: historiography of the problem"), Elista: Kalmyk State University Press (2008).
- (in Russian) Kudaiberdy-Uly, Sh. (Кудайберды-Улы, Шакарим), КЕРЕИ "Родословная тюрков, киргизов, казахов и ханских династий" (trans. Бахыт Каирбеков), Alma-Ata, 1990.
- Németh, Julius, "Kereit, Kérey, Giray" Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 36 (1965), 360–365.
- Togan, İsenbike, "Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations: the Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan" in: The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, Vol. 15, Leiden: Brill (1998).
- (in Russian) Tynyshbaev, M. (Тынышбаев, Мухамеджан), КЕРЕИ "Материалы по истории казахского народа", Tashkent, 1925.
- Borbone, Pier Giorgio. "Some Aspects of Turco-Mongol Christianity in the Light of Literary and Epigraphic Syriac Sources (Pier Giorgio Borbone) - Academia.edu". Pisa.academia.edu. Retrieved 2012-09-20.