Regret as a political intervention: An essay in the historical anthropology of the early Mongols

Past and Present

Volumn 186, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 3-45

  Humphrey, Caroline ^a   Hürelbaatar, Altanhuu ^a  

^a KING'S COLLEGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

CMV disease; CMV infection; CMV monitoring; CMV prophylaxis; Kidney transplantation

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750104768     PISSN: 00312746     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gti007     Document Type: Article

References (135)

1. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, 'Agent Regret', in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (ed.), Explaining Emotions (Berkeley and London, 1980)
2. Bernard Williams, Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers, 1973-1980 (Cambridge, 1981), 27-31.
3. Hans Joas, The Creativity of Action, trans. Jeremy Gaines and Paul Keast (Cambridge, 1996).
4. In this article we use 'ethical' to refer to any deliberations on the Socratic question 'how ought one to live?', and 'moral' to refer to historically and culturally specific answers to that question: See Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London, 1985), 174-96
5. James Laidlaw, 'For an Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom', Jl Roy. Anthropological Inst., viii, 2 (2002), 317.
6. There is a widespread, though not universal, agreement among historians that the urtext of the Secret History of the Mongols (Mongqol-un ni'uča tobča'an) was written down in 1228 by an author (or authors) unknown shortly after the death of Chinggis Khan in 1227. The version known to us and transcribed into Chinese included later additions and alterations, as well as further sections accounting for part of the reign of Chinggis's successor, Ögödei. See Igor de Rachewiltz, 'The Secret History of the Mongols: Some Fundamental Problems', Bull. Internat. Assoc. Mongolian Studies, xii, 2 / xiii, 1 (1993-4), 4-6. The Secret History (hereafter SH, for quotations from the text) consists of 281 sections plus a short colophon stating where it was written and giving a date in the twelve-year lunar cycle, leaving it unclear which cycle was intended. Igor de Rachewiltz's edition, Index to the Secret History of the Mongols (Bloomington, 1972), contains 12,011 lines of text.
7. The Mongols took over the Uighur script after their defeat in 1204 of the Naimans who used this script: David Christian, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, i, Inner Asia from Pre history to the Mongol Empire (Oxford, 1998), 398.
8. Igor de Rachewiltz, The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2004), i, pp. xxv-xxvi.
9. Ibid., pp. lxix-lxx.
10. The opinion of certain earlier writers that the Secret History is similar to a heroic epic has been disproved by Veit, who notes the absence in it of the narrative structures, magical episodes and stylistic elements characteristic of the epic genre: Veronika Veit, 'The Secret History: Epic Tale or Early Example of Mongolian Historiography?', Mongol Sudlalyn Ögüülelüüd, i (1998).
11. 'Poetry' here refers to rhymed or alliterative expressions, with frequent use of metaphor and sometimes also employing metre. Verses in Mongolian rhyme at the beginning of the line.
12. Marina Warner, 'Who's Sorry Now? What Apology Means in the Modern World', Times Lit. Suppl., 1 Aug. 2003.
13. Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans. Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes (London, 2001).
14. Historians disagree on the question of whether the institutions set up by Chinggis Khan should be termed a 'state'. Skrynnikova summarizes the opinion of certain Russian scholars, according to whom the defining characteristics of statehood (territoriality, a taxation system, an apparatus of government, and established rules for dealing with dissent, defection and succession to office) were absent during Chinggis's lifetime: T. D. Skrynnikova, Kharizma i vlast' v epokhu Chingis-Khana [Charisma and Power in the Epoch of Chinggis Khan] (Moscow, 1997), 29-41.
15. The Mongolian historian Sh. Bira on the other hand argues that the institutions of the consultative assembly, the imperial guard, the use of writing, and the establishing of a written law code and specialized governmental posts did constitute statehood: Sh. Bira, '"The Secret History" of Chinggis Khan and his State', in his Mongolyn Tüüh, Soyol, Tüüh Bichlegiin Sudalgaa [Studies in Mongol History, Culture and Historiography] (Ulaanbaatar, 2001).
16. The Secret History is in the Mongolian language but the only extant version was transcribed sometime in the fourteenth century into Chinese characters, with Chinese interlinear glosses. What happened to the original in the Uighur script is not known, but it must have survived for some time since much of it is incorporated word for word in Mongolian chronicles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. C. R. Bawden, Mongolian Traditional Literature: An Anthology (London, 2003), p. xvi.
17. This is known through comparison with Chinese histories and because the Persian historian Rashid al-Din seems to have used the lost, undoctored, Uighur script version when writing his history of the Mongols: De Rachewiltz, 'Secret History of the Mongols', 4-6
18. Bawden, Mongolian Traditional Literature, pp. xvi-xix
19. de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, ii, 757
20. Rashid-Ad-Din, Sbornik letopisei [Collection of Chronicles], i, bk 2, ed. A. A. Semenov, trans. O. I. Smirnova (Moscow and Leningrad, 1952).
21. J. G. A. Pocock, Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History (London, 1971).
22. Besides the linguistic hindrance (Chinese) to easy reading, suggesting that the Secret History was not intended to convince large numbers of people, it seems that access to the text was restricted for decades. For example, Yü Chi, a high scholar-official and personal adviser to several Mongolian emperors in the early fourteenth century, requested permission - unsuccessfully because he was Chinese - to see the Mongghul-un tobchiyan ('History of the Mongols', presumably the Secret History).
23. This was despite the fact that the reason he wished to consult the history was that he was engaged in compiling the Great Canon for Governing the World on behalf of the last Mongol emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, Togon Temür. See John D. Langlois, 'Yü Chi and his Mongol Sovereign: The Scholar as Apologist', Jl Asian Studies, xxxvii, 1 (1978), 109.
24. Beffa and Hamayon provide a detailed argument against the idea that the Mongols from the start saw themselves as decreed by a supreme god (Heaven) to rule the world: See M.-L. Beffa and R. Hamayon, 'The Concept of tänggäri in the Secret History of the Mongols', in Sh. Bira (ed.), 'Mongolyn Nuuts Tovchoo'-ny 750 jiliin oid zoriulsan olon ulsyn baga hural [International Conference Dedicated to the 750th Anniversary of the Secret History of the Mongols], i (Ulaanbaatar, 1995).
25. 'Heaven', the authors point out, is in any case a misleading translation. Tenggeri is far from the only cosmic/spiritual entity given worship in the Secret History, and crucially is not involved in either the attainment of khanship or in succession to the throne. Beffa and Hamayon point to an evolution of use of the idea of tenggeri in the Secret History, the formula 'eternal sky' as distinct from 'sky and earth' taking on more influence as the empire was consolidated (ibid., 190).
26. Cf. de Rachewiltz, who argues that Chinese political notions (for example the 'son of Heaven') were well known to the earliest Mongols. Thus, 'when Temüjin as a tribal leader aspired to become a world ruler he was bound to adopt a political doctrine that could explain and at the same time foster his aspiration to world leadership'. Igor de Rachewiltz, 'Some Remarks on the Ideological Foundations of Chinggis Khan's Empire', Papers on Far Eastern History, vii (1973), 31
27. see also Paul Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy, ed. and trans. Thomas Nivison Haining (Oxford, 1991), 159. What is clear is that the Mongols' claim to world supremacy evolved and became a standard formula only later, during the reign of Guyuk Khan (1242-8).
28. SH, 1§99, 2§08, 2§60, 2§67.
29. Ibid., 2§02.
30. Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca and London, 1992), 168-9.
31. SH, 2§42
32. de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, i, 167
33. Urgunge Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan (The Secret History of the Mongols) (Leiden, 1990), 135. We have used the Mongolian text for all translations given in this article. References are given to other translations that have influenced the rendering we provide. In this passage we have translated ger (lit. 'tent', 'yurt') in its extended meaning as 'family'.
34. The episode may not even have happened. According to Rashid al-Din, Chinggis executed his uncle Da'aritai in 1204 (Rashid-Ad-Din, Sbornik letopisei, ed. Semenov, 47-8)
35. for discussion, see de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, ii, 652.
36. SH, 2§44
37. Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan, 136-7.
38. SH, 2§45. The root of this word, nam, means 'lowness' and 'silence', which suggests that the ritual was intended to demonstrate subjugation as well as culpability.
39. Debbora Battaglia, 'Problematising the Self', in Debbora Battaglia (ed.), Rhetorics of Self-Making (Berkeley, 1995).
40. Williams, Moral Luck, 27.
41. Martha C. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge, 2001), 27-33.
42. Catherine A. Lutz, Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and their Challenge to Western Theory (Chicago, 1988).
43. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, 27.
44. Rorty, 'Agent Regret', 501.
45. For opposed replies to this last question, see Michel de Montaigne, 'On Repenting', in Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, trans. M. A. Screech (London, 1991), 907-22
46. Rudiger Bittner, 'Is It Reasonable to Regret Things One Did?', Jl Philosophy, lxxxix, 5 (1992).
47. The Secret History is practically the only source for early Mongol vocabulary, and no single word translatable as 'regret' occurs in it. In later chronicles we find the words gemshi- (a verb formed on the root gem, 'sin', 'mistake', 'defect', 'disease'). Gemshi- implies a view 'from inside': It is the active acceptance of one's own fault, and it is the closest word in modern Mongolian which renders the idea of regret. Another word xaramsa- (a verb formed on the root xaram, 'possessiveness', 'jealousy', 'pity', 'feeling of loss') is also translatable as 'regret' in certain contexts. The idea here is the feeling of sadness, loss, or regret at not having or attaining something that is desired but out of one's control.
48. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought, 160-1.
49. Ibid., 139-65
50. for discussion, see Lutz, Unnatural Emotions, 5-13.
51. Laidlaw, 'For an Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom', 321.
52. For example, see Essential Works of Michel Foucault, i, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow (London, 2000), 87.
53. Ibid., 291.
54. Laidlaw, 'For an Anthropology of Ethics and Freedom', 323.
55. Annabel Brett, 'What Is Intellectual History Now?', in David Cannadine (ed.), What Is History Now? (New York, 2002), 122.
56. See C. A. Bayly, Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (Delhi 1998), 768.
57. SH, 2§24
58. Bira, '"The Secret History" of Chinggis Khan and his State', 359
59. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan, 175-86.
60. Nicola Di Cosmo, 'State Formation and Periodization in Inner Asian History', Jl World Hist., x, 1 (1999).
61. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan, 4.
62. Di Cosmo, 'State Formation and Periodization in Inner Asian History', 20-1.
63. Herbert Franke, 'From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor and God: The Legitimation of the Yüan Dynasty', in his China under Mongol Rule: Collected Essays (Aldershot, 1994).
64. Lawrence Krader, 'The Origin of the State among the Nomads of Asia', in Henri J. M. Claessen and Peter Skalnik (eds.), The Early State (The Hague, 1978).
65. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (London, 1988).
66. For discussion, see Di Cosmo, 'State Formation and Periodization in Inner Asian History', 8-15. Di Cosmo argues that the crucial factor was 'crisis', a general, often abrupt, worsening of economic, political and social conditions, bringing with it depredation and violence. A key consequence of such a 'crisis' is the pervasive militarization of pastoral society, followed by the subordination of defeated enemies into the victorious khan's group, the establishment of ranks, and centralization of command. Di Cosmo stresses the qualitative difference in the type of military participation that arose with this transition.
67. Ibid., 15-19.
68. Z. P. Morokhoeva, 'Problema individual'nogo v traditsionnoi buriatskoi kul'ture' [The Problem of the Individual in Traditional Buryat Culture], in Z. P. Morokhoeva (ed.), Filosofiia i istoriia kul'tury: Natsional'nyi aspekt [The Philosophy and History of Culture: The National Aspect] (Ulan-Ude, 1992), 101.
69. Ibid.
70. SH, §33-9.
71. Ibid., §91-5.
72. Peter Jackson, 'From Ulus to Khanate: The Making of the Mongol States, c. 1220-1290', in Reuven Amitai-Preiss and David O. Morgan (eds.), The Mongol Empire and its Legacy (Leiden, 1999), 12.
73. SH, 2§72.
74. Ibid.
75. Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan, 163-4
76. de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, ii, 999.
77. For discussion, see de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, ii, 999.
78. Mattai Haltod et al. (comp.), Mongolian-English Dictionary, 2nd edn (Blomington, 1982), 835.
79. The word yosu(n) was used for the customary law of the people, jasaq for the laws instituted after the establishment of central government, and jarlig for the edicts of rulers: P. Iu. Pochekaev, 'Evoliutsiia töre v sisteme mongol'skogo srednevekovogo prava' [The Evolution of törü in the System of Mongolian Medieval Law], in B. V. Bazarov, N. N. Kradin and T. D. Skrynnikova (eds.), Mongol'skaia Imperiia i kochevoi mir {The Mongolian Empire and the Nomadic World] (Ulan-Ude, 2004), 531.
80. SH, 1§21.
81. Pochekaev, 'Evoliutsiia töre v sisteme mongol'skogo srednevekovogo prava', 532-3.
82. Skrynnikova, Kharizma i vlast', 46-7.
83. For example in the Altan Tobci: See Charles Bawden, The Mongol Chronicle Altan Tobci (Wiesbaden, 1955), 3§0.
84. Skrynnikova, Kharizma i vlast', 47.
85. SH, 5§3.
86. Ibid., 1§11
87. Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan, 40
88. de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, i, 41-2.
89. SH, 2§79.
90. De Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, ii, 1032-3.
91. SH, 2§81.
92. Ibid.
93. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan, 126-8.
94. Jackson, 'From Ulus to Khanate', 35-6.
95. Warner, 'Who's Sorry Now?', 12.
96. At this point he was still Temüjin, but the Secret History anachronistically calls him Chinggis and we follow the usage of the text here.
97. Fujiko Isono, 'A Few Reflections on the anda Relationship', in Larry V. Clark and Paul Alexander Draghi (eds.), Aspects of Altaic Civilization II: Proceedings of the XVIII PIAC [Permanent International Altaic Conference], Bloomington, June 29 - July 5, 1975 (Bloomington, 1978), 81-7.
98. SH, 1§65.
99. Ibid., 1§66.
100. Ibid., 1§67.
101. Ratchnevsky, Genghis Khan, 62-71.
102. SH, 1§77.
103. Ibid., 1§78.
104. Ibid., 1§81.
105. Williams, Moral Luck, 34.
106. SH, 2§00
107. Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan, 186.
108. SH, 2§01
109. Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan, 187-9
110. de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, i, 130-2.
111. The account in the Secret History known to us seems to be a sanitized version. Rashid al-Din, using other information, writes that, since Chinggis could not himself kill someone he had formerly called anda, he gave Jamuqa to a nephew, who had him cruelly executed: See Rashid-Ad-Din, Sbornik letopisei, ed. Semenov, 277
112. and discussion in de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, ii, 757.
113. Caroline Humphrey with Urgunge Onon, Shamans and Elders: Experience, Knowledge and Power among the Daur Mongols (Oxford, 1996), 213-14.
114. SH, 1§16.
115. Ibid., 1§17.
116. Ibid., 2§01.
117. Ibid., 2§02. The Mongols use qan for a political leader in general and qa'an for the emperor. The Secret History is inconsistent in these usages, as in this case, but we have retained the actual spelling used in 2§02.
118. Ibid, 2§01.
119. Aldjias, from the verb alda-, 'to lose'.
120. Deleuze and Guattari, Thousand Plateaus, 281.
121. Ibid., 285.
122. Alain Badiou, L'Être et l'événement (Paris, 1988).
123. Slavoj Žižek, The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London, 1999), 130.
124. For discussion, see Peter Hallward, Alain Badiou: A Subject to Truth (Minneapolis, 2002).
125. SH, 2§38.
126. Žižek, Ticklish Subject, 130.
127. Pochekaev, 'Evoliutsiia töre v sisteme mongol'skogo srednevekovogo prava', 535
128. see also n. 17 above.
129. SH, 2§54
130. Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan, 243-4.
131. SH, 2§54
132. Onon, The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan, 147
133. de Rachewiltz, Secret History of the Mongols, i, 182.
134. Rorty, 'Agent Regret', 498.
135. Williams, Moral Luck, 35-6.