The Secret History of the Mongol Queens

Although the Mongols had nothing to trade at that moment, Hassan offered them sheep to eat and fresh horses in anticipation that he would one day be repaid for his generosity. The arrival of this unexpected aid seemed like divine intervention from the spirit of the lake; Genghis Khan’s men certainly took the appearance of the Onggud and his supply of meat as a sign of heavenly favor on their leader and their undertaking.

The episode of Baljuna Waters marked the last moment of hopelessness for Genghis Khan, the last time that his army was defeated. From that day on, he might have occasional setbacks, but he was forever victorious, always triumphant. He never forgot his gratitude to the spirit of Baljuna, the spirit of the Khalkh River, or his debt to his new allies, the Onggud.

The summer of 1203 marked the turning point for Genghis Khan and the Mongols. They had been saved by a foreign merchant, and, now reinvigorated, they returned toward their homeland, where, by what seemed to the Mongols as divine guidance, people began to flock to Genghis Khan. He and his men had proved their hardiness, their willingness to stare defeat in the eye and still not back down. The people hailed them as a band of heroes.

Suddenly the spirit on the steppe had changed, and new followers also flocked to Genghis Khan. He quickly made his first marriage ally by negotiating an alliance with Ong Khan’s brother Jaka Gambu, who hoped that with Mongol help he might depose his brother and become the khan of the Kereyid. To cement the new union, Genghis Khan accepted Jaka Gambu’s daughter Ibaka as his wife. Jaka Gambu took Genghis Khan’s youngest son, the ten-year-old Tolui, as a husband for his other daughter, Sorkhokhtani, who was several years older.

With his new allies among the rebel faction of the Kereyid and his supplies from the Onggud, Genghis Khan’s fortunes had turned. In the next two years he quickly defeated all steppe opponents, and he was able to give his mother a white camel as a gift, possibly the same one Hassan had ridden to the rescue of the Mongols.

The episode beside the Khalkh River and the Baljuna Waters not only changed Genghis Khan’s political fortunes, it appears to have produced a subtle, yet profound, change in his spirituality. He had spent most of his life in the land of his father, but he had been rescued in the land of his mother. He had spent most of his life relying on the spiritual aid of the male mountain, but it was the female waters that had saved him.

Genghis Khan’s words after this time began to articulate this spiritual duality. According to his new vision, each person’s destiny demanded the dual support of the strength offered by Father Sky and the protection of Mother Earth. Without one, the other was doomed to failure. Genghis Khan described the source of his success as “strength increased by Heaven and Earth.” As stated in the Secret History, his inspiration and destiny were “called by Mighty Heaven,” but they were “carried through by Mother Earth.”

The Sky inspired; the Earth sanctioned. Any person might have inspiration from the Sky and be filled with longing, desire, and ambition, but only the devoted and sustained actions of the Earth could transform those desires and that inspiration into reality. The world is composed of sky or heaven above and water and earth below and the Mongols considered it a grave sin to insult or utter disrespectful words about either the sky or water. We live in the realm of Mother Earth, also sometimes called Dalai Ege, “Mother Sea,” because her waters give life to the dry bones of the Earth.

Mother Earth provided or prevented success. She controlled the animals that Genghis Khan might find to hunt and eat or that might evade him entirely. She made water available or denied it. Repeatedly in the midst of some venture, Mother Earth saved his life by hiding him in the trees of her forest, in the water of her river, in the boulders on her ground, or in the cover of her darkness.

Whenever a person boasted about his achievements or bragged about his exploits without recognizing the role of Mother Earth in granting that success, it could be said that his mouth made him think that he was better than water. To avoid that characterization, Genghis Khan scrupulously acknowledged the role of both Father Sky and Mother Earth in everything that he accomplished.

The balance of male and female became a guiding principle in Genghis Khan’s political strategy and tactics, as well as in his spiritual worldview. This theology formed the intellectual and religious organization of life based on the religion of Mother Earth and the Eternal Blue Sky. Maintaining the correct balance and mixture of these two forces sustained an individual, a family, and the nation. For Genghis Khan, negotiating the dualism of existence, finding the correct balance, became a lifetime quest.