1225, autumn - Genghis Khan returned from a campaign to the east. The foundations of the Mongol Empire were already laid at that time, but the Tangut kingdom of Xi-Xia remained unconquered. It was located hundreds of kilometers from west to east and from north to south - where the sandy Gobi desert stretches in our time. Thoughts about an unconquered state did not give Chinggis Khan peace: anticipating an imminent death, he was in a hurry to carry out his last plans and in 1226 raised his tried and tested army on another campaign.
The Mongolian army advanced to China, the Xi-Xia state stood in its way, and in 1227 it ceased to exist. The conquerors captured the capital of the Tanguts, the city of Khara-Khoto, and cruelly dealt with its inhabitants. As usual, Genghis Khan gave the civilian population "to the stream and plunder to the army." However, in the midst of the victorious offensive, the 65-year-old ruler of the Mongols died …
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia also indicates the exact date of Genghis Khan's death - 1227-25-08. The same is written in other sources, for example, the chronicle work "Altyn Tobchi" - the work of the learned Lama Lubsan Danzan (XVII), but it says about the place death, and not about the place of burial.
True, in other ancient writings (in particular, according to Rashid ad-din), Genghis Khan's death occurred even before the fall of the Tangut kingdom, and before his death, Genghis Khan allegedly said to his entourage: “Do not announce my death, do not cry, do not cry, so that the enemy does not find out about her, when the sovereign and the inhabitants of Tangut leave the city, you destroy them all at once!"
According to Yuan chao mi shi, the Mongolian commander was then in the Lyupan mountains and personally received the ruler of the Tangut who had arrived with rich gifts for negotiations.
Thus, in different sources, the circumstances and cause of Genghis Khan's death are different. There is no consensus among scientists on this score: R. Douglas believes that Genghis Khan died "from a transient illness," Abul Faraj believed that the great commander had malaria, which was caused by the unhealthy climate of the Tangut state, and the "Secret History" was the cause of death Genghis Khan calls the consequences of falling from his horse when he hunted kulans.
Juzjani believed that the ruler of the Tanguts not only predicted death to the conqueror of his kingdom, but also indicated the exact time - on the third day after his own death: Genghis Khan actually flowed from the wound like white milk, and "he went to hell." Marco Polo in his "Notes" pointed out that the death of the Mongolian commander came from an old wound, and the monk from France Plano Carpini, the pope's ambassador to the great khan of the Mongols, returned to Europe in 1247 with all kinds of information about the Asian nomads. And this information said that Genghis Khan was killed by a lightning strike.
From all of the above, it is clear that the circumstances of Genghis Khan's death remain unclear to this day, and we can only say with certainty about one thing: he died in late summer (or autumn) 1227 on the territory of the Xi-Xia state.
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In the "Secret Legend of the Mongols", an outstanding literary monument of the history and culture of the Mongols, it is said that the body of the great khan was put on a chariot and taken to the foot of Mount Burkhan Khaldun, which was in his homeland. Many rivers flow from one slope of this mountain, along the banks of which dense forests grow.
Genghis Khan himself had chosen this place for burial in advance when, while hunting for Burkhan Khaldun, he noticed a lonely growing tree. He liked it, and the Great Khan sat under it for a long time in pleasant thoughtfulness, and then ordered: “This place is decent for my final resting place. Let him be noticed: our place of burial and our urug will be here."
As the circumstances of the death of the ruler of the Mongols remained unclear, so not only Mount Burkhan Khaldun is called the place of his burial. There is information that the grave of Genghis Khan is located either on the southern slope of Kentai Khan, or in an area called ekhe-Utek. Marco Polo argued that the burial place of Genghis Khan and other Mongol sovereigns was the northern slope of Alitai Khan:
And wherever the great sovereign of the Tatars dies, at least 100 days' journey to that mountain, they bring him there to be buried … And when the bodies of the great khans are carried to that mountain, every 40 days, more or less, are killed with a sword by the escort with the body, and even they say: "Go to the next world to serve our sovereign!" … They do the same with horses: when the sovereign dies, they kill all his best horses at the end, so that they will be with him in the next world.
Such conflicting information has reached us about the location of Genghis Khan's grave. Only one thing is clear: they did everything in deep secrecy to hide the death of the formidable ruler from enemies and to protect his remains from abuse. The warriors accompanying the coffin actually killed everyone they met on their way, and after the burial, they drove a large herd of horses across the steppe, whose hooves razed the grave of Genghis Khan to the ground. And the memory of her disappeared, it would seem, forever.
J. Schmidt, a Mongol scholar and Tibetologist of the 19th century, taking as a basis the fact that the Mongols could not embalm corpses, believes that Genghis Khan's body was not taken from the Tangut kingdom to Mongolia, and only some things and relics of the Mongolian commander were buried in Mongolia. And Ogoda, ascending the throne, sacrificed 40 beautiful girls and many thoroughbred horses to the spirit of the Mongol khan.
XVII century - it was believed that the grave of Genghis Khan is located in Ihe-Ejen-Horo (Great Headquarters) in Ordos, where there was a yurt, in which there was supposedly a silver shrine with his remains. At the end of the 19th century, these places were visited by the Russian traveler and ethnographer G. Potanin, who wrote down the legend about the death of the great commander and made a description of the Mongol shrine.
Ordos has three shrines - Great, Middle and Small stakes, which are felt yurts. In the Great Yurt lie the remains of Genghis Khan, the Middle Yurt - the remains of his Mongolian wife from the Dalat clan, and in the Small - the dress of the wife he took from some other khan. The captive rejected the love of Genghis Khan, threw herself into the Yellow River and drowned, they searched for her corpse, but they did not find, but only a dress was found …
The Great Headquarters, located on the right bank of the Chzhamkhak River, consisted of two white felt yurts that stood between two sand dunes on an artificial embankment about 60 centimeters high. The short sides of the rectangular embankment were facing north and south. The back yurt was adjacent to the front one, and therefore its doors were not visible; there was only one entrance - through the southern yurt. In the place where the yurts touched, a secret passage was made.
Inside, the front yurt was a room with wooden walls and a flat wooden ceiling. At the back wall of the southern yurt, where the door to the northern yurt should have been located, there was a table with 5 or 7 lamps on it. This altar closed the entrance to the northern yurt, where no one was allowed to enter, except for the lama alone. In this yurt, the copper (or silver) shrine was kept, in which the remains of Genghis Khan rested.
All the shrines of Ordos are under the supervision of the Darkhats - a highly respected class that is exempt from all taxes and duties. Every year, on the 21st day of the 3rd month according to the lunar calendar, the Ordos Mongols organized a large holiday of Tailga (sacrifice) in honor of Genghis Khan. The festivities take place on the other, left, bank of the Chzhamkhak River, where all three shrines of Ordos are brought to this day.
Each of them is disassembled and placed on a separate cart, into which three white camels are harnessed. At the new place, yurts are again placed in a row with doors to the south, in the center is the Great Headquarters with the remains of Genghis Khan. In front of her, felt is spread, on which lamas sit to read prayers in honor of the great Mongol khan. They put a table near the yurt, and on it - silver dishes and chargun. On another table, things that supposedly belonged to Genghis Khan are laid out - a tobacco pouch 30 cm long, a flint, a pipe, a bow, a saadak and a sword.
To the west of the lamas is a large "sandalwood tub" of milk, bound with three silver hoops. A cart is placed next to it, on which they carry this bucket and a case to it.
To the south of the lamas, on a white felt, stands an egg-white horse, which itself (without a shepherd) resorts to this place on the day of the holiday. Before the horse stands a trough into which the worshipers throw money. To the east of the white horse stands Naiman, a gray-haired horse, wearing a bridle and saddle - the same ones that were on a horse during Genghis Khan's life. The white horse stands without a saddle, as it was considered dedicated to the gods …
The festival, in which only men take part, begins with the worship of the Great Yurt with the remains of Genghis Khan, then the Middle and Small, then the white horse, after that they go to Altyn-Khatasun, he is also worshiped and given money, and some even a horse. After that, the pilgrims go to the savras horse Naiman, worship him and try to touch the forehead to the bridle or saddle of Genghis Khan …
During the worship of Genghis Khan himself, people stop in front of the Great Yurt, bow to it three times and kneel in front of the shrine with the remains of the great commander. The cancer itself is locked with three locks, the keys to which were held by the Panchen Lama, the spiritual head of the Buddhists of Tibet. The Ordos Mongols believe that it is dangerous to approach cancer with bad intentions, and if someone nevertheless decides on it, his eyes will fall out.
Then one of the darkhats takes a hatak (silk scarf), tears it into narrow strips, runs them over the shrine and distributes these strips to the people. From the friction of the great khan's cancer, the strips are filled with his strength, and those who got these strips wear them around their necks …
The Mongols of the Ordos expect Genghis Khan to appear again and take them to their old homeland, which they call Altai-khan-goy - the "Golden Trough".
The question of finding the grave of Genghis Khan has been worrying researchers in many countries for centuries. The places indicated in ancient sources, after almost 800 years have passed since the death of Genghis Khan, are difficult to link with the current places and names. In the 1920s, it was suggested that the burial place of the great commander could be located in the Gurvan-nuur (Three Lake) district, located in the east of Mongolia.
In 1962, a monument was even erected here to mark the 800th anniversary of the birth of Genghis Khan. Under the canopy of tall trees, almost reaching their top, an obelisk in the form of tongues of white flame shot up into the air. The words of Genghis Khan are carved on it: "May my body perish, but my state will live forever", and the following inscription is made: "To the founder of the Mongolian state, Genghis Khan - from the Mongol people."
But, despite the erected monument, there is no convincing evidence that it is here that the grave of Genghis Khan is located.
N. Ionina