Another institution associated with Chinggis Khan and often erroneously dated to 1206 is the so-called Great Yasa of Chinggis Khan. The common assumption that a new steppe conqueror will “mark the foundation of his polity by the promulgation of laws”35 has often been applied to Chinggis Khan, and the belief that the Great Yasa is just such an example has been held by many since within a few decades of the great conqueror’s death.36 The term yasa is a Mongol word meaning law, order, decree, judgment. As a verb, it implied the death sentence, as in “some were delivered to the yasa” usually meaning that an official execution was carried out. Until Professor David Morgan exploded the myth in 1986, it was the accepted wisdom that Chinggis Khan had laid down a basic legal code called the Great Yasa during the quriltai of 1206 and that written copies of his decrees were kept by the Mongol princes in their treasuries for future consultation. The Great Yasa was to be binding throughout the lands where Mongol rule prevailed, though strangely the actual texts of the code were to remain taboo, in the same way as the text of the Altan Debter was treated. This restriction on access to the text explains the fact that no copies of the Great Yasa have ever actually been recorded.
The Great Yasa became a body of laws governing the social and legal behavior of the Mongol tribes and the peoples of those lands that came under their control. Initially it was based on Mongol traditions, customary law, and precedent, but it was never rigid. It was always open to very flexible and liberal interpretation and quite able to adapt, adopt, and absorb other legal systems. Speaking of the yasas, the Muslim Juwayni was able to declare, “There are many of these ordinances that are in conformity with the Shari‘at [i. e., Islamic law].”37 The Great Yasa must therefore be viewed as an evolving body of customs and decrees that began long before Chinggis Khan’s quriltai of 1206. His son Chaghatai was known to adhere strictly to the unwritten Mongol customary law, and many of his strictures and rulings would have been incorporated into the evolving body of law. Many of the rulings that appear to be part of this Great Yasa are based on quotations and biligs (maxims) of Chinggis Khan that are known to have been recorded. Another source of the laws that made up the Great Yasa is the Tatar Shigi-Qutuqu, Chinggis Khan’s adopted brother, who was entrusted with judicial authority during the 1206 quriltai. He established the Mongol practice of recording in writing the various decisions he arrived at as head yarghuchi (judge). His decisions were recorded in the Uyghur script in a blue book (koko debter) and were considered binding, thus creating an ad hoc body of case histories. However, this in itself did not represent the Great Yasa of Chinggis Khan, and it must be assumed that such a document never existed, even though in the years to come, the existence of just such a document became a widespread belief.
With or without the existence of a written Great Yasa, the Mongols, especially under Chinggis Khan, had a strict set of rules and laws to which they adhered, and their discipline was everywhere remarked on and admired. An intelligence report prepared by Franciscan friars led by Friar John of Plano Carpini, who visited Mongolia in the 1240s, commented as follows.
Among themselves, however, they are peaceable, fornication and adultery are very rare, and their women excel those of other nations in chastity, except that they often use shameless words when jesting. Theft is unusual among them, and therefore their dwellings and all their property are not put under lock and key. If horses or oxen or other animal stock are found straying, they are either allowed to go free or are led back to their own masters. . . . Rebellion is rarely raised among them, and it is no wonder if such is their way, for, as I have said above, transgressors are punished without mercy.38
Even the Muslim historian Jifzjtini does not hold back:
The Chinggis Khan. . . in [the administration of] justice was such, that, throughout his whole camp, it was impossible for any person to take up a fallen whip from the ground except he were the owner of it; and, throughout his whole army, no one could give indication of [the existence of] lying and theft.39
Nor does he refrain from treating Chinggis Khan’s son and successor, Ogodei Qa’an, who was generally credited with having shown compassion and great sympathy for his Muslim subjects, with respect and positive treatment.
Religious tolerance became enshrined in the Yasa, though some would say that the Mongols were just playing safe by safeguarding religious leaders of all faiths. Priests and religious institutions were all exempted from taxation. Water was treated with great respect: it was strictly forbidden to wash or urinate in running water, because streams and rivers were considered as living entities. Execution was the reward for spying, treason, desertion, theft, adultery, or persistent bankruptcy in the case of merchants. Execution could take on various horrific forms, and one particularly gruesome example has been recorded by Rashid al-Din: A rash Kurdish warlord had attempted to doublecross Hulegu Khan. He was apprehended and received this fate.
He [Hulegu] ordered that he [Malik Salih] be covered with sheep fat, trussed with felt and rope, and left in the summer sun. After a week, the fat got maggoty, and [the maggots] started devouring the poor man. He died of that torture within a month. He had a three-year-old son who was sent to Mosul, where he was cut in two on the banks of the Tigris and hung as an example on two sides of the city until his remains rotted away to nothing.40
Reflecting the Mongols’ respect for and superstitious fear of aristocracy, they were fearful of shredding the blood of the highborn upon the earth. They therefore reserved a special form of execution for kings and the particularly mighty: such nobles, in recognition of their status, were wrapped in carpets and kicked to death.
In a grand quriltai (assembly) held near the source of the Onon River in the spring of the Year of the Tiger (1206), the assembled leaders, princes, and steppe nobility of the now-united Turco-Mongol tribes awarded Temujin Khan the title Chinggis Khan, meaning Oceanic or Universal Ruler.41 Why Chinggis Khan set out on his mission of world conquest can only be surmised, and explanations have been numerous, including those put forward in his own lifetime. Many of his people and indeed his enemies believe that he had a mandate from God and that he had been divinely inspired and commanded to go forth and spread his word and laws over the whole known world. Such a belief was eventually reflected in the messages demanding submission that his offspring sent to kings, popes, and emperors during the empire’s rise to power. Chinggis Khan is famously quoted as haranguing the cowed people of Bokhara from the pulpit of their central mosque that he was a judgment from God.
O People, know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.42
Most of those who experienced the Mongol onslaught and survived, and certainly those who heard tell of the invasion second - or third-hand were quite willing to believe that Chinggis Khan was indeed the “Punishment of God.” His own followers and his family were also quite content for this belief to persist and also later the belief that his mission of conquest was sacred and his and their destiny was at least sanctioned if not written by God.
However, in the period around 1206 when Temujin was awarded the leadership of the Eurasian steppe tribes and was proclaimed Chinggis Khan, there is no evidence that the would-be world conqueror regarded himself anything other than a very powerful and unstoppable warrior-king. He had fought, connived, plotted, intrigued, and battled his way to the top, and he had rewarded those who had remained loyal to him. But his rise had been difficult and demanding, and he had been given few breaks by smiling fortune. He owed his success to his own cunning, bravery, tenacity, and cold insight into the hearts of his fellow men. He knew that loyalty had usually to be bought and that for loyalty to be held, payments had to be forthcoming. The tribes flocked to his banner because of the promise of reward. His continued aggrandizement was dependent on his ability to replenish those coffers of promised plenty.
World History
