Oirats or Oirds, formerly known as Eluts and Eleuths,Robert de Vaugondy〈亞洲圖〉 國立臺灣歷史博物館典藏網Owen Lattimore, The Desert Road to Turkestan. (For Lattimore, Euleuths are "the great western group of tribes which marks in all probability a primitive racial cleavage" (p. 101 in the ca. 1929 edition). Lattimore further (p. 139 refers to Samuel Couling of The Encyclopaedia Sinica (1917), according to whom the spelling "Eleuth" was due to French missionaries, representing the sound of something like Ölöt. Into Chinese, the same name was transcribed as (Pinyin: Elute; Mongolian: Olot).)) are the westernmost group of Mongols, whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of Siberia, Xinjiang and western Mongolia.
The first documented reference to Elut and Yelut was in the Ongin "rune" inscriptions dated in the sixth century. The dating of the Oirats to the 13th century is based on the text of the Secret History of the Mongols. Historically, the Oirats were composed of four major tribes: Dzungar (Choros or Olots), Torghut, Dörbet and Khoshut. The modern Kalmyks of Kalmykia on the Caspian Sea in southeastern Europe are Oirats.
Etymology
The name derives from Mongolic < *hoi ("forest, woods") and < *harad ("people"),M.Sanjdorj, History of the Mongolian People's Republic, Volume I, 1966 who were counted among the "forest people" in the 13th century. An opinion believes the name derives from the Mongolian word oirt meaning "close" (in distance) as in "close/nearer ones."
The name Oirat may derive from a corruption of the group's original name Dörben Öörd, meaning "The Allied Four". Perhaps inspired by the designation Dörben Öörd, other Mongols at times used the term "Döchin Mongols" for themselves ("Döchin" meaning forty), but there was rarely as great a degree of unity among larger numbers of tribes as among the Oirats.
Writing system
In the 17th century, Zaya Pandita,N. Yakhontova, The Mongolian and Oirat Translations of the Sutra of Golden Light, 2006 a Gelug monk of the Khoshut tribe, devised a new writing system called Clear Script for use by Oirats. This system was developed on the basis of the older Mongolian script, but had a more developed system of diacritics to preclude misreading and reflected some lexical and grammatical differences that the Oirat language has from Mongolian.
Clear Script remained in use in Kalmykia until the mid-1920s when it was replaced by a Latin alphabet, and later the Cyrillic script. It can be seen in some public signs in the Kalmyk capital, Elista, and is superficially taught in schools. It was likewise replaced in Mongolia by the Cyrillic alphabet in 1941. Some Oirats in China still use the Clear Script as their primary writing system, as well as Mongolian script.
A monument of Zaya Pandita in Kalmykia was unveiled on the 400th anniversary of Zaya Pandita's birth, and on 350th anniversary of his creation of the Clear Script.
History
The Oirats share some history, geography, culture and language with the Eastern Mongols, and were at various times united under the same leader as a larger Mongol entity, whether that ruler was of Oirat descent or of Chingissids.
Comprising the Khoshut (Mongolian: "хошууд", Hošuud), Choros ("цорос", Coros), Ölöt ("өөлд", Ööld), Torghut ("торгууд", Torguud), and Dörbet ("дөрвөд", Dörvöd) ethnic groups, they were dubbed Kalmyk or Kalmak, which means "remnant" or "to remain", by their western Turkic neighbours. Various sources also list the Bargut, Buzava, and Tumed tribes as comprising a part of the Dörben Öörd; some tribes may have joined the original four only in later years. This name may, however, reflect the Kalmyks' remaining Buddhist rather than converting to Islam; or the Kalmyks' remaining in the Altay region.
After the fall of the Yuan dynasty, Oirat and Eastern Mongols had developed separate identities to the point where Oirats called themselves "Four Oirats" while they used the term "Mongols" for those under the Khagans in the east.Crossley 2006, p. 64.
Early history
One of the earliest mentions of the Oirat people, in a historical text, can be found in the Secret History of the Mongols, a 13th century chronicle of Genghis Khan's rise to power.
In the Secret History, the Oirats are counted among the "forest people", and are said to live under the rule of a shaman-chief known as bäki. They lived in Tuva and the Mongolian Khövsgöl Province; the Oirats moved south in the 14th century.History of Mongolia, Volume II, 2003
In one famous passage, the Oirat chief Qutuqa Beki used a yada, or 'thunder stone', to unleash a powerful storm on Genghis' army. The magical ploy backfired, however, when an unexpected wind blew the storm back towards him. During the early stages of Genghis' rise to power, the Oirats fought against Genghis but were defeated. The Oirats would then fully submit to Mongol rule after their ally, Jumukha, Genghis' childhood friend and later rival, was killed.
Subject to the Khan, the Oirats turned themselves into a loyal and formidable faction of the Mongol war machine. In 1207, Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis, subjugated the forest tribes, including the Oirats and the Yenisei Kyrgyz; the Great Khan gave those peoples to his son, Jochi, and had one of his daughters, Checheygen, marry chief Khudukh-bäki (or his son). There were notable Oirats in the Mongol Empire, such as Arghun Agha and his son, Nawruz.
In 1256, a group of the Oirats under Bukha-Temür (Mongolian: Буха-Төмөр, Бөхтөмөр) joined Hulagu's expedition against the Abbasids and participated in the Mongol campaign against the Nizaris in Iran. Then, they took part in the Second Battle of Homs, where the Mongols were defeated.Reuven Amitai Press, The Mongols and the Mamluks, p.94 The majority of the Oirats, who were left behind, supported Ariq Böke against Kublai in the Toluid Civil War. Kublai defeated his younger brother, and they entered the service of the victor.James Waterson, John Man. The Knights of Islam, p.205
In 1295, more than 10,000 Oirats under Targhai Khurgen, son-in-law of the Borjigin family, fled Syria, then under the Mamluks, as they were despised by both Muslim Mongols and local Turks. They were well-received by Egypt's Sultan, Al-Adil Kitbugha, himself of Oirat origin. Ali Pasha, the governor of Baghdad and head of an Oirat ruling family, went on to murder Ilkhan Arpa Keun, resulting in the disintegration of Mongol Persia. Since the Oirats were near both the Chagatai Khanate and the Golden Horde, they had strong ties with them, and many Mongol khans had Oirat wives.
After the expulsion of the Yuan dynasty from China, the Oirats reconvened as a loose alliance of the four major western Mongolian tribes (Mongolian: дөрвөн ойрд, дөрвөн ойрaд). The alliance grew, taking power in the remote region of the Altai Mountains, northwest of Hami oasis. Gradually, they spread eastwards, annexing territories then under the control of the Eastern Mongols. They hoped to reestablish a unified, nomadic rule under their banner of the Four Oirats.eds. Wezler, Hammerschmidt 1992, p. 194.Anglo-Mongolian Society 1983, p. 1.
The only Borjigid ruling tribe was the Khoshuts; the others' rulers were not descendants of Genghis. The Ming dynasty of China had helped the Oirats' rise over the Mongols during the Yongle Emperor's reign after 1410, when the Ming defeated the Qubilaid Öljei Temür and the Borjigid power was weakened.A Regional Handbook on Northwest China, Volume 1 1956, p. 53. The Borjigid Khans were displaced from power by the Oirats (with Ming help), ruling as puppet-khans until the alliance between the Ming and Oirats ended, and the Yongle Emperor launched a campaign against them.
The greatest ruler of the Oirat Confederacy was Esen Taishi; he led the Oirats from 1438 to 1454, a time in which he unified Mongolia (both Inner and Outer) under his puppet-khan Taisun Khan. In 1449, Esen Taishi and Taisun Khan mobilised their cavalry along the Chinese border and invaded Ming China, defeating and destroying the Ming defences at the Great Wall, along with the reinforcements sent to intercept their cavalry. In the process, the Zhengtong Emperor was captured at Tumu. The following year, Esen returned the emperor after an unsuccessful ransom attempt. After claiming the title of Khan (something which only blood descendants of Genghis Khan could do), Esen was killed; shortly afterwards, Oirat power declined.
From the 14th until the middle of the 18th century, the Oirats were often at war with the Eastern Mongols, but reunited with them during the rule of Dayan Khan and Tümen Zasagt Khan.
The Khoshut Khanate
The Oirats converted to Tibetan Buddhism around 1615, and it was not long before they participated in the conflict between the Gelug and Karma Kagyu schools. At the request of the Gelug school, in 1637, Güshi Khan, the leader of the Khoshuts in Koko Nor, defeated Choghtu Khong Tayiji, the Khalkha prince who supported the Karma Kagyu school, and conquered Amdo (present-day Qinghai). The unification of Tibet followed in the early 1640s, with Güshi Khan proclaimed Khan of Tibet by the 5th Dalai Lama and the establishment of the Khoshut Khanate. The title "Dalai Lama" itself was bestowed upon the third lama of the Gelug tulku lineage by Altan Khan (not to be confused with the Altan Khans of the Khalkha), and means, in Mongolian, "Ocean of Wisdom".
Amdo, meanwhile, became home to the Khoshuts. In 1717, the Dzungars invaded Tibet and killed Lha-bzang Khan (or Khoshut Khan), a grandson of Güshi Khan and the fourth Khan of Tibet, and conquered the Khoshut Khanate.
The Qing Empire defeated the Dzungars in the 1750s and proclaimed rule over the Oirats through a Manchu-Mongol alliance (a series of systematically arranged marriages between princes and princesses of Manchu with those of Khalkha Mongols and Oirat Mongols, which was set up as a royal policy carried out over 300 years), as well as over Khoshut-controlled Tibet.
In 1723, Lobzang Danjin, another descendant of Güshi Khan, took control of Amdo and tried to assume rule over the Khoshut Khanate. He fought against a Qing army, and was defeated only in the following year with 80,000 people from his tribe executed by Manchu army due to his "rebellion attempt".БУЦАЖ ИРЭЭГҮЙ МОНГОЛ АЙМГУУД (Mongolian) By that period, the Upper Mongolian population reached 200,000 and were mainly under the rule of Khalkha Mongol princes who were in a marital alliance with Manchu royal and noble families. Thus, Amdo fell under Manchu domination.
The Dzungar Khanate
The 17th century saw the rise of another Oirat empire in the east, known as the Khanate of Dzungaria, which stretched from the Great Wall of China to present-day central Kazakhstan, and from present-day northern Kyrgyzstan to southern Siberia. It was the last empire of nomads, and was ruled by Choros noblemen.
The Transition from Ming to Qing dynasties in China occurred during the mid-17th century, and the Qing sought to protect its northern border by continuing the divide-and-rule policy their Ming predecessors had successfully instituted against the Mongols. The Manchu consolidated their rule over the Eastern Mongols of Manchuria. They then persuaded the Eastern Mongols of Inner Mongolia to submit themselves as vassals. Finally, the Eastern Mongols of Outer Mongolia sought the protection of the Manchu against the Dzungars.
The Kazakh–Dzungar Wars (1643–1741/42) were a series of long conflicts between the Kazakh Juzes and Dzungar Khanate. The strategic goal for the Dzungars was to increase their territories by taking lands of the Kazakhs.