Central Asia in World History

by Peter B. Golden

  Tibetan Buddhism had adherents among the Mongols of China. When the Yuan fell, Mongol Buddhism also faded. Tibet, now again under its own monarchy, underwent a religious revival. The Gelupga (yellow hat) sect, founded by the reformer Tsongkhapa, promoted the notion of rule by a supreme Lama, a living embodiment of the Buddha. Tibetan missionaries proselytized among the Mongols.

  Altan Khan’s “sudden” interest in Buddhism began in 1571 with the arrival of the charismatic lama Ashing. Altan dispatched a letter written in gold, inviting a Gelugpa leader, Sonam Gyatso, to Mongolia, declaring that the lama’s “unshakable benevolence” should be extended to the Mongols.13 At their meeting in 1578, Altan Khan bestowed on Sonam Gyatso the title Dalai Lama from Mongol dalai (ocean, sea), denoting the lama as either an “ocean of wisdom” or a “universal” teacher, and declared him to be the reincarnation of Tsongkhapa, who had died in 1419, and the third in the line of Dalai Lamas.14 Comparing the lama and qaghan to be “like the sun and the moon,” Altan further announced that “in a previous reincarnation,” the lama had been ‘P’ags-pa and he had been Qubilai.15 With this one stroke, Altan Khan strengthened the Gelugpa lamas in Tibet and gave his own regime an enduring source of legitimacy—underscoring through religion his connection to Qubilai Khan. In Mongolia, Chinggisid-based rule and Buddhism were now joined. Kökeqota “(Blue City,” today’s Huhhot, capital of Inner Mongolia), a city he founded as a symbol of his regal status, became an important Buddhist cultural center.

  The other major Chinggisid princes quickly converted. Subsequently, visiting Tibetan monks determined that the fourth Dalai Lama was a great-grandson of Altan Khan, known in Tibetan as Yonten Gyatso. An incarnation of the Buddha, the first Jebtsundamba Khutughtu “(holy saint,” a title given to the highest clergy) also appeared in Mongolia in the form of a Khalkha prince, Zanabazar. He became a major figure in shaping Mongol lamaistic Buddhism, founding a lamasery in 1648. It became the foundations of the city of Urga, today Ulan Bator, the capital of the Mongolian Republic. Succeeding Jebtsundamba Khutughtus, as the spiritual leaders of the Mongols, enjoyed enormous political and economic power. The Oirat conversion came slightly later, around 1620, through the efforts of a Gelugpa-educated Oirat lama, Zaya Pandita, who also reformed the Oirat alphabet and translated 177 Tibetan works into Mongol. At the behest of the Dalai Lama, he traveled tirelessly between the tribes, seeking to foster Buddhism and intertribal peace.

  Mongol Buddhists attempted to root out shamanism, the “Black Faith,” and end practices such as human sacrifice. When one of Altan Khan’s young sons died, the child’s mother wanted to have one hundred children and camel foals sacrificed to accompany the prince into the after-world. Although such sacrifices for royalty were ancient in the steppe world, Mongol society now felt revulsion and prevented the slaughter. Altan Khan’s wife became a symbol of evil. When she died in 1585, the Dalai Lama exorcized her corpse, allegedly transforming it into a lizard, which then perished in flames.16

  A Mongol Buddhist cultural flowering followed; Mongol scholars translated the Tibetan classics and composed important histories, such as the Altan Tobchi (The Golden Summary) and the Erdeni-yin Tobchi (Precious Summary) The conversion to Buddhism affected all levels of Mongol society. The khans gained a new source of legitimacy as lamas proclaimed them reincarnations of earlier khans. Commoners kept images of the Buddha in their tents and made offerings when eating or drinking.17 With the conversion, Mongolia and adjoining regions became part of a Buddhist religious and cultural sphere, very distinct from that of the Central Asian Turko-Persian Islamic lands. Conversion also assured the dominance of the Gelugpa sect in Tibet and of the institution of the Dalai Lama, as spiritual and political leaders. They, in turn, trained and influenced many of the Mongol elite and administrators. After Altan Khan’s death, family feuds and the ever-expanding number of rival khans further decentralized political power. The “one Mongol nation” had become many, in reality, paving the way for the Manchu conquest.18

  By the mid-seventeenth century, Buddhist Mongols hemmed in Muslim Turko-Persia in the east, rival Mughals held the south, hostile Safavid Shi’ites blocked the southwest, and Christian Muscovy loomed in the northwest. The Shibanid Uzbek khanate mirrored the Mongol world in its lack of unity. The early Uzbek khans were relatively effective, but as with their Chinggisid kinsmen in Mongolia, this was a family “business” and each member wanted his own territory. The result was that the Uzbek “state” was more like a confederation. Each Shibanid had the title of sultan and an appanage where he was a virtual sovereign. These divisions were the khanate’s greatest source of weakness. The khan ruled more by persuasion and cooperation with local notables (officials, clan, or religious leaders) than by law—or force.

  The early Shibanids shifted capitals between Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent, and Balkh. Effective rulers periodically emerged. The learned poet and patron of the arts, ‘Ubaydullâh, Shibanî Khan’s nephew, repeatedly defeated the Safavids, restoring Transoxiana to Shibanid control, and beat back a Mughal invasion in 1545-47, all the while checking the acquisitive impulses of family members. ‘Abdallâh II, who ruled Bukhara from 1583 to 1598, despite disloyal kinsmen, rebellious Uzbek chiefs, and Oirat raids, brought much of the realm under his authority, conquered territory in Xinjiang and eastern Iran, and reduced the power of the Uzbek military aristocracy. He was solicitous of the economy, regularizing coinage and improving irrigation. His commercial interests included contacts with Ivan the Terrible, who sent an Englishman, Anthony Jenkinson, to Bukhara to learn more about Central Asian trade and to see if a route to China could be secured. This marked the beginning of Russian contact with the region. Immediately after the death of ‘Abdallâh II, the Kazakhs invaded, supported by some Uzbek lords. This last attempt of the nomads to conquer Transoxiana failed.

  Decentralizing forces came into play. The head of the religious establishment, the Shaykh ul-Islâm, wielded considerable authority, religious, political, and economic. Sûfî leaders such as the Naqshbandî shaykhs, wealthy and exempt from taxes, exercising great power over the khans as their spiritual guides, meddled in politics. As incompetent rulers succeeded one another, the Uzbek commanders, facing growing domestic threats from the Safavids and Kazakhs, opted for a new dynasty led by the brother-in-law of ‘Abdallâh II, Jânî Muhammad. Descended from a Jochid from Astrakhan, he had acceptable Chinggisid credentials and marital ties with the ruling house that went back several generations.

  The Jânid line (1599-1785), also known as the Toqay Temürids or Ashtarkhânids, began uncertainly and ultimately proved weaker than their predecessors, lacking authority among the Uzbek tribes, the military commanders, and nobles who had become powerful feudal lords. The alliance between the Sûfîs and the dynasty became stronger, with the dervishes emerging as the dominant partner. The Jânids never recovered from a 1740 invasion by Nâdir Shâh of Iran, who had sacked Mughal Delhi the previous year. The last Jânid rulers were largely puppets of their atalϊqs (chief ministers) from the Uzbek Manghϊt tribe. These Manghϊt atalϊqs, who had been the actual rulers for some time, began to call themselves amîrs in 1753. The Manghϊt Shâh Murâd, son-in-law of the Khan, ended the charade in 1785 and became ruler in his own right. As a non-Chinggisid, however, he remained Amîr rather than Khan and hence assiduously courted the support of the religious establishment to gain legitimacy.

  By the late eighteenth century, the Uzbek state had split into three separate realms, each ruled by dynasties stemming from local Uzbek tribes whose chieftains had become chief ministers under fading Chinggisids and then taken power on their own. Aside from the Manghϊts in Bukhara, the Qungrats ruled in the khanate of Khiva, capital of the old Khwarazmian lands since the seventeenth century, which had achieved full independence from Bukhara in the early eighteenth century. In 1804, the Qunghrat Eltüzer assumed the title of khan. In the Ferghana valley, the chief ministers of the Uzbek Ming tribe effectively became the rulers in Khoqand (Qoqan), a city they founded in the early eigh
teenth century. ‘lim took the title of khan, establishing the Khanate of Khoqand (1798-1876). All were beholden to local military chieftains and powerful Sûfî leaders whose formal approval legitimated their rule.

  Cultural stagnation accompanied political fragmentation. Once a great center of Islamic learning, Central Asian ‘ulamâ became increasingly caught up in a rigid legalism, which was not unique to this part of the Muslim world. Innovation was a term of opprobrium. Any break with tradition was deemed an assault on basic religious values. Uzbek Central Asia remained on the margins of the rapidly developing and increasingly European-dominated modern world. While Europe had embarked on overseas empire building and experienced the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, Uzbek Central Asia faced a “brain drain”: men of talent were lured to service in Mughal India by high salaries.

  The opening of new maritime routes to the East and to the Americas by the Europeans in the sixteenth century and the global crises of the seventeenth century including climate changes (the Little Ice Age), famines, economic depression, population decline, and unending political turmoil, altered patterns of global commerce. Scholars have long viewed these changes as contributing causes of Central Asia’s economic marginalization and intellectual stagnation. Recent scholarship has begun to challenge aspects of this view.

  Central Asia remained a part of the world trading system, but commodities and routes changed. The flow was more north-south than east-west. Central Asia became a major Russian link to China—although in the late seventeenth century Moscow began to explore more northerly routes as well, cutting off some Central Asian middlemen. Indian merchants formed a network that connected India, China, Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Caravans to India could be as large as 40,000 load-bearing animals. The ultimate destinations may have been less distant. There was less emphasis on luxury goods, although silks and spices were still carried along these venerable highways. The slave trade flourished. The horse trade, known since antiquity, remained significant. Mughal India, under Emperor Aurangzîb, annually imported 100,000 horses from Bukhara and Afghanistan. Bukhara also exported cattle and fruit (especially melons and grapes) to South Asia. Religious hostility did not prevent commerce with Shi’ite Iran or Christian Muscovy. Bukharan traders brought both local products, ranging from raw silk to livestock, and goods from Siberia (furs), China, and India. Central Asia continued to function as a highway of commerce.19

  Nonetheless, there were economic realignments producing decline and population loss in some areas. The nomads largely remained behind and disadvantaged in the gunpowder age. They were ill prepared to meet the challenges of rapid technological advances and a mindset that welcomed innovation. Similar problems were apparent throughout the larger Turko-Muslim world. The Ottoman, Iranian, and Mughal Empires, having also undergone the transformation from conquest dynasties to bureaucratic states, were grappling with the challenge of an aggressive Europe and a changing economic and politico-military landscape. European outposts and colonies now dotted Asia and the Americas. For Central Asia, the immediate threats came from Russia and Qing China.

  The Kazakhs lay directly on the path of the Russian advance. Political fragmentation, common to other Chinggisid polities, also beset Kazakh society. Unlike the Uzbeks, the Kazakhs remained in the steppe, unable to secure significant urban bases. The khans attempted to impose stricter authority over their subjects, who deposed or sidelined overly harsh rulers. Religion, a potentially unifying factor, was less significant. The Kazakh khans had close ties with the Sûfî orders, which were trying to strengthen Islam among the nomads—often with little more than superficial success. Aleksei I. Levshin, a Russian traveler and ethnographer who journeyed to the Kazakhs in the 1820s, reported that most Kazakhs responded “we don’t know” when asked “what is your religion?”20 Some modern scholars now question the accuracy of Levshin’s statement. Many Kazakhs mixed Islam and shamanism, as they had for centuries.21

  According to popular tradition, by the time of Haqq Nazar Khan (who was assassinated in 1580), the Kazakhs had divided into three groupings: the Great Horde in Semirech’e, the Middle Horde in Central Kazakhstan and southwestern Siberia, and the Little Horde in western Kazakhstan. These names referred to their respective order of seniority. The Kazakhs, despite setbacks, periodically extended their power to the Kyrgyz, Noghais (also torn by internal divisions), and the Bashkirs. By the early seventeenth century, the Kazakhs found themselves surrounded by enemies, especially the Oirats.

  The fractious Oirats also faced pressure from all sides. The efforts of Khara Khula to unite them caused one group, the Torghuts, to break away. In the 1620s, led by their khan, Khô Örlökh, some 200,000 to 250,000 Torghuts migrated from the Jungarian basin towards the Ural River and then into the trans-Volga-Caspian steppes, plundering Russian, Kazakh, and Noghai lands as they went. Other Oirats, unhappy with the developing political order in the east, joined him. These western Oirats are better known as the Kalmyks. Although Khô Örlökh died in warfare in the North Caucasus, his sons, Shikür-Daiching and Puntsog, despite violent rivalries with kinsmen and pressures by other Oirats in the east, pushed forward, eventually establishing themselves in the lower Volga region in the 1650s. This marked the founding of the Kalmyk state, a Buddhist power on the Volga.

  Moscow sought to use the Buddhist Kalmyks against the Muslim Crimean Tatars and Noghais, who menaced the Russian frontiers. In 1655 the Kalmyks swore an oath of allegiance to the Tsar, but each side understood the agreement differently. The Russians viewed the Kalmyks as “subjects” who would bear arms for the Tsar when called; the Kalmyks considered themselves “allies.” By the 1660s, Moscow had become the dominant partner. More Oirat groups from the east joined Ayuki Khan, who, backed by Russia, became the paramount Kalmyk ruler. Moscow provided gunpowder weapons, making his army a highly effective pro-Russian force in dealing with the Crimean Tatars (and more distantly with the latter’s Ottoman overlords) and other steppe foes.

  In the east, the Oirat Jungars (from Mongolian jüünghar, “left wing” of the army22) founded an empire. Jungaria, the area of Xinjiang north of the Tianshan, which they occupied, takes its modern name from them. The Jungar chief, Baatur Khungtaiji, continued the program of political unification begun by his father Khara Khula. A 1635 treaty with Russia broadened trading opportunities and enhanced his stature. He received the title of Erdeni Baatur Khungtaiji from the fifth Dalai Lama, which elevated Jungar prestige.

  Baatur Khungtaiji participated in the 1640 Mongol-Oirat quriltai (assembly) summoned to ameliorate inter-Mongol hostilities. It produced the Mongol-Oirat Code, which strengthened khanal authority and established Buddhism as the pan-Mongol religion, perhaps with the hope that this would unify the fractious Mongols. The code granted lamas a privileged status and fined people who invited shamans into their homes. One of every ten men in a family would become a monk. Indeed, Baatur Khungtaiji sent one of his nine sons, Galdan, to Tibet for study. The code also regulated many aspects of private life, encouraging population growth. Young women were expected to marry at the age of fifteen or shortly thereafter, and the sons of four out of every ten households had to marry every year. In keeping with older practices, one could take the wife of an enemy slain in combat.23

  Galdan, who returned in 1670 from his studies in Tibet, had the strong backing of the Dalai Lama, who gave him the title Boshughtu Khan (Khan by Decree of Heaven), providing ideological support for his imperial ambitions. As non-Chinggisids, the Jungarian rulers had been hesitant to use the title khan. This title legitimized Galdan’s royal status, recognized in both Russian and Qing correspondence with him. At home, however, his nephew, Tsewang Rabtan (who later ruled as Khungtaiji), whose bride-to-be he had stolen, frequently challenged him. Nonetheless, Galdan, now possessing cannons (the technology coming from Russia), which he transported on camels, made his Jungars one of the great powers of Central Asia, bringing Tibet and Xinjiang (1677-1678) under his sway and menacing the Khalkhas in the east.

&nb
sp; The three empires, Russian, Qing and Jungar, anxiously probed one another. A Qing general reported that Galdan was “violent and evil, and addicted to wine and sex,”24 but hoped to have him maintain order among the Mongols not yet under Manchu rule. In return, they would give him trading rights, which always enhanced a leader’s standing in the steppe world. The Russians also offered him trading rights, repeatedly stressing that he should serve the Tsar, but fended off his attempts to bring them into anti-Qing coalitions.

  The Jungars built up an urban center at Kulja on the Ili River, brought in east Turkestani peasants (subsequently known as Taranchi, “farmer”) to grow food and attracted European and Chinese technicians. Galdan’s establishment of a settled base, a system of tax collection, coinage, and a weapons industry (producing gunpowder, armor, and hand weapons) showed that his was not an ephemeral steppe structure, but a state with imperial ambitions.25 His spy network of lamas worked to win over Mongols under Qing rule.

  Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian Jesuit who served at the court of Qianlong, was a gifted painter and architect who depicted scenes from Qing life. Here he captures the movement of cannons borne on the backs of camels, along with advancing infantry forces. This movable field artillery allowed Galdan, the Jungar ruler, to continue to exploit the time-honored mobile style of warfare favored by the nomads. Library of Congress, LC USZ-62-44377