The Borjigin or Borjigids are a Mongol tribal clan founded in the early 10th century by Bodonchar Munkhag. The senior line of Borjigids provided ruling princes for Mongolia and Inner Mongolia until the 20th century. The clan formed the ruling class among the Mongols and other peoples of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Today, the Borjigids are found in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Xinjiang, and genetic research shows that descent from Genghis Khan and Timur is common throughout Central and East Asia.
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Origin and name
According to the Secret History of the Mongols, the first Mongol was born from the union of a blue-grey wolf and a fallow doe. Their 11th-generation descendant, Alan Gua, was impregnated by a ray of light and begat five sons, the youngest being Bodonchar Munkhag, progenitor of the Borjigids. According to Rashid al-Din Hamadani, many of the older Mongolian tribes were founded by members of the Borjigin clan, including the Barlas, Urud, Manghud, Taichiud, Chonos, and Kiyat. Bodonchar's descendant Khabul Khan founded the Khamag Mongol confederation around 1131. His great-grandson Temüjin ruled the Khamag Mongol and unified the other Mongol tribes under him. He was declared Genghis Khan in 1206, thus establishing the Mongol Empire. His descendants are the Chinggisids.
The etymology of the word Borjigin is uncertain.
History
Members of the Borjigin clan ruled over the Mongol Empire, dominating large lands stretching from Java to Iran and from Mainland Southeast Asia to Veliky Novgorod. Many of the ruling dynasties that took power following the disintegration of the Mongol Empire were of Chinggisid, and thus Borjigid, ancestry. These included the Chobanids, the Jalayirid Sultanate, the Barlas, the Manghud, the Khongirad, and the Oirats.
In 1368, the Borjigin-ruled Yuan dynasty was expelled from China following the advance of rebel forces that established the Ming dynasty. The last Yuan emperor, Toghon Temür, withdrew north of the Great Wall, where the court and its institutions continued to function in the Mongolian Plateau under what is conventionally known as the Northern Yuan.
The retreat of the Yuan court did not represent a sudden collapse but rather a strategic relocation, after which the Borjigin rulers maintained political authority over Mongolia and sought to reassert influence over China in subsequent decades.
Post-Mongol Empire
The term "Chinggisid" derives from the name of Genghis (Chinggis) Khan (c. 1162–1227 CE). Genghis and his successors created a vast empire stretching from the Sea of Japan to the Black Sea, which, beginning in 1259, divided into separate empires.
After the breakup of the Golden Horde, the Khiyad Borjigids continued to rule in Crimean Peninsula and Kazan until they were annexed by the Russian Empire in the late 18th century. In Mongolia, the Kublaids continued to reign as khagans of the Mongols, with brief interruptions by the descendants of Ögedei and Ariq Böke.
Under Dayan Khan (1480–1517), a broad Borjigid revival reestablished Borjigid supremacy among the Mongols in Mongolia proper. The Borjigin lineage constituted the ruling house of the Mongols, with authority distributed among various branches of the imperial family rather than concentrated in a single unified structure. During the period following the decline of centralized power, the descendants of Dayan Khan governed their respective appanages in a decentralized and semi-autonomous system, maintaining allegiance to the Chinggisid khan while exercising independent control over their own territories.
By the late 16th century, Northern Yuan which is the Post-Mongol Empire, was transformed into many separate Borjigin Mongol khanates under the descendants of Dayan Khan, including the four Khalkha Khanates, the Altan Khan of Tumed Mongols. The eastern Khorchin Mongols were under the Qasarids, and the Ongnigud and Abaqids were under the Belguteids and Temüge Odchigenids. A fragment of the Qasarids later migrated to western Mongolia, where they became known as the Khoshut which founded Khoshut Khanate by Gushi Khan.
Dayan Khan's youngest son, Gersenji Khuntaij, was given Mongol heartland which is the territory of present-day Mongolia. By the early 17th century most of Mongolia was held by his descendants. They formed four khanates of the Khalkha Mongols, from west to east:
Altan Khanate (great-grandson of Gersenji Khuntaij) in the far west.
Zasagt Khanate of the Khalkha Mongols founded by Laikhor Khan, a cousin of the Altan Khan.
Modern relevance
The Borjigin held power over Mongolia for many centuries (even during Qing period) and only lost power when Communists took control in the 20th century. Aristocratic descent was something to be forgotten in the socialist period. Joseph Stalin's associates executed some 30,000 Mongols including Borjigin nobles in a series of campaigns against their culture and religion. Clan association has lost its practical relevance in the 20th century, but is still considered a matter of honour and pride by many Mongolians. In 1920s, the communist regime banned the use of clan names. When the ban was lifted again in 1997, and people were told they had to have surnames, some families had lost knowledge about their clan association. One of the many communist Borjigin Mongols who founded the Mongolian People's Republic, Anandyn Amar, a member of the People's Great Khural and a former prime minister, was executed by the government in 1941 as a result of internal Mongolian class struggle. After that, under the ideology of communism, the principle of legal and social equality replaced hereditary aristocratic privilege, and Borjigin descent permanently ceased to be a source of political authority in Mongolia. Around 700,000 people are registered under the family name Borjigin in Mongolia. The label Borjigin is used as a measure of cultural supremacy.
In Inner Mongolia, the Borjigid or Kiyad name became the basis for many Chinese surnames adopted by ethnic Inner Mongols. The Inner Mongolian Borjigin Taijis took the surname Bao (鲍, from Borjigid) and Qi (奇, Qiyat) in Ordos. A genetic research has proposed that as many as 16 million men from populations as far apart as Hazaras in the West and Hezhe people to the east may have Borjigid-Kiyad ancestry. The Qiyat clan name is still found among the Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Nogai Karakalpaks.
Yuan dynasty family tree
Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire in 1206. His grandson, Kublai Khan, after defeating his younger brother and rival claimant to the throne Ariq Böke, founded the Yuan dynasty in 1271, also known as Dai Ön qemeqü Yeqe Mongɣol Ulus in Mongolian. The dynasty was overthrown by the Ming dynasty during the reign of Toghon Temür in 1368, but it survived in the Mongolian Plateau, known as the Northern Yuan dynasty. Although the throne was usurped by Esen Taishi of the Oirat Mongols in 1453 and he declared himself "Tengri Mandate the Great Khan of Great Yuan Dynasty", he was overthrown in the next year. A recovery of the khaganate was achieved by Dayan Khan, but the territory was segmented by his descendants. The last great khan Ligden died in 1634 and his son Ejei Khongor Khan submitted himself to Khuntaij the next year, ending the Northern Yuan regime. The four Genghisid Khalkha Mongol Khanates; Tusheet Khanate, Setsen Khanate, Zasagt Khanate, Altan Khanate, the last legitimate remnants of the Northern Yuan, ruled by the descendants of Dayan Khan's youngest son, Prince Gersenji, remained independent in Mongol heartland until Qing annexation of 1691. However, the Borjigin nobles continued to rule their subjects until the 20th century under the Khalkha Khans during Qing dynasty, Bogd Khanate and Mongolian People's Republic.
In terms of existing, Great Yuan Dynasty as official name continued until 1634 with the death of Ligden Khan.