“The Oirats-Ogeleds... crossed the Mankan River”: the ethnoreligious situation at the Oirats in the middle of XV - the beginning of XVI centuries

Abstract

The article examines the problem, which so far had not been studied by the historical science - the fate of the Elet Oirats, who, according the Oirat and Kalmyk sources, suddenly had departured “to the west”. The author suggests, that the Elets’ exodus did take place in the past, the reasons probably lied in the ethnic and religious history of this people. The Choros clan, which headed the Elets, was of Turkic origin, and had had the close relationship with the Muslim rulers of Moghulistan, and there was a certain role of Islam among some clan’s members. At the time of the descendants of the famous Oirat ruler Esen Taisha (who actively supported Buddhism), there had happened the religious disputes between Amasanjee (the youngest son of Esen, an adherent of Buddhism) and his sons - Ibrahim and Ilyas (Esen’s grandsons, Muslims). The author hypothesizes that, being the leaders of the Elets, the brothers took a significant part of this Oirat people to Moghulistan, where they, most likely, almost all were exterminated by Alachi-khan (Ahmad-khan). Those events led to the significant transformative processes both among the Oirats themselves and in the fate of the Choros - a new confederation was created by the Oirats, where Buddhism was perceived not only as a religion but also as an ideology of society, and the remaining descendants of Esen, who left among the Oirats, had formed the new peoples: Derbets and Jungars. The very name “Choros” almost completely disappeared from the chronicles.

Keywords

• elet
• ogeled
• choros
• oirat
• tibetan buddhism
• islam