Hidehiro Okada
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

The Mongolian Literary Tradition In Early Manchu Culture

35^th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, 1992

In 1632 Sure Han Hong Taiji of the Manchus, or the later Emperor T’ai-tsung 清太宗, exhorted his baksis to remonstrate with him quoting good words of olden times and himself quoted the example of Očir Sečen’s 俄齊爾塞臣 remonstrance with Čaɣadai 察罕代, son of Chinggis Khan 成吉思皇帝 of the Mongols 元. The text of this speech appears in the emperor’s Veritable Records, or Ta-ch’ing T’ai-tsung Wen Huang-ti Shihlu 大清太宗文皇帝實錄, under the date T’ien-ts’ung 6/II-chia-hsü 天聰六年二月甲戌（六日）, or 26 March 1632. It is also found in both Tongki Fuka Sindaha Hergen-i Dangse 滿文老檔 and Chiu Man-chou Tang 舊滿洲檔 in its original Manchu version, where, however, the name of the Mongol remonstrator is manchurized into Ocir Sure.

The same episode featuring Čayadai Khan and Očir Sečen is told in Mongolian in Činggis Qaɣan-u Čadig, a book published with movable types by Mongyol Bičig-ün Qoriy-a 蒙文書社, Peking, in 1925, then reissued in a different recension in 1927. The book contains the text of a Mongolian chronicle Quriyangyui Altan Tobči and a collection of miscellaneous tales and wise sayings involving historical personages, with the episode in question occurring in the latter part. This is just one indication of how strong Mongolian literary tradition was among the Manchus of the early seventeenth century.