Galdan Boshoqtu Khan’s Mother was a Khoshuud, not a Torghuud
(65th Meeting Astana, 2023)
There is a new source called Mongghol-un ugh eki-yin teüke (History of Origins of the Mongols) discovered in Xinjiang in 1983 and published in Oyirad teüken surubulji bičig in 1985. This source claims that the mother of Galdan Boshoqtu Khan of the Jüün Ghar was the daughter of Shükür Dayiching the Torghuud.
Moreover, recent Mongolian and Russian scholars have identified Yüm Agha Khatun, the mother of Galdan in The Biography of Zaya Pandita and Dara Ubasancha, wife of Baatur Khong Tayiji, as one and the same person.
Dara Ubasancha, according to Russian sources, is not the daughter of Shükür Dayiching, but of his father Khoo Örlüq. These two theories contradict each other as they only claim that Galdan’s mother was from Torghuud. In this paper, I would like to prove that both of these theories are wrong.
The Dzungar (Jüün Ghar) Empire was a nomadic trabal confederation, just like past nomadic empires. Therefore, the alliance between the Khoshuud who migrated to Kokonor and the Torghuud who migrated to the banks of Volga, greatly influenced its existence.
I have adopted the view, from Tibetan source Dpag bsam ljon bzang compiled in 1748, that Galdan’s mother was the daughter of Güüshi Khan, the Khoshuud in Kokonor.
Two Manchu-Chinese sources published in 1782, Pallas (1776-1801), Pelliot (1960), and Khodarkovsky (1992) did not say that Galdan’s mother was the daughter of Shükür Dayiching the Torghuud. So it is a new legend spread among the Torghuud who represent Oyirad or Kalmyks living in both the Xinjiang, China, and the banks of Volga, Russian Federation.