Jamukha was the most important political figure in the early career of Genghis Khan, and the relationship between the two men is one of the most fascinating and tragic episodes of the unification of the Mongol tribes. The two men were blood-brothers, rivals, and ultimately enemies, and the story of their relationship is told in vivid detail in the Secret History of the Mongols.
Jamukha was a member of the Jadaran Mongol clan, and he was a contemporary of Temüjin, the future Genghis Khan. The two boys had been playmates as children, and they had grown up together on the steppe. As young men, they formalized their friendship by exchanging gifts and making a blood oath, becoming andas, or blood-brothers, in a relationship that was considered stronger than kinship. For several years, Temüjin and Jamukha operated as a kind of junior ruling pair, each gathering his own followers and jointly managing their affairs.
The Anda Relationship
The anda relationship was a central institution of steppe society. The two parties to the oath committed themselves to mutual support in war, in trade, and in personal affairs, and the relationship was considered so strong that it was said that the two men became “as one flesh.” The anda relationship was, in essence, a fictive kinship, and the obligations that it created were more binding than those of ordinary kinship. A man who betrayed his anda was considered a criminal and a pariah.
The anda relationship between Temüjin and Jamukha was, by all accounts, a deep and genuine friendship. The Secret History of the Mongols records several episodes in which the two men exchanged gifts, hunted together, and shared the responsibilities of leadership. The two men were also closely connected through their families: Jamukha’s father had been killed in a feud with the Tatars, and Temüjin’s family had been in conflict with the Tayichiud, a clan that was itself part of the larger Mongol confederation. The two young men had, in effect, been thrown together by their common experience of loss and exile.
The Break with Temüjin
The relationship between Temüjin and Jamukha began to break down in the late 1180s. The two men had become rivals for the leadership of the Mongol people, and their different political visions were increasingly incompatible. Temüjin was a revolutionary, willing to break with the old aristocratic hierarchies and to elevate men of low birth to positions of command; Jamukha was a traditionalist, content to operate within the existing tribal structures. The final break came in 1186, when the two men quarreled over the question of how to manage their joint following. The Secret History reports that Jamukha departed in anger, saying: “I shall not eat with Temüjin, and I shall not drink with Temüjin. We shall not sit together in council, and we shall not lie down together in sleep.”
After the break, Jamukha became the leader of a separate Mongol confederation, the Jadaran, in the Khentii Mountains. The Jadaran were a coalition of Mongol tribes that were opposed to Temüjin’s expansion, and Jamukha used his position to build a substantial following. The Jadaran included several of the major Mongol tribes, including the Tayichiud, and Jamukha was able to gather a considerable army.
The Wars Between Temüjin and Jamukha
The two men fought a series of inconclusive wars in the 1190s and 1200s. The first major engagement was the Battle of Dalan Baljut in 1187, in which Temüjin’s forces were defeated by the Jadaran. The defeat was a serious setback for Temüjin, and he was forced to retreat to the Kerulen River. The two men fought again in 1197, when Jamukha attempted to draw Temüjin into a trap; the trap was unsuccessful, and the two men fought to a standoff. The two men fought a third time in 1201, when a coalition of Mongol tribes attempted to install a rival khan; the coalition was defeated, but Jamukha escaped and continued to operate as the head of the Jadaran.
The decisive confrontation came in 1204, when Jamukha raised a coalition of tribes opposed to Temüjin’s expansion. The coalition included the Jadaran, the Tayichiud, the Kerey, the Onggirat, and a number of other tribes, and it was the largest coalition that Temüjin had yet faced. The Battle of the Chakirmaut, fought in the spring of 1204, was a decisive victory for Temüjin. The coalition was broken, and the major tribal leaders were killed or scattered. Jamukha fled to the Naiman, the western steppe confederation, and the Naiman were defeated the following year.
The Death of Jamukha
The Naiman were defeated in 1205, and Jamukha was captured by his own followers, who handed him over to Temüjin in the hope of receiving favorable treatment. Temüjin, who could not execute a former anda without violating the sacred obligations of the blood-brother relationship, ordered that Jamukha be killed without bloodshed. The Secret History reports that Jamukha, accepting his fate, asked only that he be allowed to die in a way that did not violate the dignity of the anda relationship.
The death of Jamukha marked the end of the unification of the Mongol tribes. With the death of his last major rival, Temüjin was the unquestioned master of the Mongolian plateau, and the kurultai of 1206 was a formality. The story of the relationship between Temüjin and Jamukha is one of the most poignant episodes in the Secret History, and it has been the subject of much literature and scholarship. The tragedy of the two friends who became enemies, and the obligations of the anda relationship that prevented the new khan from killing his rival in person, is a reminder of the complex moral world of the steppe.
Sources
- David Morgan, The Mongols (2nd ed., Oxford, 2007).
- Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 (London, 2005).
- Timothy May, The Mongol Conquests in World History (London, 2012).