Ligdan Khan

Ligdan qutuUnicode|ɣtu qan, also Ligden or Lindan (ruled 1604-1634), was the last in the Borjigin clan of Mongol Khans who ruled from Čaqar. By the early 17th century the Khans had lost most of their power, and were under pressure from the Manchu in the east. Since a conflict with Nurhaci in 1619, the relations between his clan federation and the Manchu federation had continuosly detoriated. Ligdan, on the other hand, by trying to assume this former power, ruled in a progressively aggressive fashion, so that several Mongolian tribes opted for entering into a coalition with the Manchu. When the Qorčin and some allied tribes allied with the Manchu in 1624, Ligdan undertook a punitive expedition, but retreated when Manchu relief troops arrived. In 1628, when trying to subdue the Qaračin, an alliance of Qaračin, Tümed, Abaγa and part of the Qalq-a defeated his army, with some 10.000 Čaqar dead. 1632, the Manchus and their Mongolian allies undertook a campaign against Ligdan who avoided a confronation and with maybe 100.000 Čaqar fled to Kokonor. There, he died in 1634. After Lingdan Khan's death his son Erke qongγor eje returned and was handed over to the Manchus who soon after assumed power in Inner Mongolia. [Veit, Veronika (1986): Die mongolischen Völerschaften: 396-400. In: Weiers, Michael (ed.) (1986): "Die Mongolen. Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte und Kultur". Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft: 379-411. Another source on the period would be Di Cosmo, Nicola, and Dalizhabu Bao (2003): "Manchu-Mongol relations on the eve of the Qing conquest: a documentary history". Leiden: Brill. ]

Name

The name is a borrowing from Classical Tibetan "legs-ldan". There, the letters "s" and "l" had already become silent, "g" before "d" could be realized as [n] and "a" before "n" got palatalized. In Mongolian sources, the most frequent ways to write the name are "Ligda/en" and "Linda/en", but the intermediate "Lingda/en" ( [ŋ] ) does appear as well. "a" and "e" are not differentiated in normal Mongolian writing in this position, but "a" is attested in a strict transcription from Tibetan letters in the chronicle Bolur Erdeni. However, for any Mongolian reader who doesn’t immediately perceive the name to be a loan, the letter "g" would indicate that the word only contains front vowels. This must have been perceived in this fashion at the time of i-breaking as well, as this phonological process took place in back-vocalic words only and would have resulted in /lʲagdan/ had it been /ligdan/. Today, western scholars tend to cling to the written form of the Tibetan word and write "Ligdan", while Mongolian scholars will usually write "Ligden", both pointing to a possible alternative with "n". The Modern Chinese spelling is "Líndān".

References