the history of buddhism among the mongols 395
in elite circles and were unknown to the common people—regardless
of how these texts may have been understood. Also the monasteries,
for which so much generosity had been displayed, cannot have been
hermetically sealed from the common people. A nal statement about
Buddhism in the time of the Great Mongolian Empire cannot yet be
made.
- The End of the Yuan Dynasty and the
Northern Yuan Empire
In 1367, the Yuan dynasty collapsed. Revolutionary troops of the for-
mer Buddhist monk Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398) conquered
Dadu, present-day Beijing. As emperor Hongwu (1368–1398), Zhu
Yuanzhang founded the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). The Mongol
emperor Shundi ed to the summer capital Shangdu in the North.^77
This, however, was—at least according to Mongol tradition—not the
end of the Yuan Dynasty, but the beginning of a Northern Yuan that
ended with the Manchus, the successors of the Ming.^78 Provided the cor-
responding Manchu tradition is correct, the second Mongolian dynasty
ended in 1635. In this year, Qongor Eúei, the son of the last Great
Khan Ligdan (r. 1604–1634),^79 is reported to have transmitted the seal
of the Yuan to the Manchu ruler Hûwang Taize (r. 1626–1643), the
son of Nurhaci (1559–1626), the initiator of Manchu power.^80 From
1636, the ruling house was called Qing. In 1644, under Hûwang
Taize’s son Shunzhi (1644–1661), the Qing dynasty succeeded the
Ming dynasty.^81
The Northern Yuan were not much more than a weak re ection
of the powerful Mongolian empire. The time from the late fourteenth
to the rst half of the seventeenth century is characterised by inter-
nal ghts and, above all, by wars with the Western Mongolian Oirats
who, in the fteenth century, succeeded in founding an empire.^82 The
(^77) Franke 1948, pp. 549–551; Haenisch & Olbricht 1969, p. 27.
(^78) A proof of this ideological concept is the Mongolian chronicle Dai Yuwan-u Bolor
erike (“Crystal Rosary of the Da Yuan”) by Rasipungsu (1775), which relates the his-
tory of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty until the submission of Ligdan Khans son to the
Manchu. See Mostaert 1959, pp. 10–16. 79
Heissig 1979.
(^80) Bawden 1989, p. 47.
(^81) Franke & Trauzettel 1968, p. 273.
(^82) Bawden 1989, pp. 23–24; Hambly 1969, p. 245.