Research Concerning "the Branch Of The Ganges"

"The Branch of the Ganges"(yan-a-yin urusqal) was written by Gumbujab in1725(the third year of the reign of the emperor Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty). This work is a comprehensive chronicle of Mongolia. It describes the history of the system of government and of the genealogy of the main Khans and of the emperors of Mongolia one by one. It includes historical dates, the events of the various historical periods, their impact, problems with the historic records, and the source of these historic records. It significantly influenced the later chronicles of Mongolia. It thus provides a valuable overview of Mongolian historic records existing in the18th century. Its main content was not copied from other chronicles, it came from that the author’s own research and compared in detail with the historical records in Chinese, Mongolian and Tibetan. The author carefully selected his material, revised it, edited it and compiled it into a whole new chronicle of Mongolia. This chronicle was the most significant of all chronicles of Mongolia of the18th century.The author of this dissertation refers to the work of earlier researchers, explores the themes of the book, and compares them with historic books in Chinese and Mongolian, She compares the material with references in dictionaries of history in Chinese and in Mongolian, and reviews the hand-written copies of "The Branch of the Ganges"(from1909-1910) She then discusses and explains in detail the content of "The Branch of the Ganges’", its focus, and the life of Gumbujab. The author of this dissertation reviewed and compared the books, such as "Xu Zi Zhi Tong Jian"(meaning:"Continuation of References for Governing a Nation"),"The History of the Yuan Dynasty", anonymous "Huang Jin Shi Gang"(meaning:"An outline of the Golden Family History in the17th Century"),"Meng Gu Yuan Liu"(meaning:"The Origins of Mongolia" in17century" She also refers to history books in Mongolian such as "Jin Lun Qian Fu"{meaning:"The Golden Family which Multiplied Endlessly" in18-19century),"The Crystal Ball" in18-19century,"Ru Yi Bao Shu History"(meaning:"The history of the unique wished(FAMILY)tree" in18-19century and "Jin Man"(meaning:"blond hair") in18-19century.Additionally, the author compared the different edition of "The Branch of Ganges" copied and published by (Russia) Fuchikefski in1960,"The Branch of the Ganges" adjusted and annotated by Qiao Ji in1980,"TheBranch of the Ganges" edited and published by Bi Li Gong in Slav Mongolian in1992and "TheBramch of the Ganges" edited and published in Slav Mongolian in2006.The thesis is divided into four chapters comprising an introduction, the research itself, a discussion of, historical records and appendices. In the introductory chapter, it describes the significance of choosing this subject, the research done by former researchers, the new research findings contained in this thesis and the methods used in preparing this thesis.In the second chapter, the research itself, there are three sections.There are two parts in the first section in which the author assesses the value of "The Branch of the Ganges" and the work of the author, Gumbujab. In the first part, following the work of earlier researchers, it provides an overview of the author’s life, his ancestors with their positions and titles, and assesses the author’s ideas. The second section introduces the detail of the various editions of "The Branch of the Ganges", recording the contents and the characteristics of each edition. The second part comprises the research into "The Branch of the Ganges". There are three sections in the second chapter. In the first section, the sources of the material in "The Branch of the Ganges" are discussed, and and how the book was derived from them. Most of the material was taken from "Xu Zi Zhi Tong Jian","The History of Yuan Dynasty","Huang Jin Shi Gang" and "Meng Gu Yuan Liu". In the second section, the thesis examines how "The Branch of the Ganges" influenced later books such as "Jin Lun Qian Fu","The Crystal Ball","Ru Yi Bao Shu History" and "Jin Man", etc. In the third chapter the thesis differentiates and analyses the the historic records in "The Branch of the Ganges". It mainly analyses and discusses the source materials in Mongolian and points out some errors when compared to ten other books of Mongolian history in the17th and18th centuries. In the three sections of the second chapter, some mistakes are pointed out, such as the dates on which some Mongolian Emperors were born, died or ruled and to which branch of the family tree they belonged. These mistakes are also pointed out in the annotation at the end of the thesis.The viewpoint of some scholars was that in writing "The Branch of the Ganges", Gumbujab took most of the material from "The History of the Yuan Dynasty". After the author of the thesis examined this proposition and compared "The Branch of the Ganges" and "The History of the Yuan Dynasty", she discovered that Gumbujab only copied "the Royal family tree" and some of the "Emperor’s Biographies" from"The History of Yuan Dynasty." In addition Gumbujab referred to a few of paragraphs in "The History of the Yuan Dynasty". Gumbujab also collected and scanned others historical materials in accordance with accepted principles of historical research. He then went on to write his book, in which he filled gaps and corrected some mistakes in "The History of Yuan Dynasty". In writing his book, Gumbujab not only corrected the mistakes in "The History of Yuan Dynasty" but also added his own perspective on Mongolian history. So we should not simply accept that most of Gumbujab’s material was taken form "The History of Yuan Dynasty".In the third chapter, two parts of the original translation of "The Branch of the Ganges" from Mongolian to Latin are discussed, including some annotation and the content of the article.In the fourth chapter,"The Branch of the Ganges" is translated from Mongolian to Chinese by the author of the thesis including its annotations and the content of the article, and also including300annotations made by the author of the thesis.The attachment is the translation by the author of the entire work,"The branch of the Ganges" from Mongolian to Latin.