GENGHIS KHAN: THE WORLD CONQUEROR By Sam Djang, Rupa, Rs 495

The novel Genghis Khan : The World Conqueror is the most ambitious fictional undertaking with regard to the warrior’s life. The author claims that the book was written after eight years of intensive research. During this period, the author, Sam Djang, made numerous trips to Mongolia, Russia, China and other countries and read hundreds of articles and rare books of those countries and beyond. This book is written in the form of a historical novel in which 90 per cent is based on a “sensible true story”. The author also believes that his book covers many facts that most historians have failed to see owing to their lack of understanding of the unique cultural, social, political, historical, and geographical background of the Mongolian people. The Mongol empire still remains the largest empire in human history, and its impact has been enormous, including cultural exchange between the East and the West.

In balanced detail, the author presents the organization, strategy, tactics, and technological innovations that the Mongols used to conquer armies and empires many times the size of their own empire. The Mongol “horde” (from the Turkish word ordu, a Mongol unit of organization) never put more than 150,000 warriors on the field. The various Chinese states, the Khwarazarm Empire of Central Asia, the Caliph of Baghdad, the Princes of Rus, and other tribes amassed vast armies, yet the Mongols soundly defeated them. Djang presents this information in an easily readable and understandable narrative. He offers a detailed explanation of how Genghis Khan and his descendants carved out the largest empire the world has ever seen. He presents a litany of cities that were razed and ravaged by the Mongols, who killed entire populations mercilessly. The list of genocides goes on and on. So do the siege and battle reports, many of which explain how the Mongols used mobility, science and trickery in their wars.

While his admiration for Genghis Khan is evident, the author does not attempt to veil the dark side of the conqueror. This is portrayed through the eyes of his victims. One victim, a Persian poet who witnessed and escaped one of Genghis’s slaughters, sums up the violence in a poignant couplet: “Oh merciful God, close my eyes. I have already seen judgment day.” While Djang offers an insight into the character, mind and heart of the great conqueror, he keeps the reader at an emotional distance from his subject.

The account starts with Yesugei: “They called him Yesugei Bagatur, which meant Yesugei, the Brave. Bagatur was a title only for the aristocrats.” Around the year 1167, a son was born to Yesugei .The Mongols used to give the name of an enemy, captive or someone they had killed in battle to their newborns to celebrate the victory and make it memorable. The victorious Yesugei brought two Tartar prisoners on the day his son was born, and one of their names was Temujin, which means the iron man. Genghis Khan was named after this prisoner. The 60 years of his life are chronicled in the 600 pages of this book spread over 88 chapters, which relate to his military campaigns. Khan died on August 18, 1227 on the battlefield, which was regarded as the most honourable death for any Mongol warrior. After his death, his soldiers wiped out the entire Shisha kingdom. This last battle was “flooded with blood”.

The post-script at the end of the book shows that Khan was respected by his sons. According to a legend, Ogodei became the kha-khan two years later and offered sacrifices of 40 “fairest maidens” of aristocratic birth and 40 “best horses” to his father for his afterlife.

Perhaps we are too comfortable in our own skin to understand why Temujin had the need to fight, to conquer the world of his time. Perhaps we are too removed from the vast quietude and stresses of the Mongolian plateau and its life-supporting requirements. The nomadic life of the Mongolian tribes was harsh, and the belief that a man had to fight or die sustained them. The size of the land Temujin had conquered in his lifetime was 2.2 times bigger than that of Alexander the Great and 6.7 times that of Napolean Bonaparte. Travelling with the tribes, wandering through the lands, seasons and lives of the individuals, the reader begins to understand how the empire of Genghis Khan evolved into the greatest and largest the world has known.

At any rate, the author succeeds in presenting a readable novel, even if a bit tedious. Detailed accounts — of battles, of attacks and counter-attacks, of marriage alliances and betrayals, of battlefields and massacres, of submission and rebellion — cannot help but elicit in the readers a certain sense of dreariness. The author has, from time to time, tried to enliven his text with short explanations of all the foreign words, mostly Mongolian ones, or of social, economic, and political institutions particular to the steppes of Mongolia or of neighbouring countries.

Although the author has studied primary and secondary sources on the Mongols from a number of East Asian countries, he has unfortunately assembled the information into a narrative and turned it into a novel by adding many imagined and awkward dialogues and stories to showcase moments in the life of Temujin. Djang has written everything about Genghis Khan, about his parents, wives, children, siblings, adopted siblings, the chiefs he dealt with, the enemy he destroyed, his numerous bloody victories and strategies only because he wanted to write a historical novel. Had he taken that seriously, he would have curtailed the information about the battles and members of the governing elite, and concentrated on the feelings and emotions of the characters, or on the customs, daily activities, beliefs and ideas of the common people.