THE TURKIC VERSION OF THE ORIGINS OF THE ERGENE-KUN LEGEND: MISTAKES AND DELUSIONS

According to Rashid ad-Din's “Compendium of Chronicles”, the homeland of the Mongols was Ergune-kun. The Turkic tradition, on the other hand, states that the ancestral homeland of the Turkic peoples was Ergenekon, located in the Altai Mountains, and that the “Ergenekon” dastan of the Turkic folklore was erroneously attributed to the Mongols owing to Rashid ad-Din's work. The comparative analysis of various sources unambiguously indicates the Mongolian origin of the Ergune-kun legend. Field studies conducted by the present author in northeastern China uphold this view.