The Eleven Queens’ Qoš Ordos and the Imperial Ancestral Sacrifice under the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty

Abstract

This paper collects the Chinese sources and depicts the Qoš Ordo as a form of Ordo under the Mongol-Yuan Dynasty, referring to the ordos administrated by the deceased emperors’ widowed queens. After the widows’ death, their ordos were inherited by other imperial female members. The institution of Qoš Ordo took its origin in Chinggis Qan’s Four Great Ordos; it experienced an evolution from the steppe to North China in the mid-13th century, probably under Qublai’s reign. By the end of the Yuan Dynasty during the mid-14th century, the Chinese sources attested to Eleven Queens’ Ordos. This paper argues that the Eleven should be identified with the eleven deceased Mongol emperors who were worshipped in imperial rituals, which indicates not only the Chinese influenced the Imperial Ancestral Temple (太庙), but also the Mongolian traditional sacrificial ritual (Mong. tüleši).