The ǰarɤu and Its Regional Repercussions in the Mongol Empire

This study explores Mongol legal culture and its method of realizing justice by reconstructing the operation of the ǰarɤu as “a trial” in the Mongol state in the 13th and 14th centuries and identifying the institution’s effects on the empire. Despite its historical importance, the Mongol ǰarɤu has not been given sufficient attention by historians. The ǰarɤu, both a bench trial and a joint trial, inherited the universal legal culture of the Mongol steppe. The ǰarɤuči, civil officials, envoys, or community-leaders conducted joint hearings and trials endorsed by joint signature or sealing. The advent of both the name and practice of ǰarɤu thus heralded a new pluralistic legal culture in East Asia. The ǰarɤu consisted of three elements: appointment (yuehui 約會), joint discussion and settlement (gongyi 共議 and 斷事 duanshi), and ǰarɤuči and envoys (chailai guan 差來官). These elements acted either independently or collectively as they spread throughout the empire and, as a consequence, evolved diversely. For example, the ǰarɤu found broad acceptance as the yārghū in the Persian culture. In Islamic society, the yārghū functioned as a joint trial in which the yārghūchīs of the great amirs, shaikhs, and qāḍīs gathered to decide cases. The three elements of the ǰarɤu translated into Chinese culture and transformed the institution in various ways. The ǰarɤu was interpreted and transformed into six different vocabularies in Chinese culture beyond its transliteration of the zhaerhu 札兒忽: liwen 理問, huiwen 會問, yuewen 約問, juwen 聚問, zawen 雜問, and zazhi 雜治. As the ǰarɤu’s translations and variants continued the practice of joint or group discussion, Mongol-style justice penetrated the whole territory of the great Qan. In the wake of imperial expansion, ǰarɤu began to appear not only to China, Korea, Uyghuristan, Central Asia, and Persia, places far beyond the Mongolian steppes, to peoples of various religions and ethnicities. In short, the ǰarɤu constituted the legal culture of the steppe tradition and the universal litigation and trial system of the Mongol empire. It could achieve unity within the empire while instituting “open” justice through a mobile network under the principles of the yuehui (appointment), joint discussion, and the mobility of judges. It also introduced an innovative form of pluralism thanks to its system of joint interrogation and trial. The ǰarɤu continued to play a role in East Asian legal culture, in such forms as the huishen 會審 in Ming China and the jabchi 雜治 (zazhi in Chinese) of Joseon Korea. Accordingly, it helped to dismantle the traditional legal system of the lüling 律令 that prevailed since after the Tang dynasty.