The Kurultai of 1206: The Birth of the Mongol State

In the spring of 1206, Temujin convened a great kurultai at the source of the Onon River, gathering the chiefs of all the subjugated tribes. At this assembly he was proclaimed supreme ruler under the title "Chinggis Khan" (traditionally transliterated as Genghis Khan); a white standard of nine yak tails, the Sülde, was raised as a symbol of the new state's sovereignty, in contrast to the black standard used in times of war. The kurultai formalized the existence of the Yeke Mongghol Ulus, the "Great Mongol Nation," the first unified political entity of the steppe under a single ruler, and in Mongol political ideology the title implied a mandate from the Eternal Sky, Tengri, to rule "everything under heaven," a religious justification for later expansion.