Alan Gua (Mongolian: Алун гуа, Alun gua, lit. "Alun the Beauty". Gua or Guva/Quwa means beauty in Mongolian) is a mythical figure from The Secret History of the Mongols, eleven generations after the blue-grey wolf and the red doe, and ten generations before Genghis Khan.
Her five sons are described as the ancestors of the various Mongol clans. (That is, the Dörvöd are said to have been the descendants of Alan Gua's brother-in-law, Duva Sokhor, and the origins of the Khori Tümed and Uriankhai are not explained at all.) She also figures in the Central Asian version of the parable of the five arrows, known in Western sources as The Old Man and his Sons.[1]
- ^ Timothy May, "Alan Goa and the arrow parable", The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO 2016, vol.2, pp.4-6