Disputed

Everything the work marks as unsettled, gathered from every article: the questions each article names at its head, and the sentences in the text on which the scholarship, the sources or the editor and the literature disagree. A reference work that hides its disagreements is not to be trusted with its agreements.

328 named questions and 133 disputed statements in 136 articles.

Persons

Afuzhiluo

The year of the secession: 487 in the Gaoche chapter; the Rouran chapter tells it under 492

Amrak

Whether he was the eldest of Bumin's grandsons, as this work's account of the assembly requires
His fate after 582: the sources record nothing

In the text · 1

Another account of the same assembly has Amrak, supported by his faction, refuse to give the throne to his cousin Töremen, and Ishbara step in; the two accounts agree that Amrak held the throne first and Ishbara after him, and differ on whose hand moved.

An Lushan

Whether An Lushan really worked as a commercial interpreter in the frontier markets, which Pulleyblank rejects as too typically Sogdian and de la Vaissière accepts

Anagui

Circumstances of death
Year of accession: 516 in the narrative of Yavuz 2025, 520 in its index and in the usual reckoning
The suicide: reported without alternative in the Chinese account, but without parallel among steppe rulers of the period, and the court had motive
Whether the twenty thousand who fled west after his death became the Avars of Europe
The victory over the Tiele in Dzungaria: Anagui's, in this work; Chounu's, in 516, in the Wei Shu, which gives Anagui only an undated later victory over Yifu

In the text · 4

The months assigned to the two engagements differ between modern accounts; the sequence does not.
The literature has carried the suicide from one generation to the next without demur, and it may be right. But the doubt raised against it is a fair one, and this work records it. No other ruler in old Turkic or old Mongol history is reported to have taken his own life, under any circumstances; a defeated khan was killed in battle, or killed by his court, or died in his bed, and those were the ways it was done.
A proud, experienced, and by every account power-hungry man of a dynasty a hundred and fifty years old, with sons and a nobility around him who had just watched him lose everything, had people close at hand with reason to shorten his life. The sources are silent, and the silence is the whole of the evidence.
A second group, some twenty thousand who were not of the dynasty but of the nobility that had run the state, rode west across the steppe and, by the reading this work gives, reached Europe to become the Avars — an identification that is argued, and argued against.

Anluochen

Whether he bore the title khan: not in the Zhou Shu; conferred by the Qi in Yavuz 2025
His end: the sources read here stop at his flight; the revolt of September 553, the two defeats and the thirty thousand captives are Yavuz 2025's account

Ashina Helu

Dates
The year of his capture: 657 here, 658 in the Tang annals as Chavannes reads them, 659 in the reading of Peter B. Golden
The beginning of his khanate: 651, the year of the Tingzhou raid and the first Tang campaign, in the Tang annals; 653 in Golden 1992

In the text · 1

The Tang annals set the raid and the first campaign against him in 651; His khanate is elsewhere dated from 653.

Bagha Khan

Year of death
Circumstances of death
Dates
Whether he was the Šāba of the Persian tradition
Whether he fell in 588 at the Hyrcanian rock or the defeat belongs to Tardush's son at Herat in 589
Whether Bahram's arrow is history or a topos
His rank: the Sui Shu makes him khan of the whole eastern Göktürk as Yehu Khan from 587, chosen by Ishbara's will over Tulan, with Tulan as his yabgu; this work treats him as a lesser khan
His end: the Sui Shu has him die of an arrow on a western campaign after capturing Apa, without a year; the Hyrcanian rock of 588 in this work is one reading of that campaign

In the text · 3

The army destroyed by Bahram was, in his reading, Tardush's, led by Tardush's son, the Šāba whom the Perso-Islamic tradition calls the greatest king of the Turks, and the defeat was at Herat in 589; he reports Gumilev's identification of Šāba with a younger son of the Göktürk ruler of the Bukharan tradition and with a figure of the Chinese sources, and says it cannot be established.
The identification of the Chinese Baga Khan with the Persian Šāba, on which the account followed here rests, is old; this work records it as a hypothesis and gives Bagha his article on its strength.
The Persian name Šāba, if it is his, is the only name a non-Chinese source gives any Göktürk of the civil war.

Bahram Chobin

Whether he killed the Göktürk leader with an arrow: the epic says so; this work calls it a topos
Where and when he beat the Göktürk: the Hyrcanian rock in April 588 in this work, Herat in 589 for Golden

In the text · 1

One account places the defeat at Herat in 589 and makes the Göktürk leader Šāba, Tardush's son, "the greatest king of the Turks" of the Perso-Islamic tradition; this work makes him Bagha and places the battle at the Hyrcanian rock in April 588.

Bilge Khan

Which of the two brothers was the elder: the Tang history and the inscriptions make Bilge the elder, at eight against seven when their father died; the literature available here has been read both ways
The year of his death: 734 by the inscription's Dog year, 732 by the Jiu Tang Shu's year-count
His year of birth, 683 or 684, from his age at his father's death

Börü Shad

The form of his name in the Armenian and Greek texts; this work writes Börü Shad

Buluzhen Khan

The year of his death: the Wei Shu tells his fall in one breath with his elevation in 414; Golden begins Datan's reign in 414

Bumin Khan

Whether Bumin personally led the raid of 542
Date of Tuwu's death
Months of the two engagements of 552
Parentage of the Western Wei princess Changle

In the text · 7

That value differs between reconstruction systems, so the equation is generally accepted among historians without being beyond dispute.
The meaning attached to the first element is contested, and the translations offered for it in modern accounts are interpretations rather than readings.
The insult itself can be read as a statement about the Ashina's occupation, as a statement about their political subordination, or as both at once.
Her parentage is disputed, and she does not appear among the daughters of either emperor reigning that year.
The months assigned to them differ between modern accounts.
Doubt has been raised about Anagui's suicide, on the grounds that no comparable case is recorded for a steppe ruler of the period and that a defeated ruler was more usually killed by his own court.
Whether this arrangement amounted to a division of the polity at Bumin's death, or was a standing structure that only became visible afterwards, remains disputed.

Chounu Khan

The victory over the Tiele in Dzungaria: Chounu's in 516 by the Wei Shu; Anagui's after 520 by Yavuz 2025 and the usual account

In the text · 1

This is the western victory that the usual account gives to Anagui after 520, as the act that made the Tölös subjects again; the Wei Shu gives it to Chounu in 516 and gives Anagui only a later, undated victory over Mi'etu's brother Yifu.

Chula Khan

Circumstances of death
The cause of his death: sudden in the Jiu Tang Shu; poisoning by Zheng Yuanshu in the Zizhi Tongjian as Yavuz 2025 reports it
The age of Shibi's son at the succession: seventeen in Yavuz 2025; 'young' in the Jiu Tang Shu

Datan Khan

The size of his army in 424: up to sixty thousand in Yavuz 2025; the Wei Shu gives no number for the raid, only the fifty-odd ranks around the emperor
Whether his name was Tatar and whether the Otuz Tatar of the inscriptions descend from his following: a reconstruction reported by Yavuz 2025
The blow that broke him: 424 in the older reckoning this work followed, 429 in the Wei Shu and in Golden

Dengzhu

His relation to Anagui: uncle in the Zhou Shu and the Bei Shi, son in Yavuz 2025
The place of Issik's victory: Mount Mulai 木賴山 north of Woye in the Zhou Shu; the Bei Shi writes Mount Lai, and the Zhou Shu's own collation note records the variant
Whether the Qi emperor forced him to march against the Göktürk in 553: Yavuz 2025; the Zhou Shu puts him among the Rouran who went west to the Wei

Diwan

How much of the story is court gossip preserved by a hostile chronicler; it is the only record of a Rouran shaman by name

Empress Ashina

Her age at death: thirty-two sui in the Zhou Shu, thirty-one years by the study's dates 551–582 and by Yavuz 2025, p. 300; thirty-three on p. 56 of the same work
The location of her tomb: the Xiaoling of the emperor Wu near Xianyang, Shaanxi, by the Zhou Shu and the study; Xinjiang by Yavuz 2025

Futu Khan

The year of his accession: 506 in Golden, from the first embassy; the Wei Shu gives none

Heshana Khan

His descent: this work makes Tardush his great-uncle; Golden reports the competing theories on the descent of the later western khans, from Istemi or from Apa, without deciding
The number of Tiele chiefs he executed: several hundred in the Sui Shu, which the article now follows

Ilig Khan

His personal name: Duobi in the Jiu Tang Shu; Yavuz 2025 holds the name unknown and Ilig a title, the same the Chinese give Bumin
How he was taken: handed over by his uncle, in this work and Yavuz 2025; seized by Zhang Baoxiang in the camp of his kinsman Shaboluo, in the Jiu Tang Shu
The year of the Xueyantuo's secession: 628 in Yavuz 2025; 629, with the khan's self-proclamation, in the Jiu Tang Shu
The Iron Mountain: the Altai, as Yavuz 2025 suggests; the Jiu Tang Shu does not say

In the text · 2

The Jiu Tang Shu names Zhang Baoxiang and Shaboluo's camp; this work keeps the uncle, and the two stand as the disputed field records.
Ilig must have been his title, "ruler of the land", the title Bumin was given shortly before his death, that his personal name is unknown, and that the Orkhon inscriptions do not mention him; the Jiu Tang Shu gives the name Duobi.

Ilterish Khan

The year of the rising: 682 in the Xin Tang Shu, 683 in the Jiu Tang Shu
The year of his death: the Tianshou period, 690 to 692; the literature writes 691, and the ages of his sons in the inscriptions fit it
Whether the counsellor who says he made him khan, Tonyukuk, is the Ashide Yuanzhen whom the Tang history gives him as commander

In the text · 2

The Xin Tang Shu dates the rising to 682 and the Jiu Tang Shu to 683; the literature follows 682.
Whether Yuanzhen is Tonyukuk, who in his own inscription says that he joined the shad among the seven hundred, was asked "Shall I make him khan?" by himself, and did, is the question the Tonyukuk article treats; the Tang history lets Yuanzhen fall against the Türgesh before Gudulu died, and the equation has to explain that away.

Inel Khan

Whether the Fuju of 699, the Yinie Khan of 714, the Lesser Khan killed in 716 and the Inel Khan of the Tonyukuk stone are one man; this work treats them as one and says so

In the text · 1

That the Fuju of 699, the Inel of the stone, the Yinie of 714 and the Lesser Khan of 716 are one man is the reading this work adopts; the sources do not say it in so many words.

Ishbara Khan

The reading of the Bugut inscription's khan as Ishbara
When his reign began: 581 by Golden's dating, 582 by this work's, after Amrak's abdication
The size of his army in 585: thirty or forty thousand by the estimate this work adopts, against Tardush's hundred thousand

Issik Khan

The reading of the name: Issik as a title meaning ruler of the state and Kara as the personal name are reconstructions
His age: no source gives one

Istemi

Year of death
Date of the battle of Bukhara: 557 or 560
Size of the army of 553: a hundred thousand in the older literature, thirty to fifty thousand by the estimate this work adopts
The location of Ektag, where he received Zemarchos: the Altai, or the Tian Shan
Whether Hormizd IV of Persia was the son of his daughter

In the text · 3

He gathered an army, and marched west. The older literature gives him a hundred thousand men; this work holds the figure impossible for a force that had to move fast through country it did not know, and puts it at thirty to fifty thousand, on the ground that Bumin had beaten the whole Tiele federation with fewer.
Her name was Kayan, and Hormizd IV, Khosrow's successor, was her son, which would put a grandson of Tuwu on the Persian throne; the descent is asserted in the Persian tradition and not established.
Istemi received the embassy on a mountain Menander calls Ektag and glosses as Golden Mountain; the word should mean White Mountain, and whether it was the Altai, the golden mountain of the Göktürk and the yabgu's own seat, or a height in the Tian Shan, is not settled.

Kapgan Khan

The year of his accession: the Tang history puts his brother's death in the Tianshou period, 690 to 692; the literature writes 691
The age of twenty-seven in line 51 of the Tonyukuk inscription: his age at accession, or something else in a damaged line
The year of the destruction of the Türgesh, 710 or 711

In the text · 1

The Tonyukuk inscription, in a damaged line, gives an age of twenty-seven beside his name and then says that he sat on the throne; if the age is his at accession he was born in the 660s, but the line does not say so.

Khosrow I

The date of the Hephthalite war: 557 in Golden 1992, around 560 in Yavuz 2025, between 563 and 567 in Kurbanov 2010
Whether Khosrow ever held Transoxiana: Dinawari says he did and Tabari's parallel account assumes it; Nöldeke rejects it on Menander's evidence that the Sogdians were Göktürk subjects after the Hephthalite fall
The marriage of a daughter of Istemi to Khosrow and the descent of Hormizd IV from her: given by Yavuz 2025 and Kurbanov 2010 from the Perso-Arabic tradition; no primary source is read for it in this work

In the text · 2

The battle of Bukhara and the article on the Hephthalites carry the war; the fall is set about 560, and the other datings, 557 and 563 to 567, stand there beside it.
The marriage was sealed in 554 by one reckoning or after the victory by another, and the border agreement in 566 or 571; no primary source is read for either in this work, and both stand as the positions of the works that give them.

Kül Tegin

Which of the two brothers was the elder: the Tang history calls Bilge his elder brother, and the inscription gives Kül Tegin as seven when their father died against Bilge's eight
Whether the Chinese general Čača Seŋün of his inscription is the Shazha Zhongyi whom the Tang history has beaten at Mingsha in 705

In the text · 1

The monument carries Bilge's grief, his address to the people, and the earliest Turkic-language account of the founding of the khaganate; the article on the inscription gives it in full. Which of the two brothers was the elder has been read both ways in the literature this work holds; the Tang history and the inscription's ages make Bilge the elder by a year, and this work follows them.

Mugulü

Whether the story is history or a formulaic origin tale: Golden calls it almost formulaic for the genesis of steppe polities; Yıldırım takes it as a rare precedent of a fugitive founding a state
The dating: the Wei Shu places the capture at the end of the reign of Shenyuan (Liwei, d. 277) and the flight under Mudi (Yilu, 307–316), a span that strains one lifetime

Mukan Khan

The dates of the northern campaigns against the Kirghiz and the Khitan: between 554 and 560
The storm of 568 and the khan's change of mind: a Chinese narrative pattern, by the reading of this work, rather than a record

In the text · 1

This work does not take the story at face value. It reads the storm as a Chinese narrative pattern, the stubborn barbarian corrected by an omen and forgiven by a magnanimous emperor, told to the emperor's credit; that is the reading of this work, and the sources give only the story.

Nagai Khan

The year of his death: not in the Wei Shu; 506 in Golden, the year of Futu's first embassy

Ozmish Khan

Golden makes Ozmïš the chieftain of the Basmïl who was proclaimed khan in 742; the Jiu Tang Shu makes him the Göktürk Left Shad against whom the Basmïl rose. This work follows the source.
Who he was: the Left Shad himself, in the Jiu Tang Shu; in the Xin Tang Shu the Left Shad is Pan Kül Tegin, who set up two sons of Bilge in turn before the yabgu Guduo killed them and took the throne, and Ozmish is Pan Kül Tegin's son, raised by the people after the coalition killed the yabgu

Poluomen Khan

Whether he counts as a khan of the Rouran: the Wei Shu records his elevation and title; the usual ruler lists pass from Chounu to Anagui without him

In the text · 1

The usual lists of Rouran khans pass over him; the chapter that lists them does not.

Shegui Khan

Year of death
Dates
His place in the Ashina genealogy: the Sui Shu and the Xin Tang Shu make him the son of Duliu and the grandson of Tardush, a generation lower than the reading followed here
The end of his reign: 618 or 619 in Golden 1992; the Xin Tang Shu still has him send envoys in 619; Chavannes reads the Tang notice on Persia as putting Tong Yabgu on the throne before 616
The year of the attack on Heshana: 611 in the literature; the Sui Shu sets the plan in the sixth year of Daye, 610, and dates the attack itself no closer

In the text · 3

The two readings stand side by side.
The attack and the title fall in 611; the Sui Shu sets Pei Ju's plan in 610 and dates the attack no more closely.
One reckoning puts it in 618 or 619; the Xin Tang Shu still has Shegui's envoys at Chang'an in 619; and the Tang notice on Persia has been read to put the Yabgu Khan on the throne before 616 and Tong Yabgu succeeded no later than 618.{status=disputed src=chavannes-1903,golden-1992} The difference is of two or three years and turns on whether the Chinese chapters, which name the khan of 619 and 620 sometimes Shegui and sometimes Yabgu Khan, mean one man or two.

Shelun Khan

Circumstances of death
The year he took the title khan: the Wei Shu gives no year; Golden writes 402–410; Yavuz 2025 and this work date the khaganate from about 400
His death: on the road in flight, in the Wei Shu; of wounds in battle in May 410, in Yavuz 2025
Whether Wei Shu's 'no writing' describes the state he founded or the state the Wei wished to describe

Shibi Khan

The false report by the Yicheng princess that raised the siege of Yanmen: in the Zizhi Tongjian as Yavuz 2025 cites it; not in the Sui Shu, which has the relief armies arrive
The two thousand horses and five hundred riders for Li Yuan: Yavuz 2025; the Jiu Tang Shu gives a thousand horses and two thousand riders

Tardush

Year of death
Circumstances of death
When his revolt began: about 582 in Golden 1992; with Apa's flight to him in 583 in this work's account
Whether he held supreme power over both khaganates from about 600 to 603, as Golden has it; this work has his eastern venture fail without a battle
Whether the army destroyed by Bahram Chobin in 588 or 589 was his, led by his son Šāba, or Bagha's
His death: 603 in exile in Tibet, or disappearance among the Tuyuhun
The year of his flight: the Sui Shu puts the Tiele defeat of Nili and the yabgu, the collapse of Bujia's realm and his flight to the Tuyuhun under the year 601; this work writes about 603 with the literature
Whether Tardush confirmed the alliance with Byzantium in 576, as this work has it; Menander's last fragment on the embassy says that from the taking of Bosporos the Göktürk waged open war on the Romans and that Turxanthos detained the envoys

In the text · 4

This work writes Tardush. The name has been read as Tarduš and connected with the Tarduš, the people or wing that the Kül Tegin inscription pairs with the Tölis and to which the founders gave a yabgu and a šad; Some take Tarduš for the name of the western or right wing of the Göktürk.
In the Bukharan tradition the Göktürk ruler of these years is called Qara Čurin, whom Gumilev identifies with Tardush; the identification cannot be established.
The war's western chapter is the war with Persia, and whose war it was is disputed. One account makes the army that crossed the Oxus in 588, took Balkh and Herat and was destroyed by Bahram Chobin at Herat in 589, Tardush's, led by his son Šāba, "the greatest king of the Turks" in the Perso-Islamic tradition; this work makes it Bagha's, Ishbara's brother, and puts the destruction at the Hyrcanian rock in April 588.
His successor in the west was Heshana, and the question from whom the later western khans descended, from Istemi through Tardush or from Apa, is one the sources leave open.

Taspar Khan

Whether his religion is to be entered as Buddhism: he was converted, by the Chinese account, and no other Ashina followed him
His motive in taking up the Qi resistance: balance of power, by the reading of this work; the sources give none

Tengri Khan

The year of his death, 741 in the literature; the Tang history says only that it followed the investiture of 740

Tong Yabgu

Dates
Whether the reign began in 618 or 619
His descent: brother of Shegui by both accounts; the line back to Istemi or to Apa is the western succession problem
The meaning of the name Tong: 'tiger' after Kashgari, 'hero' after Clauson, by the report this work follows
Whether the Göktürk ruler who met Heraclius was Tong Yabgu himself or a subordinate

In the text · 1

The Armenian history that tells his Caucasian war calls its Göktürk ruler Jebu Khagan, which is read as Yabgu Khagan and equated with the Sir Yabgu of the Greek sources, the same title Istemi had borne; the Byzantine sources call the ruler who met Heraclius Ziebel, and whether that was Tong Yabgu himself is argued.

Tonyukuk

Whether he is the Ashide Yuanzhen of the Tang histories
His year of birth: the Tang history's 'over seventy' in 716 puts it before 646, and his own inscription says he was born in the realm of China
The date of his monument, 716 or about 720, and the year of his death, which no source gives

In the text · 1

Tonyukuk lived another thirty years and more. Either the history has misplaced a death, or Yuanzhen and Tonyukuk are two men, one of whom fell against the Türgesh under Ilterish and the other of whom fought the Türgesh under Kapgan and outlived them both.

Töremen Apa

His mother's standing: not Göktürk, and by Ishbara's claim of low rank
Whether the later western khans descended from him, as one reading of the Sui Shu has it
Whether he dealt with the Sui before Ishbara turned on him

In the text · 3

Töremen was given the title Apa Khan in the same settlement that made Amrak second khan on the Tola and Ishbara supreme at Ötüken; this work has him declare war on Ishbara outright.
Ishbara grew fearful of Apa, who appears to have been dealing with the Sui, turn on him suddenly, raid his camp and kill his mother; Apa fled to Tardush in the west.{status=attested src=suishu-84,golden-1992} The flight was two lost skirmishes on the way west and a panic-stricken arrival at Suyab, where Tardush was still occupied with the Tiele, and has Ishbara return to Ötüken and kill the mother afterward; the sequence differs, the killing does not.
One reading of the Sui Shu derives the later khans of the western Göktürk from him rather than from Istemi, and a recent attempt to reconcile the sources has him drive Tardush out of his western holdings and hold the west for a time before Istemi's line reasserted itself; the western article sets out the positions, and this work adopts none.

Tuhezhen Khan

The year of accession: before 449, when the Wei Shu calls him newly established

Tulan Khan

His relation to Ishbara: a brother by the usual reckoning; the sources as reported do not say
Whether Tardush held supreme power over him from about 600, as Golden has it
The year of his death: 603 in this work; the Sui Shu places his killing by his own followers in 599, before the Sui armies of that year had left the frontier, and has Tardush proclaim himself Bujia Khan at once
His predecessor: the Sui Shu has Ishbara's brother Chuluohou, the Bagha Khan of this work, take the throne as Yehu Khan in 587 by Ishbara's will and hold it until he fell to an arrow on a western campaign, and only then Tulan

In the text · 2

Tardush, the western yabgu, held supreme power over both khaganates from about 600 to 603, which would make Tulan his subordinate in his last years; this work's account has Tardush's eastern venture fail without a battle, and does not.
The Chinese histories give his title as Dulan; the Turkic form of his name is not recorded, and his relation to Ishbara is given as a brother by the usual reckoning; the Sui Shu, which names him Yongyulü, makes him Ishbara's son, passed over as weak in his father's dying wish in favour of the uncle Chuluohou and raised to the throne at that uncle's death.

Tulun Khan

The year of the Gaoche secession: 487 in the Gaoche chapter of the Wei Shu; the Rouran chapter tells it under the campaign of 492

Türk-shad

Whether Turxanthos is a name or the title Türk-shad is a reading of the literature; not settled here
Whether the embassy ended in a confirmed alliance, as this work has it, or in open war, as Menander's fragment on the taking of Bosporos says

Tuwu

His name: Tuwu only in the Xin Tang Shu, a compilation of the eleventh century; the Zhou Shu, the Sui Shu and the Bei Shi give only the title Great Yabgu, and the Zhou Shu gives neither
His descent: son of the Axian Shad, against a reading that makes him Axian's grandson
The year of his death: 542, when Bumin appears at the head of the tribe, is an inference

In the text · 1

That Naduliu and the Xin Tang Shu's Nadulu 訥都陸 are one name, and the chapter makes Tuwu his grandson, so that Axian Shad stands between them. The line is therefore Nadulu, Axian Shad, Tuwu, Bumin, and Tuwu is Axian Shad's son: the Axian Shad of the legend was Nadulu's son, which makes him Tuwu's father and Bumin's grandfather, and the Zhou Shu's own wording calls Bumin the grandson of the Axian Shad.{status=modern-classification src=liu-mau-tsai-1958-tr,zhoushu-50} The reading that puts Tuwu a generation lower, as Axian's grandson, is recorded beside it.

Wuti Khan

The end of his reign: the Wei Shu gives no year; Tuhezhen is 'newly established' in 449

Yami Khan

The year of his death: 609 by the usual reckoning and Yavuz 2025; the Sui Shu's 'that year' after the court visit of 608 can be read as 608
The year of Tulan's death: 603 in this work and Yavuz 2025; the Sui Shu tells it under the campaign of 599, before Datou proclaimed himself Bujia Khan
His relation to Tulan: brother by the Sui Shu, where both are sons of Ishbara; the article on Tulan carries the question

In the text · 2

The Sui Shu tells this under 599; this work dates Tulan's death to 603, and the difference stands in the articles on Tulan and the civil war.
The Sui Shu tells the death in the same year as the court visit, which its sequence places in 608; the usual date is 609, and this work keeps it.

Yiran Khanminimal

Whether he is the son who speaks in the Bilge Khan inscription and held the funeral in 735, or whether that was already Tengri

In the text · 1

The Bilge Khan inscription is spoken by a son of the dead khan who held the funeral in the fifth month of 735; whether that son was Yiran or already Tengri depends on how long Yiran lived, which no source says.

Yuwen Tai

Whether the embassy of 545 answered a threat from Bumin, as Yavuz 2025 reads it, or a Göktürk wish to trade, as the Zhou Shu tells it

In the text · 1

The embassy and the envoy An Nuopantuo have their own articles. The mission reads the other way round as well: the Wei took the danger from Bumin seriously after the raid of 542 and forestalling a plundering expedition with an offer of trade, which Bumin accepted because it gave him Chinese silk without the Sogdian detour; the Zhou Shu tells it as a Göktürk wish to trade answered by an envoy, and the two readings stand together.

Polities

Byzantium

The year of Zemarchos's departure: 568 in Yavuz 2025, the beginning of August 569 by Menander's reckoning from the fourth year of Justin II
Whether the Göktürk–Roman alliance survived 576: Golden and Yavuz 2025 have it renewed; Menander has Turxanthos detain and mock Valentinos and the Göktürk take Bosporos
Who Heraclius's Göktürk ally was: Tong Yabgu himself, the Yabgu Khagan, in Golden; Tong Yabgu with Börü Shad in command, in Yavuz 2025

First Göktürk Khaganate

Whether the polity was divided into two wings at Bumin's death, or whether the western command was a standing structure that only became visible afterward
Extent: the figures of two, five to seven, and six to seven million square kilometres are this work's estimates
The end of the western wing: 657, 659 and the 740s are all used, for different things
The reading and meaning of kök türk
The fall of 630: Ilig handed over by his uncle, in this work; taken by Zhang Baoxiang in Shaboluo's camp, in the Jiu Tang Shu
The Xueyantuo secession: 628 in the literature; 629 in the Jiu Tang Shu, which has the risings north of the Yinshan in 627 and the shad driven off, not killed

In the text · 2

One passage on the Kül Tegin monument, describing the founders' realm between the Kadırkan forest and the Iron Gate, says that between the two "the Blue Türk", kök türk, dwelt; the compound occurs there and nowhere else, its meaning is argued, and from it the modern Turkish name Göktürk and the literature's Göktürk Khaganate derive.
Whether this amounted to a division of the polity at Bumin's death, or was a standing structure that only became visible afterward, remains disputed.

Khazar Khaganate

Whether the Khazar ruling house descended from the Ashina: Golden holds it strongly suggested, and names the objections
Where the Khazars came from: five hypotheses in the literature, none established
What the name means: from qaz- 'to wander', from Qasar, or from Caesar through Middle Persian
When and how far the court took up Judaism, and how many of the Khazars followed it

In the text · 4

They are the reason this work does not end in the east. The house that ruled them is held, on grounds set out below, to have been the Ashina; if that is right, the family that took Ötüken in 552 was still reigning on the Volga when the Rus came in 965.
For the dynasty itself there are three arguments and three objections. Artamonov proposed that Yipishekui, a defeated khan of the Nushibi, moved to the Khazar lands about 651 and founded the ruling house there; It remains a hypothesis, and there are many problems with it.
The Ḥudūd al-ʿālam says the Khazar king is "one of the descendants of Ansā", which Artamonov read as a garbling of A-shih-na, that is Ashina; Minorsky was uneasy about the reading and preferred to see in ʾnsā a corruption of ʾysā, the title išād, which would fit only if "king" there meant the sub-ruler and not the khagan.
And the Chinese transcription A-shih-na is itself of uncertain reading; It may stand for \Āršila.

Northern Qi

Whether the Qi attack on Göktürk territory in 552 was an attempt to undo the new khaganate or a frontier operation

Northern Wei

The language and origin of the Tuoba: Xianbei and para-Mongolic by the usual classification; Yavuz 2025, following Grousset, holds them Turkic and Mongolic families, and this work calls them Turko-Mongol
The blow that broke Datan: 424 in the older account, 429 in the Wei Shu

Northern Zhou

The year of the conquest of the Qi: 577 by the usual reckoning; the Zhou Shu's Göktürk chapter says only 'when the Qi were destroyed'

Rouran Khaganate

Reading of the Chinese name: the demeaning gloss of the Wei Shu, or Ögel's proposal of an underlying Börü, wolf
Language of the ruling house: para-Mongolic by the usual classification, with Turkic elements in the confederation argued
Whether the twenty thousand who fled west in 552 became the Avars of Europe
Taiwu's blow: 424 in this work; the Wei Shu has Datan's raid and the emperor's escape in 424, a five-road campaign in 425 and the crushing one across the desert in 429
The western victory over the Tiele: Anagui, after 520, in the literature; Chounu, in 516, in the Wei Shu, which gives Anagui only an undated victory over the Gaoche king Yifu
A chancery with Chinese secretaries, the subjection of the Tölös in 460 and the extent to Lake Balkhash and the Seven Rivers: the literature's; the Wei Shu says the Rouran kept no written records and draws the extent from Karashahr to Korea

In the text · 3

The Turkologist Bahaeddin Ögel proposed that a Turkic börü, "wolf", underlies the name; the position is his alone, the reading is not visible in the Chinese, and it stands here only because a Chinese source does elsewhere equate the Rouran with wolves.
A second group had gone west. Some twenty thousand, not of the dynasty but of the nobility that had run the state, rode across the steppe after 552 and, by the reading this work gives, reached Europe to become the Avars.
The Kül Tegin inscription, carved by the Göktürk two centuries later, names the Apar among the peoples who came to mourn the founders, which is either the Rouran remembered or the European Avars, and the inscription does not say which.

Sasanian Persia

The number of Göktürk–Persian wars: three in Yavuz 2025, in 588, 606 and 627; Golden counts the war of 588 and the Caucasian campaign of 627
Whether Khosrow I ever held Transoxiana: asserted by Dinawari, denied by Nöldeke on Menander's evidence
The descent of Hormizd IV from a daughter of Istemi: given by Yavuz 2025 and Kurbanov 2010; no primary source is read for it here

Second Göktürk Khaganate

The year of the rising: 682 in the Xin Tang Shu and the literature, 683 in the Jiu Tang Shu
The year of Ilterish's death, in the Tianshou period 690 to 692; the literature writes 691
The year of Bolchu and the destruction of the Türgesh: 710 or 711
The year of Bilge Khan's death: 734 by his inscription, 732 by the Jiu Tang Shu's year-heading
Who Ozmish was: the Göktürk Left Shad, as the Jiu Tang Shu has it, or a Basmïl chieftain, as Golden has it
Whether the Sir of türk sir bodun are the Xueyantuo

In the text · 1

The Sir are usually identified with the Xueyantuo, the Sir Tarduš of the Chinese, who had ruled the Orkhon country between 630 and 646; if so, the restored state named itself as a union of the Göktürk with the people who had held Ötüken in their absence, which is a fact about 682 that no Chinese source records.

Sui

Whether the Sui defeated the Göktürk by arms in 583 or by agents and the khaganate's own divisions: this work reads the second, with Yavuz 2025

In the text · 1

This work dates Tulan's death and the final division of the khaganate to 603, when Qimin marched into Ötüken with Chinese troops; the Sui Shu tells Tulan's death under 599.

Suo

Whether Suo is the old name of the Xianbei homeland, as the Chinese commentary holds
Whether the brothers numbered seventeen, as most texts have it, or seventy, as the Bei Shi writes
Which river the A-fu is: Uvs Nuur or the Abakan

Uyghur Khaganate

How the khan of 839 died: killed by his minister in the Jiu Tang Shu, by his own hand in the Xin Tang Shu
The identity of the 'Heavenly Khaghan' of the Chinese Karabalghasun inscription
The dates of the khaghans the Chinese call Huaixin and Baoyi

Western Göktürk Khaganate

Dates
When the western wing became a polity of its own: under Istemi, about 583, or only after Tardush's collapse in 603
From whom the later western khans descended: from Istemi, or from Apa Khan, or from Istemi's line only after 603
Whether the after-effects run to the 740s, if the Ten Arrows and the Türgeş are counted
Whether Tong Yabgu's reign began in 618 or in 619

In the text · 4

When the western wing became a polity of its own is disputed: some date it to Istemi's era, some to about 583 and the struggle for the supreme khaganate that began then, and the literature is divided on the point.
The civil war has its own article. Its western chapter is the war with Persia: a Göktürk army crossed the Oxus in 588, took Balkh and Herat, and was destroyed by Bahram Chobin; the Persian tradition names its leader Šāba, "the greatest king of the Turks", one account makes him Tardush's son, this work makes him Bagha, Ishbara's brother, and the identification is not settled.
Some scholars derive them from Istemi; others, following the Sui Shu, from Apa Khan, Mukan's son, who failed to gain the eastern throne; a third view has Istemi's line take power in the west only after Tardush's collapse; and a fourth, which tries to reconcile the sources, has Apa drive Tardush out of his western holdings, which set Tardush on his drive for the east, and hold the west for a time until Istemi's line reasserted itself.
The Tang annals put the campaign in 657, the capture in 658 and Helu's death in 659, and one reckoning takes the last of those years as the end of the khaganate.

Western Wei

The year of the division of the Wei: 534 by Golden and the usual reckoning; 535 for the Western Wei's first emperor

Conflicts

Civil war, 584–603

When the war began: 584 in Yavuz 2025; about 582, with Tardush's revolt, in Golden 1992; 581–582 in Czeglédy's dating of the civil war Theophylact reports
When the realm was divided: 583 by one dating, 587 by the deaths of Ishbara and Apa, 603 by this work's
Whether the Göktürk succession system or the Sui agents were the cause

In the text · 3

This work dates the war from 584 and its end to 603; another reckoning dates Tardush's revolt, the war's most serious threat, from about 582, and has Tardush hold supreme power in the united khaganates from about 600 to 603 before his fall.
Theophylact reports a civil war among the Göktürk and names three great khans of it who remain unidentified; Czeglédy dates that war to 581–582, Artamonov and Gumilev to 598, and both datings stand.
The war's western chapter was fought against Persia. In 588 a Göktürk army crossed the Oxus, took Balkh, Herat and the cities of Bactria, and was destroyed by Bahram Chobin; the war has its own article, and who led the army is disputed: this work names Bagha, the other account Tardush's son.

Fall of the Second Khaganate, 741–744

Whether Ozmish was a Göktürk shad who fought the Basmïl, or the Basmïl chieftain himself
Who began the killing in 741: the Left Shad in the Jiu Tang Shu, the yabgu Guduo in the Xin Tang Shu
Whether the dynasty ends in 744 with Ozmish or in 745 with his brother Baimei Khan

In the text · 1

Which man began the killing is not settled, and this work does not settle it.

Gaoche secession (487)

The year: 487 (Taihe 11) in the Gaoche chapter; the Rouran chapter tells the secession under the Wei campaign of 492 (Taihe 16)
The number: 'more than a hundred thousand tents' in the Wei Shu, a figure of the usual round kind

In the text · 1

The Rouran chapter tells the same departure under the Wei campaign of 492, when the emperor Xiaowen sent seventy thousand horse under twelve generals against Tulun: the Gaoche Afuzhiluo within the state led more than a hundred thousand tents west and set himself up as ruler; Tulun and his uncle Nagai pursued on two roads, Tulun north of Mount Junji and west, Nagai from the Golden Mountain; Tulun was beaten repeatedly, Nagai won repeatedly, and the people killed Tulun and his mother and made Nagai khan.{status=attested src=weishu-103,golden-1992} The five years' difference is the chapters' own and is not resolved here.

Göktürk war of restoration, 679–687

Whether the rising of 682 belongs to 682 or 683: the Xin Tang Shu gives 682, the Jiu Tang Shu 683
Whether the Apa Tarkan Ashide Yuanzhen of the Tang history is the Tonyukuk of the inscription
Whether the first rising of 679–681 and Ilterish's of 682 are one war or two

In the text · 2

The Xin Tang Shu dates the rising to 682, the Jiu Tang Shu to 683; the literature follows 682.
Whether that man is Tonyukuk is the question the Tonyukuk article treats; the Tang history has Yuanzhen fall against the Türgesh before Gudulu died, and the equation has to explain that away.

Göktürk–Persian war, 588–589

Whether the Šāba of the Persian tradition is Bagha or a son of Tardush: the equation is Chavannes's and is not settled
Whether the leader fell to Bahram's arrow: the epic says so, and this work calls it a topos
The numbers: twelve thousand Persians against three hundred thousand Göktürk in the epic, which no one believes

In the text · 3

A second reading makes the army Tardush's, led by his son Šāba, and dates the defeat at Herat to 589; it reports Gumilev's identification of Šāba with a younger son of Tardush known from the Bukharan tradition and from the Chinese sources and says it cannot be established.
The order of events decides between them: the Göktürk crossed the Oxus first and Bahram was sent after them, so the campaign belongs to the spring of 588 and not to a Persian opening the year after. The identification of the Chinese Baga Khan with the Persian Šāba is old, and it is a hypothesis; this work records it as one and gives Bagha his own article because the account followed here rests on it.
Of the battle itself nothing reliable is known: not the numbers, which the epic gives as twelve thousand Persians against three hundred thousand Göktürk, not the place beyond a name, not the manner of the leader's death beyond the arrow that this work calls a typical topos of Persian storytelling.

Hegemony Wars in Northern China

Whether the wars of northern China from 534 to 630 form one series at all, or only a sequence named as one here
Where the series begins and ends: the wider frame runs from about 200 to 750; this article takes 534 to 630, as set
Which decades belong to the Göktürk as arbiters and which to the Göktürk as instrument

In the text · 1

The literature draws two opposite conclusions from the same record. One reads the Göktürk as the arbiters of northern China, who took what they wanted from both sides and sold the surplus silk to the Persians and the Romans; the other reads them as the instrument of whichever Chinese state was cleverest, played against their own kin by the Sui and broken by the Tang, so that the reunification of China was completed on the steppe in 630.

Rouran civil war (520–521)

Anagui's accession: 520 in the Wei Shu; 516 in the narrative of Yavuz 2025

In the text · 1

Another account places Anagui's accession and his victory over the Tölös in 516 and passes over the year of four rulers; the two accounts stand side by side in the article on the khaganate.

Taiwu's campaign against the Rouran (429)

The decisive blow: 424 in the account this work followed before the Wei Shu was read; 429 in the Wei Shu and in Golden
Whether Taiwu could have captured Datan and hesitated for fear of a trap, as Yavuz 2025 holds; the Wei Shu says no one knew where Datan had gone

Tang conquest of the eastern Khaganate, 626–630

Whether Ilig was handed over by his kinsman Shaboluo's camp or by his own uncle
Whether the cold of 626 and 627 is a cause of the collapse or a circumstance of it

In the text · 2

Whether that cold is a cause of the collapse or a circumstance of it is argued; the article on climate carries the debate.
By the other account the Göktürk commanders surrendered one after another and Ilig's own uncle handed the khan over with his own hands; the two field records stand side by side.

The Turkic War of Independence

Whether the war is to be dated from 542 or from 546: this work dates it from 546 and treats the raid of 542 as a probe
What Bumin did between 547 and 550: not recorded
The months of the two engagements of 552

In the text · 1

The months assigned to them differ between modern accounts; the war had reached its culmination by March 552 at the latest.

Battles & Events

Battle of Bolchu

Dates
The year: 710 by Kül Tegin's age of twenty-six if he was born in 684, 711 by Golden; the Tang history gives the Jingyun period, 710 to 711
The Türgesh khan taken: Suoge, as the Tang history names the khan Kapgan destroyed; Golden has both Suoge and his brother Zhenu perish
Where Bolchu lay: beyond the Irtysh from the Altai, which puts it on the Dzungarian side; no closer identification is secure

In the text · 2

The Tang history's Jingyun period is 710 to 711; Kül Tegin was twenty-six in the year of the Kirghiz and Türgesh campaigns, which is 710 if he was born in 684; A second reckoning puts the acquisition of the Ten Arrows at about 711 to 712 and has the Türgesh khan Saqal, the Suoge of the Chinese, and his brother both perish.
Bolchu lay beyond the Irtysh from the Altai, on the Dzungarian side; the Yarısh plain where the Türgesh had gathered lay near it; nothing closer is secure, and this work draws no line on a map.

Battle of Bukhara

The year: about 560, against 557 and 563 to 567 in the literature
The place: Bukhara in Yavuz 2025; the hills at Nasaf in Kurbanov's reconstruction from Firdausi; no place in Tabari or Menander
The name of the Hephthalite king: Wrz in Tabari, Axšunwāz in Masʿudi, Ghadfar or Gatfar in the Persian epic tradition
Whether Khosrow fought at all: Tabari gives the killing of the king to the khagan alone; the Chinese chapters give the victory to the Göktürk khan alone

In the text · 1

Tabari gives no year, the Chinese chapters none, and Menander only a terminus.

Battle of Dzungaria, 552

The month: modern accounts assign different months to the two engagements of 552

In the text · 1

The months assigned to the two engagements of 552 differ between modern accounts; the sequence does not.

Battle of Huaihuang, 552

The month
Whether Bumin and Anagui met in person: likely, not attested
Anagui's suicide

In the text · 2

The months assigned to the two engagements differ between modern accounts; the war had reached its end by March 552 at the latest.
Doubt has been raised about the suicide, on the grounds that no comparable case is recorded for a steppe ruler of the period and that a defeated ruler was more usually killed by his own court; the doubt is this work's and is set out in Anagui's article.

Defeat of the Tiele, 546

The figure of fifty thousand: households or persons
The strength of the two forces, for which no source gives a number

Göktürk raid of 542

Whether Bumin led the raid in person: the Zhou Shu names no Göktürk commander

Succession crisis of 581

Whether the lateral succession rule was a rule, or a pattern the sources happen to show
The status of Töremen's mother: non-Göktürk and, by Ishbara's claim, low-born

In the text · 1

The sources show the pattern; whether they show a rule is a fair question, and this work records it as one.

Places

Bukhara

Whether the decisive battle of the Hephthalite war was fought at Bukhara, as Yavuz 2025 has it, or at Nasaf, as Kurbanov reconstructs it from the Persian epic
Whether the Zandaniji silks were woven in the Bukhara oasis or are Chinese work on Iranian models

In the text · 1

And Zandana, a village near Bukhara, gave its name to the Zandaniji cloth that Narshakhi says was exported to Iraq, Fars, Kirman and India and bought at the price of brocade; a silk at Huy in Belgium bears the word in Sogdian on its back, silks of the type have been found on the passes of the western Caucasus, and whether they were woven in Sogdiana or are Chinese work on Iranian models is disputed.

Cave of the ancestors

Where the cave lay: the Zhou Shu gives neither place nor direction
Whether the cave of the annual sacrifice is the cave of the wolf legend
Whether the four or five hundred li belong to the earth-spirit mountain, as the Zhou Shu has it, or to the cave

In the text · 1

Which water the Western Sea is has never been settled — the Caspian, Lake Balkhash and nothing at all have all been proposed — so the direction fixes nothing.

Derbent

Whether Tabari's Sul, whose gate Khosrow fortified and Sinjibu approached, is the Caspian Gates at Derbent or the eastern frontier at Gurgan: Nöldeke holds the two confused in the text and the khagan's objective to have been Khurasan
Whether the army before Derbent in 627 was Khazar, as the Armenian source calls it, or Göktürk under Börü Shad, as Yavuz 2025 and Golden read it

Dzungaria

Whether the battles of 546 and 552 were fought in Dzungaria: Yavuz 2025 sets both there; the Zhou Shu names no place for 546 and puts the Rouran defeat of 552 north of Huaihuang
Whether the pass Herodotus describes in book four is the Dzungarian Gate: argued in the literature, doubted because Herodotus wrote from hearsay

In the text · 1

Herodotus, in the fourth book of the Histories, describes a passage between mountain ranges that served the Scythians and other peoples, that some historians connect it with the Dzungarian Gate, that the identification is disputed because Herodotus wrote from hearsay, and that the god of the north wind, Boreas, was said to keep the gate; the pass is known for exactly that wind.

Gaochang

Whether the Ashina passed through Gaochang on their way to the Altai: the Sui Shu sets the cave of the wolf north-west of Gaochang; the five hundred families' flight from Gansu to Gaochang is Yavuz 2025's reading
The year of Xuanzang's visit to Tong Yabgu with the king of Gaochang's letters: 629 or 630

Herat

Whether the battle of 588 or 589 was fought at Herat, as Golden has it, beyond Herat and Badhghis, as Tabari has it, or at the Hyrcanian rock in April 588, as Yavuz 2025 has it
Who led the Göktürk army: Šāba, son of Tardush, in Golden from the Perso-Arabic tradition; Bagha, as a lesser khan, in Yavuz 2025; Nöldeke doubts that Tabari's Šāba was a Türk in the strict sense

Huaihuang

The month of the battle: the first month of 552 by the Zhou Shu; the two engagements of 552 are dated differently in modern accounts

Mumocheng

Whether the Rouran had a walled capital at all: Yavuz 2025 describes it; the Wei Shu knows the Rouran court as a moving one, north of Dunhuang and Zhangye under Shelun and at the Tuoruoxi springs under Anagui in 521
Its site: not identified

Ordos

The place of Issik's victory of 553: Mount Mulai north of Woye in the Zhou Shu, on the Ordos edge; Yavuz 2025 puts the battle on the Ordos

Ötüken

Whether the epithet in E23 is ıduq, sacred, or kutlu, blessed with Kut
The exact location within the Khangai and Orkhon country

In the text · 1

The transcription this work uses does not read kutlu there, and the difference matters: it is the difference between Ötüken being sacred ground and Ötüken being a source of royal fortune. In the inscriptions Kut is said of the ruler, not of the place.

Sogdiana

Whether the Hun period was a disaster for Sogdiana, as commonly held, or a time of rapid development, as de la Vaissière argues

Suyab

The date of Xuanzang's visit: 629 in Yavuz 2025, the beginning of 630 in Chavannes
When Suyab became the western seat: under Tardush after 576 in Yavuz 2025; the Chinese chapters put Shegui's court north of Kucha and Tong Yabgu's at the Thousand Springs west of Suyab

Tarim Basin

How far Hephthalite rule reached into the Tarim before the Göktürk: indirect and of uncertain extent, in Yavuz 2025
The date of the Kizil mural showing armoured newcomers received at Kucha: 552, by the operator

Peoples

Avars

Whether the European Avars are the Rouran who fled west, or a group of other origin that took their name
What language the early Avars spoke

In the text · 1

The Kül Tegin inscription names the Apar among the mourners of the founders, and whether the word means the Rouran, the European Avars or both is argued.

Basmïlminimal

Their ethnic and linguistic affiliation, which Golden calls uncertain
Whether the Ozmïš of 742 was their chieftain, as Golden has it, or the Göktürk Left Shad against whom they rose, as the Jiu Tang Shu has it

Göktürk

Whether the name kept any ethnic content after 744, or survived only as a word for steppe nomads and a language family

Hephthalites

The date of the destruction of their realm: the literature runs from 557 to 567 around the 560 followed here
Their language, and whether the ruling core was Iranian, Altaic or mixed
Whether Ebodalo is their self-designation
Whether the Rouran were their overlords

In the text · 1

The difference of a decade sits at the junction of Chinese, Persian, Arabic and Greek reckonings.

Huns

Whether the Huns of Europe continue the Xiongnu of Inner Asia, and in what sense
What language the Hunnic elite spoke

In the text · 1

The Huns of Europe are identified with the Asian Xiongnu by a tradition going back to the eighteenth century, and this work holds that identification and takes the elite of both to have been Turkic-speaking.

On Oq

Whether the Chinese Duolu renders Üç Tuğlu or another name
Whether the Ten Arrows are the western Göktürk under another name or a new formation: this work has the ten tribes take power from the yabgus and khans, Golden a confederation that fully manifested itself under Shaboluo Dielishi in 634 to 639

Rouran

Language and origin: Donghu and Xianbei by the Wei Shu, para-Mongolic by the usual classification; Turkic elements in the confederation argued, and Yavuz 2025 holds the Tuoba, the Xianbei and the Rouran ruling house to have had Turkic components
Whether the Rouran who fled west in 552 became the Avars of Europe
Whether the Khüis Tolgoi inscription in Brahmi script belongs to the Rouran, and whether its language is Mongolic
Ögel's proposal of a Turkic börü, wolf, behind the Chinese name

In the text · 3

The Turkologist Bahaeddin Ögel proposed a Turkic börü, "wolf", behind the name; the reading is not visible in the Chinese and stands here only because a Chinese source elsewhere equates the Rouran with wolves.
The glosses are Wei renderings and the language behind them is not identified; the Khüis Tolgoi inscription, in Brahmi script and read by some as Mongolic, leaves open whether its language is that of the Rouran state, of the Tuoba, or of a tribe of the Tula valley.
The kinship of Rouran and Avars is established, the sceptics refuted by recent genetic studies; this work records both and does not decide.

Sogdians

Whether the Sogdian settlements of Semirech'e were trading stations on a Silk Road or agricultural estates founded by nobles, as de la Vaissière argues
Whether the Zandanījī silks were woven in Sogdiana or are Chinese copies of Iranian models
Whether An Lushan really worked as a market interpreter, or the biography gives him the occupation the Chinese thought typical of a Sogdian

In the text · 1

Silks of the type called Zandanījī, after a village near Bukhara, have been found on the western passes of the Caucasus at Moshchevaya Balka together with a Chinese invoice on paper and a fragment of a sutra; whether the Zandanījī silks were woven in Sogdiana or are Chinese copies of Iranian designs is disputed, and for the route it does not matter, since they passed through Central Asia.

Tiele

Whether the Tölis of the Orkhon inscriptions are the Tiele of the Chinese histories
What Turkic name lies behind the Chinese transcriptions
The number of the Tiele who submitted to Bumin in 546: households or persons
The end of the decade of freedom: Anagui's victory in Dzungaria, in this work; Chounu's of 516, in the Wei Shu

In the text · 2

Both are taken to render one Turkic original, and what that original was is not settled; the reconstruction Tegreg has been proposed, with the observation that the Mongolian word for a cart, telegen, lies close to it.
Vilhelm Thomsen, who deciphered the inscriptions in 1893, equated the Tölis with the Tiele of the Chinese, and the equation has been argued about ever since; in the inscriptions Tölis and Tarduš look less like two peoples than like the two wings of the khaganate, eastern and western.

Türgesh

Whether Sulu is the Abū Muzāḥim of the Muslim sources: Golden says probably

Xiongnu

Language of the confederation as a whole: Turkic, Yeniseian, Iranian or mixed
Whether the Ashina descended from the Xiongnu, as the Zhou Shu and Sui Shu assert
Whether the Han Shu's gloss of Gutu as 'son' or the Turkic reading as Kut is correct
Whether the Northern Xiongnu who went west after 91 AD became the Huns of Europe
Whether the Xiongnu polity was a state or a military confederation

Lineages

Ashina

Dates
The origin of the name: the she-wolf Asena of the legend, a Khotanese-Saka word for blue, or unexplained
Descent from the Xiongnu: a claim of the Chinese histories, not a finding
Whether the wolf legend was the Ashina's own or borrowed from their Wusun neighbours in Gansu
The location of Empress Ashina's tomb: Xianyang in Shaanxi by the study, Xinjiang by Yavuz 2025
Whether the line continues in the Khazar ruling house, and with it to 969: Golden holds it strongly suggested, Minorsky doubted the one text that names it

In the text · 3

The descent of the Khazar khagans from the Ashina is asserted in the literature and argued about, and this work does not decide it.
Against it stand the objections he names himself: Artamonov's derivation of the house from Yipishekui, a beaten Nushibi khan who is supposed to have moved west about 651, is a hypothesis with many problems; the one text that seems to say it outright, the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam with its "descendants of Ansā", was read differently by Minorsky, who took the word for a corruption of išād; and the Chinese A-shih-na is itself of uncertain reading.
This work therefore carries the family to 969 and marks the years after 744 as contested, rather than ending it where the eastern throne ended.

Yujiulü

The genealogy before Shelun: five generations from Mugulü in the Wei Shu, whose dates strain the arithmetic
Dengzhu's place in the house: Anagui's uncle in the Zhou Shu, his son in Yavuz 2025

In the text · 2

Another account makes Dengshuzi a son of Anagui; the Zhou Shu calls him the uncle.
A second group, twenty thousand of the nobility, went west, and by the reading this work gives became the Avars.

Institutions and Titles

Atabeg

Whether Nizam al-Mulk received the title from Alp Arslan after Manzikert or from Malikshah later

Beg

Whether beg is a native Turkic word, a loan from Chinese 伯 bo, or a loan from Iranian baga
Whether the absence of the title among the Iranians after the sixth century tells against the Iranian derivation
Whether the beg of the inscriptions is an office in the khaganate or the head of a tribe who is owed a place in it

Ilteber

Whether Chinese 頡利發 xielifa renders the Turkic title ilteber
Whether the Armenian forms and the title of the Bulgar ruler in Ibn Faḍlān belong to the same word as Old Turkic eltäbär

Khan (Khagan)

The origin of the word: unknown; a Xianbei or Rouran coinage by the usual view, a derivation from an 'old Hunnic' form by this work's
Whether khan and khagan were distinct ranks in the sixth century, or one title under two spellings
The meaning of the element Illig in Bumin's title

In the text · 2

The article on the making of the first steppe empire carries the argument in full. The Chinese, oddly, went on calling the Göktürk rulers chanyu in some contexts long after the Göktürk themselves used khagan, which this work reads as a memory of continuity and which may equally be a habit of the chancery.
The meaning of the first element is contested. This work, with much of the literature, glosses it "ruler of the land", from Turkic el, "realm"; the translations offered in modern accounts are interpretations rather than readings, and the element is not securely explained.

Kut

Whether Gutu in the Xiongnu title is Kut or, as the Han Shu glosses it, 'son'
Whether Kut inheres in Ötüken as well as in the ruler: the inscription calls the forest ıduq, sacred, and the reading that makes it a source of Kut is a modern one

In the text · 1

Whoever holds Ötüken rules; whoever rules must hold Ötüken. Read as politics this is a circle, and the circularity is a fair description of how the steppe worked and of why every confederation that rose in the east — Xiongnu, Xianbei, Rouran, Göktürk, Uyghur — sat in the same valley.

Töre

Whether törü, Teŋri and Göktürk share a root
Cremation or inhumation as the normal rite: the Chinese account and the excavated graves disagree

In the text · 1

Whether törü, Teŋri and Türk go back to one root has been argued and is not settled. The link between law and people is the more plausible of the two; the link between law and god is the less, since the Töre is conspicuously the part of Göktürk life that owes nothing to belief.

Toy

Whether the word toy itself is attested for the Göktürk period or is a later Turkic term applied back to it
The location of the ancestral cave where the annual assembly met

Tuğ

Whether the Göktürk standard descends from a Saka and Xiongnu tradition or from the banners of the Chinese armies
How many tails a khan's standard carried, and whether the number was fixed

In the text · 2

The question of descent is open and it is argued on national lines as much as on evidence. One reading traces a single tradition of standards through the Saka, the Xiongnu and the Göktürk, and reads the common features — the animal finials, the colours, the sacred function — as continuity rather than as the convergence of peoples living the same way in the same country.
A second reading traces the earliest banner types of the Eurasian steppe to the Sarmatian era, possibly borrowed from central Asian traditions under Chinese military influence, which would make the steppe standard an adaptation rather than an inheritance.

Religions

Manichaeism

Which Uyghur khan commissioned the Karabalghasun inscription
The date and the depth of the Uyghur conversion, which the Chinese and the inscription present differently

Tengrism

Whether the Göktürk of the sixth century held the beliefs the eighth-century inscriptions attest
Whether the Han Shu's own gloss of Gutu as 'son' or the Turkic reading as Kut is correct
Whether material recorded among Altaian and Siberian peoples in the modern period can be read back into the Göktürk period
Proposed etymological links between Tengri and Sumerian dingir or Indo-European Dyeus
Whether törü, Teŋri and Göktürk share a root

In the text · 5

The reading that makes Ötüken itself a source of Kut, so that holding the centre confers the fortune and the fortune is what lets a man hold the centre, is a modern one; it describes the politics of the place well — the Ötüken region was the seat of Rouran power before it was the seat of Göktürk power, and each new confederation took it because it was where a khan sat — but the text says sacred, not fortunate, and this work keeps the two words apart.
Whether the Mongol tenger denoted a personal god or the sky as such is itself disputed, and the difference is precisely what is at stake in reading Mongol evidence back into Turkic religion.
Even there the continuity is of a practice, not of a doctrine, and the practice is widespread enough — the Zoroastrian fire cult lay directly on the Göktürk south-western frontier — that shared origin is one explanation among several.
Two comparisons recur in the popular literature: Teŋri with the Sumerian dingir, and with the Indo-European sky-god Dyeus. Neither is accepted as an etymological connection; both are typological resemblances at most, and the dingir comparison in particular has been carried far past what anyone has argued philologically.
Whether Bumin's generation held the beliefs the eighth-century inscriptions attest cannot be established from any source of their own time.

Sources

Bei Qi Shu (Book of Northern Qi)

Which parts of the received text are Li Baiyao's and which are Song supplements from the Bei Shi

Bilge Khan inscription

Dates
Date of the monument: conventionally later than the Kül Tegin inscription of 732, but given as 732 in Yavuz 2025

In the text · 1

The edition gives 732. The conventional dating puts the Kül Tegin monument in 732 and Bilge Khan's later, after his death; the point is recorded and not decided here.

Bugut inscription

The reading of the Sogdian text and the identification of the khans it names: Yoshida and Moriyasu's reading of 1999 against the older one of Klyashtorny and Livshits
Whether the wolf figure on the top of the stone is a wolf; Yavuz 2025 says it is now hard to make out
Whether the Brahmi text on the reverse is Sanskrit and Buddhist, and what it says

Han Shuminimal

Whether the gloss of Gutu as 'son' in the Han Shu is correct, or a Chinese reading imposed on a Turkic word

Kül Tegin inscription

idi oksuz in E2: 'wholly free' or 'kinless, without master'
baş balbal in E11: 'the first balbal' or 'Baz Khan as balbal'
ıduq Ötüken in E23: sacred; the reading kutlu, 'blessed, possessed of Kut', is Yavuz's gloss and is not what the transcription gives
öd teŋri yasar in N10: 'Heaven apportions the time', 'Heaven lives on', or 'if Heaven commands'
Bökli and Čölgil in E4: one people or two
tuygun in N13: a name, a title, or an ethnonym

In the text · 6

idi oksuz kök türk (E2). Two readings: idi as an intensifier, "wholly unsubjected, entirely free", which is the majority reading and the one printed above; or idi as "master" and oksuz as "without arrow, without kin", giving "the masterless, kinless Türk", rendered elsewhere as "der verwaiste himmlische Türke".
kök türk (E2). "Blue" or "sky" Göktürk is the established rendering and the origin of the modern name Göktürk; "great" and "numerous" have both been proposed, and the compound is essentially a single attestation.
baş balbal (E11). "As the first balbal" is the reading above; the alternative reads a name, "Baz Khan as balbal", and is supported by the fact that Baz Khan of the Nine Oghuz is named as an enemy in the previous line.
That gloss is not what the text reads, and the difference matters: it is the difference between Ötüken being sacred ground and Ötüken being a source of royal fortune. The articles on Kut and Tengrism follow the transcription.
öd teŋri yasar (N10). Written with three consonants and no vowels, the middle word supports "apportions" (yasar), "lives on" (yaşar) or "if it commands" (aysar). The serene reading printed above is a choice among three.
Bökli Čölgil (E4). Either one people with an epithet — the Koreans of the steppe — or two states, Koguryŏ and a "realm of the Čü" identified with the Northern Zhou. The translation keeps both words and decides nothing.

Movsēs Dasxurancʿi

Whether the compiler is Movsēs Dasxurancʿi or Movsēs Kałankatuacʿi

Shahnameh

Whether the epic is independent of Tabari for the war of 588

Tabari

Whether Tabari, Masʿudi and the Shahnameh are independent of one another for the Sasanian period: the literature derives all three from the lost Middle Persian royal chronicle

Theophylact Simocatta

The date of the civil war Theophylact reports: about 598 by Artamonov and Gumilev, 581 to 582 by Czeglédy, as Golden records
The identity of the three khans he names beside Turum: Sparzeugun, Kunaxolan and Tuldix are unidentified; Golden offers Ishbara Yabgu for the first with a question mark

Tonyukuk inscription

Dates
Date of the monument: 716, in Radloff's reading of its silence about Bilge Khan's reign; about 720, in Thomsen's
Whether Tonyukuk is the Ashide Yuanzhen of the Tang histories, as Hirth held; the histories let Yuanzhen fall in battle against the Türgesh before Ilterish died
Line 49: seventeen battles with China, as the runes read, or seven, as Thomsen's rendering has it
Line 8: the enemies round about were like a hearth, like birds of prey, or like a hearth with the Göktürk as the fire
The Sir of the phrase türk sir bodun: the Xueyantuo, Sir Tarduš, or another people
Which Türgesh khan fell at Bolchu, and in which year: 710 or 711

In the text · 4

Whether he is also the Ashide Yuanzhen of the same histories, the Chinese-trained Göktürk who went over to Ilterish in 682 and commanded his army as Apa Tarkan, is a separate question, argued in the article on Tonyukuk: Hirth said yes, and the Tang histories, which let Yuanzhen die in battle against the Türgesh before Ilterish himself died, make the equation hard to hold.
yagımız tegre očuk teg erti, biz ... ertimiz (line 8). The enemies round about are "like a hearth" (očuk), and what the Göktürk were in the middle of it is written with two letters. Thomsen read birds of prey with a query; the Wikisource rendering reads "we were the fire"; the sense of a small people ringed by enemies survives every reading.
türk sir bodun (lines 3, 11, 60–62). The stone pairs the Türk with a people called Sir, four times, and once speaks of "the land of the Türk Sir people". Thomsen rendered the word as "united (?)"; Radloff already connected the Sir with the Xueyantuo, the Sir Tarduš of the Chinese sources, and that identification has been the usual one since. It is an identification, not a reading, and the article keeps the name.
tinsi oglı yatıgma beŋlig ek tag (line 44). "The mountain called Tinsi Oglı", with tinsi the Chinese tianzi, Son of Heaven: a mountain "where the Son of the Son of Heaven lies". Which mountain, in Sogdiana or beyond it, is not settled and the article does not settle it.

Wei Shu

Three points on which the chapter and the account of Yavuz 2025 differ: the blow that broke Datan (429 against 424), the victory over the Gaoche (Chounu in 516 against Anagui after 520), and the Rouran chancery (no writing against Chinese secretaries)

In the text · 1

On three points the chapter and the account this work follows differ, and the differences stand in the articles: the blow that broke Datan, 429 in the chapter; the western victory over the Gaoche, Chounu's in 516 in the chapter; and the Rouran chancery, which the chapter denies.

Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance)

In the text · 1

The months assigned to those engagements differ between modern accounts.

Historiography

Climate and the steppe empires

How much of the sixth century the climate explains: this work gives it weight as a cause, and the palaeoclimatologists themselves ask for caution about the causal nexus
Whether the eruption of 626 and the cold summer of 627 stand behind the fall of the eastern Göktürk khaganate in 630
Whether the drought of 783 to 850 undid the Uyghurs, or the Kirghiz did

In the text · 1

The two readings do not agree on the date at which the cold began to matter for Mongolia. Büntgen's Altai record has the coldest decade in the 540s, before the Göktürk revolt; the lake has the good years running to about 600, so that the first khaganate rose in favourable conditions and broke in bad ones.

Making of the first steppe empire

Whether the unification of China called the Xiongnu empire into being, or the two grew together over centuries, or neither
Whether the Xiongnu polity was an early state or a super-complex chiefdom
Whether the imperial apparatus of the Xiongnu has a Chinese source

The language of the Xiongnu

Whether the language of the ruling stratum was Turkic, Yeniseian, Eastern Iranian or none of these
Whether the Jie whose couplet the Jin Shu preserves were a branch of the Xiongnu at all
Whether the Eastern Iranian words are a stratum of the language or loans into it

The steppe before the Xiongnu

Where and when pastoral nomadism arose: spreading from west to east, arising in South Siberia and northern Mongolia, or arising at about the same time across the whole steppe
Whether cavalry warfare began on the steppe or among the Assyrians
The ethnic identity of the Cimmerians, and whether their name was an ethnonym at all
When elements of the Turkic-speaking peoples took up equestrian nomadism; the late fifth century BC is Golden's possibility, not a finding

The Turkic ethnogenesis debate

Every proposition in this article is a position; the article records who holds it and on what grounds

In the text · 2

The names of the Xiongnu founders, transcribed Tumen and Modu, are read by the Turkic school as Turkic Tuman and Bagatur and by others as unexplained.
These are positions, and the Rouran's own language is unknown. The literature also reports, from the Turkologist Bahaeddin Ögel, a reading of the name Rouran as Turkic börü, "wolf", which this work cannot see in the Chinese and records only as worth mentioning.