Çigşi, also read çikşi, is the title of a prefect. The Yenisei epitaphs have it seven times on five stones, E 13 with two occurrences, E 19, E 24 with two, E 70 and E 113.[1] The word comes from the Chinese 刺史, cishi, the head of a Chinese prefecture.[1] It stands beside two other titles of Chinese origin, tutuk and saŋun.
The Chinese office
The Tang gave a surrendered tribe the form of a prefecture or a command, and its chief became the prefect or the commander. The tribe stayed a tribe.[2] Turkic Atlas describes the system under the loose-rein prefectures. The Xin Tang Shu names two prefects of the Chinese side in its account of the rising of Ilterish. The Göktürks killed Wang Demao, prefect of Lanzhou, and Yuangui, Prince of Huo and prefect of Beiping, struck back and drove them off.[3]
In the Yenisei epitaphs
In E 19 the dead man names himself in the line kutlug çigşi ben kadır yagıda, “I am Kutlug Çigşi”, and the line goes on with the words for a strong enemy.[4] The word kutlug stands before the title. It is formed from kut and the ending -lUg, and it may be a qualifier of the title.[4] The article on Kut treats the word kut.
In E 70 the epitaph is damaged. A restoration reads its first line külüg çigşi : uruŋu çigşi : ilimke, with two qualifiers before the title. It is the proposal of one editor.[5]
The origin of the word
In Middle Chinese the word is given as ts’yek syi, “district magistrate”. A Tang emperor could have given the title to a Turkic chief.[1] Another puts the loan in the seventh or early eighth century and glosses the word as a governor or a high military commander.[1]
References
Sources
- Yenisei inscriptions
- Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215 (after Jiu Tangshu)
- Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
Literature
- Aydın, Erhan, Yenisey Yazıtlarında Geçen Unvanlar ve Unvan Niteleyicileri (2011)
- Osman Fikri Sertkaya, Yenisey Yazıtlarının Yayınlarındaki Bazı Okuma ve Anlamlandırmaların Düzeltilmesi, Yeni Okuma ve Anlamlandırma Teklifleri (1993)
What links here3
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “Çigşi.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/chigshi/
Last revised: 8 November 2026
