The Göktürks installed a new khan in a rite that the Chinese histories describe step by step.[1] It began with the ruler carried on a felt. It ended with a question about the length of his reign.[1][2]

The rite

According to the Zhou Shu, the ruler’s close attendants and great ministers carried him on a felt when he was first raised up.[1] They turned him nine times, following the sun, and at each turn the subjects bowed to him.[1][3] When the bowing was over, they helped him onto a horse.[1]

Then they twisted a band of silk around his neck, until he was barely short of choking.[1] They loosened it and at once asked him how many years he could be khan, 你能作幾年可汗.[1][4] His mind was confused, and he could not name a number clearly.[1] The ministers took what he said as the measure of how long or how short his reign would be.[1]

The text names no priest in the rite. The men who carry, turn, strangle and question the khan are his attendants and ministers.[1]

The witnesses

The Bei Shi repeats the passage. The Tongdian gives it with 舁 for 輿.[5] Both draw on the older histories. The rite therefore has one witness. The Sui Shu does not describe it.[6]

The Tongdian introduces the rite as a point of difference.[7] It says that the customs of the Göktürks were like those of the ancient Xiongnu. The first difference it names is the raising of a new ruler.[7]

Interpretations

The characters 隨日 are understood as “following the sun”. The nine turns then went the way the sun goes, from east to west.[8] An older translation read the same characters as “in one day”. The nine circuits would then have been made within a single day.[9] The ceremony has also been said to have strong shamanic undertones.[10] Or the nine turns on the felt may be a rising through the nine heavens. The khan reaches Heaven and receives from it the blessing of rule, as the shaman does who is turned nine times on a felt before his journey.[11] The felt on which the khan was raised may be a sign of law and rule.[2] The khan, it is held, was set on a felt or a carpet or lifted into the air on a shield, as the rite required.[12] The strangling has also been interpreted. The strangling may be a sign that the khan was no monarch of unlimited power.[12] Others hold it to be a legend motif. They argue that nobody who knows Göktürk history can take the strangling of Bumin, Mohan or Ilterish for practice, and that the later Chinese sources, rich as they are on the Göktürks, never mention such a rite. The lifting on the felt, by contrast, is taken to be real.[13] It has also been held that the raising of the Göktürk and Khazar khans on white felt, with the silk cord at the throat, survived in the election of a “qadi” among Bashkir, Karakalpak and Khivan Uzbek schoolboys until the late nineteenth century.[14]

The raising in the inscriptions

The inscriptions of the eighth century ascribe the act of raising to Tengri.[15] In the Kül Tegin inscription, Heaven takes Ilterish Khan and his wife Ilbilge Katun by the crown of the head and raises them up, teŋri töpüsinte tutup yügerü kötürmis.[15] The inscription does not say whether the words recall a lifting on the felt.

The Uyghur court

In 822 the Chinese envoys who escorted the princess of Taihe to the Uyghurs reported how she was made khatun.[16] A minister of each of the nine Uyghur clans carried her sedan-chair. They turned nine times around the court, following the sun.[16] The sources do not say whether this continued the Göktürk rite.

The Zhou Shu preserves the making of a khan by the men of his own court, with the felt, the sun and the number nine. The length of the reign was taken from the khan’s own words, spoken when he was half-choked.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  2. ^ a b Ögel 1978, p. 183
  3. ^ Ögel 1993, p. 294
  4. ^ Togan 1981, p. 113
  5. ^ Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99; Tongdian, juan 197
  6. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  7. ^ a b Tongdian, juan 197
  8. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 20
  9. ^ Julien 1864, p. 332
  10. ^ Golden 1992, p. 147
  11. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50; Ögel 1995, p. 164–166
  12. ^ a b Kafesoğlu 1997, p. 269
  13. ^ Ögel 1993, p. 293–294
  14. ^ Togan 1981, p. 112–113
  15. ^ a b Kül Tegin inscription
  16. ^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195; Mackerras 1972, p. 120

Sources

Literature

  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)
  • Stanislas Julien, Documents historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs) (1864)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Colin Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T'ang Dynastic Histories (1972)
  • İbrahim Kafesoğlu, Türk Millî Kültürü (1997)
  • Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Kültür Tarihine Giriş III: Türklerde ev kültürü (1978)
  • Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Mitolojisi (Kaynakları ve açıklamaları ile destanlar) I (1993)
  • Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Mitolojisi (Kaynakları ve açıklamaları ile destanlar) II (1995)
  • Zeki Velidi Togan, Umumi Türk Tarihine Giriş I (1981)

Related

What links here3

Persons
Princess Taihe
Religions
Kün Tengri · Shamanism

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Raising on the Felt.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/religions/raising-on-the-felt/

Last revised: 8 November 2026