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The Ongi inscription is a runiform stele from the valley of the Ongi river in southern Mongolia. A son had it cut for his father, in the reign of Bilge Khan.[1] N. M. Jadrincev found the site on 20 August 1891, in the Maanit steppe at the Tarimal river.[2] The older editions call the river Ongin. Ōsawa writes Ongi, after the Mongolian name.[3]

The site

The site lies where the Tarimal flows into the Ongi, about seventeen kilometres from Oyangɣa in the Övörkhangai province.[4] A Japanese-Mongolian expedition fixed the centre of the sarcophagus in August 2007 at 46° 20′ north and 102° 11′ east, at a height of 2,110 metres.[4] The plan shows a granite sarcophagus, the tortoise stone with the stele, two cairns, a ditch and a bank.[5] A line of balbal stones runs east from the site to a small stone circle.[4] A balbal stone with the words (I)šbara Tarkan balbalı bears a tamga of a ram and a snake, the same sign as the headstone.[6] The balbal is the eleventh stone of the row that runs east. Its runes are lost, and only the two tamgas remain.[7] The ram is held to be a sign of the Ashina, and the line through the S-shaped sign is damage, not part of the sign.[8] Other descriptions differ. Some see the mountain goat of the Kül Tegin stele with two added signs, others a mountain goat with a line running down from its middle and bending left.[9]

The tortoise stone measures about 145 to 150 by 143 to 148 centimetres and has a rectangular hole, 43 centimetres wide and 28 long.[10]

Ramstedt and Pälsi were at the site on 10 September 1909. They surveyed it, took photographs and made rubbings.[10] Under the central area they found the tortoise stone and bricks, and in the west part of the mound some sheep bones.[5] The photographs of that year show four stone statues. Kozlov in 1926 and Tryjarski in 1962 each saw three statues and two granite sheep.[11] Between 1909 and 1962, Buddhist monks are said to have dug the monument up and destroyed it.[5] The stele is broken, and only part of it survives.[2] Four small pieces are left. Three lay in the museum at Arvaikheer, and the head piece lay at the site.[8] A later report finds three pieces, heavily worn, in the museum of Övörkhangai province, and notes that the stele was more legible when found.[12] The Mongolian name of the monument is Ongiyn dursgal, “memorial of Ongi”, in the Uyanga district, and part of it has been lost.[13]

The text

Radloff counted eight lines on the wide face and four on the narrow face, with a further text of seven small lines and an inscription on a balbal stone.[10] Tekin prints twelve lines, an additional text of six lines and the words (I)šbara Tarkan balbalı.[14] A catalogue of the runiform texts of Mongolia counts nineteen lines.[15] Thomsen gave only Radloff’s text and translation, because the inscription is badly preserved and obscure and he knew it only from Radloff’s edition and plates. Orkun also had only Radloff’s text.[16] Before the rubbings of 1909 were used, the text rested on two of Radloff’s rubbings, his retouched drawing and his printed text.[17]

Orkun printed Radloff’s text and translated it, while Tekin and Ōsawa give readings of their own, and Ōsawa read the rubbings anew.[18] The three readings agree on the main line of the text. The first face begins with the forefather Yamı, who is called Yama in one edition. He took the four quarters, and after he died the realm broke up.[19] Orkun and Ōsawa read the verb of the first sentence as qïsmïš, “pressed together”. Tekin reads etmiş.[19] Clauson was the first to read etmiş, “arranged”.[20] Ölmez reads the verbs of the line as “set in order, gathered, routed, overran”, and holds that kısmış rests on a verb that does not exist.[21]

Then comes the formula of the Orkhon stones. The name of the Türk bodun was about to vanish, and Heaven above said that the Türk bodun should not perish.[19] The text may borrow from both great stones. Its first words repeat the opening of the Kül Tegin inscription, and the line in which the speaker names himself echoes the beginning of Tonyukuk’s.[22]

The speaker then names himself. He is Bilge Ishbara Tamgan Tarkhan, a son of El-etmiš Yabgu and the younger brother of Ishbara Tamgan Čor.[19] The same line names Kapgan and Ilterish. Orkun translates that the speaker was appointed to their realm, and Ōsawa that he was born there.[23]

His father served a ruler addressed as Täŋrikän. The father received the title shad from him, in a war in which the Toquz Oghuz were the strong enemy.[24] Tekin’s glossary reads Täŋrikän as an epithet, “pious khan”.[25] Clauson takes the word for a title, “sacred majesty”, and the ruler of the eleventh line for Ilterish, so that Radloff’s reading Baga Täŋriken as a name is impossible.[26] Ölmez’s translation takes baga for a name or title of the father and täŋriken for the form of address “my lord”.[27] A word in lines 5, 6 and 10 that stands nowhere else is the name of a tribe. It is read doubtfully as Atığ, and Tekin reads Atığ Oğuz as two tribal names.[28]

The speaker says that he reached a place, took it and settled there. Orkun and Ōsawa read kamïg balïk as “all cities”. Tekin reads Kam[ıl] balık and takes it for the city of Komul or Hami.[29] Clauson already took the word for a place name, without proposing one.[30] Ölmez supports Tekin with Old Uyghur forms of qamıl, and still calls the first word doubtful.[31]

The last lines are addressed to his sons and brothers. The speaker recalls that his father marched and did not part from Ilterish. He urges them not to part from Bilge Khan, not to go astray, and not to leave him.[32] The additional text is an epitaph for the father, and it says that the son had the stone set up.[33] In the twelfth line the speaker says that he held the funeral rites and, it seems, set apart the ground for the grave.[34]

The name Yama

  • Ongin inscriptionEnglish
  • Ongin (Işbara Tarkan) yazıtıTurkish

Radloff read the first word of the first line as Yami. Ōsawa read the rubbings in Helsinki and St Petersburg and takes the word for Yama.[35] He sets the name beside the Chinese 射摩, Shemo, and the Tibetan Zhama.[35] Clauson had taken the forefather for Istemi, and the word for a slip of the stone-cutter or the author for Iştemi.[20] Ōsawa rejects this and agrees with Radloff and others, who took him for Bumin.[36] The Zhama of this comparison stands in the Old Tibetan report on the northern kings.[35]

The dead man and the writer

Radloff and Orkun took the commemorated man for a certain Taçam.[37] Tekin’s glossary has the word as ataç, “dear father”, and Ōsawa translates “my dear father”.[38]

Ōsawa matches the dead man with Duoxifu, the Chinese name of a youngest brother of Ilterish and Kapgan. He reads that name as *Turs Bäg and says that the man bore the title Eletmiš yabgu. He matches the writer with an Ashina Ishbara Tarkhan, who came to the Tang court with thirty-two companions in the seventh month of 723.[39] Ōsawa notes that the text addresses the dead man as qaγan, although no record says that he held that rank. He takes this for the respectful speech of a son.[40]

Another interpretation turns the roles round. It takes Bilge Ishbara Tamgan Tarkhan to be the dead man, with El-etmiš Yabgu as his father, and the speaker to be the dead man’s own son, who is not named. The text then shows three generations.[41] Here El-etmiš Yabgu matches Duoxifu, the younger brother of Ilterish, who had the title yabgu from his brother and was Left Shad from 699.[42]

The date

The date depends on the year in which the dead man died, and the editions read that year differently.

Radloff first read a Dragon year and took the stele for the tomb of Ilterish, which gave him the year 692.[43] Pelliot shows why this cannot stand. The text says that the dead man served Ilterish, so he cannot be Ilterish himself, and it names Bilge Khan, who came to the throne in 716 at the earliest.[43] Radloff gave up the reading in 1899 and set the death of the commemorated man in 716, also a Dragon year.[44] Pelliot allows that the true date may be another Dragon year, 728, which still falls in the reign of Bilge Khan.[44] For a time the stone passed for the oldest dated text in Turkic, because its Dragon year was taken for the year in which Ilterish died.[45]

Others find a Sheep year in the main text. Clauson puts the death in 731 and the stele between 732 and the end of 734, before the death of Bilge Khan in January 735.[46] With a Sheep year, Bazin dates the stele to 719 or 720.[47] The catalogue of the runiform texts of Mongolia has about 719 to 720.[15] Tekin reads the Sheep year in his twelfth line. His dates for the stone vary: 732 to 735 in 1998, and 732, with a query, in 2003.[48] A survey of the Turkic languages that he wrote with Ölmez has 720, with a query.[49] Orkun gives only the eighth century, because the text names Ilterish and Kapgan.[16]

Ōsawa reads a Dragon year, in the main text and again in the additional text. He says that the letters the Sheep year needs cannot be seen on either set of rubbings.[1] The Dragon years of the eighth century are 704, 716, 728 and 740.[50] He puts the death in July 716, in the fighting that summer between the heirs of Kapgan and Kül Tegin, and dates the stele to 725 to 732, between the Tonyukuk and Kül Tegin stones.[50]

Two more datings stand apart. One reads the main text with a Sheep year, in the seventh month, and the addition with a Dragon year, ulu yıl, as the year in which the stone was written. It gives no year numbers.[51] The other puts the stone in 740, the Dragon year in which the Tang gave Tengri Khan his title, and takes the “sacred Bilge Khan” of the last lines for Tengri Khan and not for his father.[52]

Language

The stone writes the ending -mïš with the letters m and s, as the Tonyukuk stone does, and not with m and š, as the Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan stones do.[50]

Khan and khagan

In the first line the forefather is kagan, and the next sentence calls the same man kan.[53] Radloff took the two forms for distinct forms. He suggested that kan might be the proper Göktürk form and kagan a variant caused by Chinese influence.[54] Ōsawa reads both as respectful forms of equal weight.[40] See also the origin of the title Khan.

References

  1. ^ a b Ōsawa 2011, p. 194–195
  2. ^ a b Ōsawa 2011, p. 147
  3. ^ Ōsawa 2011, p. 147; 127; Orkun 1994, p. 147; 127
  4. ^ a b c Ōsawa 2011, p. 149
  5. ^ a b c Ōsawa 2011, p. 152
  6. ^ Ōsawa 2011, p. 194, 198; 225; Tekin 2003, p. 194, 198; 225
  7. ^ Ōsawa 2000, p. 282
  8. ^ a b Ōsawa 2000, p. 281
  9. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 28; 44; Ölmez 2016, p. 28; 44
  10. ^ a b c Ōsawa 2011, p. 151
  11. ^ Ōsawa 2011, p. 150, 152
  12. ^ Ölmez 2016, p. 43
  13. ^ Tsogtbaatar 2000, p. 369
  14. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 224–225
  15. ^ a b Sertkaya 1983, p. 72
  16. ^ a b Orkun 1994, p. 127
  17. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 28
  18. ^ Orkun 1994, p. 127; 147; Ōsawa 2011, p. 127; 147
  19. ^ a b c d Orkun 1994, p. 128; 224; 173; Tekin 2003, p. 128; 224; 173; Ōsawa 2011, p. 128; 224; 173
  20. ^ a b Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 33
  21. ^ Ölmez 2016, p. 45
  22. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 32–34
  23. ^ Orkun 1994, p. 128; 173; Ōsawa 2011, p. 128; 173
  24. ^ Orkun 1994, p. 128–129; 224; 173; Tekin 2003, p. 128–129; 224; 173; Ōsawa 2011, p. 128–129; 224; 173
  25. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 254
  26. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 34
  27. ^ Ölmez 2016, p. 46–48, 52–53
  28. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 34; 148; Dobrovits 2000, p. 34; 148
  29. ^ Orkun 1994, p. 130; 224, 245; 174; Tekin 2003, p. 130; 224, 245; 174; Ōsawa 2011, p. 130; 224, 245; 174
  30. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 35
  31. ^ Ölmez 2016, p. 49
  32. ^ Orkun 1994, p. 130; 224; 174; Tekin 2003, p. 130; 224; 174; Ōsawa 2011, p. 130; 224; 174
  33. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 224–225; 175; 38; Ōsawa 2011, p. 224–225; 175; 38; Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 224–225; 175; 38
  34. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 36
  35. ^ a b c Ōsawa 2011, p. 176
  36. ^ Ōsawa 2011, p. 177
  37. ^ Pelliot 1929, p. 206; 127, 130; Orkun 1994, p. 206; 127, 130
  38. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 238; 175; Ōsawa 2011, p. 238; 175
  39. ^ Ōsawa 2011, p. 196
  40. ^ a b Ōsawa 2011, p. 194
  41. ^ Dobrovits 2000, p. 147; 149
  42. ^ Dobrovits 2000, p. 149
  43. ^ a b Pelliot 1929, p. 205
  44. ^ a b Pelliot 1929, p. 205–206
  45. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 29
  46. ^ Clauson 2011 (translation); original 1957, p. 40
  47. ^ Ōsawa 2011, p. 196–197
  48. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 224; 10–11; Tekin o. J., p. 224; 10–11
  49. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 19
  50. ^ a b c Ōsawa 2011, p. 197
  51. ^ Ölmez 2016, p. 50, 52–53
  52. ^ Dobrovits 2000, p. 150
  53. ^ Orkun 1994, p. 128; 224; Tekin 2003, p. 128; 224
  54. ^ Kurakichi 1926, p. 19–20

Sources

Literature

  • Takashi Ōsawa, Revisiting the Ongi inscription of Mongolia from the Second Turkic Qaγanate on the basis of rubbings by G. J. Ramstedt (2011)
  • Hüseyin Namık Orkun, Eski Türk Yazıtları (1994)
  • Talât Tekin, Orhon Türkçesi Grameri (2003)
  • Talât Tekin, Orhon Yazıtları. Kül Tigin, Bilge Kağan, Tunyukuk (o. J.)
  • Paul Pelliot, Neuf notes sur des questions d'Asie Centrale (1929)
  • Osman Fikri Sertkaya, Köl Tigin’in Ölümünün 1250. Yıl Dönümü Dolayısı ile Moğolistan Halk Cumhuriyeti’ndeki Köktürk Harfli Metinler Üzerinde Yapılan Arkeolojik ve Filolojik Çalışmalara Toplu Bir Bakış (1983)
  • Talât Tekin; Mehmet Ölmez, Türk Dilleri: Giriş (2003)
  • Shiratori Kurakichi, A Study on the Titles Kaghan and Katun (1926)
  • Gerard Clauson; übersetzt von F. Yelda Şahin, Ongin Yazıtı (2011 (translation); original 1957)
  • Mehmet Ölmez, Ongi Yazıtı, Sorunlar ve Çözüm Önerileri (2016)
  • Mihály Dobrovits, Ongin Yazıtını Tahlile Bir Deneme (2000)
  • Takashi Ōsawa, Moğolistan’daki Eski Türk Anıt ve Yazıtlarının 1996–1998 Yılları Arasındaki Yeni İnceleme Sonuçları (Japon–Moğol Ortak Çalışmasının Ön Raporu Olarak) (2000)
  • B. Tsogtbaatar, Moğolistan Bölgesindeki Eski Türk Anıtları Çalışmaları Meselesi Üzerine (2000)

Articles resting on this source 1

Duoxifu

Related

What links here15

Persons
Duoxifu · Kapgan Khan · Tengri Khan
States
Second Göktürk Khaganate
Institutions and Titles
Baga · Shad
Religions
Burial and the balbal · Stone Figures · Turkic Mythology
Languages
Old Turkic
Sources
Nalaikh Inscription · Old Tibetan report on the northern kings · Runiform finds in Mongolia, 1990 to 1999 · Tonyukuk inscription
Controversies
The origin of the title Khan

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Ongi inscription.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/ongin-inscription/

Last revised: 8 November 2026