Saŋun

The title saŋun comes from the Chinese 將軍, jiangjun, “general”.^[1] In the Orkhon inscriptions it has front vowels, seŋün. The Yenisei epitaphs have saŋun.^[1] It stands beside two other titles of Chinese origin, tutuk and çigşi.

In the Orkhon inscriptions

The Kül Tegin inscription and the Bilge Khan inscription use the word for Chinese generals and for the heads of delegations.^[2]

At twenty-one Kül Tegin fought the Chinese general Čača Seŋün. Three horses were killed under him in three charges.^[3] The Bilge Khan inscription tells the same fight in the account of Bilge’s twenty-second year, with an army of eighty thousand men under Čača Seŋün.^[4] The same inscription names a General Ku Seŋün, who came with forty thousand men, and later says that Bilge set Ku Seŋün up as a balbal after the death of his eldest son.^[5]

At the funeral of Kül Tegin the title names the heads of delegations. Udar Seŋün led the mourners of the Kıtañ and Tatabı peoples. Enik Seŋün came from the peoples of the west, beside Oğul Tarkan. Čaŋ Seŋün, a nephew of the Chinese khan, came to build the tomb and to make the carving and the inscribed stone.^[3] At the funeral of Bilge’s father, a party of five hundred men came under Lisün Tay-Seŋün.^[5]

The inscriptions give the title a plural of its own, seŋüt, as they give tarkat for the tarkan. The ending -t is the plural of titles.^[6] Turkic Atlas gives the plural forms under the title of tegin.

In the Yenisei epitaphs

The title stands eleven times in nine epitaphs, E 7, E 12, E 24, E 32, E 48, E 52 with two occurrences, E 71, E 92 with two, and E 109.^[1] The article on the group describes the stones.

Form and origin

The vowels of the Turkic word, front or back, are not explained by the Chinese.^[7] The Chinese word appears in Turkic in three forms, seŋün, saŋun and şaŋun.^[7]

Some scholars hold that the title could be borne by Turkic grandees or granted by Chinese emperors, as other Chinese titles were.^[7]