Tegin

Tegin was the title of the sons and younger brothers of the Göktürk khan. They were princes of the house of Ashina.^[1] The Tongdian says it in one clause: the khan’s sons and younger brothers are called tegin.^[2] The Jiu Tang Shu and the Xin Tang Shu say the same.^[3] The best-known holder of the title is Kül Tegin, the younger brother of Bilge Khan. He carried the title in his name.^[4]

The rank in the Chinese lists

The Zhou Shu names the great offices in order: first the yabgu, then the shad, then the tegin, then the silifa and the tutunfa.^[5] Below them came the lesser offices, twenty-eight grades in all. Every one of them was hereditary.^[5] The Sui Shu gives the same order.^[6] For the western Göktürks, the Jiu Tang Shu adds that the tegins were always taken from the khan’s sons, his younger brothers and his clan.^[7]

The Chinese histories also show tegins at work. In 599 Tulan Khan sent an envoy, Yintou Tegin, to argue his case against Rangan before the Sui emperor.^[6] Among the western Göktürks, Niri Khan was the son of Yangsu Tegin. Niri’s younger brother Poshi Tegin went to the Sui court with Niri’s widow.^[6] When Tong Yabgu was murdered, his son Dieli Tegin fled to Kangju.^[8]

The biography of the pilgrim Xuanzang shows how a tegin could rise.^[9] At Kunduz, Tong Yabgu’s eldest son, Tardu Shad, was poisoned by his young new wife.^[10] The shad’s son by an earlier wife was a tegin. He seized his father’s rank of shad and married his stepmother.^[9]

Two spellings

The Sui Shu and the Tongdian write the title 特勤, teqin.^[11] The Jiu Tang Shu and the Xin Tang Shu write 特勒, tele, with a different second character.^[3] The received text of the Zhou Shu also has 特勒.^[5] Its modern edition changes the word to 特勤 and notes that every 特勒 is a scribal error for 特勤.^[5] The monument of Kül Tegin decided the reading.^[12] Its Chinese text writes the prince’s name with 特勤. The name 闕特勒 in the Tang histories is therefore to be read the same way.^[12] Older works that followed the Tang spelling print the title as tele.^[13]

In the inscriptions

The Turkic faces of the monument were raised in the Second Khaganate. They spell the title 𐱅𐰃𐰏𐰤, tigin, and write it together with the name.^[14]^[15] In line 30 of the east face, Bilge Khan speaks of “my younger brother Kül Tegin”. The name stands there as one word.^[14] The writer of the inscription signed it with the same title.^[16] He calls himself Yollug Tegin, the nephew of Kül Tegin, and says that he spent twenty days on the writing.^[16]^[17] Some scholars regard this signature as a sign of the weight that writing had as the Göktürks.^[18]

The inscriptions give the title a plural of its own, tegit. They give tarkat for the tarkan and seŋüt for the seŋün in the same way. The ending -t is the plural of titles. It may have come into the language together with these titles, possibly from a Mongolic language.^[19] In the Uyghur texts that follow, the ordinary plural -lär is added to the old one. The result is tegitlär, princes.^[20]

Painted texts on the Tayhar rock at Hoyto Tamir carry the title in short names, among them Tigin Bars and Kara Tegin. The readings are uncertain.^[21]

On the donor paintings of Bezeklik, the word stands on the name tablet of a lady. The tablet is read ögrüne tigin täŋrim körki, “the likeness of Her Highness the princess Joy”. Beside it is a painted portrait of a woman in a long gold robe.^[22] The reader took tigin there for a title borne by a woman. The date of the painting is uncertain.^[22]

The tegin was thus a rank of birth.^[2] A son or brother of the khan was a tegin before he held any command. A shad, in the Tongdian’s words, was the man who led the troops of a separate division.^[2]

References

^ Tongdian, juan 197; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
^ a b c Tongdian, juan 197
^ a b Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
^ Kül Tegin inscription
^ a b c d Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
^ a b c Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 47–48
^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 47
^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Tongdian, juan 197
^ a b Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 20
^ Thomsen 1896, p. 73
^ a b Kül Tegin inscription; Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 18
^ Tekin 1968, p. 380–381
^ a b Kül Tegin inscription; Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 39
^ Tekin 1968, p. 272
^ Edward 1993, p. 37
^ Erdal 2004, p. 128,158
^ Erdal 2004, p. 158
^ Sertkaya 2000, p. 326, 343
^ a b von Le Coq 1913, pl. 30

Sources

Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
Tongdian, juan 197 (after Sui Shu and Zhou Shu)
Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
Kül Tegin inscription

Literature

Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)
Vilhelm Thomsen, Inscriptions de l'Orkhon déchiffrées (1896)
Wilhelm Radloff, Die alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei (1894–1895, parts 1–3)
Samuel Beal (trans.), The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li (1911)
Marcel Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic (2004)
Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (1968)
Albert von Le Coq, Chotscho. Facsimile-Wiedergaben der wichtigeren Funde der ersten Königlich Preussischen Expedition nach Turfan in Ost-Turkistan (1913)
Tryjarski, Edward, Anonymity, Adaptation and Diffusion of the Asian and European Runic Scripts (1993)
Osman Fikri Sertkaya; Sartkocaulı Harcavbay, Hoyto Tamir (Moğolistan)’dan yeni yazıtlar (ön neşir) (2000)