Bars Beg

Bars Beg was a khan of the Kirghiz in the time of the Second Khaganate.^[1] The Kül Tegin inscription names him. It says that the Göktürks gave him the title of khan and a wife from the house of the Göktürk khans.^[2] Modern histories identify him as the Kirghiz khan whom a Göktürk army killed in the winter of 710 to 711.^[3]

The inscription

Bilge Khan speaks in the inscription. He recalls the reign of his uncle Kapgan, when he himself was shad over the Tardush.^[1] Among the lands of that reign he names the Kirghiz: “The khan of the Kırgız was Bars Beg. It was we who gave him the title of khan here. We gave him my younger sister as his princess. He himself went wrong, and so their khan died and their people became serving-women and slaves.”^[2] The passage closes with two statements. The Göktürks say that the land and water of the Kögmen should not be left without a master. They also say that they set the Az and the Kirghiz in order.^[1]

The inscription does not name the sister. The speaker is Bilge Khan, whose father was Ilterish. She was therefore a daughter of Ilterish.^[1] The passage appears to say that Bars Beg held the rank of beg before the Göktürks raised him to khan.^[1] The word translated as princess is kunçuy. In the Orkhon inscriptions it names a sister of the khan and other women of the khan’s family.^[4]

Title and marriage

The inscription gives no year for the grant. Two accounts date it. One goes back to Malov and puts the grant in 693, soon after the death of Ilterish and the failure of Kapgan’s campaign to the north.^[5] The other puts it at the beginning of the eighth century, after the Tang had recognised the independence of the Kirghiz. In that account Bars Beg held the Kirghiz title aco before the marriage made him khan.^[6] Two accounts add that circumstances compelled Kapgan to recognise the title.^[7] One of them says that Bars Beg pursued an independent foreign policy in spite of the marriage.^[8]

The fall

The inscription does not say what Bars Beg did. Its verb is yaŋıltı, “he went wrong”. The same verb stands in the passage on the Türgesh. There the Göktürks say that the Türgesh went wrong against them and offended them, and that their khan died.^[1] By that parallel the error of the Kirghiz khan was an offence against the Göktürks.^[1]

Another passage of the inscription tells the winter crossing of Kül Tegin’s twenty-sixth year. The Göktürks broke a way through snow deep enough to bury a spear. They marched over the Kögmen range and fell on the Kirghiz in their sleep. They fought the Kirghiz khan in the Soŋa forest, killed him and took his realm.^[1] Tonyukuk tells the same crossing from the side of the man who planned it. In his account the Kirghiz khan gathered his army, the Göktürks fought and won, and the Kirghiz people submitted.^[9] The campaign is told in its own article and as part of Kapgan’s western war.

This second passage names no khan. The inscription does not state that the man killed in the Soŋa forest is Bars Beg. The modern accounts take that step.^[1] They date the fall in three ways. One reckoning gives 710.^[10] A second gives the winter of 710 to 711.^[8] A third gives 711.^[11]

The stelae of Altyn-köl

Two stelae were found in 1878 near Lake Altyn-köl in Khakassia. They speak of a man called Bars, of a khan’s family, who fell in an unequal battle against many enemies in the “golden black forest of Soŋa”.^[3] Klyashtorny identifies them as the memorial of Bars Beg and dates his death to 711.^[3] The Soŋa of the stelae is placed in the pine forests of the valley of the Soos, where Altyn-köl lies. The battle in the Soŋa forest would then have been fought in Khakassia.^[3]

After him

At the funeral of Kül Tegin in 732 the Kirghiz still had a khan, and he sent Tarduš Inanču Čor.^[12] The Tang histories report four Kirghiz embassies under Xuanzong, who reigned from 712 to 755. They give no dates for them.^[10] The inscription names neither the khan of 732 nor a successor of Bars Beg.^[1]

Name

bars begOld TurkicKül Tegin inscription
Bars-bekEnglish

The name has two parts, and beg is the rank. The leopard, bars, was a totem of the Kirghiz, it is held, and names with bars recur on their monuments.^[13] Other men named Bars stand on the Yenisei epitaphs: Kara Bars of the inscription of El-bazhy (E 68), Elchi Chor Küch Bars (E 14) and Tozbay Küch Bars Külüg (E 17).^[14]

What is known of Bars Beg comes from the stone of the Göktürks who gave him his title. The stelae of Altyn-köl are the one memorial of his own that has been proposed.

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j Kül Tegin inscription
^ a b Kül Tegin inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 311, 347, 367
^ a b c d Butanaev 2015, p. 5
^ Tokyürek 2013, p. 123
^ Butanaev 2015, p. 7–8
^ Mokeev 2019, p. 29–30
^ Butanaev 2015; Khudyakov 2021
^ a b Khudyakov 2021, p. 115
^ Tonyukuk inscription
^ a b Golden 1992, p. 180
^ Mokeev 2019, p. 30
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 271–272
^ Butanaev 2015, p. 7
^ Tishin 2019, p. 203

Sources

Literature

Hacer Tokyürek, Runik Türk Yazıtlarında ve Eski Uygur Metinlerinde Kadın Hiyerarşisi (2013)
V. Ja. Butanaev, Literaturnoe nasledstvo enisejskich kyrgyzov vremën drevnetjurkskich kaganatov [Литературное наследство енисейских кыргызов времён древнетюркских каганатов] (2015)
Anvarbek Mokeev, Yenisey ve Altay Kırgızlarında siyasi unvan olarak aco ve idi terimlerinin menşesi ve anlamı (2019)
Yu. S. Khudyakov; A. Yu. Borisenko, Localization of the Kyrgyz Residence Areas in Southern Siberia and Central Asia within the Periods of late Antiquity, Early and High Middle Ages (2021)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
V. V. Tishin, K datirovke enisejskoj runičeskoj nadpisi Begre (E 11) [К датировке енисейской рунической надписи Бегре (Е 11)] (2019)
Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (1968)