Inel Khan

In 699 Kapgan Khan gave his state a new shape. It had a shad of the left and a shad of the right, with twenty thousand men each.^[1] Above them stood his own son Fuju as Lesser Khan. Fuju commanded more than forty thousand men of the Ten Surnames of the west, the Chumukun and the rest. His title was “Khan Who Expands the West”.^[1] The office was a western viceroyalty over the Ten Arrows. The title was its programme.

The Tonyukuk stone names a khan Inel. He is sent, with the Tardush Shad, at the head of the army that Kapgan left in the Altai when he went home to bury the katun.^[2] After the march to the Iron Gate, the Sogdians come to Inel Khan and submit.^[3] In 714 the Tang history has Kapgan’s son, the Yinie Khan, lead picked cavalry against Beiting. The garrison held, and a tegin was taken and beheaded under the walls.^[1] In 716, when Kapgan was killed, Kül Tegin “killed Mochuo’s son the Lesser Khan and his brothers and his trusted men almost to a man”.^[1] The best-supported view is that the Fuju of 699, the Inel of the stone, the Yinie of 714 and the Lesser Khan of 716 are one man. The sources do not say it in so many words. The name Inel is understood as “the trusted one”, from the verb ına-, “to trust”.^[4] The same word stands as a title qualifier in three Yenisei epitaphs.^[4] One scholar has explained the name as Ini Il instead.^[4]^[5] The reply is that runic and Uyghur texts hold many names Inal, which may also be formed from ına-.^[4]

He is the heir who was passed over by force. Kapgan had taken the throne over Ilterish’s small sons. His own son held the second rank in the state for seventeen years. He died in the hour of his father’s death, at the hands of the nephew his father had displaced. The Kül Tegin inscription does not name him. It speaks of the year only as the time “when the people and the realm had split into two”.^[6]

References

^ a b c d Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
^ Tonyukuk inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 287
^ Tonyukuk inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 289
^ a b c d Erhan 2011, p. 14
^ Ercilasun 1990, p. 35
^ Kül Tegin inscription

Sources

Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Tonyukuk inscription
Kül Tegin inscription

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (1968)
Aydın, Erhan, Yenisey Yazıtlarında Geçen Unvanlar ve Unvan Niteleyicileri (2011)
Ahmet Bican Ercilasun, Köl Tigin Yazıtı Bir Nutuk Metni midir? (1990)