Ishbara Tolis Khan

Ishbara Tolis Khan ruled the western Göktürks from 634 to 639. In his reign the Ten Arrows took the form they kept.^[1] He divided his people into ten tribes under ten chiefs, each with an arrow. The ten turned on him and set a rival over him. They split his state along the Ili, and he died a fugitive in Ferghana.^[1]

Name and family

Ïšbara TölisOld Turkic
沙鉢羅咥利失可汗ChineseXin Tangshu 215
同俄設ChineseXin Tangshu 215

The Chinese write his title 沙鉢羅咥利失可汗, Shaboluo Dielishi Khan. The first word is the ïšbara of Ishbara Khan’s title in the east. The second is tölis, the name of the eastern half of a Göktürk people. Before his accession he was the Tong’e Shad.^[1]

He was the younger brother of Nishu, the Duolu Khan, and a son of the Bagha Shad. The Bagha Shad had served under Tong Yabgu, had come to the Chinese court in the Wude years and had sworn brotherhood with Taizong.^[1] The two Tang histories disagree about a third brother. The Xin Tang Shu says Nishu was also called Jiana Shad. The Jiu Tang Shu makes Jiana Shad a younger brother of Ishbara Tolis. His successor was Jiana Shad’s son, so the difference decides only which brother’s line followed him.^[2]

The years after Tong Yabgu (630–634)

In 630 Tong Yabgu’s uncle Moheduo murdered him and set himself up as the Quli Sibi Khan.^[1] The people would not follow him. The Nushibi chose Nishu, then the Mohe Shad, and Nishu declined. Tong Yabgu’s son had fled to Kangju. He was fetched and set up as Si Yabgu Khan. The two khans shared the state and fought without a decision.^[1] In 630 the Quli Sibi Khan asked the Tang for a bride. The Tang refused: “the Göktürks are in disorder, lord and subject are not settled; how can there be a marriage?”^[1] The states of the western regions all fell away from the Quli Sibi Khan, and his people went over to Si Yabgu.^[1] The Quli Sibi Khan fled to the Altai. Nishu killed him.^[1] Si Yabgu marched against the Tiele and the Xueyantuo and was beaten. He was suspicious and harsh. He had the lesser khan Yili, who had served him best, put to death with all his kin on a false charge. He also plotted against Nishu, who fled to Karashahr. The Nushibi chiefs and a tarkan conspired to depose Si Yabgu. He fled to Kangju and died there of grief.^[1] The people fetched Nishu from Karashahr and made him Duolu Khan.^[1] Nishu would not take the title on his own authority. In 633 the emperor sent Liu Shanyin to invest him as Tun Aloubo Xilibi Duolu Khan, with drum and standard.^[3] Nishu died in 634, and his younger brother took the throne.^[3]

The Ten Arrows (634–637)

In 635, the ninth year of Zhenguan, he asked for a marriage alliance and offered five hundred horses. The court gave him encouragement and no bride.^[3] He sent envoys three times in one year.^[1] Then he divided his state into ten parts, with one man over each. He gave each man an arrow. The ten were the ten shads, or the ten arrows. The five Duolu tribes with their five great chuo lived east of Suyab. The five Nushibi with their five great sijin lived west of it. Later an arrow was called a tribe. The whole were the tribes of the ten surnames.^[1] One modern usage names the five of the left the Üç Tuğlu.^[4]

The ten did not love him. His Tong Tudun attacked him by surprise. His staff fled and scattered. Ishbara Tolis held them off in several fights with a hundred riders of his guard, until the tudun withdrew. Then he fled with his younger brother the Buli Shad to Karashahr.^[3] The Axiji Que Sijin and the Tong Tudun called the people to set up Yukuk Shad as great khan and Ishbara Tolis as lesser khan. Then the tudun was killed. Yukuk Shad was beaten by his own sijin. Ishbara Tolis recovered his old lands, and the Nushibi and the Chumi submitted to him.^[3]

Division at the Ili (638–639)

In 638 the western tribes gave Yukuk Shad the title Yipi Duolu Khan. He fought Ishbara Tolis in great battles, with many dead on both sides.^[3] The two made a pact at the Ili. The tribes on one side of the river took their orders from Duolu, those on the other from Ishbara Tolis. “From this the western Göktürks were again two states.”^[1] The text gives Duolu the west and Ishbara Tolis the east. It has them the wrong way round. Duolu’s court was the Northern Court. His subjects, the Basmïl, the Boma, the Kirghiz and the Chumukun, were all in the north and east. Ishbara Tolis’s people were the Nushibi of the south-west. His successor’s court was the Southern Court, with the Ili as its eastern border.^[2] Yukuk Shad has his own article.

In 639 his tudun and sijin plotted with Yukuk Shad against him.^[1] At the end of his resources, Ishbara Tolis fled to Ferghana and died there.^[1] The people set up his son as Yiqulishi Yipi Khan, who died within the year. The great chiefs of the Nushibi then fetched Jiana Shad’s son and made him Irbis Ishbara Yabgu Khan.^[1] His grandson Irbis Shegui was the last khan the Nushibi raised before Helu.^[1]

Assessment

Ishbara Tolis gave the western Göktürks the shape under which they were known for the next century. The same shape unmade him. Ten chiefs with ten arrows were ten men who could set up a khan. Within four years they had. The Ten Arrows outlasted every khan who ruled them. The Kül Tegin inscription of 732 still calls the Türgesh khan the khan of the Ten Arrows.^[5]