Chinese Side of Köl Tigin's Inscriptions

Abstract

The Orkhun's Inscriptions of Turkish writing (Köl Tigin ve Bilge Kagan) were read about a hundred and ten years ago. During the same years, chinese side of the inscriptions was translated into German, Russian, French and English. Then, some of them were translated into Turkish. Besides, for the first time, these texts were translated from the original source into Turkish by our side. Unluckly, during our work we have faced some distortions on the text, comparing early works. Therefore, we had to codify all of the characters one by one, in order to overcome the problems and to finish the work properly. In sum, the Chinese text is a condolence letter. It was sent by T'ang dynasty's emperor Hsüan-tsung to Bilge Kagan related to his brother Köl Tigin's death. In his letter, emperor Hsüan-tsung begins mentioning that the universe and the world's creation , Chinese and Turkish relations in the Central Asia. His language is similar with the Chinese state philosophy. And then, it is mentioned that some important events and military accopmlishments of Köl Tigin, during the time of setting up of the incsriptions. Finally, Bilge Kagan's policy about giving importance to the Chinese-Turkish friendship was praising. The writer of this article tries to evaulate this side of the inscription.