On the Titles Ten-si and Kan in the Irq Bitig

Yıldırım, Fikret

On the Titles Ten-si and Kan in the Irq Bitig

(55th Meeting, 2012)

Irq Bitig is an Old Turkic omen book which was written with Old Turkic Runic script at the beginning of the Xth century. Although it mainly reflects the nomadic-steppe Turkic culture, it contains some Manichaean elements, like the words dintar, manistan. It also has a few Chinese origin words. One of them is the title ten-si. Along with this Chinese ruler title there is a title, kan which is much more widespread in Turkic government tradition. Up to now, researchers have not sufficiently laid stress on the place of the title ten-si in the Irq Bitig. In this paper, we will focus on the place of the title ten-si in Turkic culture and compare this title with the title kan in terms of their functions in the Irq Bitig.