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Karabalgasun inscription is a 9th century trilingual
Karabalgasun inscription is a 9th century trilingual inscription
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
located in the Karabalgasun
Ordu-Baliqalso spelled ''Ordu Balykh, Ordu Balik, Ordu-Balïq, Ordu Balig, Ordu Baligh'' (meaning "city of the court", "city of the army"; mn, Хар Балгас, ), also known as Mubalik and Karabalghasun, was the capital of the first Uyghur ...
, the historical capital of the first Uyghur Khaganate
The Uyghur Khaganate (also Uyghur Empire or Uighur Khaganate, self defined as Toquz-Oghuz country; otk, 𐱃𐰆𐰴𐰕:𐰆𐰍𐰕:𐰉𐰆𐰑𐰣, Toquz Oγuz budun, Tang-era names, with modern Hanyu Pinyin: or ) was a Turkic empire that e ...
, in Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...
. The stele
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...
bearing the inscription is believed to be erected during the reign of the eighth Uighur ruler, Baoyi Qaghan
Baoyi Qaghan or Alp Bilge Qaghan was the eighth ruler of Uyghurs. His personal name is not known, therefore he is often referred as his Tang dynasty invested title Baoyi () which was invested on 22 June 808.
Reign
He was known as a zealous Manic ...
(r. 808-21 CE). Written in Old Uyghur
Old Uyghur () was a Turkic language which was spoken in Qocho from the 9th–14th centuries and in Gansu.
History
The Old Uyghur language evolved from Old Turkic after the Uyghur Khaganate broke up and remnants of it migrated to Turfan, Qomu ...
, Sogdian, and Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, the inscription marks the qaghan’s military accomplishments and those of his predecessors, as well as their adoption and support of the Manichean
Manichaeism (;
in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian prophet Mani (AD ...
religion. ''Encyclopædia Iranica
''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times.
Scope
The ''Encycl ...
'' describes it as "one of the most important sources for the history of the Uighur Steppe Empire (744-840 CE) and the study of Manicheism in China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
", citing many of the historical events recorded in the inscription are only known from it.
The fragments of the inscription were first discovered by the Russian explorer Nikolai Yadrintsev
Nikolai Mikhailovich Yadrintsev (russian: Николай Михайлович Ядринцев; October 18, 1842, Omsk – June 7, 1894, Barnaul) was a Siberian public figure, explorer, archaeologist, and turkologist. His discoveries include ...
in 1889.
Context
The first line of the stele, which is copied in the shield-shaped tablet on top, names the qaghan to whom it was dedicated: This ruler was the eighth qaghan of the empire, and the inscription was established either during his reign or shortly after his death in 821 CE. The wording of the first lines seem to indicate close parallel between the Sogdian and the Old Uyghur versions, from which the Chinese is independent.References
{{Turkic inscriptions History of Mongolia Chinese inscriptions Uyghur inscriptions Sogdian language 9th-century inscriptions