Wisdom of Royal Glory: a Turkic mirror for princes from Kashgar
A long Turkic poem of advice to rulers written at the Qarakhanid court in 1069 to 1070, in Vambery's 1870 edition.
Full title Wisdom of Royal Glory: Qarakhanid Turkic mirror for princes, 1069-1070; Vambery’s 1870 partial edition of the Vienna (Herat 1439) Uyghur-script manuscript with German translation, and a facsimile of the Fergana (Namangan) manuscript
Yusuf Khass Hajib wrote the Kutadgu Bilig ('Wisdom that brings good fortune') in Balasaghun and Kashgar in 1069 to 1070 and presented it to the Qarakhanid ruler, a Muslim Turkic dynasty. It is a verse dialogue about how a king should rule and how he should treat each class of subjects: scholars, merchants, farmers, herders. The corpus copies are Hermann Vambery's partial edition of the Herat manuscript (written in Uighur script in 1439), with German translation, glossary and introduction (Innsbruck 1870). It is literature, not a travel account.
How they knew
Eyewitness
Who “Tartar” means here
The poem itself does not use 'Tatar'; its people are 'Turks'. Vambery, writing in 1870, uses 'Chinese Tartary' as an alternative name for East Turkestan and 'Tatar' for the Mongol conquerors.
Why read it
It shows a settled, literate, Muslim Turkic court in Kashgar two centuries before the Mongols, with its own views of nomads, herders, merchants and palaces.
Watch out
Vambery's text and translation are only a selection and his readings are superseded (Radloff 1891 to 1910, Arat 1947). Several quotes come from his glossary and introduction, not from a continuous text.
'The wanderer builds no farmsteads and no palaces'
Editorial contextA line of the poem, quoted in Vambery's glossary under the word for 'nomad', says that the person who moves from place to place does not build farmsteads or palaces. The poet is contrasting nomad life with the settled court life of Kashgar, where palaces (saray) were built. It is an eleventh-century Turkic writer's own view that nomads and palace-builders were different ways of living.
köchükli kishi etmes urtu saray: he who moves from one place to another builds no farmsteads and no palaces. (chapter 87)
Working translation
Original wording
köcükli kisi etmes urtu saraj. Der von einem Orte zum andern ziehet, bauet keine Gehöfte und Schlösser. (87)
Yusuf Khass Hajib, Kutadgu Bilig (1069 to 1070), verse quoted with German translation in Vambery's glossary (1870)
Editorial contextThe poem's chapter on how a ruler should treat the keepers of the horse herds lists what they provide: food, drink and horses to ride, and kumis (fermented mare's milk), milk, wool, butter, sour milk and cheese, food and clothing and coarse wool for ropes. The poet calls them useful and honest but 'without knowledge', people from whom a prince should not expect law or manners. It is a courtier's view of the herding life that fed the court.
3 Food, drink, horses to ride … stallions come from these (people), and also … 4 Kumis, milk, wool, butter, sour milk and cheese, food and clothing, as well as coarse wool for ropes.
Working translation
Original wording
3 Zu essen, zu trinken, Pferd zu reiten . . . . . Hengste Stammt von diesen her, so auch . . . . 4 Kimis, Milch, Wolle, Schmalz, saure Milch und Käse, Speise und Kleider, sowohl als grobe Wolle für Stricke.
Yusuf Khass Hajib, Kutadgu Bilig (1069 to 1070), in Vambery's German translation (1870)
Editorial contextIn the chapter on merchants the poet advises the prince to welcome them: they travel from east to west, bring the finest clothes and 'wonders', and without them nobody could dress well in winter or see strings of pearls. When 'the caravan of Cathay' (China) sets out, thousands of gifts follow. It places the Turkic court of Kashgar on the great trade road between China and the west.
7 If there were no merchant who travels the world, how could you clothe yourself in the middle of harsh winter? 8 When Cathay's caravan sets out, it is a caravan from which thousandfold gifts will come.
Working translation
Original wording
7 Gäbe es keinen Kaufmann, der die Welt durchzieht, Wie könntest du dich kleiden in der Mitte des rauhen Winters? 8 Wenn Chatai's Karavane dahinzieht, so ist es eine Karavane, Von wo tausendfache Spenden kommen sollen.
Yusuf Khass Hajib, Kutadgu Bilig (1069 to 1070), in Vambery's German translation (1870)
Editorial contextThe prose preface of the Herat manuscript says the book was finished 'in the land of Kashgar' and presented to Bughra Khan, who made the author his chamberlain, hence his title Khass Hajib. It boasts that the Chinese called it 'The Manners of Kings', the Iranians 'the Turkish Shahnameh', and the 'Turanians' Kutadgu Bilig. The Turks here are a named people with their own literary language, 'the Turkish tongue' of the eastern lands.
The people of Chin called it Adab al-Muluk, 'the manners of princes'; the scholars of the prince of Machin called it Ayn al-Mamlaka, 'the eye of the realm'; the easterners called it Zinat al-Umara, 'the ornament of princes'. The Iranians called it the Turkish Shahnameh.
Working translation
Original wording
Die Leute von Cin haben es Adab ul Muluk, Sitten der Fürsten genannt; die Gelehrten des Fürsten von Macin haben Ajn ul Memleket, das Auge des Reiches geheissen; die Morgenländer haben es Zinet un Umera, Zierde der Fürsten betitelt. Die Iranier hiessen es das türkische Schah Nameh
Anonymous prose preface to the Kutadgu Bilig, in Vambery's German translation (1870)
Vambery: East Turkestan, 'also called Chinese Tartary'
Editorial contextIn his introduction Vambery places the Uighur homeland in 'today's East Turkestan or Chinese Tartary, as it is also called'. For a nineteenth-century scholar, 'Tartary' is just an older map name for the region where the Kutadgu Bilig was written, next to the modern term. He also claims Samarkand and Karshi as Uighur foundations from the meaning of their names, an etymological guess.
If we therefore describe the homeland of the Uighurs as present-day East Turkestan, or Chinese Tartary as it is also called, it must be noted that some colonies lay outside these borders.
Working translation
Original wording
Wenn wir daher als die Heimat der Uiguren das heutige Ostturkestan oder die Chinesische Tatarei, wie es auch genannt wird, bezeichnen, so muss jedoch bemerkt werden, dass einzelne Colonien sich auch ausserhalb der bezeichneten Grenzen befanden
Hermann Vambery, introduction to his edition Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik (Innsbruck 1870)
Editorial contextVambery laments that Uighur manuscripts on history and religion, such as those Rashid al-Din used for his great history, are lost for ever, destroyed by time and 'the even more devastating fire of Tatar lust for war'. Here 'Tatar' means the Mongol conquerors. It is a nineteenth-century scholar's explanation for missing sources, not evidence of a hidden civilisation.
Much has been destroyed by the iron tooth of time and the even more devastating fire of Tatar lust for war. Precious, irreplaceable jewels of the history of those distant parts of Asia, such as those Rashid al-Din still used when compiling his Taj al-Tawarikh, are lost to us for ever.
Working translation
Original wording
Vieles hat der eiserne Zahn der Zeit und das noch mehr verheerende Feuer tatarischer Kriegslust zu Grunde gerichtet. Kostbare, unersetzliche Kleinodien der Geschichte jener fernen Gegenden Asiens, wie jene, deren Raschid-ed-Din noch bei Zusammenstellung seines Tag-et-tevarich's sich bediente, sind für uns auf ewig verschwunden
Hermann Vambery, introduction to his edition Uigurische Sprachmonumente und das Kudatku Bilik (Innsbruck 1870)
Vambery's opinion; he gives no specific case of Mongols destroying Uighur books.
Checked against the page image (the corpus OCR reads 'Kasehid').
The fine print
How we know
official or contemporary record An official document or a record made at the time.
contemporary literary composition at the Qarakhanid court of Kashgar; not a narrative source
Research notes
Vambery's readings are obsolete (Radloff 1891-1910, Arat 1947). The Fergana facsimile item's publisher is not identified in IA metadata.
Why it matters
Together with Kashgari, the Qarakhanid literary evidence that a Turkic Islamic state existed in the Tarim-Semirechye region in the 1070s, the region European maps later filled with 'Tartary'.