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Post by aca on Aug 18, 2008 21:40:22 GMT 3
Please look at this picture. Do you know what this chinese incription is about. There is also a Turkic runic text on it, but it is so damaged so I can't read it. Can someone translate just this upper part of the chinese text?  |
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Aug 18, 2008 21:59:34 GMT 3
That's the Chinese side of Köl Tigin's inscription  Nothing different from the one you posted before  |
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Post by aca on Aug 19, 2008 13:56:31 GMT 3
Hm... I didn't recognize it  It is a nice picture anyway...  |
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Aug 20, 2008 13:17:56 GMT 3
Well you're right because it's a bit difficult to figure out the text from the picture. But the title (which says "Inscription of the passed-away Köl Tigin") reveals everything |
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Post by aca on Aug 22, 2008 12:50:38 GMT 3
Thanx, my friend |
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Post by Kilij Arslan on Jan 21, 2010 4:37:32 GMT 3
Köl Tigin's monument - Western side, inscribed with Chinese text:  Compare it with this blank tombstone from Qianling (China) placed in honour to Chinese Empress Wu (died 705.)  Actually there is a theory, that Tang was turkic dynasty. But I only know that there is such a theory (and it is upheld by Han Chinese!), I don't know how was it perceived by academic circles in China, nor do I know if it became largely known. A colleague of mine told me about it a while ago, he got to know this guy when he was on scholarship in ChRL. |
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Post by sarmat on Jan 21, 2010 6:05:19 GMT 3
This theory is not upheld by Han Chinese. And there is a dispute about the real origins of the founders of Tang dynasty, particularly, Taizong. Taizong was partly Xianbi and, apparently, he was very familiar with Turkic custorms and very respected by Turks. There is a theory that Taizong belong to a special ethnic group called Tabgach. Tabgach are believed to be steppe people, culturally influenced by China. However, Han Chinese nationalists discard this theory and try to prove that Taizong was just a typical 100% ethnic Han Chinese emperor.
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Post by Kilij Arslan on Jan 21, 2010 7:35:08 GMT 3
By 'Han Chinese' I meant a certain Chinese man. He's making PhD on some university in ChRL now, and he does upheld this theory. My English dulled with year of not using it I guess... Anyway, it is acknowledged that Tang founders had some turkic blood in them, but of course Tang are considered Chinese by everyone. However if you look close at them, they do tend to have a lot steppe nomadic traits about them. Aesthetics for example, they liked round faced women. And they were open for new religions, something very common among steppe culture people, and well... being open for anything is not much of a chinese speciality  I just wonder will his theory be left unheard of or will he cause some uproar in the sinologist world (not to mention Chinese self consciousness ). BTW, check out the book "Wolf Totem" and the hype it aroused in China. |
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Post by ceonni on Jan 21, 2010 12:36:36 GMT 3
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Post by ceonni on Jan 21, 2010 12:57:58 GMT 3
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Post by sarmat on Jan 21, 2010 20:19:15 GMT 3
By 'Han Chinese' I meant a certain Chinese man. He's making PhD on some university in ChRL now, and he does upheld this theory. My English dulled with year of not using it I guess... Anyway, it is acknowledged that Tang founders had some turkic blood in them, but of course Tang are considered Chinese by everyone. However if you look close at them, they do tend to have a lot steppe nomadic traits about them. Aesthetics for example, they liked round faced women. And they were open for new religions, something very common among steppe culture people, and well... being open for anything is not much of a chinese speciality I just wonder will his theory be left unheard of or will he cause some uproar in the sinologist world (not to mention Chinese self consciousness ). BTW, check out the book "Wolf Totem" and the hype it aroused in China. This theory is actually quite old. And some Chinese historians support it. I also tend to think that this theory is true. We know for example that Taizong once sucked blood out of wound of one of his Turk general. This is a very distinctive Steppan custom and no real Chinese emperor ever did this. That would actually be impossible according to traditional Chinese cultural norms (Son of Heaven sucking blood out a barbarian's wound...  ). So, I do think that Tabgachs were a separate ethnicity a kind of transition between the Steppan world and a Chinese cultural universe. At minimum they were a kind of "Chinese Cossacks" if one can say so. But that theory is disliked by many Han Chinese nationals, who would like to see the Chinese history via "Cultural Han" vs "Unviclized Barbarians" stereotype. And, of course, since Tang is one of the greatest Chinese dynasties, a thesis that Tangs were also Steppe people would be unacceptable for them. But, IMHO, for obvious reasons they obviously were. And if you look at Tangs interactions with Steppans it was rather a network of alliances than a direct military conquest. That made Tang dynasty so succesful. Also, early emperors were very tolerant towards foreign traditions and religions and that is again a very Steppan tradition. Late Tangs who were already quite Sinicized tried to make a "Confucian revolution" of the political system created by the early emperors. That ended in a disaster, Gok-Turk revolt and finally, the fall of the Tang dynasty.. |
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Post by ceonni on Jan 22, 2010 0:24:14 GMT 3
The "Tabgach" dynasties were not exclusively founded by the Tabgach tribe.
The Wei Dynasty was of course the Core Tabgach. But the subsequent dynasties seems to be diverse ethnic contingents that joined the Wei to become a "Greater Tabgach". And among these, Gao Yang's Qi Dynasty and Li Yuan's Tang Dynasty are now just argued as ethnic Han landlords or garrison commanders who were part of the Greater Tabgach hord. Sui's founder Yang Jian is admitted to be at least in his youth, considered Xianbei by the Yuwens of Zhou. There are also alternative theory stating that Yang Jian merely "assimilated" into the Xianbei ruling class by adopting Xianbei names in order to gain better prospects. Yuwen Tai of Zhou is of course, the core of the Yuwen Clan, whose less sinicized kin later developed into the Khitay, Tatar and Mongol Shibes. Therefore I tend to think that the Yuwen Clan is of a more easterly origin (like the Murong/Buyo Clan, who seem to be of Koguryic origin) whose main body had fewer interactions with Turkic and Sinitic spheres, so that there were still enough of them left to become non-Turkic and non-Chinese speaking Khitays and Mongols. However, Yuwen Tai, being from the Dai (Shanxi) region like Li Yuan, Gao Yang, and most of the great achievers of the Wei-Tang period, was of course Turkicized in language and Siniticized in cultural ideals.
So it's safe to say that the "Tabgach period" from Wei to Tang was dominated by a regional culture around the Dai region that can be called the "Tabgach horde", or Tabgach cultural area, but not the "Tabgach Tribe" or "Tabgach Clan". The "horde" is basically just a ruling class of diverse tribal and ethnic origins bound together by a military institution (professional soldiers) established by the Tabgach Clan of Wei. And this "Tabgach Horde" actually integrated Han Chinese landowners like Li Yuan and Han Chinese garrisonmen like Gao Yang.
Li Yuan's wife Zhangsun Hatun was certainly of Xianbei origin. However based on Chinese view on the cultures of these dynasties, Gao Yang's Qi Dynasty appears to be a lot more nomadic and Xianbei-like than the latter part of the Tabgach Clan's Wei Dynasty. This is because the Gaos are garrisons posted at the northeastern border and are not landed gentry. They basically hang out with the bad boys every day.
The early period of Tang, though seeing lots of Dai region Han or Xianbei Sinicized landed gentry incorporated into a nascent Mandarin Class, is on the other hand a lot more Turkified than the latter Tabgach Wei Dynasty. I believe this is because of the rapid expansion of Tang military power into areas that are under the Turgish and the Gokturks. The Gokturks becoming the main rivals of the early Tang state makes Tang culture gravitate towards culturally engaging the Gokturks on the one hand, and circumventing the Gokturks to connect with the Persians and Byzantines farther afield. This gives early Tang a very Western appearance. The later Tabgach Wei dynasty was much less far-reaching westward as the early Tang.
However the Tang's western reach was curtailed by the Battle of Talas by the Abbasids.
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Post by ceonni on Jan 22, 2010 0:29:58 GMT 3
The later Tang saw China divvied up by warlords called the Jiedushi's. The northern Jiedushi, such as An Lushan, were mostly of Turkic, Turgish, or Soghdian origins. www.ming-yiguan.com/viewthread.php?tid=14914&highlight=Ming Yiguan forum has an article talking about how Cosmopolitanism lasts till the end of Tang and how the Soghdians contributed to the strength of the Shatuo Dynasties. As a result, the central court of Tang became confined to the directly ruled provinces close to the Central Plain. The Confucian Revolution didn't really happen till the Song Dynasty yet. What happened during the Tang after An Lushan's rebellion was the reactions led by Confucian Mandarins like Han Yu, to brand everything Buddhist or Soghdian or Turkish as alien and insidious. Later the Chuys (called Shatuo, and they are akin to the Kimeks) became established in the Shanxi (Dai) region. So after the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Turkic Shatuo states rose in much the same way the Tabgach Dynasties from Wei to Tang rose from the Dai region. Later the Song Prince Zhao Guangyi sacked and ruined Taiyuan, the then center of the Shanxi region, so that "the Dragon's Spine of the Shatuo Horde is broken". Never a single Sinitic dynasty rose from Shanxi again. During the Tang period, in the brief period when the Ashina Turks surrendered, Turkish populations were partly settled in both Shanxi (Dai) region and the neighboring Shaanxi (Ordos, Hetao) region. Today northern Shanxi (Datong) is on the way from Taiyuan to Hohhot, and is therefore integral with one of the most Sinicized parts of Inner Mongolia since the Ming Dynasty (the Tumed Mongols actually speak a Shanxi Chinese dialect now) The northern Shaanxi (Ordos, Hetao) region is on the other hand closer to the Gobi and is more integral to the "West of the Huanghe" region of China. |
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Post by Subu'atai on Jan 22, 2010 17:32:54 GMT 3
This theory is not upheld by Han Chinese. And there is a dispute about the real origins of the founders of Tang dynasty, particularly, Taizong. Taizong was partly Xianbi and, apparently, he was very familiar with Turkic custorms and very respected by Turks. There is a theory that Taizong belong to a special ethnic group called Tabgach. Tabgach are believed to be steppe people, culturally influenced by China. However, Han Chinese nationalists discard this theory and try to prove that Taizong was just a typical 100% ethnic Han Chinese emperor. Han Chinese nationalists even tried to claim Chingghis Khaan as Chinese not Mongol just because he was born in Tsahar Mongolia (now still P.R.C. occupied terrority). No one in their right mind would believe their BS. |
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Nothing different from the one you posted before 
). So, I do think that Tabgachs were a separate ethnicity a kind of transition between the Steppan world and a Chinese cultural universe. At minimum they were a kind of "Chinese Cossacks" if one can say so.
