ANCIENT TURKIC YRK BITIG: “AT THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES”
ANCIENT TURKIC YRK BITIG: “AT THE CROSSROADS OF CULTURES”
Olga Elkan
Doctor of Arts, Associate Professor, Professor of the Department of Social Disciplines and Art History St. Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design,
Russia, St. Petersburg
Wan Dincheng
PhD student St. Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design,
Russia, St. Petersburg
In the 20th century, in the so-called “Cave of a Thousand Buddhas”, located in the north-east of the territory of modern China, an expedition led by the Hungarian archaeologist Aureal Stein discovered one of the most interesting Turkic-language literary monuments known today - “Yrk Bitig”. The name is usually translated from Turkic as the “Book of Omens” or the “Book of Fortunetelling”.
The exact period of the text appearance has not yet been established; some researchers attribute it presumably to the turn of the 8th - 9th centuries [1], others insist on a later origin, in the 10th century [3]. The problem with establishing the date of the text creation is connected, in particular, with the peculiarities of the eastern calendar: the author (or authors) indicated “the year of the Tiger” as the date of writing - however, as is already widely known, the “year of the Tiger” is repeated every twelve years, respectively, this author's indication does not give us sufficiently reliable guidelines.
“Among the works of ancient Turkic literature, the “Book of Fortunetelling” (or the “Fortunetelling Book”) occupies a very special place, since this work is the only complete text that has survived, written with runic characters on paper. It is quite lengthy - therefore, it is possible to judge its content and form with good reason - and due to fact that the manuscript is pretty well preserved, it has not lost the coherence of the presentation" [2].
The real scientific study of the ancient Turkic monument has just begun. For example, just recently the attention of scientists was also attracted by two small texts found together with Yrk Bitig. These are Chinese Buddhist texts for ritual recitation, or anthems; they are also written in Chinese - unlike the main text. One of them is added to the beginning of the Turkic “Book of Omens”, the other - to its end. “It looks like the first nine and the last three pages of the book have originally been blank; but later they were filled with inscriptions in Chinese. Moreover, the last three pages of the Turkic text, together with the margins of pages 1 and 101, have been covered with Chinese characters” [5, sec. 2]. Their study, as well as the analysis of the main monument, gives an incentive to new scientific hypotheses about the serious mutual influence of religious systems in the Chinese society of the studied period.
As some researchers have reasonably shown (for example, in the domestic scientific literature - I.V. Stebleva), substantively the literary text Yrk Bitig is a poetic text. We can see a variety of everyday sketches replacing each other, military paintings, scenes of hunting and/or animal life, religious performances (a woman drops a mirror into the water; a white horse fights; a crane descends into its nest; someone prays, etc.). Many of them end with the words: “this is good” or “this is bad” - and also, sometimes, “this is very good” or “this is very bad”; that is, prophesies are clearly divided into favorable or unfavorable, and even “very” favorable and “very” unfavorable. A very high metaphorical and symbolic load of these paintings can be noted. I.V. Stebleva traced in detail the dynamics of the development from the Turkic poetic works of the 6th-8th centuries, through Yrk Bitig, to later Buddhist poetic texts written in the Uighur script [2].
Yrk Bitig is also interesting as an example of the mutual influence of the cultural heritage of various ethnic groups in the region where it was found. The text was written down to be used by the Manichaean religious community; however, in addition to the “signs” of the Manichaean worldview, scientists find there traces of a clear influence of Buddhist and even Hindu ideas. “... the ancient Turkic “Book of Fortunetelling” contains textual confirmation of this phenomenon, and the general circle of its ideas shows the connections of the Manichaean confession not only with the pre-Shamanistic and shamanistic cults of the ancient Turks, but also with Buddhist religious and mythological ideas - connections that date back to more ancient times than the appearance of the “Book of Fortunetelling” [2].
It seems interesting to us to trace the cross-cultural influences on the text of Yrk Bitig in the context of the fortunetelling practice presented therein.
The text of Yrk Bitig consists of 58 handwritten sheets of paper glued together and containing 65 prophesies connected with various life situations. The prophesies represent short comments on 65 digit combinations recorded in the Orkhon-Yenisei runic script. These combinations are represented by several small circles preceding each prophesy.
Unfortunately, the only version of the text that has survived is in the British Museum. However, it can be assumed that there were others, in particular, with a different number of digit combinations. The fact is that four clusters of circles are used for combination (which, in fact, are called “yrk”, that is, “signs” or “omens”): there can be 1 to 4 such circles, and 3 clusters for every prophecy. The elementary combinatorics shows that the number of all possible variations equals 64, while in the existing text there are 65 of them. Of course, it is most logical to assume a copyist’s error, especially since other errors have already been noted: “three combinations occur twice, one occurs three times, and three possible combinations are completely absent” [3].
The number 64 (combinations) in the context of Asian fortunetelling literature immediately evokes associations with the most famous mantic monument created in Asia - with the ancient Chinese “I Ching”, or the “Book of Changes”. It should, however, be borne in mind that in terms of the parameter of combinatorial foundations of fortunetelling systems these two systems demonstrate a rather strong difference.
Let's recall that the 64 signs of “I Ching” are 64 "hexagrams", that is, six-digit figures generated by using 6 lines (“xiao”). Each of which represents either a continuous (“Yang”) or an interrupted (“Yin”) line, that is, the combinations are based on a binary opposition.
At the same time, those 64 signs that should have been presented in the “correct” (not distorted during correspondence) Yrk Bitig are three-digit and are generated not from two lines, but from circles, the number of which can be from 1 to 4. Consequently, their basis is not binary, but fourfold.
At the same time, in the world fortunetelling tradition (and above all, of course, in the Ancient East, where fortunetelling practices originated) there are artifacts in which the same combinatorial principles as in Yrk Bitig can be found. We find the closest analogues in ... the game of dice, namely in its most ancient variants. However, this should not set wondering. After all, the ancient game of dice represents the same “fortunetelling process”. What is marked with the words “random” today was considered as an indication of the divine powers to be unconditionally executed in ancient times.
Starting with one of the oldest forms of this game - the Akkadian “Royal Game of Ur”, the detailed rules of which have not reached us, but the tools have. This is a set of three four-sided dice, on each side of which a special sign was carved. Thus, if we assume that the fortunetelling process was limited to one throw of the dice each time, its combinatorics is completely similar to that in Yrk Bitig: a combination of three positions, each of which represents one of the four possible signs.
We see the same configuration in the ancient Indian game of dice. Of course, in ancient India there were various types of this game; the Indians even believe that it was invented in their country, and the god Shiva invented it. J. Schoflberger, noting the type of game played by the characters of the great Indian epic Mahabharata, claims that the result of each throw was always one of four (“krita”, “treta”, “dvapara” or “kali”: these four terms - at the same time also the names of "yuga", that is, historical periods in Indian mythology cyclically replacing each other).
“...according to sources, three dice were mainly used in the ritual game, each of which is marked with a sign: a pot, a disc and an elephant.... In fact, combinations of numbers do not have the same meaning: 421 is not equivalent to 124 or 214. Thus, there are 64 possible outcomes of the throw, each of which is called aya. I believe that each aya has its own special meaning for reading the future, as do the 64 figures of the I Ching… As for the value of the aya in the epic game, krita always seems to rank first, while kali ranks lowest” [4 ].
We note that the combinatorial principles in this case are more reminiscent of Yrk Bitig than I Ching. Just as in the ancient Indian dice game, the “questioning of the oracle” in the case of Yrk Bitig was most likely performed with the help of a set of three dice. This is already confirmed by ample evidence. So, today scientists believe that the “yrk” (signs) of the “Book of Prophecies” were determined by three throws of a dice, which was a short rectangular rod, with 1 to 4 circles on each side. It is reported that similar playing equipment was recently discovered in Khairabad-tepe, a place a few miles to the north of Termez in Uzbekistan, in a layer preceding the 3rd century AD. (The time is determined by the content of coins of the corresponding historical period found during the excavations) [5, sec. 5].
Currently, the Yrk Bitig monument has won the position of one of the most popular and desirable artifacts of the original unity of the Turkic-speaking peoples. It also continues the global tradition of fortunetelling texts and practices, such as the Chinese I Ching, Sumero-Akkadian and Indian versions of dice, etc.
References:
- Журакузиев Н. Древнетюркская космогоническая мифология на примере Ырк-битиг (Ïrq bitig) // Академик Э. Р. Тенишев и тюркский мир. - Казань: КФУ, 2012. - С. 54-57.
- Стеблева И.В. Концептуальная основа образов в древнетюркской «Книге гаданий» («Ырк битиг») // Семантика образа в литературах Востока: Сб. - М.: Восточная литература. РАН, 1998, — С. 72-86.
- Galambos I. The Bilingual Manuscript with the Irk Bitig: London, British Library, Or.8212/161 // Medieval Multilingual Manuscripts. Case Studies from Ireland to Japan / Ed. M. Clarke, M.N. Mhaonaigh // Series Studies in Manuscript Cultures, vol. 24. – Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022. – Р. 83-97.
- Schaufelberger G. Dice Game in Old India: from the essay of Heinrich Lüders Das Würfelspiel im alten Indien. Berlin, 1906 [Эл. источник] // URL: http://mahabharata-resources.org/ola/dice.game.pdf
- Tekin Т. Irk Bitig The Book of Omens. - Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1993. – 134 р.