116 chapter two
notion can be found as such in the Orkhon inscriptions. This is made
clear in the monument placed in honor of Tonyuquq: “Our enemies
have surrounded us as predatory birds.. .”.^115 They are even more clear
in the inscription cut in honor of Bilge khagan: “When I sat on the
throne I used to express extremely strong power over the peoples from
the four sides” (“in the four angles”),^116 and also in the so-called Ongin
stone: “Our ancestor Bumin khagan put in order, subordinated, over-
whelmed, defeated the four corners”.^117
Similar formulae can be found also in the Big inscription of Kül-
tegin: “There were many enemies on the four sides. Going to war, all
the people from the four sides were subdued, all were forced to make
peace”.^118
The Uighur version of the world in the elite’s eyes was the same, as
the Uighur khaganate copied the Turkic khaganates in many respects.
The Terkhin inscription ascertains such a statement with the words
cut on its western side:
The peoples who live eastwards towards the sunrise and the peoples who
live westwards towards the moonrise, all the people living in the four
parts [of the world] serve me.^119Such notions ascertain the idea that in the Middle Ages there were
mythological and ideological aspects of understanding the space and
often it was considered rather as concentric but not linear; more-
over, it was value-burdened.^120 It is of basic importance in naming all
the elements of the space and it also relates to the fact that among
the Turkic-speaking tribes the movement traditionally starts from the
1996, 73–74, points out the well-known ancient notion of men and people to think of
themselves as being in the ‘center’ of the world, while the others were situated on the
four “angles (of the world)”; this notion was quite characteristic to the Turks as well.
Being in the center, which for the Turks and Uighurs meant the sacred mountain of
Otüken, the khagans were able to pacify the world around them, a notion that can be
found almost everywhere in the Turkic stone inscriptions.
(^115) Stebleva 1965, 125. Among enemies are mentioned Tabgach (from the right, i.e.
South), Qitans (straight, i.e. East), Oghuz (to the left, i.e. North), and Qïrghïz (North);
Stebleva 1976, 40–42. 116
Stebleva 1965, 133.
(^117) Stebleva 1965, 134.
(^118) Stebleva 1965, 111; also see p. 117: “Peoples to the four directions—all of them I
did compel to peace [full treaties], and made [them] not alien”. Stebleva 1976, 16. 119
Tekin 1982, 47, 50.
(^120) About this see the interesting volume of collected articles titled “Medieval Fron-
tiers: Concepts and Parctices”. Ed. by D. Abulafia and N. Berend, ‘Ashgate’ [Vari-
orum], 2002, and especially the essay written by R. Ellenblum.