the ‘outside’ other 47
Turkic own ethos, which was familiar and accepted as valuable and
respectful.
Tonyuquq’s warnings mentioned above are indirect evidence for the
intensifi ed Chinese infl uence in the Turkic khaganate aft er the begin-
ning of the eighth century. It was not a coincidence that signs of the
Chinese otherness, such as the tortoise and the dragon, were allowed
in the Turkic sacred circle, i.e. in the memorial temple assemblages
of Kül-tegin (ca. 732 A.D.) and Bilgä khagan (ca. 735 A.D.).^108 Th e
Turks, of course, accepted and interpreted these signs through a dif-
ferent point of view: the dragon—as a symbol of the khagan’s heavenly
power (i.e., it marks ‘up’ in the cosmogram), and the tortoise—as a
symbol of stability, eternity, and invariability of the world as well as
long life (it marks ‘down’ in the cosmogram). If V. Voitov is right,^109
we can ‘read’ in them not only Chinese infl uence, but the zoo-code of
the Turkic cosmographic scheme as well (upper, middle, underground
world—dragon, rams, lions and tortoise, respectively). Th ese were the
animals depicted on the sculptures in a number of memorial assem-
blages of Turkic and Uighur khagans.
Th e dragon was known for a long time in the steppes as the zoo-
code of Heaven and the power of the supreme master. It also gave
the names of several Xiongnu towns: “City of Dragon”, “Temple of
Dragon”, “Stopping place of Dragon”, etc. Th e summer residence of
the northern Xiongnu was named Lun-chen—“City of Emperor=City
of Dragon”.^110 Th ere is a certain doubt, of course, whether these names
were given following the Chinese pattern, meaning names that did not
correspond to the real names used by the Xiongnu. Th e dragon images
were typical for the Xiongnu banners as well.^111
Although the spiritual tendencies of Chinese civilization were alien in
many respects for the Turkic people,^112 Bilgä khagan willingly welcomed
of traditional behavior there, its emperors preferred to stay isolated behind the heavy
walls of the palaces. Li Shi-min even dared to propose to the Turkic khagan He-li a
personal combat, one on one, a quality which the Turks could not leave unnoticed
since such a thing was quite a rare decision amongst the Chinese sovereigns—for this
see, Barfi eld 1989, 143–144.
(^108) For these complexes there exist a number of works. Details see in, Voitov
1996.
(^109) Voitov 1996, 75, 97–99 and ill. 60. Especially for the tortoise see, Voitov 1996,
101–103. Also see, Kliashtornyi 1980, 487; Melan’in 2001, 12–16; Reshetov 1996,
142–163. 110
Tivanenko 1994, 35, 38–40.
(^111) Yatsenko 2000, 90.
(^112) Voitov 1996, 78.