208 wilkens
Formerly it was assumed that the Uyghur Buddhists celebrated a New Year’s
festival, which had Iranian (i.e. pre-Buddhist) roots, but this hypothesis was
based on an incorrect interpretation of the term yaŋı kün (‘festival, feast,
wonder’).88
2.3.2 Uyghur Buddhist Art (Sogdian Influence)
One field which, in my opinion, should be further explored, is the impact of
Sogdian Buddhism on Uyghur Buddhism in the field of art. Even before the rise
of the East Uyghur Empire, Sogdian influence on Uyghur architecture can be
surmised as far as the archaeological complex of Khukh Ordung in the Khangai
mountains in Mongolia (ca. 650)89 is concerned and it is conceivable that
Sogdians contributed to the construction of Karabalgasun (OU Ordo Balık),90
the capital of the East Uyghur Empire. That the Sogdians and Chinese built
Baybalık at the Selenga for the Uyghurs, as is often stated,91 is not sufficiently
proven because line 5 (West) in the Šine Usu Inscription in runiform characters
(OU sugdak tavgačka säläŋädä bay balık yapıtı bertdim) is best understood as
“I [i.e. the Uyghur Kagan] had Bay Balık built at the Selenga for the benefit of
the Sogdians and Chinese”.92
Uyghur Manichaean art is closely related to Sogdian Manichaean Art, a con-
siderable part of the Manichaean community in the Turfan region being surely
bilingual (Sogdian and Old Uyghur). Thus it is almost impossible to tell, judg-
88 Hans-Joachim Klimkeit proposed this hypothesis. See on this problem Wilkens, Jens, “Der
‘Neutag’ und die Maitrisimit: Probleme der zentralasiatischen Religionsgeschichte,” in Die
Erforschung des Tocharischen und die alttürkische Maitrisimit: Symposium anlässlich des
- Jahrestages der Entzifferung des Tocharischen, Berlin, 3. und 4. April, ed. Yukiyo Kasai,
Abdurishid Yakup and Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 375–410.
References to Klimkeit’s works on p. 377, footnote 8.
89 See Kolbas, Judith G., “Khukh Ordung, A Uighur Palace Complex of the Seventh Century,”
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 15.3, 3rd series (2005): 303–327.
90 Kolbas, “Khukh Ordung,” 307. The presence of Sogdians in the East Uyghur Empire is
discussed in Stark, Sören, Die Alttürkenzeit in Mittel- und Zentralasien: Archäologische und
historische Studien (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2008), 310–314.
91 Cf., for instance, Haneda, Akira, “Introduction,” Acta Asiatica 34 (1978): 9 and Zieme, Peter,
“Die Uiguren und ihre Beziehungen zu China,” Central Asiatic Journal 17 (1973): 289.
92 This interpretation is given in the new edition in Moriyasu, Takao 森安孝夫 and Kōsetsu
Suzuki 宏節鈴木, Shigeo Saito 茂雄齊藤, Takeshi Tamura 健田村, Bai Yudong 白玉
冬, “Sine Usu hibun yakuchū シネウス碑文訳注 [Šine-Usu from the Uighur Period
in Mongolia: Revised Text, Translation and Commentaries],” 内陸アジア言語の研
究 Nairiku ajia gengo no kenkyū [Studies on the Inner Asian Languages] 24 (2009): 31, as
well. Cf. also the Turkish translation in Mert, Osman, Ötüken Dönemi Yazıtlarından Tes—
Tariat—Şine Us [Inscriptions from the Ötüken Period: Tes, Tariat, and Šine Usu] (Ankara:
Belen Yayıncılık Matbaacılık, 2009), 262.