244 wilkens
establish the reading udan265 for the word which has been heretofore only
transliterated and translate the whole phrase as follows: “T(ä)ŋrikän Takın Kız
T(ä)ŋrim, the lotus flower of Bokok origin, the udumbara blossom266 of the
udan clan”.267
The epithet ‘like a lotus flower’ (OU pundarik čäčäkṭäg) can be used with ref-
erence to a prince as well, as attested in the colophon of the laywoman Šaraki:
the prince of Yan (燕) who is like the lotus flower268
A partly damaged occurrence of the epithet is ‘[.. .] Turčısman Aka who is pure
and handsome like the lotus flower’269
2.6.2.3 Like a Cintāmaṇi Jewel 270
This epithet is attested in an introduction to a cycle of stories, where the ruler
is even compared to the Buddha:
I, Tükätmiš Totok, together with (my wife) Alkatmıš, [now] kneel down
before the majesty of the Buddha-like cakravartin-king2 who is just like
the priceless cintāmaṇi-jewel271
265 Further attestations of the udan clan in Old Uyghur manuscripts are now discussed in
Zieme, Peter, “The West Uigur Kingdom: Views from Inside,” Horizons 5.1 (2014): 14–15.
Atwood, “The Uyghur Stone,” 329 mentions udan as an ‘epithet’ of Bokok.
266 The Chinese loan word lenhua (Chin. lianhua 蓮華) literally means ‘lotus’ as well, but the
udumbara is a fig tree the blossom of which is prised in Indian literature as something
marvelous and outstanding, on account of which I translate with ‘blossom’. Line 331 in
Shōgaito, Masahiro, “Drei zum Avalokiteśvara-sūtra passende Avadānas,” in Der türkische
Buddhismus in der japanischen Forschung, ed. Jens Peter Laut and Klaus Röhrborn
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988), 98, speaks of the “noble udumbara-blossom (lit. lotus)
of Maitreya Buddha” (OU töẓün maitre burhanlıg udumbar lenhua).
267 A very interesting interpretation is given in Clark, “Manichaeism,” 66. Clark concluded
that Bokok must be the name of a clan or a family and not the name of a ruler. He also
proposed that this clan is identical with the second of the Nine Oguz tribes called Buku
in Chinese sources and with the ethnonym bākū in the Staël-Holstein scroll in Khotanese.
Although this hypothesis is tempting, the newly restored epithet udan ugušnuŋ in the
manuscript U 971 clearly proves that Bokok is not the name of a clan.
268 (OU pundarik čäčäkṭäg yin wang taysı) Kasai, Kolophone, 57 [text no. 6.20(70)].
269 (OU [.. .] pundarik čäčäk täg arıg körklä turčısman aka, CI IV, 31–32) Balati, Liu, “Yiduhu
gaochang wang,” 68 (line 186), read körtlä, which does not alter the semantics;
270 This epithet is also attested in the Great Hymn to Mani with reference to Mani himself. Cf.
Clark, Larry V., “The Manichean Turkic Pothi-Book,” Altorientalische Forschungen 9 (1982):
line 251.
271 (OU ol antag törlüg bulunčsuz čintamani ärdini täg burhanlıg č(a)kr(a)a)rt elig han
kutıŋa: [amtı] m(ä)n tükätmiš totok. alkatmıš birlä [tiz]im(i)zni čöküṭip, DKPAMH/1