Chigils

The Chigil (Chihil, and also Jigil, Djikil, Chiyal) were a Turkic tribe known from the 7th century CE as living around Issyk Kul lake area. They were considered to be descended from two of the "Six Chuy tribes" of the Chuban, the Chuyue and Chumi. They are known to have been speakers of the Oghuz group of the Turkic languages.

Etymology

Sinologist Yu. A. Zuev suggests an etymology of the name Chigil from the Chinese transcriptions of the ethnonyms Chigil (Ch. 處月 Chuyue "abode of the Moon [god]") and Chumul (Ch. 處密(or 蜜) Chumi "abode of the Sun [god]"). However, he notes that neither Turkic-Buddhist texts, nor the Turkic-Manichaean literature and other sources containing information about Turkic Manichaeism, do not give a genealogical meaning in reference to the invocation of the Sun and Moon (Turk. kün ay).^[1][2]

History

The first reference to the Chigils comes from the "History of the Sui dynasty" (581–680, Chji-i < tšįək-iət < chigil).^[3]

According to medieval writers, the city of Chigil was at "a distance of a human voice" from Taraz.^[4][5] An 11th-century story by Mahmud Kashgari places the events in the time of the Zu-l-Karnein ("the "Bihorn", Alexander the Great) 4th century BCE:

When the armies of Zu-l-Karnein reached Talas in the Manichean country Argu, a heavy rainstorm formed thick mud. The road became impassable, and angry Zu-l-Karnein exclaimed in Persian: "In chi gil ast?!" – "What is this mud?! We cannot get out of it!" He ordered a building be erected on the spot called Chigil. Turks in the area were called Chigils. Nomadic Turks, who adopted the Chigil type of [long] clothes were also called Chigils, from Djeyhun (Amu Darya) to the Chin (China).^[6] ... The nomad Chigil (as well as the Tukhsī) lived near the township of Quyās lying beyond Barsghān and watered by the two Keykān rivers flowing into the Ili^[7] ... Another group of the tribe lived in the township of Chigil, near Ṭarāz, and a third one in the villages of the same name near Kāshgar.

Kashghari^[8] says that the Oghuz Turks used to call "Chigil" all the Turks between the Oxus and Northern China.^[9]

The reigning clan of the Western Turkic Manichean Chigil tribe was the Shato, which also founded the state of Later Tang (923–936) in Northern China, and adopted the Chinese surname Li. Its founder, Li Keün, was from the Shato Dragon tribe.^[10] Among the Shato, the dragon cult was predominant. The annals noted that Shato prayers "followed the old tradition of the northern custom" near Thunder-mountain, at the Dragon Gate.^[11][12]

Sima Qian writes: "Shato is actually (or primarily) a Chüse tribe".^[13] The transcription Chüse reflects the Turkic jüz "hundred". The Chigils-Shato were Manichaeans, and "hundred" is not always a military team, but also a religious category yüz er "hundred monk men" as is stated, for example, on a number of the Manichaean Yenisei monuments of ancient Turkic writings. Thus yüz er, as opposed to otuz oglan or otuz er, is a category of dominating level.^[14]

The Chigils were prominent in the Kara-Khanid Khanate, where they formed the main body of the troops.^[15] The power in the Karakhanid state was divided between the nobility of two tribal groups, Chigils and Yagma, which in the 9th century formed the nucleus of the Karluk tribal union.

Chigils and Yagma, and also the Tuhsi, one of the Türgesh tribes, the remains of the Orkhon Turks, united in the Karluk tribal union, and the history of these tribes, at least since the 9th century, is indivisible.^[16] The Hudud al-'Ālam, compiled in 982–3 CE, describes the Chigils as members of the Karluk state, occupying the Zhetysu territories including regions around Issyk Kul to the north and east of the Karluks. They are described as possessing great riches and that their king "is one of themselves." It is also reported that "Some of them worship the Sun and the stars.".^[17] The Karluk Kaganate was divided into two parts, eastern and western, headed by their Kagans. The eastern Kagan was the senior Kagan, with his court in Kashgar and Balasagun (Buran fortress, near Tokmak in Kyrgyzstan). He was from the Chigil tribe and had the title Arslan Kara-Hakan. The western was the lesser Kagan, from the Yagma tribe, with the title Bogra Kara-Kagan and his court in Taraz, and later in Samarkand.^[18]

In the eleventh century the Chigils became independent. Kashgari writes that they consisted of three branches.^[19]

After the Mongol invasion of Turkestan, the Turks in northern Turkestan and in the Tien Shan region, among them the Chigils, Yagma, Karluks, Argu and Tuhsi, had to give up their territory to the eastern nomadic groups. They migrated to Transoxania and Kashgharia.^[20]

There are presently four villages in Turkey called Chigil, indicating that some Chigils migrated to Asia Minor after the Mongol invasion.^[21]

Religion

The Chigil were known for their religious dedication. The first depictions of the Chigils describe them as adherents of Manichaeism. Later sources describe the Chigils as Nestorian Christians. The Zhetysu area, a former Chigil territory, is rich with Christian and pre-Christian archaeological remains, and the Talas area is especially saturated with religious monuments and historical reports. the Gagauzes, a distinct Pontic Turkic tribe known for their steadfast adherence to Greek Orthodox Christianity, have a folk legend associating their descent from the Chigils.

In Manichaeism, the lion, mighty and ruthless king of animals, is a central image. This demonstrates an imported ideology; the lion is not native to Central Asia, and so it originally did not have symbolic significance for the population there. The building found by the archaeologists, without traces of economic activities, served as a chapel of the inhabitants depicted in long robes: the Chigils, whose symbol was a lion (Turk. Arslan, Bars).^[22]

The connection between Talas, Manichaeism and the Lion is recorded in the Turco-Manichean "Sacred book of two fundamentals" (Iki jïltïz nom), fragments of which were found in 1907 at Kara-Khoja in the Turpan oasis by Albert von Le Coq. The book was dedicated to the ruler (Beg) of the Chigil-Arslan tribes, named Il-Tirgüg, Ap-Burguchan, Alp-Tarhan [Henning, 1977, p. 552]. It was completed in Argu-Talas city (Altun Argu Talas). A postscript in the manuscript noted an Arslan Mengü that used the book.^[23] Talas had four Manichean cloisters: in the Chigil-balyk, Kashu, Ordu-kent and Yigyan-kent.^[24]

In the middle of the 7th century, Chigils, Chumuls and Karluks were united by the Western Turkic yabgu Aru in his anti-Tang uprising. The yabgu's name, Aru, is identical with the Turkic-Manichean arïg (like arïg dïntar "pure priest").^[25]

The dynastic strife between competing tribes of the Tuhsi and Ases in the Türgesh Kaganate also had religious significance. The new dynasty was established by Sakal of the Tuhs tribe, who was challenged by the leader of the As tribe Sülük, who took over the Kagan's throne in 716. After Sülük's death, his son Tuhsan was raised to Kaganship in Suyab, and the "Tuhsi Sovereign" Sogdo-Türgesh coin was minted in his honor. In 738, when Türgesh Tuhsan was enthroned, the Byzantine ambassador Valentine came to the Tuhsan court. In the 11th century, the Tuhsi tribe professed Manichaeism and were called Tuhsi-Chigil, i.e. "Tuhsi-Manicheans".^[26][27]

Toponymic traces

Many settlements recorded in medieval sources have names derived from the ethnonym Chigil, such as Chigilkant and Chigil-balyk in Xinjiang, and Chigil in the Zhetysu area:^[28] During the Middle Ages, a city, Yar, is mentioned as located on the southern bank of lake Issyk-kul. This city is the capital of the leader of the Djikil (i.e. Chigil) tribe.^[29] The city retained its name in the form Chal till present. The various forms of this toponym (Shiyan, Shal, Chal) come from the Turkic ethnonym Chiyal (i.e. Chigil).^[30] The ethnotoponym Chigil is formed with an affix -il (Turk. land, country).^[31]

References

• Prof. Yu. A. Zuev, Early Turks: Essays of history and ideology
• Chavannes, Édouard (1900), Documents sur les Tou-kiue (Turcs) occidentaux. Paris, Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient. Reprint: Taipei. Cheng Wen Publishing Co. 1969.
• Findley, Carter Vaughn, The Turks in World History. Oxford University Press, (2005). ISBN 0-19-516770-8; 0-19-517726-6 (pbk.)