Free Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia From the Bronze Age to the Present by Christopher I. Beckwith Page B

Tibetan Chronicle
refers to the same kind of dual rulership under Khri Srong Rtsan’s father, and the same situation appears to have obtained again later in the early eighth century, when the T’ang treaty princess Chin-ch’eng kung-chu was evidently intended for the ruler now known only as
btsanpo gcen lha
‘the emperor, the elder brother Lha’; but, in any case, she was clearly not intended for Khri Lde Gtsug Brtsan (’Mes Ag-tshoms’), because negotiations for her had begun long before he was a possible candidate; see Beckwith (1993: 69–70). In view of the widespread practice of dual kingship elsewhere in Central Eurasia, this topic deserves further investigation.
    70. The adoption of the Latin title
imperator
‘emperor’ by the Franks on Christmas Day in 800 would seem to be the real source of their annoyance with the pope that comes through in Frankish historical sources. The Franks already had two distinctive terms of their own for their empire’s supreme ruler, Latin
rex
and the Frankish equivalent of English
king.
Both were clearly distinguished from the neighboring Byzantine and Arab imperial titles, while by Charlemagne’s time the title
imperator
was no longer exclusively “imperial.” The ruler of the smaller realm of the Avars retained the title
kaghan
‘emperor’ from their earlier history in the Eastern Steppe, but their state was conquered by Charlemagne’s armies in 791.
    71. The Türk royal clan is named ‘AArsilas in Menander (Blockley 1985: 172–173). In Chinese sources the name is given as, read A-shih-na in Mandarin, from a Middle Chinese dialect pronunciation *Asinas evidently representing a foreign *Aršinas ~ *Aršilas. The final *s, which became the “departing tone” in standard Middle Chinese, is known from other early transcriptions to have existed into the early Middle Chinese period (Pulleyblank 1984); the
n
of the modern Chinese pronunciation was pronounced as
n
,
l,
or
d
in the same period. Greek script does not have these particular ambiguities, but is instead ambiguous about
s
and
ś,
which are distinguished by the Chinese transcription. The Chinese transcription and Menander’s Greek transcription thus agree very well; the underlying form was *Aršilas. Though the etymology of the name remains unknown, it cannot be connected, as some would wish (see endnote 72 ), with the Old Turkic epithet
kök
‘sky-blue’ in the inscriptions, which surely refers to the blue sky: Heaven, abode of the god of Heaven, Tängri, from whom the Türk rulers claimed to be descended. The inscriptions say (translation by Sinor 1990a: 297), “When high above the blue sky and down below the brown earth had been created, betwixt the two were created the sons of men.” The sky god, Tängri, and the earth goddess, Umay, are clearly what the writers had in mind. It is thus probable that
Kök Türk
means ‘the Heavenly Blue Turks’, as has long been believed by scholars. Although de la Vaissière (2007: 199–200) claims “on sait que le nom du clan royal turc est transcript en sogdien
‘
š
n’s
… c’est-a-dire très exactement Ashinās,” no such form actually occurs in the two inscriptions in which it has been said to occur, as shown in Beckwith (2005b). He ignores the Greek transcription and most of my discussion of the name of the royal clan of the Turks in an appendix entitled “On the Royal Clan of the Turks” (Beckwith 1987a/1993: 206–208), saying only, “Ce n’est pas un titre—
pace
Beckwith—mais un nom de clan,” the latter evidently a reference to a Tokharian title I give there, suggesting it is “perhaps the source” of the Turkic clan name.
    72. Klyashtornyi (1994: 445–448) and others have argued that the name is Khotanese āṣṣeina ‘blue’ (cf. Rastorgueva and Edel’man 2000, I: 285) or Tokharian
â
ś
na,
and corresponds to Old Turkic
kök
‘blue’, which has traditionally been thought to be used as an epithet in the name
Kök Türk
‘the Blue