Kingdoms of Central Asia - Göktürks (Blue Turks)

Starting in the fourth century AD a general invasion of nomadic tribes began to overwhelm southern Central Asia and northern South Asia (a region which can be combined under the label of 'eastern Iran'). This wave of barbarian invasions is attributed to tribal confederations which originated on the Central Asian steppe to overwhelm longstanding Indo-Iranian populations (see feature link).

Claimed as being inner Asians, Turkic groups may in part be related to the Xiongnu, and can best be described as Turko-Mongolians (see map link, right, for more details about early Turks). The first fully-formed Turkic ethnic group was that of the 'Gök Türks' (or Göktürks). Semi-nomads who dwelt largely in Mongolia, they emerged into history in the early sixth century AD from obscure tribal origins.

The Chinese recorded more than one source for them during the sixth and seventh centuries but none provide entirely conclusive evidence. Even so, Chinese records are the best hope of pinning them down as they frequently mention various interactions with this steppe people.

As can be expected with such an obscure group in a region which was almost entirely outside the reach of contemporary writers, Chinese records of the Göktürks offer a mixed bag of options. They could have been a division of the Hsiung-nu (Xiongnu) who certainly were recorded by the Chinese, and who may have given rise to the Huns who later terrorised Europe and the Xionites who plagued eastern Iran.

While the Huns migrated west, possibly to escape population pressure on hunting grounds, the Göktürks clearly remained behind, perhaps supplying that very pressure on hunting grounds during their own rise. They could also have been the Turkified Xianbei who fled a massacre by the Northern Wei who ruled northern China in the fifth century.

A third option is that they were Turkified Indo-Europeans, likely making them at least partially Indo-Iranians, or perhaps Tocharians who had intermarried with proto-Turkic groups in the three-and-a-half millennia since their split from the main body of Indo-Europeans on the Pontic-Caspian steppe (see link, right, for a more detailed examination of the Tocharians).

Whatever their origins, these were the first nomads in Mongolia (or anywhere) to refer to themselves as Turks. It is believed that this name was for a dynastic ancestor called Türük, of the Ashina tribe (which can also be shown as Asen, Asena, Ashinas (in Islamic texts), or Açina). All of those names bear a marked Indo-Iranian influence.

Türük (and by extension his tribe) was believed to have descended from the combination of a child and the Kök Böri ('Blue Wolf'), hence 'Blue Turk'. The story surrounding this descent is a more sophisticated version of the same myth which was used by the Wusun people some centuries beforehand.

The word 'kök' (the earlier form) or 'gök' (seemingly a later, Anatolian Turkish form) means 'blue', but also 'sky' or, in a more abstract sense, 'heavens'. Such an early name for an illiterate people was quite naturally rendered in a variety of different ways by different writers across several centuries, including 'Kök Türük', 'Tourkh', 'Tr'wk', 'Tujue', Turk, and Türük. They all mean the same thing.

Curiously, perhaps, in The Turks in World History, Carter Vaughn Findley points out that the Ashina name probably originates from one of the Indo-Iranian languages of Central Asia. Edward Dawson confirms this with the observation that the 'As-' or 'Ash-' verb, meaning 'to be', as seen in Asha, is also present among Germanics. In this case, most uses of it were altered to 'is-', except in the word for the early Germanic gods, the Os or Aesir (see feature link, right, for more information).

The colour blue was used to identify the east - therefore 'gök' in Turkic - which provides a dual meaning for 'Göktürk', in that the 'Blue Turks' were also the 'Turks of the East'. Findley's observation is further supported by Peter Benjamin Golden and also by the Hungarian researcher, András Róna-Tas, who finds it highly plausible 'that we are dealing with a royal family and clan [which is] of Iranian origin, almost certainly Saka'.

If that origin provided anything more than simple cultural influences then this would mean that the Ashina core tribe was almost certainly of Indo-European origin. To balance this, Zhu Xueyuan suggests that Ashina derived from the Manchu word 'Aisin' and the early Wusun (Asin or Osin), whom he considers to have been a Tungusic people.

İstemi and Bumin were two Göktürk brothers (notably bearing non-Turkic names - a common occurrence with Göktürk rulers which reveals a level of heterogeneity amongst the early Turks). Defeating the ruling Rouran, they managed to unite all Turkish-speaking peoples within a confederation. The empire they created was almost immediately divided in two, east and west. Each division maintained its own line of descent, although the two divisions frequently interacted.

Far East Kingdoms

Central Asia

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