Old Uigur Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

A written document sent by a person to another person for communication is called a letter, and also a written document that is artistic, fancy and prose or verse in classical literature with the same principles is called a literary letter. In addition to being a communication tool, the letter is a language data that conveys the past to the present in terms of its form and spelling qualities, and is a literary document that has gained an identity according to the style of its author. The letter is seen as a literary genre in the literature of almost every nation in the world. It is classified according to criteria such as language quality, spelling and style, and evaluated in scientific methods and techniques of linguistics in various groups. According to our historical information, although it is known that the Turks used the letter type during the Huns and Köktürks, the first letter samples that were found in the Turkish written language are the letters that remained from the Manichaean and Buddhist (and also, from a small number of Christians) Old Uighur Turks, that were written in the Old Turkish period (7th-13th centuries) and usually partially preserved. The fragment mentioned, read and interpreted in this study is preserved in the Turfan Collection of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften as Ch/U 7426 (T II T 1353). This fragment was first published by P. Zieme in 1995. Finally, it was discussed in T. Moriyasu’s Corpus, which brought together Old Uighur private letters in 2019. This example of the letter, written in cursive style by Old Uighur letters, on the back of a dark yellow paper cut from the Chinese block print, and has important data on the icon culture in Buddhist Turks, firstly begins with the name of the recipient. The letter then specifies the sender’s name, the address / location of the sender, the greeting, and finally the purpose or request. In this letter, the sender addresses another second person and asks him a question. The letter in question is interrupted with the phrase ‘yänä sözüm’, possibly to indicate a new request. It is understood that the original purpose of this letter of the sender is to ask for ‘six rite (tapıg) icons (or objects)’ from the receiver. These ‘six rite (tapıg) icons (or objects)’ are; 1) Vajravidāraṇa statue, 2) Vajrapāṇi model, 3) Vajrapāṇi statue, 4) Māriči figure, 5) bell and 6) vajra. The sender asks the aforementioned person, Sävinč Kaya, why he still has not sent ‘munčuk ~ mončuk’ (jewel or a Buddhist rosary) to him, if he had promised before. This letter indicates that, in terms of content, the Turks had an iconic culture based on doctrine and as a requirement of this doctrine, in which they believed in the Uighur period, when their faith in Buddhism was strong. Keywords: Turkish History, Old Uighurs, Buddhism, Turfan, letter.