In this article, how the currently known myth regarding the foundation of the Turk (突厥) state was written, and what are the characteristics inside the story and the composition of the text, will be examined, as these issues are important in unders...
In this article, how the currently known myth regarding the foundation of the Turk (突厥) state was written, and what are the characteristics inside the story and the composition of the text, will be examined, as these issues are important in understanding how the Turk tribes were formed and how things unfolded during the early days of their history. By conducting examination over such details, it is my intention to systematically reexamine previous studies, and provide certain premises that would be required in restructuring the myths. The myths regarding the foundation of the Turk state can be found in various texts such as Zhoushu (周書), Suishu (隋書), Beishi (北史), Tongdian (通典), Youyang zazu (酉陽雜俎). Aside from Youyang zazu in the category of (D), which features a different kind of story, story types of categories (A), (B), (C), due to circumstances of the time, appear in the format of (A)+(B) and (C)·(A-1) in Zhoushu and Suishu, and appear in the format of (a)·(c)·(b) and (c-1)·(a-1)·(b-1) in Beishi and Tongdian. This kind of difference in appearance inside texts shows us that the Chinese population`s view of the Turk which started to show up in the ending days of Northern Dynasties (北朝) was being more detailed as time went on, and accordingly the persons in charge of writing historical texts were inducing more and more value-oriented views regarding the validity of the alleged facts, into the texts. Also, in terms of characteristics, we can say that stories in the (A), (B), (D) categories feature more of a storytelling attitude, while stories in the (C) category feature a rather fact-suggesting attitude. So, in restructuring the myths, we can follow the passage of time, and structure the story accordingly, in the order of (B)→(A)→(C). Yet, in order to describe the early history of the Turks, we should employ the fashion featured in (C) which is supposedly closer to the facts, and describe the moving of the Ashinashi (阿史那氏), their rehabilitation and their developments, and based upon categories (B) and (A) which are more fictitious we should start with employing the wolf (狼) motif and trace how the foundation of the Turk state was legitimatized in historical and genealogical terms.