Irk Bitig

Lore & Background

The title 'Irk Bitig' (Book of Omens) appears at the bottom of the last page of the main text (folio 55b), but the author is not named. The colophon states it was written on the 15th day of the second month of the year of the tiger at the Taygüntan (Chinese: 大雲堂) Manichaean monastery by an anonymous monk for his 'elder brother', General İtaçuk (Saŋun İtaçuk). The Library Cave was sealed in the early 11th century, so the year of the tiger is thought to be in the 9th or 10th centuries. Louis Bazin suggests 930 or 942; Gerard Clauson and Talat Tekin date it to the 9th century (e.g., 810, 822, 834, 846, 858, 870, 882, or 894).

Reader's Guide

The Irk Bitig is significant as the only complete manuscript in the Old Turkic script, providing a unique window into the language, mythology, and divination practices of early Turkic peoples. Its 65 omens, each headed by groups of one to four red circles (thought to represent dice pips), offer short narratives about nomadic life, featuring animals (domestic and wild), the Sky God Tengri, and the Khan. The omens are classified as good, very good, bad, or very bad. The text exhibits poetic features such as parallelism, alliteration, and rhyme, despite lacking a fixed metre. Linguistically, it shows orthographic peculiarities (e.g., front vowel forms of s and n in back-vowel contexts) and unique signs (for 'ot' and syllabic 'up'). Transcription errors suggest it is a copy of an earlier text, probably in Old Uyghur script. The work is a key source for early Turkic mythology and the Manichaean context of the monastery where it was copied.

Did You Know?

• The Irk Bitig is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script.
• The manuscript contains 65 omens, but there are 64 possible combinations of three groups of one to four pips; some omens are missing or duplicated.
• The colophon states it was written at a Manichaean monastery called Taygüntan (Chinese: 大雲堂).
• The text uses two signs (𐱇 for 'ot' and 𐰰 for syllabic 'up') not attested in other manuscript texts or inscriptions.