Loan-Words in Tibetan 593 



valid for the Turkish epoch under the T'ang. According to the T'ang 

 Annals {Tan Su, Ch. 217 b, p. 8), the officials of the Kirgiz were divided 

 into six classes, the sixth being called tarkan. The other offices are 

 designated by purely Chinese names, and refer to civil and military 

 grades. Among the Kirgiz, therefore, tarkan denoted a high military 

 rank and function. 



The title has been traced by E. Chavannes and Sylvain Levi in 

 the Itinerary of Wu K'un (751-790). The Chinese author relates that 

 the kingdom of Ki-pin (Gandhara and territory adjoining in the west) 

 sent in 750, as envoy to the court of China, the great director Sa-po ta-kan 

 II tt h fr* (or T), anciently *Sat or Sar-pa dar-kan (cf. Journal 

 asiatique, 1895, II, p. 345). Chavannes and Levi have recognized a 

 Turkish dynasty in the then reigning house of Ki-pin, and have regarded 

 the title ta-kan also as Turkish, without, however, identifying it {ibid., 

 p. 379). In 1903 Chavannes noted the identity of the Chinese tran- 

 scription with Turkish tarkan (Documents sur les Tou-kiue occidentaux, 

 p. 239). The Chinese transcription *dar-kan does not allow us to pre- 

 suppose a Turkish model darkan; but the Old-Turkish form was indeed 

 tarkan, as is also confirmed by New Persian tarxan and Armenian 

 t'arxan (Hubschmann, Armen. Gram., p. 266). Tarsa, the Persian 

 designation of the Christians, is transcribed in Chinese by the same 

 character, ^ ^ ta-so, anciently *dar-sa. The complex phonetic phe- 

 nomenon which is here involved will be discussed by me in another 

 place. Wherever the Chinese mention the title, it regularly refers to 

 Turkish personages: thus the pilgrim Huan Tsan is accompanied by an 

 officer Mo-tu tarkan, assigned to him by the Turkish Kagan (Watters, 

 On Yuan Chwang's Travels, Vol. I, pp. 75, 77); for examples in the 

 Chinese Annals, see Hirth, I.e. 



In the Vita S. Clementis (XVI), a Bori-tarkanos appears as com- 

 mander of Belgrad; this may be Turkish biiri ("wolf"). Among the 

 Bulgars, Bulias tarkanos (Old Turkish boila tarkan) was one of the 

 titles of the oldest two princes (cf. Marquart, I.e., pp. 41, 42). As a 

 Hunnic title, tarxan occurs in the Armenian History of Albania by Moses 

 Kalankatvaci (Hubschmann, I.e., p. 516). The word has survived in 

 the name of the Russian city Astrakhan, originally Haj or Hajji Tar- 

 khan, as it was still called by Ibn Batuta (ed. Defremery, Vol. II, 

 pp. 410, 458), who adds that tarkhan among the Turks designates a 

 place exempt from any taxation. Pegoletti calls the city Gintarchan 

 (Yule, Cathay, Vol. Ill, p. 146). Our word does not occur in Marco 

 Polo, as supposed by H. Beveridge, nor do the Mongols know it in the 

 form tarkan, but they have only darkan or darxan (Kovalevski, 

 p. 1676), which has two different meanings,— "workman, artist," and 



