Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Milli Folklor, cilt.17, sa.130, ss.5-20, 2021 (AHCI)
© 2021, Milli Folklor Dergisi. All rights reserved.The Orkhon Inscriptions, one of the oldest written texts of Turkish history, contain important information about Turkish culture of thought and bear a structure which enables philosophical interpretation and evaluation. Of the philosophically significant topics of this structure, the leading one is that of the virtues that khagan does or should possess as the ideal ruler. Within this framework, it is possible to make an evaluation, on the basis of the expressions occurring in the inscriptions, about khagan’s virtues as an indicator of the ethics-politics relation in pre-Islamic Turkish political philosophy. Since virtue is essentially a concept of moral philosophy (ethics), and the concept of being a khagan is naturally considered within the framework of political philosophy as it signifies the idea of being a ruler, any philosophical assessment or justification to be made concerning the virtues of the khagan must naturally take into consideration the relation between ethics and politics. Making a philosophical evaluation of such a subject obliges one to consider the thoughts of Plato, who is known in the literature to be the first great system philosopher and to have originally framed the mentioned conception in the history of philosophy. Because Plato's thoughts about virtue, and about virtue’s being a quality of the state and particularly of the ruler, provide us with a solid philosophical basis. Therefore, it would be possible to reveal what virtues the ideal khagan portrait drawn in the Orkhon Inscriptions is characterized by and how the relation between ethics and politics was thought in pre-Islamic Turkish political philosophy. In this context, this study aims to philosophically evaluate the virtues of the khagan in the Orkhon Inscriptions with continual references to Plato. This is done by analyzing the relevant expressions that occur in the translations of Orkhon Inscriptions into Turkish from the viewpoint of the subject matter of the study. Expressions about the subject matter are interpreted and then philosophical evaluations are made based on the similarities and differences by referring to Plato's thoughts. At some points, reflections by some other philosophers are occasionally consulted to con-solidate the basis. Thus, the aim is to show how the khagan could realize a virtuous state governance in the ideal sense and how the state could maintain its existence under good conditions in the Orkhon Inscriptions. In the study, it is observed that there are certain virtues such as wisdom, bravery, altruism and loyalty to custom which are apt to be attributed to the khagan in the Inscriptions, and the philosophical evaluations of these virtues are made with references to Plato. It is concluded that the virtues of the khagan as qualities which could be observed concretely or which reveal themselves in practical life give information about how khagan is to have a good character structure, and thus the virtues that describe a good khagan also form the basis of a good state order. Accordingly, it is observed in the Orkhon Inscriptions that ethics and politics are tightly connected by an un-breakable bond. It is concluded that the Orkhon Inscriptions can be characterized within the particular context of pre-Islamic Turkish political philosophy as an original masterpiece containing thoughts expressed firsthand which cover both theory and practice together, with an emphasis on the practical.