From Taso to Erke’ün: The Transformation of East Syriac Christian Designations in China (Tang to Yuan Periods)

Abstract

The historical evolution of two designations for East Syriac Christians in China—taso (達娑, including its variants) and erke’ün (也里可溫)—from the Tang to the Yuan dynasty is examined. Analyses of historical records and Old Uighur Christian manuscripts reveal their usage patterns, referents, and historical development. Taso and its variants served as both self-referential and externally applied designations from West Asia to East Asia before and during the early Mongol–Yuan period. Erke’ün, initially an official title for East Syriac Church leaders under Mongol–Yuan rule, replaced Taso and expanded to denote Christians in general. This terminological shift reflects significant transformations in the community’s identity and institutional standing within China. The findings offer new perspectives on the transmission and adaptation of East Syriac Christianity in the Chinese context.

1. Introduction

As evidence of religious diffusion along the Silk Roads, the history of the Church of the East (the East Syriac Christianity, commonly referred to as Jingjiao 景教 in sources from the Tang dynasty) in China remains inextricably intertwined with linguistic contacts and ethnic interactions. Significantly, Chinese historical texts reveal multiple designations for this community: beyond traditional Sinicized labels such as Persian monks (波斯僧 Bosi seng) and Roman monks (Daqin seng 大秦僧), which derive from geographic origins, the non-Sinitic designations taso 達娑 (with the variants diexie 迭屑 and tielixue 帖里薛) and yelikewen 也里可溫1 encode hidden clues about cross-cultural identity construction. Tracing the etymological evolution and semantic shift of these two core terms not only illuminates the diachronic transformation of the East Syriac Christian communal identity in China but also sheds light on patterns of linguistic contact, discourses of power, and collective memory in religious transmission along the Silk Roads.

Since the early 20th century, scholarly efforts have systematically investigated the etymology and semantics of these two non-Sinitic terms. The Persian etymology of the term taso and its variants is well-established. Mark Dickens, through an exhaustive examination of Chinese and Western sources, provides a comprehensive and meticulous study of the term’s origin, semantic evolution, and scope of use (Dickens 2020, pp. 9–41). Li Tang delineates the chronological span of its usage during the Yuan dynasty (L. Tang 2011, pp. 52–53). Peter Zieme shifts our focus to the Old Uighur Christian manuscripts and shows that, in the famed Arabic manual Muqaddimat al–adab, the term “Christian scholar” is rendered in Mongolian as erkeüdin dašman and in Old Turkic as terseler danišmand, thus revealing a marked correspondence between the two (Zieme 2015, pp. 17–18).2

Attention to the erke’ün community first emerged in Yuan Chen’s pioneering study of the term (Chen 1980, pp. 1–56). Building on this foundation, Xiaoping Yin conducted a systematic analysis of all extant Chinese references to yelikewen, examining its conceptual history, spatiotemporal distribution, modes of transmission, Sinicization, and subsequent trajectory (Yin 2009, pp. 66–80; 2012).

The etymology of erke’ün has long been debated. The prevailing hypothesis holds a Greek origin, although Paul Pelliot expressed reservations without advancing a superior alternative (Pelliot 1959, p. 49). James Hamilton and Ruji Niu, however, defended the Greek derivation, arguing convincingly that αρχιγον (archēgon, the accusative of ἀρχηγός) is the source, rather than the more widely cited αρχιων (archon) (Hamilton and Niu 1994, pp. 159–60).

L. Tang (2011, pp. 53–57) and Peter Zieme (2015, pp. 17–18) both acknowledge a linguistic link between the Old Uighur and Mongolian forms of the term but concur that the direction of influence remains uncertain. Finally, Xiaofeng Tang hypothesizes that it was only after Turkicized Mongol tribes entered the ruling elite that erke’ün crystallized into a fixed confessional label (X. Tang 2015, pp. 30–39).3

In summary, extant research on these two loanword designations has concentrated primarily on their etymology and semantics. Although some scholars have conducted systematic religious analyses, the detailed historical trajectories of these terms and the dynamic evolution of the East Syriac community in China have yet to be fully examined. This study brings together Chinese historiographic sources and Old Uighur Christian manuscripts to reassess these two terms from a historical perspective, to investigate why erke’ün supplanted taso, and to offer additional viewpoints for advancing the etymological inquiry into erke’ün.

2. Taso 達娑, Diexie 迭屑, and Tielixue 帖里薛

2.1. The Sogdian Roots and Transmission of Taso 達娑

The Middle Persian tarsāg or trs’g (the New Persian tarsā)4, meaning God-fearer or one who trembles (in reverence), has been used to designate Christians5 since the Sasanian period, particularly members of the Church of the East, which established its episcopal seat in the Sasanian capital and conducted missionary activities mainly within the Persian Empire (Hage 2007, pp. 271–78). Thus, this expression specifically refers to East Syriac Christians.

The Stele of East Syriac Church in Xi’anfu 大秦景教流行中國碑, which was erected in 781 CE and is now housed in the Xi’an’s Beilin-Museum, contains the following sentences: “Among the purest and most self-denying Ta-so of the Lord such excellent examples were never heard of, but we see this very man amongst the white-robed scholars of the Luminous Region 清潔達娑，未聞斯美；白衣景士，今見其人”. Since the early 20th century, scholars have consistently interpreted taso as a phonetic transcription of tarsāg (Christians) (Saeki 1951, p. 64; Moule 2011, p. 45).6 This confirms that East Syriac Christians in Chang’an, the capital city of Tang-era China, used taso as a self-appellation, equivalent to the Chinese term jingshi (景士, East Syriac Christian scholars). The East Syriac community in China was clearly familiar with this loanword. Indeed, this self-identified taso group constituted precisely what external observers termed “Persian monks”. East Syriac communities in the Zhongyuan Region (lit. Central Plains of China 中原) during the Tang dynasty comprised largely Sinicized Persians7 and Sogdians8. The term Taso not only reflected the identity of East Syriac Christians but also fostered a unified religious belonging among ethnically diverse adherents.

Paul Pelliot once emphasized the necessity of interpreting the two toponyms—Khumdan (Chang’an 长安) and Sarag (Luoyang 洛阳)—appearing in the Syriac transcription of the Xi’an Stele. He also noted that the Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta (ca. 582–620), in his Greek writings, identified Khumdan as Chang’an, and referenced a Sanskrit–Chinese glossary from the Tang dynasty, the fanyu qianziwen 梵語千字文 (Pelliot 1995, trans. Feng, pp. 34–35)9. Pelliot’s inquiry was of seminal importance, as it effectively liberated scholarship from the entrenched misconception that Khumdan and Sarag were necessarily Syriac terms. The Japanese scholar Tokio Takata exemplified the widespread usage of the term khumdan across Greek, Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Sanskrit, and Sogdian linguistic traditions (Takata 2010, pp. 965–76). Through our analysis of subsequent scholarship on Sogdian Ancient Letter II (Dunhuang) and the epitaph of Shi Jun’s sarcophagus 史君墓誌 (Xi’an), we have confirmed the direct association between the usage of these terms and the Sogdian people. According to the interpretation by Nicolas Sims-Williams (2001, pp. 268–69), Sogdian Ancient Letter II contains two critical toponyms: srγ (i.e., Sarag) in line 11 of the recto and ’xwmt(’)[n] (i.e., Khumdan) in line 15 of the verso. The passage describes the Chinese emperor fleeing Luoyang due to turmoil and references Chang’an. While the dating of this manuscript remains contested, the prevailing scholarly consensus situates it slightly after 311 CE10, corresponding to the fifth year of the Yongjia era (永嘉五年) during the Western Jin dynasty. In Yutaka Yoshida’s analysis of the epitaph of Shi Jun, the term xwmt’n (Khumdan) appears in line 15, noting that Shi Jun—a Sogdian sabao (薩寶, community leader of Zoroastrian affiliation)—died in 579 CE (the first year of the Dacheng era 大成元年 of the Northern Zhou dynasty) in Chang’an (xwmt’n) (Yoshida 2005, pp. 58–59). The combined evidence from these sources reveals that these toponyms, particularly Khumdan, had been used in Sogdian mercantile correspondence since the Western Jin dynasty (post-311 CE) and persisted into the Northern Zhou period, as seen in the epitaphs of Sogdian sabao. The recurrence of these same Syriac phonetic transcriptions (Khumdan and Sarag) in the Xi’an Stele from Tang dynasty strongly suggests that the transmission and usage of these terms in China from the Western Jin to the Tang dynasty (4–9th Century) were intimately tied to Sogdian agency.

The adoption of these transcriptions in the Xi’an Stele implies a close association between the East Syriac Christian communities of the Tang capitals and Sogdian networks. This further supports the hypothesis that the spread of East Syriac Christianity in the Chinese Zhongyuan Region was facilitated by Sogdian converts, who likely served as cultural intermediaries. As Takao Moriyasu (2021, p. 21) meticulously demonstrates, the Chinese terms taso and diexie are not direct transcriptions of the Middle Persian tarsāg. Instead, they derive from Sogdian adaptations of the term (trs’q/trs’k), which themselves were loanwords borrowed from Middle Persian. The continued use of taso, a technical term rooted in East Syriac Christian tradition, by Sinicized Persian and Sogdian Christians suggests the persistence of oral and scribal transmission practices within Sogdian Christian communities.

2.2. The Continued Use of Tarsā (Diexie 迭屑) in Old Uighur Christian Communities

During his westward journey from 1220 to 1223, the Daoist patriarch Chuji Qiu 丘處機 was accompanied by his disciples, including Zhichang Li 李志常, who documented their travels in The Journey of the Changchun zhenren to the West (長春真人西遊記). A critical entry dated September 1220 records: “On the second day of the ninth month, we traveled west. On the fourth day, we lodged east of Luntai 輪台, where a diexie 迭屑 chieftain came to greet us” (Li 2009, p. 574). Scholars, notably Paul Pelliot (1914, p. 636), have conclusively identified diexie as a phonetic transcription of tarsā—cognate with taso from the Xi’an Stele—both denoting East Syriac Christians. This constitutes the sole attested Chinese transcription of the term for East Syriac Christians between the Tang and the Yuan dynasty, spanning over four centuries.

As recorded in Chuji Qiu’s travel account, the term appears during their journey east of Luntai, after departing Bešbalɪk (鱉思馬大城, 別失八里; modern Jimusaer 吉木薩爾) and before reaching Changbala (昌八剌; modern Changji 昌吉). Ma Fu (2019, p. 187) argues that “this area was home to a significant East Syriac community strategically positioned along the northern Tianshan route (天山北道). With no local settlements or administrative structures, the leader of the East Syriac Church functioned as a de facto official, tasked by authorities to receive envoys. Qiu’s lodging likely resided within a monastery of the Church of the East operated by this community.” Although it is difficult to determine whether the term diexie was, for Chuji Qiu and his disciples, a newly encountered transliteration—similar to the various local place names recorded by Zhichang Li during their travels in the Old Uighur region—or a familiar religious designation already known to them prior to their departure from the Zhongyuan Region11, we can, based on the above-mentioned hypothesis by Takao Moriyasu, conclude that the term diexie as recorded at the time was still a phonetic rendering of the Sogdian word trs’q/trs’k. In other words, the self-designation used by Old Uighur East Syriac Christians in 1220 remained this same Sogdian loanword.

Manuscripts unearthed from the Xipang Monastery at Bulayïk in Turfan 葡萄溝西旁景教寺院 further attest to the enduring Sogdian influence on the development of East Syriac Christianity within the Old Uighur communities. During the Second and Third German Turfan Expeditions in early 20th century, Sogdian Christian manuscripts were recovered from the Xipang Monastery at Bulayïk, including Sogdian Creed Fragment So 12061 (MIK III 59) in Syriac script12. This Sogdian Nicene Creed contains the following:

Recto line 12: t(r)s’qy’y wrny (the Sogdian expression of Creed, “the faith of Christianity”).

Verso line 18: ptγ’mβrymync trs’k’ny’ ’ncm(n...) (the name of the church “apostolic Christian church”) (Sims-Williams 2014, pp. 30–32).

Notably, the fragment bears the Old Uighur title x’twn (khatun)13, suggesting patronage by an Old Uighur noblewoman (Sims-Williams 1992, p. 58; 2014, p. 52; Zieme 2015, p. 45). Sims-Williams (2009, p. 285) has pointed out that Sogdian Christian texts from Bulayïk contain nearly all religious texts expected in a monastic library of the Church of the East, yet conspicuously lack practical and secular documents. In contrast, the Old Uighur Christian manuscripts discovered at Bulayïk and Kurutka predominantly feature private letters and economic records. To explain this dichotomy, Sims-Williams reasonably posited that those who produced and read the Sogdian Christian texts were in fact Old Uighur speakers.

Geographically, the East Syriac communities in the east of Luntai14 and the Monastery sites in Tangchaodun 唐朝墩15 and Bulayïk16 formed a triangular network within the Old Uighur Kingdom of Qocho. Positioned along key Tianshan routes, these communities likely shared a Sogdian-inflected East Syriac Christian tradition, perpetuating liturgical terms like trs’k even as vernacular language shifted to Old Uighur.

The usage of tarsā to designate East Syriac Christians is attested during the zenith of Manichaeism17 in the Old Uighur Kingdom of Qocho. The Turfan manuscript Ch/U 8118 (verso), an Old Uighur Manichaean liturgical hymn composed for blessings upon ecclesiastical dignitaries and Uighur elites (Clark 2017, pp. 2, 50), explicitly references toyın tarasak (“Buddhist monks and East Syriac Christians”) in line 7 (Clark 2017, p. 51). Building on this evidence, Larry Clark’s analysis uncovers that Old Uighur Manichaeans employed tarasak—originally a term of external designation—which functioned identically to the East Syriac Christians’ self-appellation. Crucially, the manuscript’s content demonstrates that Manichaean practitioners refrained from positioning themselves antagonistically toward Buddhists or East Syriac Christians in their benedictory texts. Instead, they invoked collective prosperity for all three communities under the Old Uighur Kingdom’s dominion. This interreligious harmony indicates that Buddhism posed no imminent threat to Manichaeism, situating this period within Manichaeism’s zenith in the Old Uighur Kingdom of Qocho—specifically, from the latter half of the 9th century to the first half of the 10th century. Significantly, the term tarsā (in Old Uighur script tarasak) was already in use for Old Uighur East Syriac Christians during this era.

Furthermore, in the fragmentary Old Uighur Christian manuscript U 322 (T II B 65), discovered at the Xipang Monastery, the Sogdian loanword tarsak also appears in Old Uighur script. According to Zieme’s interpretation, the content of the manuscript refers to the Day of Resurrection and may allude to words from the Apocalypse (Zieme 2015, p. 131). On the recto of folio 2, line 4 of a bifolium from a codex book, the form tarsaklarka is attested, comprising the Sogdian loanword tarsak combined with the Old Uighur plural suffix -lar and the dative suffix -ka. This instance clearly reflects the Turkicized usage of the term.

A Old Uighur Christian manuscript in Syriac script unearthed at Khara-Khoto 黑水城18 attests to the further Turkicization of the term tarsak, evidenced by its derived forms tarsaklıg (adjectival suffix -lıg) and tarsaka (dative suffix -ka) (Zieme 2015, pp. 154–55, 158–62). While this confirms the existence of a Uighur-speaking Christian community in Khara-Khoto, the manuscript’s provenance remains ambiguous—it could alternatively originate from Turfan (Zieme 2006, p. 345). Zieme dates the text to the 13th–14th centuries based on late linguistic features (Zieme 2015, pp. 152–53).19

Regarding the origin of this Old Uighur Christian community, the following preliminary analysis can be made: certain vocabulary in the document differs from Uighur usage in the Turfan region (Zieme 2015, pp. 8, 159 and Fn. 557). If this community did indeed migrate to Khara-Khoto from the Turfan region, then these linguistic differences most likely represent changes that occurred over a considerably long period under the influence of local languages after their settlement in Khara-Khoto. Therefore, the community’s migration to Khara-Khoto probably occurred quite early (at least dating back to the Western Xia period) to allow sufficient time for such changes to develop. On the other hand, the community may also have originated directly from an Old Uighur Christian group with Sogdian affiliations. This inference is primarily based on the characteristics of the Sogdian Christian tradition evident in the document’s language: Firstly, Zieme notes that the orthography of the postvelar consonant q is identical to that of x in the documents from Khara-Khoto, a feature resulting from the Uighur script’s borrowing of Sogdian letters (Zieme 2015, pp. 8, 20–21). Secondly, the use of specific vocabulary (such as tarsak) in the document also strongly supports the community’s close connection to the Sogdian Christian tradition.

In conclusion, we can confirm that the diexie leader encountered by Chuji Qiu’s delegation was the leader of an Old Uighur East Syriac community. From the Zenith of Manichaeism during the early period of the Old Uighur Kingdom of Qocho to over a decade after the Iduqut’s submission to Chinggis Khan (1220), the Sogdian loanword tarasak remained unchanged as a self-appellation or external designation for Old Uighur Christians. This clearly demonstrates the Sogdian origin of Old Uighur Christianity and the evident Sogdian elements within the Old Uighur community in Khara-Khoto.

2.3. Tielixue 帖里薛: Probable Origin of the Öngüt East Syriac Christian Tribe

The term tielixue appears in the Stele of the Spirit-Path of Lord Yelü, Administrator of Yelikewen in all (lit. various) circuits 管領諸路也烈☐☐答耶律公神道之碑20, discovered at the Wangliangmu Cemetery in Siziwang (or Dorbod) Banner (a County), in Inner Mongolia, China. According to scholarly research, the tomb occupant was Yelü Zicheng耶律子成, whose brother Zichun 子春 was a close associate of Yelü Chucai 耶律楚材. The Yelü family, which was prominent from the Liao to Yuan dynasties, held dual political and religious (East Syriac Christian) authority in the Jingzhou 淨州 and Shajing 沙井 regions during the Jin–Yuan dynasties (Gai 1981, p. 80). The stele’s line 8 records the brothers’ birth during the Zhenglong era 正隆 (1156–1161) of the Jin dynasty, while line 11 notes Zicheng’s death at age 72, likely between 1228 and 1233. The stele was erected shortly thereafter. Lines 6–7 clarify that the Yelü family were not ethnic Khitans; the surname Yelü (耶律 or 曳剌) was adopted later. Their ancestors originated from “Tielixue in the Western Regions 西域帖里薛人”. Here, tielixue refers to a place-name, indicating the ancestral homeland. This parallels the record of the famous East Syriac Christian Īsa Kelemechi 愛薛 in Yuanshi: “Aixue(Īsa), a man of Fulin in the Western Regions. 愛薛西域弗林人” (Yuanshi 1976, 134.3249). The term yelikewen (也里可溫) already appears in the stele; therefore, tielixue refers to a toponym, not a religious designation.

Tielixue 帖里薛 represents the Chinese transliteration of the New Persian term tarsā. By the Yuan and post-Yuan periods, tarsā underwent semantic shift in Persian, Arabic, and European sources, denoting the “Kingdom of Tars/Tarsia” (Dickens 2020, pp. 20–33, 35; Zieme 2015, p. 17; Zhang 2003, pp. 307–8). Although the source Het’um’s The Flower of Histories of the East, composed in the early 14th century, describes this region as Uighur (Eo’gur) territory—where the local populace practiced Buddhism, while the king’s relatives adhered to Christianity and claimed connections to the Christian Magi (Three Wise Men) (See Bedrosian n.d.)—such accounts conflict with both Christian textual evidence from Turfan and the well-documented religious landscape of the Old Uighur elite under Mongol–Yuan governance. Furthermore, given the Mongolians’ familiarity with the Old Uighur territory (回鶻 or 畏兀儿之地), they would not have employed such a designation. Instead, tielixie likely corresponds to Tarsakent, recorded in Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh (Rashīd 1999, p. 309), a major settlement between the Ili and Chu Rivers. The toponym combines tarsā with the Sogdian suffix -kent (town), governed by a beg and inhabited by Old Turkic-speaking Christians (Dickens 2020, p. 20; Zieme 2015, pp. 16–17)21. Takao Moriyasu has argued that the Yelü clan ancestors—who later formed the Öngüt tribe—were East Syriac Christians who migrated from the Western Regions around the late 10th to early 11th century. Although their origins as Turco-Sogdian merchants from the Old Uighur Kingdom of Qocho remain a high possibility, they may have originated from the Semirechye region (Moriyasu 2021, p. 21). Yudong Bai similarly locates their homeland in the Semirechye region and Almaliq (Xinjiang, China) (Bai 2018, p. 147). Building upon the aforementioned scholarly arguments, it can be reasonably concluded that tielixue in this context refers to Tarsakent in the Semirechye region, rather than the Old Uighur territory.

There are two characters missing in the stele’s Heading after yelie 也烈; Qingpeng Zhou has reconstructed these missing characters as kewen 可溫 (Zhou 2001, p. 169).22 However, line 13 of the inscription explicitly employs the term yelikewen 也里可溫, which differs from the yelie 也烈 in the stele heading. This discrepancy can be contextualized through two interrelated factors: First, during the reign of Khubilai Khan, the earlier term Tarsā was gradually supplanted by erke’ün in official Yuan documentation (L. Tang 2011, p. 53), reflecting an ongoing lexical transition that allowed variant Chinese transliterations of East Syriac Christian titles to coexist. Second, practical considerations—such as spatial constraints on the stele heading—likely prompted the use of abbreviated or alternative transliterations. By comparing the formulaic title on the East Syriac bishop’s tombstone from Quanzhou of Yuan dynasty— “[This is the grave of] the Administrator of the Yelikewen believing in Manichaeism (明教), East Syriac Christianity (秦教) and other religions in all (lit. various) circuits of Jiangnan (i.e., South China), the Bishop [named] Mar Solomon Episqopa 管領江南諸路明教秦教等也里可溫馬里失里門阿必思古八馬里哈昔牙” (Wu and Wu 2005, p. 396; Moriyasu 2011, p. 355)—with the inscription on Yelü’s stele, it can be definitively established that Yelü Zicheng held the official position of Yelikewen Administrator 也里可溫管領.

2.4. Tarsā as a Personal Name

The term tarsā appears as a personal name in historical records. The Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh documents the East Syriac Christian Īsa 愛薛23, a prominent figure from Fulin 弗林 who rose to prominence within the Mongol–Yuan imperial administration. His name is transcribed as Isa Tarsa Kalimachi (Rashīd 1999, p. 795), where tarsā—a New Persian term—directly reflects his Christian faith, consistent with the linguistic context of the era. Within the Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh’s accounts of conflicts between Muslims and Christians in Near East, tarsā remains the local designation for Christians.

Potential variants of tarsāg as a personal name are also attested in two historical forms, Tusuo (突娑) and Dangsuo (鐺娑)24, though their identification as cognates remains linguistically plausible rather than conclusive (Wang 2006, pp. 154–55). The inclusion of tarsā in Īsa’s name provides definitive evidence of its use as a personal name among East Syriac Christians. However, this example is separated by a significant temporal gap from the earlier Sui- and Tang-dynasty cases. Furthermore, the Conghua Township tax register shows the prevalence of Sogdian names ending with the chracter -suo 娑, which is an element requiring careful consideration.

In summary, the Persian terms tarsāg and tarsā, along with their variants in other languages, served as both self-appellation and external designation for East Syriac Christians across the vast region from Western Asia to East Asia, continuing into the early Yuan period in Central and East Asia. From a historical perspective, the usage of this term in Eastern contexts appears relatively consistent and stable—a phenomenon closely linked to the role played by Sogdian East Syriac Christians in the eastward spread of the Church of the East along the Silk Roads. The Chinese transcriptions Taso 達娑 and diexie 迭屑 indirectly reflect that both East Syriac communities in Zhongyuan Region and those within the Old Uighur Kingdom maintained close ties with Sogdians, while the term tielixue 帖里薛 points to the origin of the Yelü clan of the Öngüt tribe, who had migrated to China, from Tarsakent in the Semirechye region.

3. Erke’ün (也里可溫 Yelikewen)

3.1. Official Esteem for the Yelikewen in Yuan-Era Chinese Inscription

The earliest Chinese textual record of the term yelikewen 也里可溫 appears in the Stele of Official Certification at the Changchun Taoist Temple in Fengxiang 鳳翔長春觀公據碑, which was erected in 1238 during the reconstruction of the Taoist Temple in Fengyang, Shaanxi. The inscription mentions yeliqiao master 也立喬大師 as part of a decree exempting Buddhist monks, Taoist priests, Christians, and Muslims from corvée labor and taxation. According to Cai Meibiao’s research, this is the earliest imperial edict to jointly exempt these four religious groups (Cai 2017, pp. 16, 59). Cai argues that yeliqiao master is a hybrid term combining transliteration and translation, a view that this study supports. The stele text reads: “For monks from Buddhist temples, for yeliqiao masters from ‘umarā; for Taoist priests from Daoist temples and for Dānishmand from masjid. 和尚根底寺，也立喬大師根底胡木剌，先生根底觀院，答失蠻根底蜜昔吉”. Among the four religious titles only the term for Christians differs in later preserved imperial edicts (Cai 2017, pp. 58, 61).

Notably, in the Fengxiang’s stele, yeliqiao masters precedes Taoist priests, a sequence retained in subsequent steles. However, official Chinese documents in Yuan dynasty often list yelikewen after Buddhists and Taoists25. The honorific 大師 “master” attached to yeliqiao further underscores the Mongol–Yunan imperial court’s respect for the yelikewen community in this edict. This suggests that, during Ögedei Khan’s reign (1229–1241), the Christians had acquired an official designation and began to receive imperial recognition. Their placement ahead of Taoists in the first decree jointly exempting the four religious groups reflects their elevated status during this period, as well as the Yuan court’s favor toward them.

The 1238 stele’s reference to yeliqiao master, combined with the terms yelie and yelikewen in Yelü’s stele from the 1230s, provides conclusive evidence that local administrative bodies for yelikewen were operational during Ögedei’s reign. These institutions were granted the official title erke’ün (mongolian), though its Chinese transliteration remained inconsistent, resulting in variations like yelie-, yeliqiao, and yelikewen. It was not until the 26th year of the Zhiyuan era (至元二十六年, 1289 CE) during the reign of Kublai Khan that the Yuan court formally standardized the Chinese translation of the term with the establishment of the Chongfu Si (崇福司, “Office for Venerating Blessings”) (Yuanshi 1976, 15.320), an institution overseeing Mar Hasia (馬爾哈昔), Rabban (列班), erke’ün, and Christian church affairs (Yuanshi 1976, 89.2273).

3.2. The Evolution of the Erke’ün Community

3.2.1. The Original Referential Scope of Erke’ün: Old Turkic-Speaking East Syriac Christians

The inscription on the Fengxiang’s stele explicitly states that the place where yeliqiao masters practiced is humula 胡木剌, a term derived from Syriac ‘umarā, meaning “monastery”. Qing Duan distinguished that East Syriac Christian texts in Syriac typically use ‘edtā or haikala for church, while terms for monastery in Syriac are more varied, such as daira, ‘umarā, and so on (Duan 2003, p. 438). This confirms that the yeliqiao masters mentioned here were East Syriac adherents. Further evidence comes from the Yelü’s stele, which identifies Yelü Zicheng, the administrator of erke’ün in Jingzhou, as an East Syriac Christian from the Öngüt tribe.

The Zhenjiang Gazetteer Compiled during the Zhishun Era (1330–1333) 至順鎮江志 (Yu 1999, p. 365) records that Mar Sargis26, an East Syriac Christian and former vice Daruγači of the region, resigned from office to build seven Christian monasteries27. These institutions bore both Chinese and Old Turkic names28, incorporating the Syriac loanword ‘umarā. Peter Zieme advanced this research by integrating Lajos Ligeti’s philological groundwork: through meticulous analysis of the Old Uighur Christian manuscript U321 (a petition letter) from Turfan—which records a monastic dispute—Zieme identified the terms qwmr’d’ (lines 2–3, “in the monastery”) and qwmr’dyn (line 6, “(leave) from the monastery”). He compellingly traced their evolution from the Syriac into Turkicized forms. Considering the Turfan provenance of the manuscript, Zieme posits that the term was more naturally derived from Sogdian.

The Zhenjiang Gazetteer records the Samarkand Christian background of Mar Sargis, while the Old Turkic names of the monasteries he founded reveal his connection to East Syriac communities fluent in Old Turkic. As evidenced by these records, the term ‘umarā was favored by East Syriac Christians in Yuan dynasty to denote their religious institutions. Furthermore, the term erke’ün was intrinsically linked from its earliest usage to Turkic-speaking East Syriac Christians, signifying either East Syriac Christian adherents specifically or Christian groups predominantly composed of them.

3.2.2. The Necessary Expansion of the Referent of Erke’ün

The Mongol imperial court had already established close ties with Old Uighur East Syriac communities during the period surrounding the creation of the aforementioned stelae. Following the submission of the Uighur Iduqut to the Mongols, East Syriac Christian leaders in Uighur territories were ordered to host the Daoist priest Chuji Qiu and his entourage during their westward journey to meet Chinggis Khan. Additionally, the Mongols had conquered several steppe tribes—including the Kereit, Naiman, and Öngüt—with strong East Syriac Christian affiliations. Notably, Sorkaktani Beki, niece of the Khan (Toghul or Wang Khan) of Keraites and a devout East Syriac Christian, married Tolui, Chinggis Khan’s youngest son. As the mother of four future khans, she became a pivotal figure in the Mongol court (L. Tang 2006, pp. 349–55).

The Old Turkic form of erke’ün had already emerged during Möngke Khan’s reign. A letter from Yahballaha III, the Patriarch of East Syriac Christianity in the early 14th century, addressed to the Pope bears a seal inscribed in Uighur language using Syriac script. This seal, granted by Möngke Khan to the Patriarch of East Syriac Christianity, carries an official mandate, as evidenced by its inscription, which twice mentions ärkägünlär (Hamilton 1972, pp. 159–60). The use of Old Uighur language in this imperial seal likely reflects the profound influence of Old Turkic-speaking East Syriac Christians on Möngke, particularly through his mother Sorkaktani Beki, a devout East Syriac Christian who played a pivotal role in shaping his religious and political outlook (L. Tang 2006, p. 353).

From the Mongol Empire’s rise, diverse peoples—Old Uighurs, Khwarazmians, Qarluqs, and Arghuns—from Central Asia entered China through trade, voluntary submission, or forced migration, assuming critical roles in administration, military, and commerce (J. Ma 2003, p. 58). The Mongols’ three western campaigns further exposed them to diverse Eastern Christian sects (East Syriac, Armenian, West Syriac, etc.). From Central Asia to the Caucasus and Western Asia, the Mongol armies systematically resettled populations across conquered territories. Beyond tribes that submitted voluntarily, vast numbers of soldiers and civilians from diverse ethnic groups—including Huihui (Muslims), Georgians, Alans, Kipchaks, Russians, and Kanglis—were forcibly conscripted and relocated eastward as military personnel, skilled artisans, or enslaved laborers. Following the Yuan dynasty’s establishment, the Roman Catholic Church dispatched multiple ecclesiastical missions to China29, while scholars, physicians, and merchants continued migrating eastward (X. Tang 2015, pp. 64–65; J. Ma 2003, pp. 58–67). All these migrants—serving as soldiers, craftsmen, officials, envoys, or clergy—became integral to Yuan socioeconomic structures.

To govern this multicultural populace, the Yuan court pragmatically implemented policies to accommodate their faiths, including provisions for worship spaces, while enforcing centralized administration over their communities and families. A letter from the Mongol general Eljigidei to the King of France encapsulates this policy: “According to the law of Heaven, there is no distinction between the Latin Church, the Greek Church, the Armenian Church, the East Syriac Church, the West Syriac Church, or any who pray to the Cross. They live here in harmony. We urge Your Majesty not to divide them, but to show mercy to all Christians alike.”30 This inclusive ethos compelled the Yuan court to unify all cross-venerating communities—irrespective of denominational differences—under the umbrella term erke’ ün. Such administrative consolidation not only facilitated governance but also reflected the Mongols’ strategic pragmatism in managing the multicultural and multi-confessional realities of their empire.

3.2.3. Erke’ün as an Official Title: A New Perspective on Yuan Conferment to East Syriac Church Leaders from Old Uighur Manuscripts

The term ärkägün, found in Old Uighur Christian texts31, has emerged as a focal point for scholars investigating the etymology of erke’ün in recent years. Li Tang posits a connection between the Old Uighur ärkägün and the Mongolian erke’ün, though the direction of linguistic borrowing remains unclear (L. Tang 2011, pp. 55–56). Peter Zieme proposes a tentative hypothesis—contingent on excluding other foreign origins—that the term derives from the Old Turkic root ärk “power, authority”, while acknowledging unresolved philological challenges (Zieme 2015, p. 19). Zieme further raises at least two unresolved issues. “First, to conform this etymology, a definitive Old Uighur textual evidence predating 1200 CE is required. Second, why did Old Uighur Christians adopt a self-designation starkly contrasting with the older term tarsā? Could it be that they intentionally distanced themselves from the notion of divine reverence to instead present themselves as ‘the powerful ones’?” (Zieme 2015, p. 19).

In this author’s view, the term ärkägün was not a self-ascribed identity adopted by Old Uighur East Syriac Christians but rather an official title bestowed by the Yuan court upon East Syriac Church leaders in Old Uighur territories. Over time, its application gradually expanded from denoting ecclesiastical authorities to encompassing ordinary adherents.

The term ärkägün in Old Uighur Christian manuscripts exhibits two primary usages. The first is its nominal designation (Category A). The second involves its combination with personal names, which Osman F. Sertkaya and Simone-Christiane Raschmann have categorized into two distinct patterns (Sertkaya 2013, pp. 384–95; Raschmann 2009a, pp. 416, 418). In Category B, ärkägün precedes a name, mirroring Category A as a title for the Christian believers. In Category C, however, ärkägün follows a name, a structure predominantly found in manuscripts of tax registers or inventory lists, that clearly demonstrates the anthroponymic adaptation of ärkägün, wherein the term becomes an integral component of personal names.

During our analysis of Category B documents, we identified a highly significant text—U5293—a relatively well-preserved memorandum or informal letter used for relaying messages. Based on its script type, the document dates to either the post-submission period of the Old Uighur Iduqut of Qocho or the Yuan dynasty. The following transcription references Sertkaya’s (2013, p. 391) edition:

(1)

biz bäg buk-a yürüŋ kıpčaḳ

(2)

bay buk-a bašl(a)p el bodun söz

(3)

-ümüz: ärkägün yargun yušumud

(4)

yavısıp bašl(a)p suvar bägi-lär

(5)

-kä. siz-lär-tä toyın kulı ačari

(6)

-niŋ üzük-lüg turı-nıŋ

(7)

ok yer-niŋ baš bitig[i]

(8)

bar ärmiš. ol bitig kočo

(9)

kısıl-ta kayu-ta bols(a)r til(ä)p

(10)

yıgmıš-ka birip yıgmıš-tın

(11)

ok til(ä)p alıŋl(a)r. turı-ka

(12)

ulug k(a)rg(a)ša bolup turur. usal

(13)

kılm(a)ŋ[l]ar. yıgmıš-ka söz:

(14)

sän suvar-l(a)r-tın turı-nıŋ

(15)

bitigin alıp bergil. sän ök

(16)

tapšurup birgäy sän.

We translate its contents as follows:

“We, the villagers—Bäg Buka, Yürüŋ Kıpčaḳ, Bay Buka, and others—declare: To Ärkägün Yargun, Yušumud, Yavısıp etc., the leaders of Christian monks (su(g)var bägilär), it has come to our attention that the original land deed of Turı, guaranteed by Toyın Kulı Ačari’s seal ring, is in your possession. Whether you find this document in Kočo-Kısıl32 or elsewhere, deliver it to Yigmiš. Then, reclaim it from Yigmiš. A fierce dispute has now arisen over Turı. Do not remain indifferent. To Yigmiš: Obtain Turı’s document from the monks and, (after use) return it (to them).”

This manuscript suggests that the singular form ärkägün (without the plural suffix -lär), followed by su(g)var bägilär (“leaders of Christian monks”), functions here as an honorific title rather than a general designation. This usage parallels the inscription ärkägün-bäg (“ärkägün official”) found on the walls of a monastery of the Church of the East in Tangchaodun site 唐朝墩古城 (Ren and Du 2024, p. 47), written in a distinctive hollow decorative script. Instances of ärkägün being directly paired with bäg are remarkably rare in extant Old Uighur manuscripts. This kind of script is absent in paper manuscripts but frequently appears in Old Uighur Buddhist pilgrims’ inscriptions at the Mogao and Yulin Caves.33 This elaborate and ornamental script, found in Buddhist caves and monasteries of the Church of the East, reflects the reverence of those who inscribed it during acts of worship. A strikingly similar script appears on the seal inscribed in Uighur-Mongolian script, affixed to Güyük Khan’s 1246 letter to Pope Innocent IV (Elverskog 2024, pp. 120–21). Kara György argues that this seal exemplifies the Yuan practice of transcribing Mongolian through Phags-pa script or Chinese seal script (Kara 2004, p. 80). While the origins of this script style remain subject to further investigation, the emergence of this script style, with its discernible connections to early Uighur-Mongolian script, provides indirect yet compelling evidence that its usage dates to the early Yuan period. Consequently, the ärkägün-bäg inscription in the East Syriac monastery at the Tangchaodun site likely dates to the same period.

The compound form of ärkägün-bäg strongly indicates that the title ärkägün was initially reserved for East Syriac Church leaders of ecclesiastical or administrative rank, rather than ordinary adherents. This implies that during a certain historical phase, only high-ranking church authorities were designated as ärkägün. Consequently, it is reasonable to posit that the term likely originated as an official honorific conferred by the Yuan court upon East Syriac Church leaders.

Based on the aforementioned analysis, it can be concluded that, on the one hand, Old Uighur Christian communities established early contact with the Mongol imperial elites, earning special trust and preferential treatment from the Yuan court. As the Mongol conquests expanded westward and deepened their understanding of the Western world, the Yuan rulers’ perception of Christian adherents gradually broadened. This evolving recognition consequently elevated the status of Christian groups in the eyes of the Mongol rulers. On the other hand, the Yuan court’s adoption of the neologism ärkägün instead of the traditional term tarsā stemmed from its specific designation for Christian clerical elites rather than the general congregation. This interpretation aligns with James Hamilton and Niu Ruji’s semantic analysis of ärkägün34, while further suggesting that the official adoption of this title directly correlated with the court’s growing sophistication in conceptualizing Christian communities. Historical evidence from Old Uighur Christian manuscripts and wall inscriptions in the monastery of the Church of the East shows how the Yuan court officially recognized and institutionalized the leadership of the Old Uighur East Syriac Church. The backing of secular authority fostered deep reverence for these church leaders among both clergy and laity. It was precisely this state-sanctioned terminology that gradually replaced the older term tarsā within Christian communities.

Later, the semantic scope of ärkägün gradually expanded to encompass nearly all adherents of the faith. Evidence from Old Uighur Christian texts reveals the emergence of plural forms of ärkägün, such as the suffix -lär (U 7264, line 7) and the variant ärkäküt (U338, Syriac section). This linguistic evolution suggests a conceptual shift among Old Uighur Christians, whereby the term transitioned from exclusively denoting church leaders to becoming a generalized designation for ordinary believers. Secondly, the Yuandianzhang (Statutes and Precedents of the Yuan Dynasty), specifically the section Ministry of Rites III, documents an official prohibition titled Prohibition of Preempting Ritual Prayers of yelikewen. This 1304 edict records the Ministry of Rites’ response to reports from Wenzhou Circuit: yelikewen had overstepped their authority by conducting prayers before Buddhist and Daoist clergy during state rituals and unlawfully registering households. The text states:

“Since ancient times in Jiangnan, only Buddhist and Daoist institutions have been officially recognized and managed. No yelikewen institution existed previously. In recent years, opportunists seeking tax exemptions have registered under this faith, establishing unauthorized administrative offices and even encroaching upon Daoist clerical authority–an intolerable violation.” (Yuandianzhang 2011, pp. 1143–44). This demonstrates that, prior to 1304, Wenzhou in southern Zhejiang lacked formal erke’ün administration. The subsequent local adoption of this identity for tax evasion purposes confirms erke’ün had already become a broad designation for lay believers.

Furthermore, the expanding range of referents of the term erke’ün was not limited to the Yuan court’s designation for Christian communities. According to in-depth research by Takao Moriyasu, the inscription on the Bishop’s tombstone bearing the title erke’ün unearthed in Quanzhou and dated to the second year of the Huangqing era 皇慶二年 (1313) (Wu and Wu 2005, pp. 395–403, Pl. B37) reveals that Manichaean followers in Jiangnan circuits35, including Quanzhou, were also categorized under erke’ün. This indicates that the term’s referential scope underwent continued dynamic evolution, developing broader applications in specific regions where its usage extended beyond its original parameters.

3.2.4. Ärkägün Used as Personal Names

The occurrence of ärkägün as a component of personal names in Category C manuscripts is predominantly attested in Old Uighur contractual texts36 from the Yuan dynasty. These documents, mostly written in cursive script, constitute later-period Old Uighur manuscripts. Similarly to tarsā, ärkägün was also adopted as a personal name, typically borne by Old Uighur individuals like ecclesiastical personnel, congregants, or members of families with East Syriac Christian traditions.

In contrast to contractual documents, an Old Uighur Christian text composed in Syriac script (Zieme 2015, p. 82)—reconstructed from fragments U329a-h, U330a-d, U333, U334, and U336—was written on the verso of a Chinese Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra scroll. According to Zieme, this manuscript constitutes an original Christian composition in Old Uighur and contains rich Christian textual elements: the initial section comprises hymns, followed by lacunae, and then concludes with a portion containing penitential prayers and supplications. Notably, the supplicatory portion references the territorial boundary of the West Uighur Kingdom. While Fu dates this document to the 11th–12th centuries, based on these geographical references, a Yuan dynasty provenance cannot be entirely ruled out (Zieme 2015, p. 83).37

Significantly, Old Uighur colophons written in cursive script—including the personal name Mad(a)y Ärkägün (U 330)—appear in the interlinear spaces and margins of the Chinese text on the Syriac document’s verso. The author posits that these colophons were likely added by Old Uighur Christians from Yuan dynasty who, seeking to preserve the integrity of the original Syriac-Uighur monastic text on the recto, utilized the reverse side to record their devotional interactions with the manuscript, including penitential prayers and supplications. However, due to the fragmentary nature of the materials, critical questions remain unresolved: whether these annotations were authored by a single individual or multiple scribes, and whether they were inscribed consecutively.

Nevertheless, the suffixation of ärkägün to a personal name constitutes a noteworthy onomastic feature. This linguistic phenomenon strongly suggests that the Old Uighur colophons on the document’s verso were likely inscribed during the Yuan dynasty, possibly even its mid-to-late period.

The following comprises a summary of the argument: The Chinese transliteration of erke’ün yelikewen was gradually formalized as an official designation by the Yuan court as its recognition of this group grew. Initially, erke’ün specifically referred to East Syriac Christians or Christian communities predominantly composed of East Syriac Christians, closely associated with Old Uighur followers—in other words, Old Uighur East Syriac Christians were the first Christian group in Yuan territories to be identified as erke’ün. The reference of erke’ün expanded following the Mongol conquests and the Yuan court’s interactions with Western Christian churches, eventually encompassing all followers of the “Religion of the Cross” within the empire. In Old Uighur Christian texts, the term ärkägün appears in documents dating from the post-submission period of the Old Uighur Iduqut to the Yuan dynasty. Originally, ärkägün likely served as an official title conferred by the Yuan court upon Old Uighur ecclesiastical leaders. Only such an institutional endorsement could have led Uighur Christians to abandon their long-established designation. The Old Uighur Christian manuscripts further reveal that the use of ärkägün broadened from referring solely to church leaders to including ordinary adherents, eventually becoming a component of personal names among Old Uighur Christian communities.

4. Concluding Remarks

The Persian term tarsāg or tarsā and its variants in other languages (including Sogdian, Chinese, and Old Uighur) served as both self-appellation and external designation for East Syriac communities inhabiting the Western Regions and Zhongyuan Region prior to the Yuan dynasty. Its usage maintained close ties to Sogdian East Syriac communities. In contrast, erke’ün initially functioned as an official designation from Yuan court for East Syriac ecclesiastical leaders. Over time, its referential scope expanded in response to shifting historical circumstances, ultimately becoming the court’s umbrella term for all adherents of the “Religion of the Cross” within Mongol territory.

Notably, the persistence of tarsā38 alongside erke’ün after the latter’s institutionalization suggests that these communities retained strong connections to East Syriac Christian groups in the Western Regions. The term erke’ün originates from Greek as its lexical source and was adopted by Mongol rulers through the mediation of an intermediary language. During the term’s Expanding Range of Referents, this originally ecclesiastical leader-specific designation assumed a distinctive sociopolitical role: by strategically employing the designation erke’ün, the Yuan court cultivated a constructed reverence for an ancient branch of Christianity, thereby transforming it into an institutional counterbalance to denominational conflicts. Functioning as an official umbrella term, erke’ün transcended denominational and ethnic distinctions among Christian adherents within the empire, serving as a politically engineered administrative category under the Mongol religious governance system.