Elements of Turkic Mythology in the Tibetan Document P.T. 1283

The well-known Tibetan document P.T. 1283 is a unique historical source that contains significant information about mid-8th century Central Asia. Discovered at Dunhuang 敦煌 in 1908, P.T. 1283 is kept today in the collection Pelliot tibétain at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. One side of the document is in Chinese and the other side contains two different Tibetan texts. The title of the second Tibetan text, Byang phyogs na rgyal po du bzhugs pa'i rabs gyi yi geo (BNP), was translated into English by Venturi as Text on the sequence of however many kings live in the north, containing several myths belonging to the Türk (Tujue 突厥, Göktürks) and Kyrgyz. In conclusion, the Turkic myths narrated in P.T. 1283 are reflections of a very large collection of Central Asian folk beliefs, exemplified in numerous historical sources.