The Horse Culture in the Book of ‘Kutadgu Bilig’

Abstract

Horse had important place in every phase of Turks'life in Middle Asia. So the culture they created is called horsed nomad culture. The importance of horse is also proved in historical texts. Not only the Turks lived horsed nomad culture but also the Turks passed to settled culture had love and respect to horse. Even if Kutadgu Bilig and Divanu Lugat!i-t Turk which are the main works came from the period of Karahanhlar that is the first Muslim Turkish state in Middle Asia, were written in the frontier of the same country, one was written among the Turkish clans living horsed nomad culture and the other was written among the settled cultured Turks. But horse has an important place in the both work. This proves that all Turks lived horsed nomad culture or settled culture, gived importance to horse in this period.