ORIENT Volume 51, 2016 The Hittite Noun išḫiul-: Law of Gods, Instruction and Treaty Hajime YAMAMOTO The Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan (NIPPON ORIENTO GAKKAI) The Hittite Noun išḫiul-: Law of Gods, Instruction and Treaty Hajime Yamamoto* The Hittite texts titled išḫiul- are translated into English as either the king’s “instructions” for his officials or “treaties” with foreign rulers. The verb išḫai-/išḫiya-, from which išḫiul- is derived, indicates that this noun represents a vertical relationship between the parties involved. In spite of that connotation, the Hittite king concluded some treaties with the Great Kings, his equals in rank. The purpose of this paper is to present the Hittite king’s employment of this term in imperial administration and diplomacy. A philological analysis of the usages of išḫiul- reveals that it has three meanings: “the law of the gods,” “instruction of the king” and “treaty.” Its original meaning might be “the law of the gods.” The Hittites thought that the gods determined how they should be worshipped. Based on the responses of oracles, the king established concrete procedures of rituals and festivals for the gods on their behalf. He exercised this right even in state administration by dictating what he wanted of his subjects. Therefore, išḫiul- can be described as “the instruction of the king.” When the noun išḫiul- is used for diplomatic purposes, it is translated as a “treaty.” In the so-called “subordination treaties,” the Hittite king issued the išḫiul-treaties, stipulating what he demanded of subjugated kings, just as he had concerning his subjects. However, when a Hittite king concluded a “parity treaty,” he had to moderate the connotation that accompanied the noun išḫiul-. The Hittite king explained that he and his partner had mutually imposed the išḫiul-treaty, or that the god had imposed it upon both parties. If the Hittite king wanted to express friendly and neutral relationships with a foreign ruler without connoting the hierarchical order, he might have used the alternative diplomatic term takšul-. Keywords: Hittite, išḫiul-, law, instruction, treaty I. Introduction In the Hittite corpus, the texts titled išḫiul-, meaning “bind; obligation,”1 are described as either “instructions” for state officials or “treaties” with foreign rulers. As išḫiul- is paired with the noun lingai- “oath” in their titles, those texts were issued to create the master-servant relationship between Hittite kings and their servants through the latters’ oaths guaranteeing their execution of the obligations.2 In the introduction of his work on the Hittite instructions, Miller mentions the characteristics of the Hittite texts of “išḫiul- and lingai-,” or “obligation and oath.” Because the Hittites regarded these words as the same textual category, it is only the modern scholars who labeled them as “instructions” and “treaties.” * Adjunct Lecturer, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. 1 Puhvel (1984, 400–401) and also Kloekhorst (2008, 392) translate the noun išḫiul as “binding; obligation, injunction; statue; treaty.” 2 Taggar-Cohen 2011, 468. Vol. 51 (2016) 143 Upon reflection the Hittites’ categorization of “instructions” and “treaties” together is more reasonable and coherent than it might seem at first glance, for the essence of all such “treaties,” “contracts,” and “instructions” was the sovereign’s imposition of the obligations (the išḫiul-) upon the subordinate party, that is, the defining of its role and responsibilities within the state administrative structure, and the subordinate’s requisite swearing of an oath to uphold those stipulations before the gods (the lingai-).3 In all those “obligation and oath” texts, the Hittite king dictated obligations for a person or group of people who would swear his or their observance of the obligations. Miller summarizes the previous studies of the correlation between the imposition of the obligation and the oath-taking in the instruction texts and concludes the following: “Hittite usage of the terms išḫiul- and lingai- when used to categorize a composition does not correspond to the categories that we would like to see as ‘instructions’ and ‘oaths.’ Hittite scribes use them almost interchangeably when apply- ing them to texts of the type at hand.”4 The two terms could, therefore, be interchangeable for the Hittites to describe the instruction texts. While oaths were a necessary component of those texts and the noun lingai- could mean an instruction text itself, it seldom appears in the Hittite treaties as their text title. Christiansen and Devecchi point out that the relationship of the treaty was guaranteed by divine power, which stemmed from the gods’ existence as the witnesses to the conclusion of the treaty.5 Because oaths were performed to let the gods know that the addressees of the text obeyed the obligation from the king, swearing an oath was regarded only as a part of the procedure of concluding a treaty, especially in the later period of Hittite history. Therefore, those nouns seem to be used differently in instructions and treaties. Additionally, although it has been said that the Hittite words išḫiul- and lingai- corresponded with Akkadian rikiltu/rikistu/riksu and māmītu, the Akkadian riksu and māmītu was not exactly the same as their Hittite language counterparts.”6 It seems that the Hittites used išḫiul- and lingai- to describe a textual genre in a way that differed from the Akkadian paired terms.7 While the noun lingai- describes the crucial act in creating a contractual commitment by the parties,”8 the noun išḫiul- always describes a legal document itself, which we translate as “instruction” or “treaty.” The Hittite noun išḫiul- itself connotes a top-down obligation. The verb išḫai-/išḫiya-, “to 3 Miller 2013, 2–3. Beckman (1999, 2) also points out that the Hittites made no fundamental distinction between inter- nal and external obligations to their king. 4 Miller 2013, 6. 5 Christiansen and Devecchi 2013, 76. 6 As Miller (2013, 323, n. 4) points it out, “[i]n the Akkadian language treaties from Ḫattusa the terms išḫiul- and lingai- are replaced with rikiltu/rikistu/riksu and māmītu, respectively. These occur occasionally as Akkadograms in Hittite texts as well, though only the latter term is found in the instructions, and only in the compositions of the last Hittite kings, Tudḫaliya IV and Suppiluliu/ama II, or in late copies of earlier compositions.” 7 As for the Assyrian adê “treaty,” see Parpola and Watanabe (1988, XVI). Altman (2012, 192) clarifies the different characteristics of Assyrian treaties (adê) and Hittite ones as follows: “Whereas the common preamble of the Hittite subordination treaties presents the document as the treaty dictated by the Hittite king, who is presented alone, the Neo-Assyrian preamble presents the document as the adê (= ‘treaty’) concluded by the two identified parties.” 8 Altman 2012, 115. He continues, “The oath taken was only intended to put these relations under divine sanction, which would then turn the curse and the blessings into being potentially operative. Accordingly, the treaties of the Late Bronze Age are designated as ṭuppi rikši ‘tablet of treaty (“bond”)’, išhiul in Hittite.” 144 ORIENT The Hittite Noun išḫiul- bind,” from which the noun is derived, figuratively means, “to impose a burden on an inferior person by a superior.”9 The verb connotes a tight and forceful action to bind the burden on a per- son. Furthermore, the imposed person must have felt it impossible to escape from such a bond of his own will. Accordingly, we can assume the meaning of išḫiul- as “something that imposes a burden on a person,” which implies the vertical relationship between the imposer and the person(s) upon whom the burden is imposed. Given this implication, the noun can stand for the relationship between either gods and human beings or a king and his subjects as Taggar-Cohen concludes: “Its foundational concept therefore, is the legal relationship between kingship and the divine on the one hand and the king and his kingdom’s social political structure on the other.”10 While the noun išḫiul- connotes a vertical relationship, the Hittite king could create treaties with foreign rulers who would be considered his equals in rank, such as an Egyptian pharaoh. Here, a question can be raised: how did the Hittites use the concept of išḫiul- in their diplomacy? This question is worthy of detailed research. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to employ a philological analysis of the usage of išḫiul- to present how the Hittite king implemented this con- cept for administration and diplomacy. The following chapters will discuss the usage of išḫiul- in the Hittite texts themselves. Through religious, administrative and diplomatic texts, we can see different aspects of this concept. The analysis of the noun will be done both from grammatical and contextual points of view.11 I will start by discussing the primary meaning of išḫiul- in religious texts and continue with its employment in administration and diplomacy. II. The Law of the Gods Although the evidence is rather rare, some uses of the noun išḫiul- seem to mean “the law of the god(s).” The series of prayers to the Sun-god that originated during the Middle Hittite period conveys this meaning. In the beginning of the Prayer of the King, the Hittite king invokes the Sun-god and asks to transfer his plea to his personal god. KUB 31.130 obv. 1’–3’ (CTH 374.I) (1’) [dUTU-e šar-ku LUGAL-u-e] ┌DUMU dNIN.GAL┐[KUR-ya-aš(?)12] [iš-ḫ]i-┌ú-ul┐ š[a- ak-l]a-in (2’) [zi-ik-pát dUTU-uš ḫa-an-t]e-eš-ki-ši na-aš-ta KUR-┌ya┐ iš-tar-na (3’) [zi-ik- pát aš-ša-nu]-wa-an-za dUTU-uš <ḫa-an-da-an-za>(?) DINGIR-uš zi-ik “O [Sun-god], eminent king, son of Nikkal, [you alone, O Sun-g]od, [establi]shes [l]aw (and) c[us]tom [of the land(?)], and in the land [you alone] are [widely wor]shipped, you are the <just>? god, O Sun-god!” 9 As for the figurative connotations of išḫai-/išḫiya-, see Yamamoto 2015, 3–7, 13.