Tengri

Tengri (Auld Turkic: ; Modren Turkis: Tanrı; Proto-Turkic *teŋri / *taŋrɨ; Mongolie script: ᠲᠨᠭᠷᠢ, Tngri; Modren Mongolie: Тэнгэр, Tenger), is ane o the names for the primar chief deity in the releegion o the early Turkic (Xiongnu, Hunnic, Bulgar) an Mongolic (Xianbei) fowks.

Wirship o Tengri is whiles referred tae as Tengrism. The core beins in Tengrism is Lift-Faither (Tengri/Tenger Etseg) an Mither Yird (Eje/Gazar Eej). It involvit shamanism, animism, totemism an ancestor wirship.

Name

Spellin o *tengri* in the Auld Turkic script (written frae richt tae left, as *t²ṅr²i*)

The auldest form o the name is recordit in Cheenese annals frae the 4t century BC, descrivin the beliefs o the Xiongnu. It takes the form 撑犁/Cheng-li, whilk is hypothesized tae be a Cheenese transcription o Tängri. (The Proto-Turkic form o the wird haes been reconstructit as *Teŋri or *Taŋrɨ.)^[1] Stefan Georg (2001) haes suggestit an ultimately Yeniseian oreegin, frae a *tɨŋgVr-, "high." Alternatively, a reconstructit Altaic etymologie frae *T`aŋgiri ("oath" or "god") wad emphasize the god's divinity rather than his domain ower the sky.^[2]

The Turkic form, Tengri, is attestit in the 11t century bi Mahmud al-Kashgari. In modren Turkis, the derivit wird "Tanrı" is uised as the generic wird for "god", or for the Aubrahamic God, an is aften uised the day bi Muslim Turks tae refer tae God in Turkis as an alternative tae the Arabic Allah. The supreme deity o the traditional religion o the Chuvash is Tură.^[3]

Ither reflexes o the name in modren leids include Mongolie: Тэнгэр ("lift"), Bulgarie: Тангра, an Azerbaijani: Tanrı. The Cheenese wird for "sky" 天 (Mandarin: tiān, Clessical Cheenese: thīn^[4] an Japanese Han Dynasty loanword ten^[4]) mey be kin an aw, mibbe a loan frae a prehistoric Central Asian language.^[5]

Accordin tae Dimitrov (1987), Aspandiat is the name gien tae Tengri bi the Persies.^[6]

History

Tengri wis the naitional god o the Göktürks, describit as the "god o the Turks" (Türük Tängrisi).^[1] The Göktürk khans based thair pouer on a mandate frae Tengri. Thir rulers wur generally acceptit as the sons o Tengri who representit him on Yird. Thay wore titles sic as tengrikut, kutluġ or kutalmysh, based on the belief that thay attained the kut, the michty spirit grantit tae thir rulers bi Tengri.^[7]

Tengri wis the chief deity wirshippit bi the rulin cless o the Central Asie steppe fowks in 6t tae 9t centuries (Turkic fowks, Mongols an Hungarians).^[8]

The wirship o Tengri wis brocht intae Eastren Europe bi the Huns an early Bulgars. It lost its importance whan the Uighuric kagans proclaimit Manichaeism the state religion in the 8t century.^[9]

The Mongolie Great Khans o the 13t century ideologically based thair pouer on a mandate frae Tengri hissel, an began thair declarations wi the wirds "bi the will o Eternal [Blue] Heiven."

The Turko-Mongolic concept o a sky god haes an analogie in the Daoist coinage o 靝 (wi 青 "blue" an 氣 "qi", i.e., "blue heiven") an Confucian concept o Tian Li.

Meethologie

Tengri wis the main god o the Turkic pantheon, controllin the celestial sphere.^[10] The Turkic sky god Tengri is strikingly seemilar tae the Indo-European sky god, Dyeus, an the structur o the reconstructit Proto-Indo-European releegion is closer tae that o the early Turks than tae the releegion o ony fowk o Near Eastren or Mediterranean antiquity.^[11]

The maist important contemporar testimony o Tengri worship is foond in the Auld Turkic Orkhon inscriptions, datit tae the early 8t century. Written in the sae-cried Orkhon script, thir inscriptions record an accoont o the meethological oreegins o the Turks. The inscription dedicatit tae Kul Tigin includes the passages (in the translation providit bi the Leid Committee o Meenistry o Cultur an Information o the Republic o Kazakhstan): "Whan the blue sky [Tengri] abuin an the broun yird belaw wur creatit, atween thaim a human bein wis creatit. Ower the human beins, ma ancestors Bumin Kagan an Istemi Kagan ruled. They ruled fowk bi Turkis laws, they led thaim an succeedit" (face 1, line 1); "Tengri creates daith. Human beins hae aw been creatit in order tae dee" (face 2, line 9); "You passed awa (lit.: 'went fleein') till Tengri gives you life again" (face 2, line 14).

Tengri is considered tae be the chief god who creatit aw things. In addeetion tae this celestial god, thay haed minor divinities that servit the purposes o Tengri.^[12] As Gök Tanrı, he wis the faither o the sun (Koyash) an muin (Ay Tanrı) an Umay an aw, Erlik, an whiles Ülgen.

In Turkic meethologie, Tengri is a pur, white goose that flies constantly ower an endless expanse o watter, which represents time. Beneath this watter, Ak Ana ("White Mother") cries oot tae him sayin "Create". Tae owercome his laneliness, Tengri creates Er Kishi, who is no as pur or as white as Tengri an thegither thay set up the warld. Er Kishi becomes a demonic character an strives tae mislead fowk an draw thaim intae its darkness. Tengri assumes the name Tengri Ülgen an athdraws intae Heiven frae which he trees tae provide fowk wi guidance throu sacred ainimals that he sends amang thaim. The Ak Tengris occupee the fift level o Heiven. Shaman priests who want tae reach Tengri Ülgen niver get further than this level, whaur thay convey thair wishes tae the divine guides. Returns tae yird or tae the human level tak place in a goose-shapit vessel.^[13]

Accordin tae Mahmud Kashgari, Tengri wis kent tae mak plants grow an the lichtnin flash. Turks uised the adjective tengri which means "heivenly, divine", tae label iverything that seemit grandiose, sic as a tree or a muntain, an thay stoopit tae sic entities.^[14]

Placenames

A pyramidal peak o the Tian Shan range atween Kazakhstan an Kyrgyzstan, is cried "Khan Tengri." The Tian Shan itsel is kent in Uyghur as the Tanri Tagi.
The Tangra Muntains on Livingston Island in the Sooth Shetland Islands o Antarcticae are namit efter the deity an aw.
The Bulgars namit a lairge muntain in the Rila muntain range efter Tangra, awtho it wis renamit in the 15t century tae Musala ("Muntain o Allah") bi the Ottoman Turks.
Otgontenger, the heichest muntain o the Khangai muntains in Mongolie.
Tengger Desert, a desert in Inner Mongolie, Cheenae.

Modren revival

Thay are preservit in Mongol an Kazakh fowk.^[15] "Tengrism" is the term for a revival o Central Asie shamanism efter the dissolution o the Soviet Union. In Kyrgyzstan, Tengrism wis suggestit as a Pan-Turkic naitional ideologie follaein the 2005 presidential elections bi an ideological committee chaired bi state secretar Dastan Sarygulov.^[16]

See an aw

Mythologie o the Turkic an Mongolie fowks
Wolf Totem (Cheenese novel)
Dingir, a Sumerie wird (meanin deity) that mey hae a seemilar etymologie^[17]

Notes

↑ ^a ^b Jean-Paul Roux, Die alttürkische Mythologie, p. 255
↑ Sergei Starostin, Altaic etymology
↑ Tokarev, A. et al. 1987–1988. Mify narodov mira.
↑ ^a ^b http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=%5Cdata%5Cchina%5Cbigchina&first=1&off=&text_character=%E5%A4%A9&method_character=substring&ic_character=on&text_reading=&method_reading=substring&ic_reading=on&text_ochn=&method_ochn=substring&ic_ochn=on&text_cchn=&method_cchn=substring&ic_cchn=on&text_wchn=&method_wchn=substring&ic_wchn=on&text_echn=&method_echn=substring&ic_echn=on&text_epchn=&method_epchn=substring&ic_epchn=on&text_mpchn=&method_mpchn=substring&ic_mpchn=on&text_lpchn=&method_lpchn=substring&ic_lpchn=on&text_mchn=&method_mchn=substring&ic_mchn=on&text_fanqie=&method_fanqie=substring&ic_fanqie=on&text_rhyme=&method_rhyme=substring&ic_rhyme=on&text_meaning=&method_meaning=substring&ic_meaning=on&text_oshanin=&method_oshanin=substring&ic_oshanin=on&text_shuowen=&method_shuowen=substring&ic_shuowen=on&text_comment=&method_comment=substring&ic_comment=on&text_karlgren=&method_karlgren=substring&ic_karlgren=on&text_go=&method_go=substring&ic_go=on&text_kanon=&method_kanon=substring&ic_kanon=on&text_jap=&method_jap=substring&ic_jap=on&text_viet=&method_viet=substring&ic_viet=on&text_jianchuan=&method_jianchuan=substring&ic_jianchuan=on&text_dali=&method_dali=substring&ic_dali=on&text_bijiang=&method_bijiang=substring&ic_bijiang=on&text_shijing=&method_shijing=substring&ic_shijing=on&text_any=&method_any=substring&sort=character&ic_any=on
↑ The connection was noted by Max Müller in Lectures on the Science of Religion (1870).[1] Axel Schüssler (2007:495): "Because the deity Tiān came into prominence with the Zhou dynasty (a western state), a Central Asian origin has been suggested, note Mongolian tengri 'sky, heaven, heavenly deity'" (Shaughnessy Sino-Platonic Papers, July 1989, and others, like Shirakawa Shizuka before him)."
↑ D.Dimitrov. Prabylgarite po severnoto i zapadnoto Chernomorie, Varna, 1987) English summary of the monograph of Bulgarian historian Dimityr Dimitrov on the Early Medieval history of the Proto-Bulgarians in the lands north of the Black Sea
↑ Käthe Uray-Kőhalmi, Jean-Paul Roux, Pertev N. Boratav, Edith Vertes. "Götter und Mythen in Zentralasien und Nordeurasien"; section: Jean-Paul Roux: "Die alttürkische Mythologie" ("Old Turkic Mythology") ISBN 3-12-909870-4
↑ "There is no doubt that between the 6th and 9th centuries Tengrism was the religion among the nomads of the steppes" Yazar András Róna-Tas , Hungarians and Europe in the early Middle Ages: an introduction to early Hungarian history, Yayıncı Central European University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-963-9116-48-1, p. 151.
↑ Buddhist studies review, Volumes 6-8, 1989, p. 164.
↑ Abazov, Rafis. "Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics". Greenwood Press, 2006. page 62
↑ Mircea Eliade, John C. Holt, Patterns in comparative religion, 1958, p. 94.
↑ Kaya, Polat. "Search For the Origin of the Crescent and Star Motif in the Turkish Flag", 1997. [2]
↑ Göknil, Can. "Creation myths from Central Asia to Anatolia". Yapı Kredi Art Galleries, 1997. [3] Archived 2009-12-03 at the Wayback Machine^{[unreliable soorce?]}
↑ Baldick, Julian. Animal and Shaman: Ancient Religions of Central Asia. I.B.Tauris, 2000. [4]
↑ "藏传佛教对蒙古族民间宗教的影响". Archived frae the original on 24 Januar 2010. Retrieved 7 Februar 2013.
↑ Erica Marat, Kyrgyz Government Unable to Produce New National Ideology , 22 February 2006, CACI Analyst, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.
↑ Mircea Eliade, John C. Holt, Patterns in comparative religion, 1958, p. 94. The connection of dingir and Old Turkic tengere was made by F. Hommel in Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients (1928). P. A. Barton in Semitic and Hamitic Origins (1934) suggested that the Mesopotamian sky god Anu may have been imported from Central Asia to Mesopotamia. The similarity of dingir and tengri was noted as early as 1862 (i.e. during the early phase of the decipherment of the Sumerian language, before even the term "Sumerian" had been coined to refer to it), by George Rawlinson in his The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World (p. 78).

[Roux-1] Jean-Paul Roux, Die alttürkische Mythologie, p. 255

[2] Sergei Starostin, Altaic etymology

[3] Tokarev, A. et al. 1987–1988. Mify narodov mira.

[starling-4] ttp://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?root=config&morpho=0&basename=%5Cdata%5Cchina%5Cbigchina&first=1&off=&text_character=%E5%A4%A9&method_character=substring&ic_character=on&text_reading=&method_reading=substring&ic_reading=on&text_ochn=&method_ochn=substring&ic_ochn=on&text_cchn=&method_cchn=substring&ic_cchn=on&text_wchn=&method_wchn=substring&ic_wchn=on&text_echn=&method_echn=substring&ic_echn=on&text_epchn=&method_epchn=substring&ic_epchn=on&text_mpchn=&method_mpchn=substring&ic_mpchn=on&text_lpchn=&method_lpchn=substring&ic_lpchn=on&text_mchn=&method_mchn=substring&ic_mchn=on&text_fanqie=&method_fanqie=substring&ic_fanqie=on&text_rhyme=&method_rhyme=substring&ic_rhyme=on&text_meaning=&method_meaning=substring&ic_meaning=on&text_oshanin=&method_oshanin=substring&ic_oshanin=on&text_shuowen=&method_shuowen=substring&ic_shuowen=on&text_comment=&method_comment=substring&ic_comment=on&text_karlgren=&method_karlgren=substring&ic_karlgren=on&text_go=&method_go=substring&ic_go=on&text_kanon=&method_kanon=substring&ic_kanon=on&text_jap=&method_jap=substring&ic_jap=on&text_viet=&method_viet=substring&ic_viet=on&text_jianchuan=&method_jianchuan=substring&ic_jianchuan=on&text_dali=&method_dali=substring&ic_dali=on&text_bijiang=&method_bijiang=substring&ic_bijiang=on&text_shijing=&method_shijing=substring&ic_shijing=on&text_any=&method_any=substring&sort=character&ic_any=on

[5] The connection was noted by Max Müller in Lectures on the Science of Religion (1870).[1] Axel Schüssler (2007:495): "Because the deity Tiān came into prominence with the Zhou dynasty (a western state), a Central Asian origin has been suggested, note Mongolian tengri 'sky, heaven, heavenly deity'" (Shaughnessy Sino-Platonic Papers, July 1989, and others, like Shirakawa Shizuka before him)."

[6] D.Dimitrov. Prabylgarite po severnoto i zapadnoto Chernomorie, Varna, 1987) English summary of the monograph of Bulgarian historian Dimityr Dimitrov on the Early Medieval history of the Proto-Bulgarians in the lands north of the Black Sea

[7] Käthe Uray-Kőhalmi, Jean-Paul Roux, Pertev N. Boratav, Edith Vertes. "Götter und Mythen in Zentralasien und Nordeurasien"; section: Jean-Paul Roux: "Die alttürkische Mythologie" ("Old Turkic Mythology") ISBN 3-12-909870-4

[8] "There is no doubt that between the 6th and 9th centuries Tengrism was the religion among the nomads of the steppes" Yazar András Róna-Tas , Hungarians and Europe in the early Middle Ages: an introduction to early Hungarian history, Yayıncı Central European University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-963-9116-48-1, p. 151.

[9] Buddhist studies review, Volumes 6-8, 1989, p. 164.

[10] Abazov, Rafis. "Culture and Customs of the Central Asian Republics". Greenwood Press, 2006. page 62

[11] Mircea Eliade, John C. Holt, Patterns in comparative religion, 1958, p. 94.

[12] Kaya, Polat. "Search For the Origin of the Crescent and Star Motif in the Turkish Flag", 1997. [2]

[13] Göknil, Can. "Creation myths from Central Asia to Anatolia". Yapı Kredi Art Galleries, 1997. [3] Archived 2009-12-03 at the Wayback Machine^{[unreliable soorce?]}

[14] Baldick, Julian. Animal and Shaman: Ancient Religions of Central Asia. I.B.Tauris, 2000. [4]

[15] "藏传佛教对蒙古族民间宗教的影响". Archived frae the original on 24 Januar 2010. Retrieved 7 Februar 2013.

[16] Erica Marat, Kyrgyz Government Unable to Produce New National Ideology , 22 February 2006, CACI Analyst, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

[17] Mircea Eliade, John C. Holt, Patterns in comparative religion, 1958, p. 94. The connection of dingir and Old Turkic tengere was made by F. Hommel in Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients (1928). P. A. Barton in Semitic and Hamitic Origins (1934) suggested that the Mesopotamian sky god Anu may have been imported from Central Asia to Mesopotamia. The similarity of dingir and tengri was noted as early as 1862 (i.e. during the early phase of the decipherment of the Sumerian language, before even the term "Sumerian" had been coined to refer to it), by George Rawlinson in his The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World (p. 78).

[1]