Tengrism

Overview

Tengrism is the modern name for the sky-centred religion shared, in varying forms, by the Xiongnu, the early Turkic peoples and the Mongols of the Eurasian steppe. Its focus is Tengri, whose name first meant simply "sky" and only later came to mean the sky god, and by extension "god" in general. In most tellings Tengri is the supreme creator and the ruler of fate; a saying attributed to steppe belief holds that "the sky decrees." Tengri was imagined as remote, so a son or deputy, often called Ülgen, was pictured carrying out the sky's will more directly. Tengri worship was especially visible under the early Turkic khaganates and reached a later peak under the Mongol empire. No single Tengrist scripture or clergy is known to have existed; the religion survived mainly in ritual, inscription and royal ideology, and pieces of it persist among some Turkic- and Mongolic-speaking communities.^[1–7]

History

The sky god of the steppe before the common era – 8th century CE

Belief in a sky god of this kind is attested among the steppe peoples from before the common era, and became especially prominent under the early Turkic khaganates of the sixth to eighth centuries. These khaganates are remembered as the Kök Türks, the "Blue Turks," sharing the word kök, "blue," that period inscriptions also used as an epithet of Tengri himself.^[3]

The Mongol "Eternal Sky" 13th–14th century

Under the Mongol empire, Tengri worship reached new political importance: inscriptions and chronicles from this period add the epithet "eternal" to the older Turkic titles for the sky god, and the mountain Khan Tengri in the Tian Shan range still carries his name as the "Eternal Blue Sky God," "Lord" or "Ruler of the Heavens."^[4]

Beliefs

Tengri · Täŋri

sky; god

Tengri's name began as the ordinary word for the physical sky and only gradually came to mean the sky god himself, and then, more loosely, "god" or "the divine" in general; in many tellings he is the supreme creator and the fixer of each person's fate.^{[2, 6]}

Ülgen · Ülgen

a son or agent of the sky god

Because Tengri himself was imagined as remote, a son or deputy, called Ülgen or Bai Ülgen among different peoples, was pictured exercising the sky's active power and attending to human affairs more directly.^[5]

Places

Khan Tengri

KGZ

A peak in the Tian Shan range, near the point where Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and China meet, whose name, "Lord of the Heavens" or the "Eternal Blue Sky God," preserves the old title of Tengri himself.^[4]

How we know

How we know

The steppe peoples who first worshipped Tengri, including the Xiongnu, left no religious texts of their own. What is known comes from later Old Turkic royal inscriptions that name Tengri and other sky-related figures, and from the study of Mongol and Turkic peoples, and neighbouring Siberian communities, who kept related beliefs and shamanic practice into the 19th and 20th centuries, when scholars first recorded them in detail.^[7]

Common misconceptions

Glossary

Tengri · Täŋri

The sky, deified; the supreme sky god of the Xiongnu, Turkic and Mongol peoples, and later a general word for "god" in related languages.^{[2, 6]}

Ülgen · Ülgen

A son or deputy of Tengri in Turkic and Mongol myth, pictured as the more active, approachable face of the sky's power.^[5]

Kök Türk · Kök Türk

"Blue Turk": name of the early Turkic khaganate (6th–8th century CE), sharing the word for "blue" also used of Tengri in the period's inscriptions.^[3]