Anyone crossing the steppes of Central Asia and Mongolia has before them, above all else, the sky: immense, uniform, present in every direction. It is no surprise that the nomadic peoples of these lands made the sky their supreme sacred reality. Its name, in different forms in the Turkic and Mongolic languages, is Tengri.
An ancient name
The term has a long history. Chinese historians, recording the titles of the rulers of the Xiongnu, the nomadic confederation that confronted Han China for centuries, report a word transcribed as chengli, which many scholars interpret as an early form of Tengri, meaning «sky». The language of the Xiongnu is still debated, but the connection is widely accepted.
In the Turkic and Mongolic languages the word refers both to the visible sky and to the divine power that dwells in it or that it is. This double meaning is essential: Tengri is not a god who lives in the sky, but in a sense the sky itself as a sacred principle.
The Orkhon inscriptions
The oldest testimonies about Tengri written by Turkic peoples are found in the Orkhon inscriptions, in present-day Mongolia. They are stelae erected in the first half of the eighth century for the rulers of the Second Turkic Khaganate, including Prince Kül Tegin and his brother Bilge Qaghan, and written in an Old Turkic runiform alphabet.
In these texts Tengri is the power that grants rule to the sovereign. The khan reigns because heaven has willed it, and when the people stray from their laws, heavenly favour is withdrawn. The inscriptions also name Umay, a protective female figure, and the sacred power of earth and water, which together with the sky form an overall cosmic order.
The Eternal Sky of the Mongols
With the Mongol Empire, in the thirteenth century, the idea of Tengri took on a universal scope. Rulers invoked Möngke Tengri, the Eternal Sky, as the source of their authority. Letters sent by the Great Khans to foreign rulers opened with formulas invoking the might of the Eternal Sky.
A famous example is the letter of the Great Khan Güyük to Pope Innocent IV, of 1246, carried to Europe by the Franciscan John of Plano Carpini. The seal and the text state that the khan's power derives from the Eternal Sky, and invite the pope to submit. The letter is preserved in the Vatican Archives.
Tengri and daily life
For the nomads, the sky was not only a political power. It was present in daily gestures: libations of milk thrown upwards and towards the directions of space, respect for fire and the hearth, prayers at dawn. Alongside Tengri many lesser tengri were venerated, celestial powers linked to phenomena or places; in some Mongol traditions ninety-nine are counted, divided between those of the west and those of the east.
The shaman had a role in this system, but was not its exclusive centre. The cult of the sky was also domestic and political, led by the head of the household and by the ruler.
Meeting other religions
Over the centuries the steppe peoples adopted universal religions: Buddhism, Islam, Nestorian Christianity, and Manichaeism among the Uyghurs. Tengri did not disappear. In many Turkic languages the word continued to designate God, even in an Islamic context, and some features of the sky cult survived in popular customs.
Contemporary Tengrism
After the end of the Soviet Union, an interest in Tengrism, understood as the original religion of the steppe peoples, developed in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Turkic-speaking republics of Russia and Mongolia. It is a complex phenomenon, combining historical research, the recovery of identity and sometimes nationalism.
The historian of religions must carefully distinguish between what the sources attest and modern reconstructions. Today's Tengrism is a living and legitimate movement as a cultural expression, but it should not be confused with a tradition handed down without interruption since antiquity.
A lesson about the sacred
Tengri reminds us that the sacred can be lived without temples or images: as a sky that stands over everything and to which everything answers. Studio Esoterico Cornelio recognises in it one of the great archetypes of human religiosity, the vault of heaven as a principle of order and justice.
In short
- Tengri means both the visible sky and the sacred power of the Turkic and Mongol peoples.
- The eighth-century Orkhon inscriptions present Tengri as the source of the khan's power.
- The Mongol Great Khans invoked the Eternal Sky, as in Güyük's letter of 1246.
- The sky cult was also domestic and political, not only shamanic.
- Contemporary Tengrism is a modern reconstruction to be distinguished from historical sources.
