Omen 11 (4-4-3 dice) of the Irk Bitig (folio 13a): "There comes a messenger on a yellow horse (and) an envoy on a dark brown horse, bringing good tidings, it says. Know thus: (The omen) is extremely good."sarïγ : atlïγ : sabčï : yazïγ : atlïγ : yalabač : edgü : söz : sab : elti : kelir : tir : anča biliŋ : aňïγ : edgü : ol.
Mavi Boncuk |
Tengrism (sometimes spelled Tengriism), occasionally referred to as Tengrianism, is a Central Asian religion characterized by features of shamanism, animism, totemism, both polytheism and monotheism,and ancestor worship. Historically, it was the prevailing religion of the Turks, Mongols, and Hungarians, as well as the Xiongnu and the Huns. It was the state religion of the five ancient Turkic states: Göktürk Khaganate, Western Turkic Khaganate, Great Bulgaria, Bulgarian Empire and Khazaria. In Irk Bitig[1], Tengri is mentioned as Türük Tängrisi (God of Turks). The term is perceived among Turkic peoples as a national religion.
As a modern revival, Tengrism has been advocated among intellectual circles of the Turkic nations of Central Asia, including Tatarstan, Buryatia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1990s to present).[9] It is still actively practiced and undergoing an organised revival in Sakha, Khakassia, Tuva, and other Turkic nations in Siberia. Burkhanism is a movement kindred to Tengrism concentrated in Altay.
Khukh and Tengri literally mean "blue" and "sky" in Mongolian and modern Mongolians still pray to "Munkh Khukh Tengri" ("Eternal Blue Sky"). Therefore, Mongolia is sometimes poetically referred to by Mongolians as the "Land of Eternal Blue Sky" ("Munkh Khukh Tengriin Oron" in Mongolian). In modern Turkey Tengriism is also known as the Göktanrı dini, "Sky God religion",[Turkish "Gök" (sky) and "Tanrı" (God) corresponding to the Mongolian khukh (blue) and Tengri (sky), respectively.
According to the Hungarian archeological researches, the religion of the Hungarians before Christianity (until the end of the X. century) was Tengrism.
[1] TÜRIK BITIG or Irq Bitig , known as the Book of Omens or Book of Divination in English, is a 9th-century manuscript book on divination that was discovered in the "Library Cave" of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, China, by Aurel Stein in 1907, and is now in the collection of the British Library in London, England. The book is written in Old Turkic using the Old Turkic script (also known as "Orkhon" or "Turkic runes"); it is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script. It is also an important source for early Turkic mythology.
According to Annemarie von Gabain (1901–1993) the Irk Bitig is written in a "Manichaean" dialect of Old Turkic, reflecting the fact that it was written at a Manichaean monastery, but Clauson has noted that the language of this text is virtually identical to that of the corpus of secular inscriptions in the Old Turkic script from the Orkhon Valley, and so "Manichaean" is not a valid linguistic term.
The British Library manuscript exhibits a number of orthographic peculiarities that may reflect the dialect of its scribe. In particular, it uses the front vowel forms of the letter s and n in certain situations where a back vowel form of the letters would be expected. The manuscript also uses two signs, (used to write the word ot meaning "grass") and (used to represent a syllabic up or the letter p after the letter u), that are not attested in other manuscript texts or inscriptions.
The Old Turkic text does not have any sentence punctuation, but uses two black lines in a red circle as a word separation mark in order to indicate word boundaries.
See and read text in English.