Lord of the Western Sky

Spirit-class chief sky-god (classed as deity). Borrowed name (from Ahura Mazda) but fully naturalized as a Buryat/Mongolic tengri; included here in the Buryat shamanic-epic context, distinct from the steppe-Mongol pantheon already registered.

Children

• Geser

Domains

• sky
• war protection

Powers

• commands the fifty-five western (white) tengri
• sends his son down to earth as a divine champion

Epithets

• Khan Khormusta latin · Khan Khormusta Tengri · cultChief of the fifty-five western (benevolent) tengri of the skyBuryat (Mongol) shamanic tradition (secondary)

Relations

• descendant of: Grandmother of the SkyIn the Buryat Geser cycle Manzan Gurme Toodei is grandmother of the western tengri, whose chief is Khan Khormusta; he turns to her in crisis.Abai Geser (Buryat epic; ed. A. I. Ulanov, Ulan-Ude, 1960) (primary)
• equated with: Qormusta TengriReciprocal of mongol_qormusta.equated-with — Same borrowed figure (ultimately Ahura Mazda via Sogdian Xurmuzta): head of the tngri. Buryat shamanism fixes him as Khan Khormusta, chief of the 55 benevolent western tengri and father of Geser's earthly mission.Walther Heissig, The Religions of Mongolia (1980); Ágnes Birtalan, 'Die Mythologie der mongolischen Volksreligion' (2001) (secondary)

Sources

• Khan Khormusta Tengri is the chief of the 55 western tengri and the father of the hero Geser in the Buryat Abai Geser epic.: cyberleninka.ru, 'Buryat Hesariad: Tengrist mythology and the epic interpretation' (secondary); Walther Heissig, The Religions of Mongolia, 1980 (secondary)
• The theonym Khormusta derives via Sogdian/Uighur from the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda, entering Mongolian by the 15th century.: Qormusta Tengri scholarship summarized on etymology (Heissig; cyberleninka Buryat Hesariad) (secondary)