Okon Tengri

Okon Tengri, the 'Maiden Heaven', is the great goddess of the Kalmyks, a figure in which an older shamanic fire-deity and the Tibeto-Buddhist protectress Palden Lhamo (Shridevi) have merged. In her archaic aspect she is the goddess of the hearth and of the sacrificial fire invoked in clan rituals; in her Buddhist aspect she is a fierce dharmapala who rides across the sky as guardian of the faith and of the Kalmyk nation, and her festival opens the spring with the White Month. A widely told myth casts her as a redemptive and terrible figure who sacrifices herself to a devouring monster, bears its child, and then destroys the beast by breaking open the iron casket that holds its external soul. In popular devotion her name is sometimes used interchangeably with those of Palden Lhamo and White Tara. Sources differ on whether her fire-goddess character is the original core later clothed in Buddhist iconography, or an indigenous reading of an imported protector.

Domains

• fire
• protection of the faith

Powers

• guards the whole Kalmyk people
• destroys the soul-bearing monster

Epithets

• Окн Теңгр — Maiden HeavenBakaeva, E. P., Sakral'nye kody kul'tury kalmykov (Elista, 2003) (secondary)

Sources

• Okon Tengri is a Kalmyk female deity of dual nature, at once a shamanic goddess of fire honoured in clan fire-rituals and the wrathful Buddhist protectress Palden Lhamo, patron of the whole Kalmyk people and central to the Tsagan Sar festival.: 'Military might and healing power: representations of the goddess Palden Lhamo in Kalmykia', Études mongoles et sibériennes centrasiatiques et tibétaines 48 (2017) (secondary); Bakaeva, E. P., Buddizm v Kalmykii (Elista, 1994) (secondary)
• A myth relates that for the sake of humanity she offered herself to a monster, bore it a son, and then slew the monster by opening the iron chest containing its soul.: Bakaeva, E. P., Sakral'nye kody kul'tury kalmykov (Elista, 2003) (secondary)