Asan Qaigy
Asan Qaigy, 'Asan the Sorrowful', is the legendary sage, prophet and zhyrau of Kazakh tradition, associated with the age of the khans Janibek and Kerei and the birth of the Kazakh Khanate in the fifteenth century. His byname comes from the grief with which he foresaw the hardships in store for his people. In the most enduring legend he rides the steppe on Zhelmaya, a she-camel swift as the wind, searching for Zheruiyq, a promised earthly paradise of boundless green pasture and gentle waters where flocks multiply and neither sorrow nor oppression is known. Though he never reaches it, his quest and his wise, mournful sayings became a lasting image of the yearning for a just and abundant homeland, and he is counted among the first and greatest of the steppe poet-sages.
Domains
- prophecy wisdom
- utopia promised land
Powers
- searches for the promised land Zheruiyq
Epithets
- Асан Қайғы — Asan the SorrowfulWinner, The Oral Art and Literature of the Kazakhs (1958). (secondary)
Sources
- Asan Qaigy is a legendary fifteenth-century sage and zhyrau linked to the founding of the Kazakh Khanate, remembered for wandering the steppe on the camel Zhelmaya in search of the utopian land Zheruiyq.: Winner, The Oral Art and Literature of the Kazakhs of Russian Central Asia (1958). (secondary); Qondybai, Kazakhskaya mifologiya (2005). (secondary)