Zher-Su

Zher-Su, the 'Earth-Water', is the sanctified homeland itself conceived as a numinous power: the mountains, rivers, springs and pastures of the ancestral steppe gathered into one sacred presence. In the eighth-century inscriptions the blue Tengri above and the sacred Yer-Sub below are said together to have raised the Turkic people, and neglect of that favor to have brought their near-destruction. Among the Kazakhs the concept endured in the veneration of consecrated peaks and life-giving waters, and in the pouring of libations and the tying of rags at holy springs. With Tengri and Umai it completes the elder triad of protecting powers, the earthward foundation answering to the celestial vault.

Domains

• earth land
• water springs

Powers

• hallows and protects the homeland

Epithets

• Ыдуқ Жер-Су — Sacred Earth-WaterOrkhon inscriptions, in Tekin (1968). (primary)

Relations

• ally: TengriOrkhon inscriptions in which Tengri above and the sacred Yer-Sub below raise the Turkic people; in Tekin (1968). (primary)
• ally: UmaiOrkhon inscriptions grouping Umai with the sacred Yer-Sub; in Tekin (1968). (primary)

Sources

• Yer-Sub / Zher-Su, the 'Sacred Earth-Water', is a named numinous power of Old Turkic religion invoked in the Orkhon inscriptions and continued in Kazakh reverence for consecrated land and water.: Kul Tigin and Bilge Qagan inscriptions (c. 732-735 CE), trans. Tekin (1968). (primary); Roux, La religion des Turcs et des Mongols (1984). (secondary)
• The cult of hallowed mountains, springs and pastures under the concept of Zher-Su persisted among the Kazakhs alongside the worship of Tengri and Umai.: Harva, Die religiosen Vorstellungen der altaischen Voelker (1938). (secondary)