Zher-Su
Kazakh · numen · Kazakh traditional religion; continuing · numen
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
Relations
Sources
- Kul Tigin and Bilge Qagan inscriptions (c. 732-735 CE), trans. Tekin (1968).
- Roux, La religion des Turcs et des Mongols (1984).
- Harva, Die religiosen Vorstellungen der altaischen Voelker (1938).