Kurbustu

Kurbustu is the master of the celestial realm in Tuvan cosmology, standing at the head of the ranked heavenly lords known as azar who inhabit the layered skies. His name travelled a long road: it descends from the Iranian Ahura Mazda by way of Sogdian and Uighur Buddhism and the Mongolian Qormusta Tngri, and was absorbed into the Sayan-Altai shamanic world as the supreme sky-figure. In shaman songs the upper-world practitioner ascends through the heavens toward Kurbustu and his azar host, who form the bright counterweight to Erlik's subterranean domain. Sources differ on how sharply he is distinguished from the diffuse notion of the sky itself, since Tuvan tradition tends to address the heavens as a graded hierarchy of lords rather than a single throned god.

Domains

• sky heavens
• celestial hierarchy

Powers

• presides over the celestial world
• dispatches heavenly spirit-helpers

Epithets

• Курбусту-хаан — Lord Kurbustu, khan of the heavensKenin-Lopsan, M. B. (1997). Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tuva. Budapest: ISTOR Books 7. (primary)

Sources

• Kurbustu is the celestial head-deity of the Tuvan upper world, a name descended from Iranian Ahura Mazda through the Mongol Qormusta.: Heissig, W. (1980). The Religions of Mongolia. Berkeley: University of California Press. (secondary); Kenin-Lopsan, M. B. (1997). Shamanic Songs and Myths of Tuva, ed. M. Hoppal. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado / ISTOR Books 7. (primary)