Tangri

Tangri, the deified eternal blue sky, is the supreme deity of the pre-Islamic Turkic peoples and the head of the old Turko-Mongol pantheon. Proclaimed in the eighth-century Orkhon inscriptions as the power that raises and unseats qaghans and grants the heavenly fortune (qut) of rule, he was paired with the mother-goddess Umay. Among the Islamized Uzbeks the name endured as an everyday word for God, while the archaic sky-cult left traces in oaths, blessings, and the cosmology underlying the epic and shamanic traditions.

Domains

• sky heaven
• sovereignty kingship

Powers

• rule the eternal sky and order the world
• grant kingship and heavenly fortune (qut)

Epithets

• Ko'k Tangri — the Blue Sky-GodTekin, Talat. A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1968. (secondary)

Relations

• spouse: UmayRoux, Jean-Paul. La religion des Turcs et des Mongols. Paris: Payot, 1984. (secondary)

Sources

• Tangri (Tengri) is the supreme sky-god of the Turkic peoples, the deified eternal heaven attested from the Orkhon inscriptions and surviving in Uzbek usage as the ordinary word for God.: Tekin, Talat. A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1968. (secondary); Roux, Jean-Paul. La religion des Turcs et des Mongols. Paris: Payot, 1984. (secondary)