Tengri

Tengrism is the ancient shamanic religion centered on Tengri, the supreme sky god, practiced by the Turkic and Mongol nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes. The religion was the dominant spiritual framework of the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan and his successors in the 13th century, who invoked Tengri's divine mandate to justify their conquests. Tengrism gradually declined as Turkic and Mongol populations converted to Islam, Buddhism, and other religions, but it has experienced a modest revival in parts of Central Asia in the post-Soviet era.

Genghis Khan and his successors invoked Tengri as the source of their divine mandate to rule, claiming that the Eternal Blue Sky (Köke Möngke Tengri) had granted them dominion over the earth. This concept provided religious legitimacy for the Mongol conquests, framing military expansion as fulfillment of Tengri's will. Mongol diplomatic correspondence to rulers of other nations, including the rulers of Khwarezm and the caliph of Baghdad, explicitly invoked this mandate from Tengri.

Tengrism as a formal organized religion largely disappeared as Turkic and Mongol peoples adopted Islam, Lamaist Buddhism, and other religions over the centuries following the Mongol Empire. However, since the 1990s there has been a modest revival of interest in Tengri and traditional shamanic practices in parts of Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and the Russian republics of Tatarstan and Sakha (Yakutia). Modern Tengrism typically blends ancient beliefs with contemporary nationalist and ecological values rather than reproducing the historical religion exactly.

The word 'Tengri' (also transliterated as Tangri, Tanri, or Tenger) broadly means 'sky' or 'heaven' in Turkic and Mongolic languages, and Tengri was envisioned as the supreme, all-powerful sky deity who ruled over all creation. Unlike many other ancient deities, Tengri was generally not depicted in human or animal form, as he was considered too vast and abstract to be represented visually. The 'Eternal Blue Sky'—the open, boundless sky of the Eurasian steppe—was itself the primary manifestation of Tengri's presence.