Turanian religions (another name for the Scythian-Sarmatian religion , the religion of the Sakas ) are religious and mythological views that are common among pastoral Turan tribes ( Scythians , Sarmatians , Sakas) from the Hindu Kush to the Black Sea coast in the early Iron Age . Religious representations of Turans go back to Mazdaism , but among Turans, Ahura Mazda is revered not as the supreme god, but as one of many other deities of the common ancient Iranian pantheon.
Content
Religious Views of the Scythians
The most valuable information about the Scythian deities and rituals reported Herodotus. The Scythian religion of the times of Herodotus can be characterized as tribal with a tendency to create a national-state religion. The all-Scythian pantheon of the highest gods, headed by the Tabiti triad - Papay - Api, stood out. According to Herodotus, the Scythians most of all worshiped Tabiti (Hestia) - the goddess of home and fire. This worship of fire as a sacred element, characteristic of all Indo-European and especially Indo-Iranian peoples [1] .
Religious views of Sarmatians and Alans
Presumably the pantheon of the Sarmatians counted seven deities, since the cult of the seven gods is witnessed by the Alans [2] . The veneration of the seven gods in an archaic form is found in the Avesta [3] . Nymphodor of Syracuse (3rd century BC) wrote that “ Savromats (Sarmatians) worshiped fire” [4] .
Religious views of the Sakas and Massagets
Saki in Avesta are called Turans. According to the Avesta, among the Turans there were already followers of Zarathushtra (a genus of Freean). This also confirms the presence in Avesta of the legendary heroes of Haoshang and Tahma-Urup , known in the Scythian-Saka epic [5] .
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus , referring to one of the Saka tribes - the massagets, writes that they worshiped the sun [6] .
In the Hotan-Sakic language, the “sun” is called urmay-sde (the Sakic reflection of ancient Iranian Ahura Mazda / Ahura-Mazdāh ) [7] .
Notes
- ↑ Steppes of the European part of the USSR in the Scythian-Sarmatian time. / Series: Archeology of the USSR. M .: Nauka, 1989, p. 120-121.
- ↑ Abaev V. I. The cult of the seven gods of the Scythians // Ancient World. M., 1962, p. 446.
- ↑ Nagimov R. D. The World Outlook of the Nomads of the Southern Urals in the Epoch of Early Iron and its Connection with Zoroastrianism // Ural-Altai: Through the Centuries into the Future. Ufa, 2008, p. 163.
- ↑ Smirnov KF Sarmaty on Ilek. M., Science, 1975, p. 155.
- ↑ Nagimov R. D. The World Outlook of the Nomads of the Southern Urals in the Epoch of Early Iron and its Connection with Zoroastrianism // Ural-Altai: Through the Centuries into the Future. Ufa, 2008, p. 161.
- ↑ Herodotus // History. In 9 kN. / Per. G. A. Stratanovsky. M., Ladomir, 2001.
- ↑ Livshits V.A. Iranian Languages of the Peoples of Central Asia // Peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, IM, 1962, p. 153.