Yang (soul)

Yang, along with other human souls in Bashkir mythology ( Bashk. Kot - life force, Bashk. Isem - name, Bashk. Tyn - breath) is an independent substance. The word "yang" is of Persian origin ^[1] .

Jan enters a person already in the womb in the fourth month of development. The Bashkirs believed that the Yang are sitting on the Tree of Life in anticipation of their turn to find a physical body.

Yang can briefly leave the physical body during sleep, fainting, illness, lethargy, and in other cases, and after death leaves him forever. According to beliefs, during sleep, the yang travels, and if the sleeping man is awakened sharply, the yang may not have time to return to the physical body, and the person will die. After the death of a person, the yang leaves the body in the form of a butterfly, bird and others, and until forty days is near his relatives, and then leaves them and visits only on Fridays.

According to legend, the ancestors of Yang protect descendants, and in order to receive their favor, the Bashkirs performed special rites. The Bashkirs also believed that after the death of a person, his yang occupies a new physical body.

The yang of a person who has died an unnatural death or is buried without proper ritual, wanders in the form of a ghost ( albasty , myskaski , loss , wack ).

After the adoption of Islam, beliefs about the yang at the Bashkirs were preserved in funeral rites.

In the Bashkir language, there are phraseological units that reflect the people's ideas about Yana:

• “Yәn alҡymғa kileү” (to be in serious condition),
• “Yn atyu” (strive with all my heart),
• Yәn rәhәte (feeling of bliss),
• “Kara Yun” - “dark soul” (cruel person), etc.

• Rudenko S.I. Bashkirs: Historical and Ethnographic Essays. - Ufa: Kitap, 2006.
• Khisamitdinova F.G. Dictionary of Bashkir mythology. Ufa: IJAL UC RAS, 2011.

• Khisamitdinova F.G. Yan. // Article in the Bashkir Encyclopedia. (head).