Concepts JARGY ‘the court’, ‘thanks, thanks’ and BYIAN ‘blessing’, ‘thanks’ in the shaman text of the Altaians

The paper is devoted to the concepts of jargy ‘court’, ‘grace, mercy’ and byian ‘grace,’ ‘blessing’ in Altaic shamanic texts. The material for the study was taken from published and archival texts recorded at the beginning of the twentieth century by researcher A. V. Anokhin from different ethnic groups of the Altaians. The author has found that the historical layer of the concepts concerned is associated with the Buddhist religious tradition. An etymological analysis showed that the word jargy is of Turkic origin. On the one hand, it reflected the archaic representations of Turkic shamans about a heavenly (divine) court. According to the ideas of shamans, the heavenly court, the court of the gods is considered the highest instance of determining the life path of man. In the mythopoetic consciousness of Altai shamans, grace granted by deities or mountain spirits was figuratively represented by a golden or white light, a sparkle (аltyn jargy ‘golden grace’, ‘golden sparkle,’ ak byian ‘white grace’) descending from the heavenly spheres to the home to the fire. The soul of a newborn ( sus or kut ) was considered a blessing bestowed by a deity. It was presented in the form of a sunbeam, as a means of transmitting the embryo sent by the deity to a person. On the other hand, the concept of altyn jargy ‘the golden court, the golden decision (deities)’ has much in common with the concept of light, radiance ( jaryk ), which underlies the Buddhist “Sutra of Golden Glitter” (“Altyn Yarug”). The appearance of the concept of court in shamanistic culture under the influence of the Christian concept of the posthumous court has not been studied. Another keyword byian / pyian was most likely borrowed into the Turkic languages from Sanskrit (p`unya ‘pure, sacred’), while Buddhist monuments were translated. In shamanic texts, the word byian / pyian realizes the meanings ‘blessing’ and ‘grace.’

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