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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