Common Features of Tengrism and Mazdaism

The Sakha (Yakuts) are the northernmost Turkic people. Like many peoples they preserved folklore art in a living existence. Part of it consists of myths, including cosmogonic ones, which are found primarily in the heroic epic of Olonkho, religious beliefs and in the form of separate mythological narratives. In this work the main attention is paid to the cosmogonic and related myths of the Yakuts, searching for parallels to them mainly from the mythology of the ancient Indo-Iranians. These searches are motivated by ancient ethnogenetic ties. The main source for the preparation of the work was materials from Olonkho. In the religious beliefs of the Yakuts, the cult of the bright god Yuryung Ar Aiyy Tangara occupies a central place, with which the kumysnyysyakh is associated. It is associated with the early nomadic Indo-Iranian mythological view, which was based on the cult of the bright deity Ahura Mazda. Using comparative, geographical, etymological and genetic methods as well as the author’s field materials the evidence of the Yakut epic Olonkho ‘about the valley-mother of Kyaladyky in the Middle World, where sacred white cranes winter – sterkhes (Siberian Cranes)’ is confirmed. The sterches who spent their summers in Western Siberia wintered in northern Afghanistan, Pakistan and India before their complete extermination. The conclusions of the works of geneticists on the Aryan and Turkic ancestry of the Sakha (Yakuts) are presented, which also confirm the evidence of the Yakut Olonkho. The materials obtained as a result of the study lead to parallels between the myths of the ancient IndoIranians and the Sakha (Yakuts), which indicates the origin of Yakut tengrism – the belief in the Ar Aiyy Tangara, in the same region. As a result, a conclusion is drawn about the ancient cultural and ethnogenetic contacts of the proto–ancestors of the Indo–Iranians and the Uranhai Sakha, which took place in the area of the junction of the highest mountains of Asia: Karakorum – Hindu Kush – Himalayas.