Fire Worship

Fire held a place of honour among the Göktürks.^[1] Two writers record it without knowledge of each other. One is the biographer of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who describes the court of the Western Göktürks. The other is the Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta, in a digression on the peoples of the east.

At the court of the Yabgu Khan

On his way to India, Xuanzang reached the town of Suye, the later Suyab. There he met the Yabgu Khan of the Göktürks, out hunting with a great following.^[2] Modern accounts identify the khan with Tong Yabgu.^[3] Three days later he received the pilgrim in a great tent hung with golden flowers.^[2]

At this point the biography explains the seating. The Göktürks, it says, serve fire. They set up no seats of wood, because wood contains fire. Out of reverence they do not sit on it, and they only spread thick mats on the ground.^[1] For the pilgrim they brought an iron folding seat with a cushion.^[1]

A few pages later the biography uses the same words, 事火, for Samarkand.^[4] There the king and the people did not follow the Buddha. The service of fire was their religion.^[4] The biography does not say whether the Göktürks and the people of Samarkand served fire in the same way.

Theophylact’s account

Theophylact interrupts his history of the Balkan wars with a digression on the east.^[5] It opens with a letter of victory that the khagan in the east sent to the emperor Maurice.^[6] The information in the digression must ultimately go back to a diplomatic record.^[7]

The Göktürks, Theophylact says, honour fire to a quite extraordinary degree. They revere air and water, and they praise the earth.^[8] They worship and call god only the one who made heaven and earth. To him they sacrifice horses, cattle and sheep.^[9] They also have priests who, in their opinion, foretell the future.^[10] Modern accounts identify the unnamed god as Tengri.^[11]

In this list fire stands first among the four powers that are honoured. The god stands apart from them as the only one who is worshipped.

Fire in the legend and the rite

Fire also appears in the second origin account of the Zhou Shu, the account of the Suo country.^[12] There the eldest son of the wolf-born Nishidu made fire for the remnant of their people on the mountain. They were suffering from cold and frost, and he saved them all.^[12] For that they made him their lord.^[12] A Turkish study of mythology understands the account as one in which the ancestors found fire and did not wish to give the honour to others. It sets beside it the Altaian tale in which the great god Ülgen found fire.^[13]

Fire was also the means of purification. In 569 men of the Göktürks censed the baggage of a Roman embassy with burning frankincense. They led the envoy Zemarchos through the fire, to drive away evil spirits.^[14] The same study adds that envoys who came to the Göktürks were led over fire at the frontier before they were admitted, and that Rubruck says the same of envoys in the age of Genghis Khan.^[15]

Origin

The origin of the reverence is disputed. The Turkic peoples, it is held, kept a special relation to fire over many centuries. The fire cult was then already present when the Göktürks appeared in the sixth century and advanced to the borders of Persia. The Göktürks themselves knew it.^[16] Persia and Zoroastrianism are named as the origin of the cult.^[17] A fire cult in Anatolia that is older than Zoroastrianism is also pointed out, which suggests a development independent of Iran.^[18] Others see no need to bring the Göktürk reverence for fire from Iran, since the belief that fire is the purest thing is held almost everywhere.^[15]

The two witnesses give a practice and a rank, not a doctrine. Fire was not sat upon, and it stood first among the powers the Göktürks revered. In the nineteenth century the hearth fire was still addressed and fed. The Altaian kam called on the thirty-headed fire mother in the great sacrifice.^[19] The Mongols called the fire Mother Fire. Among the Altaic peoples it was wrong to spit into it, to put it out with water or to hurt it with a sharp weapon.^[20] The Yakuts gave it the best bite of their food.^[21]

References

^ a b c Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
^ Chavannes 1903, p. 25
^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.7.6, p. 188
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.7.7, p. 188
^ Whitby 1986, xxv
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.14, p. 191
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.14–15, p. 191
^ Theophylact Simocatta; Whitby 1986, vii.8.15, p. 191
^ Whitby 1986, p. 191
^ a b c Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
^ Ögel 1995, p. 500–502
^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 119
^ a b Ögel 1995, p. 522
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 142, 144–145
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 143
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 143–144
^ Radloff 1893 (zweite Ausgabe), p. 29
^ Holmberg 1927, p. 452
^ Vámbéry 1879, p. 158

Sources

Literature

Samuel Beal (trans.), The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li (1911)
Michael Whitby, Mary Whitby (trans.), The History of Theophylact Simocatta (1986)
Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)
R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Wilhelm Radloff, Aus Sibirien. Lose Blätter aus meinem Tagebuche. Zweiter Band (1893 (zweite Ausgabe))
Uno Holmberg (Harva), The Mythology of All Races, Volume IV: Finno-Ugric, Siberian (1927)
Ármin Vámbéry, Die primitive Cultur des turko-tatarischen Volkes, auf Grund sprachlicher Forschungen erörtert (1879)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Mitolojisi (Kaynakları ve açıklamaları ile destanlar) II (1995)