Provided you paid your tribute and obeyed the Khan’s laws they were cool with just about everyone. Fail to do either of those things and you’re in for a bad time.
It’s actually a cool belief system from what I’ve read, known as Tengriism; they had their own beliefs but (and I hope I have this right) that whatever religious worldview prevailed locally was considered not just valid as a personal or cultural expression, but actually metaphysically true as well. That seems fantastic, doesn’t it? Patchwork metaphysics.
I’m not an expert but from what I’ve read most ancient world deities were attached to certain geographies (it would be reasonable to sort of leave the boundaries of your gods) so I wonder if this comes from that tradition. The roman catholics sure successfully weaponized monotheism.
That’s one way. Another was syncretism. The Romans famously stole the Greek gods, but they also worshipped isis for example. “That god resonates with me, so sure why not”.
I just love how fun it would be to believe that yes, god is the Creator of the Cosmos and he lives in the sky, I have a rich cosmogony that tries to explain the Universe and Everything…But also, if you cross that mountain to the west and traverse the river beyond, them you’ll be in another part of our empire where the universe was created by the boogers of a Titan or something like that I was too busy picking up my arrows to listen. Bless them.
Yeah that era must’ve been weird. I mostly know of the era of antiquity where “these strange people say the god of medicine is the husband of the Queen of the Dead, but we all know he’s a moon god.”
It was mixed. Their subjects were more free to travel, practise religions, and generally exist within the empire than without it. It was just that transition. The Mongols liked to do things the easy way, or the really easy way.
Modern Mongolia, perhaps. The Golden Horde of Genghis Khan was not so tolerant!
The way I hear it told, Genghis Khan liked all types of women. 😉
Yes, they were. Genghis’ Mongols didn’t generally force religious change in the people who they subjugated.
Provided you paid your tribute and obeyed the Khan’s laws they were cool with just about everyone. Fail to do either of those things and you’re in for a bad time.
I mean pretty consistent with today’s neoliberal values:
It’s okay to exploit people as long as we don’t discriminate.
The neoliberals of the 13th and 14th century
It’s actually a cool belief system from what I’ve read, known as Tengriism; they had their own beliefs but (and I hope I have this right) that whatever religious worldview prevailed locally was considered not just valid as a personal or cultural expression, but actually metaphysically true as well. That seems fantastic, doesn’t it? Patchwork metaphysics.
I’m not an expert but from what I’ve read most ancient world deities were attached to certain geographies (it would be reasonable to sort of leave the boundaries of your gods) so I wonder if this comes from that tradition. The roman catholics sure successfully weaponized monotheism.
That’s one way. Another was syncretism. The Romans famously stole the Greek gods, but they also worshipped isis for example. “That god resonates with me, so sure why not”.
I just love how fun it would be to believe that yes, god is the Creator of the Cosmos and he lives in the sky, I have a rich cosmogony that tries to explain the Universe and Everything…But also, if you cross that mountain to the west and traverse the river beyond, them you’ll be in another part of our empire where the universe was created by the boogers of a Titan or something like that I was too busy picking up my arrows to listen. Bless them.
Yeah that era must’ve been weird. I mostly know of the era of antiquity where “these strange people say the god of medicine is the husband of the Queen of the Dead, but we all know he’s a moon god.”
It was mixed. Their subjects were more free to travel, practise religions, and generally exist within the empire than without it. It was just that transition. The Mongols liked to do things the easy way, or the really easy way.