Mongol

Mongol William Lowell Givens Taharka Baraka Aileen Chu Izzy Fitzpatrick

**Cosmology ** Before the very beginning, before there even was time, there was nothing. Time began at the first change. When from this great expanse of nothingness there arose two balancing forces: the blue wolf and the gray doe. The blue wolf was the male force. The gray doe was the female force. The wolf was darkness while the doe, which was the female force,was light. (Hull, 13) The darkness was called Black Misery and the light was called Radiance (Willis 104).

Soon after the wolf and the doe came into existence (Hull), five colourful streams of light burst forth, which created hardness and fluidity,as well as heat, motion, and space. These arethe five principles. The five principles melded into one another forming a very large egg, which was the world. Black Misery plagued the darkness of the world with misfortune, pain, drought, disease, and terrible demons. Radiance pulled the world back into a stable equilibrium by pouring in liveliness, happiness, opulence, security, and a number of benevolent gods. The gods and demons took the form of mountains, trees, rocks and lakes creating nature. (Willis 104)

At this point, the male and the female forces were melded together within the large egg. After a time, they eventually separated from one another. The male force, Black Misery, turned into Heaven, and the female force, Radiance, turned into Earth. Three worlds were created: the upper world, the middle world, and the underworld. Earth and Heaven had two sons together. One was put in charge of the upper-world and the other was put in charge of the underworld. Tenger, who was put in charge of the upperworld, decided to sculpt animals and male humans from clay. Once the humans and animals were dry, Tenger sent them all down to the middle world. Although there were trees, mountains, rocks and lakes, there was no vegetation suitable to eat, so humans had to plant seeds.The male humans mated with female animals, seeing as no female humans were created. The different animals that people mated with led to different ethnicities. The Mongols came from humans mating with ewes, and the Chinese came from humans mating with chickens. Eventually, the animals that males had coupled with turned into human females. (Bayer and Stuart) When the humans would die they would go to live in the lower world for a period of time before reincarnating and coming back to live in the middle world. The upper world was kept predominantly for the gods, although they could also live in the form of lakes, trees, mountains, and rocks in both the middle- and under-worlds. ("Mongolian Cosmology")

Now, there were gods, demons, Heaven, Earth, spirits, humans, and animals. Heaven,Tenger, was at the top of the social hierarchy with Earth slightly lower in power than him. In the level hierarchically lower than Earth and Heaven were the gods and demons, and lower yet were the spirits. At the bottom two tiers were the humans and then the animals. (Morgan 43)

Ever since Black Misery and Radiance were born from nothing, and the stream of colours representing hardness, fluidity, motion, heat and space were self-generated, there has been a very large egg. This large egg is the world in which gods, demons, Heaven, Earth, spirits, humans, animals, and plants exist, and there is no going back to the time before it was first created. (Willis 104) Fortunately for the soul, time is less definite. After living one life, it is possible to continue returning to the middle world in the form of a new body. ("Mongolian Cosmology")

Cosmology of Udan  ﻿ Very many years ago there lived a lama whose name was Udan. For the first five-hundred years of this lama's life there was nothing. There was no moon, no earth, no gods, nor living creature except for Udan. When Udan became 1000 he decided to divide heaven and earth. He created a nine-tiered heaven and a nine-tiered earth, as well as nine rivers. Finally Udan, the lama, sculpted a man and a woman out of clay. These are the ancestors of all humans, all humans are desended from them, for they married and had many children. This is the story of Udan, the creator of everything(Bayer and Staurt).


 * Works Cited **

Bayer, Nassen, and Kevin Stuart. "Home Page." //Mongol Creation Stories: Man,// //Mongol Tribes, the Natural World, and Mongol Deities.// Asian Folklore Studies, 1992. Web. 31 Oct. 2010.

Hull, Mary. "The Nine-Tongued People." //The Mongol Empire//. San Diego: Lucent Books, 1998. 13. Print.

"Mongolian Cosmology." //Tengerism//. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2010. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><http://www.tengerism.org/cosmology.html>.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Morgan, David. "Mongol Religious Beliefs." //The Mongols//. Malden, Massachussetts: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Blackwell, 2003. 40-44. Print.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Willis, Roy. "Tibet and Mongolia." //World Mythology//. Ed. Henry Holt. 1993. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">102-109. Print. Henry Holt Reference.

//**(__Group!!!!, can we meet thursday at lunch in the library?__-** WLG**)**// //yeah, sure...what are we gonna be doing?-AC// probably, what for? -IF //by the way, what are those numbers next to our names for?-AC// //period #-WLG// Aileen Chu-Found a site, I think its good but I'll double check later-Mongol-**5th**

Okay, I found two more. Pretty sure that these are reliable, double checked my previous link and I think its okay as well- site 1 site 2 site 3-It looks good, not specifically dealing with cosmologies, but has some background info we can use If I have time I'll go to the library for a bit next week -AC

These links aren't working for me. Could you type in the URL? -IF

[] [] [] [] sorry about that, those are the links -AC

Thanks Aileen, I'll look at those later. I found a few pages related to Mongolia in //Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky//. Here is the citation: Andrews, Tamra. "Raiden." //Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky//. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1998. p.188. Print. In this book, there are also Mongolia-related stories on pages 143 and 147. I didn't have much time to read them, but I suggest that you take a look when you have class time in the library. I wrote brief summaries about each page just from skimming, so they aren't very detailed. p.188: This is about Japan interacting with Mongolia ((not really pertaining to topic)-WLG). p.143: This talks about Mongols of China and how they used meteors and meteorites for tools. p.147, Someone can take a look at this, I ran out of time.

-Izzy Fitzpatrick

Here is a magazine article on Ebsco called The Mongols and Religion: [] -WLG

This source talks about the Mongol's attitude of Religious tolerance. It is pretty credible. It comes from an Ivy League website. Feel free to look around the website. [] -WLG

Sorry, I couldn't find the book. I found a website though, its BBC so I thinks its okay. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A577992 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1989_Sept/ai_8067509/?tag=content;col1-This one I'm not so sure about. I THINK its a publication, but I can't be sure Theres also a book that the university has. Can't find the whole text, but we can try to borrow it: http://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/vf-uiu/Record/uiu_1916107 -AC PS. Wait, we have four people in our group? Sweet.

heres dis link i found [] TB

Okay, a list of all the sources we have so far. Whenever we find another source we can mention it up there and add it down here, so we don't have to scroll through everything. http://www.tengerism.org/cosmology.html http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/seminars/papers/y673_spring_2003_khamaganova.pdf http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/stuart1.htm http://www.coldsiberia.org/webdoc3.htm http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=8&hid=104&sid=69e3b18f-2319-4b43-9468-81247d635c30%40sessionmgr104 http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols/history/history7.htm http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A577992 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1310/is_1989_Sept/ai_8067509/?tag=content;col1-This Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky. Willis, Roy. "Tibet and Mongolia." //World Mythology//. Ed. Henry Holt. 1993. 102-109. Print. Henry Holt Reference. [] [] Morgan, David. "Mongol Religious Beliefs." //The Mongols//. Malden, Massachussetts: Blackwell, 2003. 40-44. Print. May, Timothy Michael. "Religion." //Culture and Customs of Mongolia//. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2009. 43-61. Print. Lane, George. "Religion and the Mongols." //Daily Life in the Mongol Empire//. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 2006. 181-204. Print. Crystal, Ellie. "Mongol Creational Myths." //Crystalinks//. N.p., 2010. Web. 31 Oct. 2010. <http://www.crystalinks.com/mongoliacreation.html>.

At the U of I Main Library, I photocopied a few pages from a really good reference book. I recommend that you take a look at it if possible.

Here is the citation: Willis, Roy. "Tibet and Mongolia." //World Mythology//. Ed. Henry Holt. 1993. 102-109. Print. Henry Holt Reference. Willis, Roy. "Tibet and Mongolia." //World Mythology//. -Izzy Fitzpatrick

This one has a few things about religion...I warn you though, its incredibly long. [] -AC

YO! Let's move stuff over to the discussion page! -IF