Qormusta Tengri

Qormusta Tengri (Cyrillic: Хурмаста, Хормуста-тенгри, Хан-Хурмаста; from the Sogdian Хурмазта/Khurmazta; also transliterated as Qormusata (Tngri), Khormusta (Tngri), Hormusta (Tngri), and Qormusda (Tngri)) is a god in Tengrism and shamanism, described as the chief god of the 99 tngri and leader of the 33 gods.^[1] Hormusta is the counterpart of the Turkic and Mongol deities, Hürmüz and Kormos Khan.^[2][3]

According to Walther Heissig, the group of 33 gods led by Qormusata Tngri exists alongside the well-known group of 99 tngri. Qormusata Tngri derives his name from Ahura Mazda. He is analogous to the Indian Buddhist deity Śakra (to whom Michael York compares him, as a more active being^[4]), ruler of the Buddhist heaven of the Thirty-three. Qormusata Tngri leads those 33, and in early texts is also mentioned as leading the 99 tngri. He is connected to the origin of fire: "Buddha struck the light and 'Qormusata Tngri lit the fire'."^[5] A fable of a fox describes a fox so clever that even Qormusata Tngri (as the head of the 99 tingri) falls prey to him;^[6] in a folktale, Boldag ugei boru ebugen ("The impossible old man, Boru"), he is the sky god with the crow and the wolf as his "faithful agents".^[7]

Qormusata Tngri's relatively recent entrance into the pantheon is also indicated by the attempts on the part of Mergen Gegen Lubsangdambijalsan (1717-1766?) to replace earlier shamanist gods in the liturgy with five Lamaist gods including Qormusata Tngri.^[8] In one text, he is presented as the father of the 17th-century cult figure Sagang Sechen, who is at the same time an incarnation of Vaiśravaṇa, one of the Four Heavenly Kings in Buddhism.^[9]