대몽골제국의 국교 Möngke Tenggeri에 대하여

Studies on Möngke-Tenggeri as a State Religion in Yeke Monggol Ulus: Policy on Making a World Religion of Shamanism

The Mongol empire is the only empire that had no problem in religion throughout world history. Most of the scholars point up the characteristic of Northern Shamanism that is the foundational thought of the Mongol empire, among others, in illustrating the reason for such phenomenon. The Mongol empire, which can be seen as logically systematizing and collecting shamanistic episteme of historical nomadic nations, was at the apex of all the nomadic states in terms of politics, military affairs, and religion. The state religion of the Mongol empire is Möngke-Tenggeri. The emergence of the notion of Möngke Tenggeri, which is the religious gist of the Mongol empire, is deeply associated with the power seizure of Chinggis Khan. Moreover, the logic of it is of the elaborate structure that combines the classical notion of the heaven of the northern region with the sole representative seen in Christianity or Islam. Namely, the notion of Möngke Tenggeri can be regarded as the notion of absolute truth born out of the mixture of northern philosophy and the religious theory of monotheism. The notion of Möngke Tenggeri was constructed in such a flexible way that it could tolerate or absorb any other religious thought or philosophy believed in surrounding civilizational spheres. Needless to say, the starting point of such conceptualization was derived from the peculiar episteme based upon natural law (cf. the article 16 of Yeke Jasag), which ensures that all the things and creatures deserve respect. Owing to this conceptualization, “All the religions are to be respected without any discrimination. Each religion is same in the sense that it is to deify the Divinity.” which is Article 11 of Yeke Jasag or “All the religions are nothing but the fingers, and the final destination is the palm”, which is a statement by Möngke‐Khagan was induced. It was because of this notion that all the great Khans took the position that “the religion is related to the personal belief, not something with which the state is to concern” having tendency to tolerate to other religion and creed.