Were there Buddhists in the Golden Horde? Problem Statement in Historical and Archaeological Con-text (on the example of information from Abdulgaffar Kyrymi’s Umdet Al-Akhbar)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24852/2587-6112.2025.5.186.191Keywords:
Golden Horde, Buddhists, Mongols, Tatars, Ulus of Jochi, religionAbstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the information in Umdet al-Akhbar by Abdulghaffar Kyrymi related to Buddhists in the Golden Horde, the appearance of the term Dalai Lama and Manja in the work by the Crimean-Ottoman author of the 18th century. It is known that certain archaeologists, in particular V.P. Kostyukov, have advanced a thesis about a significant group of Buddhists among the Mongol-Tatars. The presence of Buddhists in the Ulus of Jochi is not disputed, while the author of the paper believes that this issue requires further research based on a comprehensive historical and archaeological analysis of evidence from written sources and archaeological materials. According to an analysis of written sources, Buddhists were perceived as ordinary pagans, which indicates, in particular, their sparsity in the Ulus of Jochi. The details by Abdulghaffar Kyrymi provide additional materials in the interpretation of archaeological artifacts, which, according to some researchers, are related to Buddhists.
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