64 chapter one
I.3. World religions and othernessExcept for Islam, the great world (as well as monotheistic) religions
penetrated the territories situated between the Black Sea and Mongo-
lia far earlier than the sixth century and, in principle, none of them
took over the ‘Steppe Empire’. Th ey were products of the great sed-
entary civilizations, i.e. they were initially marked as foreign and for
that reason the nomadic rulers were cautious and suspicious towards
their penetration in the steppes. Th e choice of a world religion or its
replacement with another one by the nomads resulted in changes in
their culture, a special cultural orientation and a selectivity of the cul-
tural infl uences inclusively. Given that situation, we should keep in
mind at least a couple of things: 1) when the nomads were making
their choice to be converted to various world religions, it was a result
of practical (political mainly) rather than spiritual reasons; 2) as a rule,
the fi rst ones to be converted to the new religion^185 were the rulers
and the aristocratic elite with the common people following soon aft er
that. Th e aristocrats were well aware of the fact that the monotheistic
religions could support the promotion of a new (or the modifying of
the old) political ideology and were an essential element of the estab-
lishment of cultural identity.
Buddhism and Taoism were considered improper in steppe Eurasia
between the sixth and the ninth centuries since they were regarded as
religions of humility and commonly associated with China as well^186
(cf. the unsuccessful attempt to introduce Buddhism as a state reli-
gion of the Turks during the reigns of Taspar/Tobo khagan and Nivar
recorded also on the Bugut stela, 570s/580s A.D.). Th e acceptance
of Confucianism, which experienced a period of revival during the
reign of the T’ang dynasty, was totally impossible. Th e focus of such
denial was aimed not only against the Chinese concept of superiority
accomplished through the Confucian religion but, as A. Khazanov^187
has written, against the specifi c role performed by the religion in the
(^185) Khazanov 1994, 14–15.
(^186) Sinor 1990, 312. It was V. Bartol’d who, some decades earlier, wrote that some-
times the nomads consciously—because of preservation of their military style of liv-
ing—declared that they were not ready to change the religion of their predecessors
for this could have made them peaceful and thus would undermine the core of their
societies—for this statement see, Bartol’d 1964 (Vol. 4), 431. Especially for Buddhism
in Central Asia see, Haussig 1992, 185 ff.
(^187) Khazanov 1994, 22.