The Ideology Of The Ninth And Tenth Centuries 101
high power, capable of causing rain and ensuring victory in war, suggest that
we should turn to a significant divine figure, associated with kingship, that is
not mentioned in the sources on the Khazar Khaganate—the Great Goddess.
1.6 Sacred Kingship and the Cult of the Great Goddess in Khazaria
To become a real ruler, the Hunnic Chanyu had to possess sacral grace. Through
it, he ensured the welfare of his people, as well as fertility, successful military
campaigns, etc. This supernatural power was passed on by inheritance, and
only in the ruling family.384 Among the Iranians, the notion of sacral grace
(charisma) is expressed with the concept of hvarna, farn, and among the
Turks—with the concept of qut.385 In ancient Iran and Turan, the rulers fought
for this charisma and received it from Aredvi Sura Anahita. Its possession is
also related to the Turanian sacred mountain in Kanha, which was probably a
religious center and part of the Anahita cult.386 A similar belief has been pre-
served among the Turks: qut could also be obtained from the sacred mountain
Otuken, regarded as a female deity.387 Thus, the Iranians and the Turks both
believed that the most important quality a ruler needed to have to be able to
govern was the result of the blessing and support of the Great Goddess.
The lack of any specific written sources on the divine pantheon of the peo-
ples that constituted the basis of the Khazar Khaganate (Khazars, Bulgars and
Alans) severely hinders the interpretation of their ruler ideology. With rare
exceptions, some of which will be examined in more detail further on, we also
have almost no information whatsoever on the neighboring and related eth-
nic groups and tribes. It is necessary to use ready-made models derived from
of the snakes”. After emerging from their lair, he marries one of them. The pebble is “a
symbol that concentrates in itself a variety of semantic signs. The decisive one is the lunar
symbolic, which in this case expresses the specific transition between life and death—
a peculiar condition that is necessary for the existence of the underworld” (Benovska-
Subkova 1995, 23–25 and 37). Also quite clear here is the link between this motif and the
notion of the cave (snake lair) as a place that connects the underworld with the human
one and is a dwelling place of the Great Goddess (cf. the Serpent-Legged Goddess of the
Scythians). A part of this system is the Bulgarian notion of the snake “as an embodiment
of the concept of the dead ancestors” (Benovska-Subkova 1995, 39), and in the steppe
world the ruler officiated in a sacred cave, a cult that is closely related to the ancestor cult.
384 Kradin 2001a, 141–142.
385 Golden 1982, 44–46; Stepanov 2000, 182–183; Masao 1981, 58–75.
386 Vainberg 1990, 203–204 and 209.
387 Potapov 1973, 283.