Lord of the Underworld Beneath Tengri's Sky

Erlik, sometimes titled Erlik Khan, is the ruler of the underworld and the dead across a wide belt of Turkic, Mongolic and Siberian mythology, standing as the structural counterpart to Tengri's heights: where Tengri governs the sky and grants earthly kingship, Erlik governs the depths beneath the earth and claims the souls of the dead as his subjects.

Altai Turkic and South Siberian creation narratives frequently describe Erlik in an ambivalent origin, in some versions as a being who helped the creator god shape the early world before falling or being cast down into the underworld role he now occupies, a demotion narrative that gives him a more complex moral standing than a purely evil figure invented from nothing, closer to a fallen or rival cosmic power than a simple devil. As lord of the dead, Erlik in shamanic cosmology is not merely feared but actively negotiated with: Siberian and Altai shamans describe ritual journeys undertaken specifically to visit Erlik's realm, bargain for a sick person's soul, or otherwise intercede with him directly, treating him as an addressable cosmic authority with whom relationship and negotiation, not only avoidance, is possible.