Buddhist Turks

I was recently told by a historian that the first time Turks led a sedentary life was when they adopted Buddhism. They then applied what they learned from sedentary life into Nomadic life and some became semi-nomadic. Apparently, Turks always longed and had an attachment to Nomadic life and its freedom so could never abandon it fully. Even today though mostly sedentry they migrate around and some have seasonal migrations. Like they go to the Yayla-Plateu's in Summer and to the warmer land in the Winter.

Originally posted by xi_tujue the only budist turks are the sari uygur(yellow uigur ,yugur) and the tuvas

Originally posted by Bulldog I was referring to history, was there any Buddhist Turkic states, what records of this the mix with Buddhism is there, in what areas did this occur. I once read that in Northern Afganistan and East into China there was a flourishing Turkic Buddhist civillisation but there is so little information about this sometimes I wonder if it actually did exist.

Some of the main architects of the Taj Mahal were Turks from the area and also trained by Koja Mimar Sinan.

Edited by Bulldog - 21-Jul-2006 at 07:16

Uyghur Idiqut kingdom and Kengsu Uyghur kingdom after the collapse of Uyghur empire were mainly Buddists. Uyghur eli now has many Buddistic relics (thousand caves etc) from those period. Even before that, two cities in Uyghur region, Kusen (Kucha) and Udun (Hoten) became the main Buddist culture centers, which spread all related cultures to China, korea and Japan etc.