I just finished reading The Story of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars and I'm writing a paper about what they consider sins and what they consider "good" traits versus "bad" traits. I basically understood that they don't really care much about killing other people or fornication, and those things aren't consider sins, but things like thrusting a knife into a fire are. The book is translated, and it's kind of awkward to read, so I might have misinterpreted a few things.
Does anyone else have any knowledge on what acts they considered sinful? I tried to google this, but I mostly got recipes for steak tartar. Hahaha :P
You should read John of Plano Carpini's Historia Mongolorum. Carpini dedicates an entire chapter to Mongol religion and what they consider taboo, or sinful. You can find it in Christopher Dawson, ed., Mission to Asia, A Nun of Stanbrook Abbey, trans., (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987). That book also contains several other western accounts of the Mongols. Also look in to The Secret History of the Mongols, and Rashid Al-Din Hamdani's Jama Al-Tawarikh.
How do you define Mongol in this case? One of Chinggis Khan's greatest strengths was his ability to incorporate disparate tribes, clans and confederations into his army and empire. Chinggis Khan's himself and probably most of his close relatives were adherents of a shamanistic religion which worshipped Tengri, a sky God. However many of his followers and even some of his close relatives followed different religious traditions with their own conception of sin.
Mongols attached some significance to running water as it was considered a living entity. Consequently defiling running water was considered sinful, this included things such as urinating into it or even washing yourself in the running water.
Saying that they don't really care about killing people isn't entirely true either, the mongols revered aristocracy and had some qualms about spilling their blood. They circumvented this issue by wrapping the aristocrats they intended to kill in carpets and trampling them with their horses.
S: George Lane - Daily Live in the Mongol Empire
It is difficult to find a good english source on that subject. Carpini's book is very biased and can not be considered a good book. You have to look at the Yassa. It was their law and it stated many taboos and sinful activities as crimes. From what I heard, the heaviest sin was incest/inbreeding.