This study examines the metaphor of the path and journey in the hagiographic narratives formed within the Alevi belief system within the context of a transcendent and esoteric journey. The aim of the study is to discuss the essence of the sainthood in the guise of different saints within a context specific to the Alevi belief system, in relation the Sufi theory of cyclical return (devir). On the other hand, this journey will also be examined within the framework of an archetypal background by comparing it with the conception of the cosmic cycle in different belief systems and mythologies. In this regard, Mircea Eliade’s concepts of myth and eternal return, Joseph Campbell’s concept of the cosmogonic cycle, and Carl Gustav Jung’s concepts of archetype and rebirth are used as the theoretical framework. The hagiographic narratives attributed to Hacı Bektaş Veli, Otman Baba, Abdal Musa, and Karaca Ahmet, together with the poems of Yunus Emre, Sıdkî Baba, and Şîrî, were examined through the method of comparative symbolic reading. As a result of the article, it was determined that although the journey of sainthood is grounded in the same fundamental idea in the examined velayetnames, it is manifested through different forms of symbolic expression. The three common structural elements that this journey shares with poems from different mythologies and the examined devriyes are the timeless identity of the subject, the motif of manifestation in different bodies, and the primordial unity with the Absolute. These findings show that the transcendent journey of sainthood is shaped within the distinctive Sufi semantic world of the Alevi-Bektashi belief system, while at the same time converging with the conception of the cosmic cycle found in mythologies on an archetypal ground.

Keywords: Sainthood, Hagiographic narrative, Devir, Archetype, Alevi-Bektashi belief system