Buryat Hesariad: Tengrist mythology and the epic interpretation

Abstract

In modern humanities, there is a heightened interest in the problems of religious mythology, which determine the spiritual aspects of the ethnic and cultural traditions of peoples. As is well known, many theological representations of antiquity are preserved in an epic interpretation, as evidenced by the famous mythological poems of the Near East, India, Greece, etc. Therefore, the study of the sacred world of the Buryat Hesariad, represented by the pantheon of epic deities, seems relevant. With a general lack of knowledge of the religious-mythological tradition of the Eastern steppe, a complex of Uranic deities of Buryat mythology is first interpreted in close connection with the heavenly genesis of the epic hero. First of all, this article explores the pantheon of deities in Buryat mythology associated with the cult of the sky. In comparative terms, a description is given of the world of the gods, contained in the heavenly prologue of the epos “Geser.” The author comes to the conclusion that in the epos of Geser, the most “hereditary” features of the original epic tradition of Central (Inner) Asia, as well as many elements of the ancient axiological fund of Mongolian peoples, remain. The article also examines the aspects of the image of Khormusta and its transformation in the system of the Buryat-Mongolian religious mythology and shamanist tradition.