Buryat Hesariad: Tengrist mythology and the epic interpretation
Loading...
Files
Date
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
St Petersburg State University
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.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Dugarov B. S. Buryat Hesariad: Tengrist mythology and the epic interpretation. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies, 2019, vol. 35, issue 4, pp. 580–592.