The cult of the tengries in archival materials of the Center of oriental manuscripts and xylographs of the IMBT SB RAS
Authors:   Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dashieva Lidiya D. , Miyagasheva Surjana B. ,   Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Published: February 2023

An important role in preserving the ethnic and cultural identity of the Buryat ethnos is acquired by traditional culture and a unique historical and cultural heritage, in which a special place is occupied by works of a shamanic cult. In this regard, the study of the phenomenon of the cult of the tengries, shamanic hymns and invocations, as well as shamanic rituals of the Buryats, often lost or modified, their reconstruction becomes obvious urgency and timeliness. The article is devoted to the study of the shamanic cult of the tengries in the archival materials of the Center of Oriental manuscripts and xylographs of the IMBT SB RAS. For the first time in Russian and foreign Mongolian studies an attempt is made to systematize handwritten sources in the Old Mongolian written, Buryat and Russian languages and comprehensively present the materials of the richest funds of the archive. In the archive fund, three groups are revealed: the general fund, the Mongolian fund and the phonofund. The database of the study of the cult of the tengries became materials of more than 116 sources, containing information from the general archive fund in Buryat and Russian (more than 100) and the Mongolian fund (16 sources) translated by the authors of the article from the old Mongolian written into Russian. The materials of the general fund reflect the diversity of shamanic rituals of the Buryats as a whole. Thematic groups such as mythology and uranium genealogy, hymns and texts of shamanic conscription and ritual practice are highlighted for revealing the specific motives of the cult of the tengries. This fund, which is kept in the manuscript department is the heritage of ethnographers, religious scholars, linguists and folklorists. The Mongolian Fund is represented by unique samples of texts of buddhist-shamanic ritual practice. It is determined that such rituals, connected with veneration of tengri, are the basis on the ritual of burning incense named san. These texts refer to the syncretic ritual practice, and represent records of hymns, prayers and descriptions of sacrificial rites to shamanic deities and ancestral spirits included in the Buddhist pantheon of deities. Manuscripts in the Old Mongolian language are a valuable historical and cultural source, revealing the phenomenon of written heritage of the Mongolian peoples. The collection of audio records of shamanic hymns, invocations, spells, stored in the phonofund of the archive of the IMBT SB RAS, which have value as a phenomenon of the ritual shamanic poetry of the Buryats, is singled out. The differentiation of audio samples into ritual singing and foul (narrative) genres is defined. Samples of audio recordings of the shamanic poetry dedicated to the cult of the tengries are systematized into the shamanic calls of the boogei durdalga and shamanic songs of boogei duunuud. It is revealed that the sound or acoustic code is of particular importance in the music of the shamanic cult, and in this connection the question of the correlation of the verbal and musical components in the shamanic invocations and hymns is touched upon.