History of Buddhism’s Dissemination in Tuvan Folklore: Legends and Oral Narratives

Abstract

The article considers legends and oral narratives reflecting the history of Buddhism’s dissemination in Mongolia and Tuva. Our analysis of Sharayin Shazhynnyn Dopchu Töögüzü (A Brief History of the Yellow Religion ― Buddhism) ― a text from the Scientific Archive of the Tuvan Institute for Humanities Research and Applied Socio-Economic Studies — shows that its plot contains some common elements and motifs typical for manuscripts, and – it terms of its contents, structure and formal external characteristics – vaguely resembles Tibetan-Mongolian historiographic works (choi-zhun) by medieval educated Mongolian monks describing the history of Buddhism’s emergence and dissemination in India, Tibet, China and Mongolia. The text might deal with an important historical event ― construction of Mongolia’s first Buddhist temple, i.e. the Erdene Zuu Monastery erected under the auspices of Abatai Khan; the text also mentions a senior clergyman and politician of 17th century Mongolia ― Bogd Öndör Gegeen, the abbot of Ikh Khuree, who was the first to receive the title of Jebtsundamba Khutuktu from the 5th Dalai Lama of Tibet in 1650. The paper provides other examples and shows that such oral narratives of Tuvinians often contained somewhat transformed Buddhist plots which had largely lost their historical significance due to multiple changes resulting in the fact those no longer resembled their literary originals (if there had been any). At the same time, along with magic and fairy-tale elements, one can definitely trace features of some historical events in such compositions. The study concludes that Tuvan legends and oral narratives reflecting the history of Buddhism’s dissemination in Mongolia and Tuva are based on a number of genres of medieval historiographic Tibetan-Mongolian literature, such as choi-zhun (history of Buddhism), lor-zhus (chronicles, history), nam-tar (biographies), etc. Thus, multiple texts compiled by medieval academic Mongolian lamas had become widespread in Tuva in the form of legends and oral traditions.