Article

Name: On the interpretation of the concept “domog ulger” in the Buryat folklore tradition

Authors: B. S. Dugarov

In the section Повествовательный фольклор

Abstract: The article examines the semantics of the concepts “myth” and “epic” and their ethnolinguistic characteristics ex-pressed by the phrase “domog ulger” in the context of the Buryat folklore tradition. While in all Mongolian languages the “myth” is exclusively denoted by the word “domog”, the word “epic” has a terminological variation. Notably, in the Khalkha-Mongolian language the term “epic” is conveyed by the word “tuul”. In the case of Buryat, the epic is denoted by the word “ulger”, which also means “model, example, pattern, paradigm”. In author’s opinion, the word “ulger” has been entrenched in the Buryat epic not accidentally, as it preserved many of the stadially early, archaic features of the Mongolian epic tradition and the original mythological foundation. Therefore, the concepts “domog” and “ulger” in the Buryat mythological context of the epic itself are interrelated and complementary. In relation to Buryat Geseriada with its heavenly prologue, it is quite legitimate to define ulger domog as “myth-epic”. This functional semantic feature of the epic as a model was accurately captured by R. Hamayon, a French scholar of Mongolian studies. She brings attention to the modeling role of uliger in the Buryat ethnocultural tradition, which, while calling its epic a “model” (ulger), recognizes a conceptual prototype of the world in it. This reflects a worldview aspect of the myth, which is especially pronounced in the example of Geseriad. Its status of “divine legend” is given by the uranium dominant associated with the cult of the sky. The article emphasizes a special role of the legend about Geser as an epic, which recreates the accepted forms of life at the sacred level and embodies the system of criteria of moral values that set the social order. The unfolded myth of the “higher reality” created by the poetic imagination of Buryat narrators was perceived by them as a primary source of eternal truth. According to their opinion, the legend itself is based on the principles predetermined in mythological time and sanctified by the positive action of the hero – the messenger of heavenly deities. It was in the uliger legends, primarily in the epic “Geser”, that a peculiar accumulation of the mythological heritage of the Buryat people, especially its sacral tengristic part, took place. The concept “ulger domog” is exactly expressing this ethno-cultural phenomenon in the context of the epic tradition of the Buryats.

Keywords: myth, epic, folklore tradition, narrators, hero, heavenly deities, Buryat Geseriad

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